Choosing Effective Fishing Lures (and baits!) for Florida

When you’re choosing effective fishing lures and baits for Florida, you don’t need a lot of different lures. Sixty years of fishing has taught me lots of different baits aren’t needed.

I prefer lures that only have one hook. It makes it easier to release the fish.

Freshwater-

Lures
My go to for bass is a 3 inch plastic shad. I use ones made by DOA (3” CAL Shad) and Riptide (Riptide Sardine) on a 3/0 Owner 5132W-013 hook. If the shad isn’t getting them I try a 6” Culprit worm, on the same hook. I like red shad and purple but think color is usually more important to the fisherman than the fish. That isn’t always true though!

Red shad and purple are my favorite worm colors, but this bass took a brown one.

Some people really like spinnerbaits but I am not a fan.

For a popper I like the Storm Chug Bug, but don’t use this very often because it has too many hooks and is not weedless.

For a spoon I like the ¼ ounce Johnson Minnow in gold or silver. It’s weedless, with a single hook.

Small jigs work well for crappie…

For sunfish, crappie, and shad I like little jigs (1/16th ounce) with 1” twisty tails. Lots of times I’ll tie two on the same line. A ¼ ounce Al’s Goldfish can save your day sometimes, though.

…and for sunfish too. This one is a redbelly.

Natural Bait
There are a lot of things you can use for bait- worms, minnows, crayfish, frogs, shrimp, various insects (grasshoppers, crickets, and beetle grubs, for example). They all work.

Try to match the size of the bait (and hook) to the fish you want to catch. For sunfish and crappie use a small minnow, an inch or two long, on a small hook like a #8. For a big bass you might use a shiner that’s 10-12 inches long on a 4/0 or 5/0 hook.

Things people use for bait that perhaps aren’t as natural but still catch fish include hot dogs, uncooked bacon, and chicken livers, especially for catfish.

Saltwater

Lures

The plastic shad works on everything!

My go to for trout, redfish, snook, and tarpon is a 3 inch plastic shad. I use ones made by DOA (3” CAL Shad) and Riptide (Riptide Sardine) on a 3/0 Owner 5132W-013 hook. If that doesn’t get them I’ll put the shad on a weedless jig head, 1/8th ounce, and bounce it along the bottom.

This weedless jig sports a jerk bait rather than a shad.

For a popper I like the Storm Chug Bug, but don’t use this very often because it has too many hooks and is not weedless.

The Chug Bug, like most plugs, has too many hooks for my taste.

For a spoon I like the ¼ ounce Johnson Minnow in gold or silver. It’s weedless, with a single hook.

The Johnson Minnow is a proven fish-catcher.

I also like the 3” DOA Shrimp and the shallow running DOA Bait Buster, which looks like a finger mullet.

Everything that eats shrimp will hit a DOA Shrimp.

A fantastic search tool is a DOA Deadly Combo, which consists of a popping cork and a DOA Shrimp or a ¼ ounce jig with about 2 feet of line between them. Fish hear the noise the cork makes, come to see what it is, and then eat the lure. Works great!

The Deadly Combo is appropriately named.

Natural Bait
There are a lot of things you can use for bait- shrimp, all kinds of small fish, crabs, squid, clams, or pieces of any of these. Most of my bait fishing happens with a chunk of fish, usually mullet, but sometimes pinfish or ladyfish. I just cut the fish into pieces, put a piece on a 3/0-5/0 circle hook, chuck it out there, look at my watch, and wait 15 minutes. If I don’t catch a fish in 15 minutes I go somewhere else. It never takes a fish 15 minutes to find that chunk if he’s there.

I greatly prefer to use lures rather than bait, and prefer to fly fish to using lures.

There are lots of fishing lures you can choose, and most of them will work. But if you’re overwhelmed by the choices and don’t know where to start, that is how you go about choosing effective fishing lures and baits for Florida!

Copyright © John A. Kumiski 2022. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute this work in any manner or medium without written permission from the author, John A. Kumiski, 284 Clearview Road, Chuluota, FL 32766 (407) 977-5207.