The lure selector is a free tool that you can use to figure out what bass lure(s) you should throw. It contains a list of all of the lures that I use on a regular basis and then narrows that list down based on the information you give it. It contains the following sections:
- General Info
- Climate Info
- Location Info
and each section includes some inputs to get a better idea of the current fishing conditions. When you select certain options in narrows down the list of lures based on your selections and then randomly generates a lure from the remaining list as a recommendation.
The General Info Section includes a region section and asks you for a month. These regions are based on different lake temperatures in the United States, but if you aren’t in the United States you could take a look at a body of water near the one you will be fishing at on a website like seatemperature.org and then pick the region with average temperatures that are closest to your body of water. This is the site I used to get the water temperature data for the lure selector, and to find a lake nearby you can just click your continent, then choose your country (or the closest one nearby) and then continue to drill down until you get a list of lakes in your area or just search for a lake via the search field. Once you have a lake selected you can just compare it to the 3 lakes that I used for the lure selector regions:
- South – Lake Lanier
- Central – Smith Mountain Lake
- North – Lake Erie
to figure out which region to choose. There is also a dropdown list in this section and once you choose a region and month that should return a specific bass pattern. This pattern is actually the most important part of this section and if you know what pattern the bass are in then you could even choose a different month region combination to get that result as the most important part of this section is to get an accurate bass pattern. Alternatively if you don’t know what bass patterns are or which one the bass in your area are in you can just use the region and month selection and that should return the pattern the bass are in or one that’s very close to it. There’s also a ton of more information out there on bass patterns and if you want to learn more about them you can just search for articles or videos on the subject.
The next section collects information about the climate and specifically the cloud conditions and whether or not it will be windy. If there is going to be little or no wind in the area where you are going to be fishing you can just leave the box unchecked. The cloud cover is also important as that can have an impact on visibility and generally speaking the fishing is usually a little better if it’s partly cloudy or cloudy outside.
The last section asks a few questions about the location you will be fishing at. For the grass level, no grass usually means you are going to have access to open water and there won’t really be any vegetation that you need to worry about. Some grass covers most pond fishing scenarios and would probably be the default selection for a lot of anglers. This means there will be a mixture of spots where the grass might be moderate to heavy and other spots where there will be little to no grass. The lots of grass option should be used sparingly as that basically means you will be fishing in an area where the grass is thick and has matted up. There are only a few lures that I will even use in these conditions since most lures won’t even work, and the lure selector reflects that.
Water clarity is pretty straightforward and basically just means how clear the water is going to be. Medium visibility is a good choice if you are unsure. Low visibility means the water is brown and the visibility is is generally going to be a couple of feet or less. High visibility means the water is very clear and the fish will be able to see your lure from far away.
Finally you are asked if you will be fishing from the bank or if you have access to open water. The reason for this is there are a lot of lures that I really like to use when I’m on my kayak (eg. a deep diving crankbait) that I would pretty much never use if I’m fishing from the bank. Having said that, even if you are going to be in a boat or kayak if you think you are going to be targeting fish near the bank anyway, you could still select from the bank to get the lure selector to prioritize the lures that do well in that area.
Once everything is filled out just hit submit and the lure selector will prioritize a group of lures based on the conditions you input and then randomly pick a lure from that list. If you don’t like the lure it gives you then you could always try again and you could also use it several times to get a collection of different lures that you could try for the day. Every lure it recommends is one that I use on a regular basis and have confidence in, and there are over 40 lures in it so that should be enough to keep a new angler or a weekend angler with a full time job from getting bored for a while. I also try out new lures all the time and sometimes manufacturers stop making lures so the list of lures in it will be updated periodically.