Hey there, angler! We’re glad to have you back for another “Living Room 2 Lake” video, in which Chief Fishing Officer Travis Moran explains the best ways to use all the tackle in the December Bass XL box. If you’re a Regular or Tournament box subscriber, don’t worry! You’ll still recognize a bait or two from your box J

You’ll also get to see the lucky tackle in action out on the water with Travis, so you’ll know exactly how to reel in your best catch with every bait in the box!

December’s Bass XL box came with $43.93 worth of lures — that’s a steal for only $26.99! Let’s see what they are and watch Travis explain how to use them in order to maximize your luck on the water:

  • Bait Rigs Tackle – T-Boned Spaz
  • Custom Fishing – Minnow Spoon
  • Gravel Lizard Lures – Swim 4.0
  • Mizmo – Bass Tube
  • Mustad – Big Mouth
  • Big Mouth Baits – Instigator
  • Action Strike – Echo

In this video, Travis joins us from Lake Havasu in Arizona. No matter what your local waters look like, Travis demonstrates how to use each lure, gives you the confidence to throw them, and – most importantly – shows how to snag some great fish!

Here are the top three lessons from the December “Living Room 2 Lake” video:

  1. It’s all in the movement of the bait.
    a. It doesn’t matter if you’re throwing the best bait in the busiest waters – if you can’t make the bait look realistic enough for a bass to develop the curiosity to chomp on it, you’re looking at a slow day on the water. The Bait Rigs T-Boned Spaz is perfect for creating a tantalizing movement that fish love. At first glance, it looks like a traditional jerkbait, but it’s got a cupped lip that’s gives it some interesting and erratic movement in the water, plus the ribbed sides displace water to give off a vibration that’s irresistible. Another great bait for realistic movement is the Custom Fishing Minnow Spoon. In colder months, many bait fish die off and float down to deeper waters, where bass are patiently waiting for dinner to be delivered. This bait mimics the flashy, fluttery movement of these real bait fish and will entice bass to bite.
  1. This time of year, it’s important to have a wide variety of jerkbaits to use.
    a. During the colder months of winter and spring, it’s critical to have a wide variety of jerkbaits in order to be successful out on the water. The Big Mouth Baits Instigator is perfect here – obviously, the most important part of working a jerkbait is the jerk; you’re going to want to twitch it a little bit on a semi-slack line. These movements above water create the erratic, tempting movement that will convince bass to bite. It might take a couple jerks to give them enough time to watch it and come up from deep waters, but you’ll get a strike if you do it right. It’s also important to pay attention to what kind of water you’re fishing in – murky, muddy waters call for brighter baits, while clear waters and clear skies work best with natural-looking baits.
  1. Timing is everything!
    a. It’s always smart to be strategic about the time of day, the weather, and the water conditions before you head out fishing. The best times to go out and fish, especially with jerkbaits, are early in the morning, during the evening, or anytime there is wind. When you’ve got wind working with you, you can cast along a bank and hop the Action Strike Echo or the Mizmo Bass Tube along the bottom from shallow to deep water – there will be fish waiting to snatch whatever comes over that underwater ledge. If the cold doesn’t allow for you to be out on the boat from dusk until dawn, know that you can still catch plenty of fish in an hour or two if you time it correctly!

Thanks for those tips, Travis!

While you’re busy mastering your skills for these December box baits, stay tuned for your upcoming January box – we’ll have another video out in February to show you how to use those most effectively!

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“Living Room 2 Lake” December Video Transcription:

Welcome everyone. I’m Travis Moran and this is another episode of Living Room to Lake. And in my case, I’m actually in some random stranger’s living room because I’m down at Lake Havasu, Arizona. I rented an Airbnb and I’ve been here for the last few days filming fishing content so we can create a better Living Room to Lake video for you guys, and also individual product videos, educating you guys specifically on how to use different products that you’re getting in your boxes. And that’s the whole idea behind this Living Room to Lake, is we’re going to open up the latest Lucky Tackle Box and go through the different lures. And I’m going to tell you about how I use them so you can think about whether they apply to your local waters and how you’re going to go out and fish them, and ultimately give you the confidence to throw them and then actually catch fish.

0:47

Now to you guys that are in the wintertime right now, your lakes are frozen over, this is just meant to just kind of keep you in the bass fishing game. You can go over this stuff with us and start thinking about what you’re going to do once that ice melts, the water’s still going to be cold water conditions. That’s what these baits are great for and you will be able to throw those then. So you’ve got some time to actually think about that. But anyway, guys, now the Lucky Tackle Box is all about the education side. And one more further step that I’m excited to tell you about is we are going to be doing themed boxes from now on. I’m going to tell you a little bit more about that at the end of the show, so stick around. And I’m also going to give you a little sneak peek at one of the baits coming in the next Lucky Tackle Box. Now we’ve got some major brands really excited to join back in with Lucky Tackle Box because of the education play that we’re making, and I’m really excited to tell you guys about them.

1:41

Anyway, without further ado, let’s open up the box and start talking about some fishing lures. All right, first bait in here is the Gravel Lizard Lures Swim 4.0. This is a small little swim bait. Perfect for most conditions. It’s got that life-like little swimming tail, and then this pre-rigged head that comes in here does this little side to side wobble. You guys, that’s a big characteristic and quality of little swim baits. That when you get that little side to side, the fish really tend to hit that bait a whole lot more. Then if you want to add a little bit more flash, you can actually rig this on an underspin where that little blade will draw the fish’s attention a little bit more, and when they come in and see that life-like little swimming action, they’re going to nail it. Great little bait, look forward to hearing you guys catch a lot of fish with that.

2:30

All right guys, next up is a brand new product being released from Bait Rigs called the T-Boned Spaz, and it’s available to our Lucky Tackle Box subscribers first. So you guys will be the first ones on the block using this bait. At first glance it looks like a traditional jerkbait, but actually has some added new features to it, starting with the cupped lip. We’re used to that more rectangular shaped jerkbait lip. This has that full cup to it on the face of this bait that’s going to give it more action and it’s going to make it easier to get that erratic motion you want out of baits like this to draw the fish’s attention and draw those strikes. And a couple of other features are the little ribbed sides that are going to displace more water, put off a little different vibration, give these fish something they haven’t seen. It’s got a weight distribution ball in there that knocks around as you’re jerking it, creating sound, drawing in fish. But also when you go to cast, that bait falls to the tail end of the bait giving you the leverage to fire that bait a long distance. This bait comes a lot of different colors. I think you’re really going to like this one.

3:35

You guys, moving right along to the MIZMO Baits Bass Tube. Guys, if you’re not fishing a tube, you are not fishing as efficiently as you should be. See what I did there? I say this all the time you guys, tubes are really a lost art. With so many different products and lures coming into the market, this has really lost its sexiness. It’s lost its appeal. We’ve really gone to new baits and new techniques. And the tube still flat out catches fish. Very easy to rig up. What I do is I’ll use a quarter ounce to a three eighth ounce little ball head or a tube weight, a tube head. Really you just need some kind of weighted head. And what I’ll put is scent in the actual tube so that’ll keep scent in it, it’ll create a scent trail, but also it makes it easier for me to slide that weight up into the body and you’re ready to go.

4:32

I’ve fished this on a spinning rod or a bait casting rod anywhere from 8 to 12 pound mono or fluorocarbon, and I’m dragging this or hopping it along the bottom. This bait, first of all, when it falls, it has this lazy little Susan swirl down there that’s for some reason draws fish in from a ways away. And then that little hopping motion or dragging motion makes that bait look like a little crawfish or some kind of little goby or something down on the bottom meandering and working down there, and it can really get fish to bite when no other lures can. So I really think you’re going to enjoy this one. Guys, if you’re not throwing tubes, you’ve got to be throwing them. And MIZMO makes excellent ones.

5:17

Let’s keep it going. Let’s keep it going. Where we going? What’s the next one? What’s the next one? How about Custom Fishing Minnow Spoon. This is a big old spoon that I think you guys are going to enjoy. Now in the past when we’ve put spoons in the box, it’s been more about vertical spooning. This is a casting spoon. So what you’re going to do with this one is you’re actually going to make long casts, and this bait is made to mimic dying bait fish. So as it sinks, it’s going to flutter down and it’s going to really be putting off a lot of shine, a lot of reflection looking like some bait fish falling down to the bottom. Once it gets to the bottom, all you do is you reel in the slack and you lift that rod up. So you’re hopping it along the bottom as you’re reeling it back to the boat, and you hop it up and then you let that bait on slack line flutter back down.

6:11

But you want to be watching your slack line so that if you see it stop before it’s on the bottom or you see it jump, you got to reel in and start reeling that fish in quickly. But you guys, this is a bait that can really generate some fish, especially these colder water months. I know you think that you’ve got to go to small baits. A lot of us think that when the fishing’s tough, you really got to go to those smaller finesse tactics, but this type of fishing can really generate some big strikes. Because when the water gets real cold, there’s a lot of fish that die off. There’s a lot of die off from the bait fish, and the bass are used to seeing an easy meal flutter down and they will pound this thing. Good luck. Let me know if you’d like casting spoons in the comments below.

7:01

What’s next? All right, and up next is another wintertime classic. That is Action Strike Echo. This is considered a blade bait. Very easy to use. This one’s a smaller style, so you can use this on a spinning rod, which I know a lot of you guys will like. Throw it on an 8 to 10 pound mono or fluorocarbon and you’re going to see that there are a number of holes. There’s actually four holes on the back of this bait. Depending where you tie it is going to allow or minimize the action, a little shimmy out of this bait. I tend to actually just put it in one of the two middle holes so I can get a good amount of action, but not too much. If you put it towards the back, you’re going to get more. Towards the front, you’re going to get less. Now the way you use this bait is you cast it out, let it sink to the bottom and you just lift it. Anywhere from a foot to two feet, all you do is lift it, let it fall back down, lift it, let it fall back down.

8:05

And you’re wanting to just hop this bait along the bottom. A lot of times, guys, in videos I’ve made in the past, I talked about using lipless crank baits like this. It’s very similar to that. When you lift this bait up, you’ll feel it in your rod, you’ll feel that little vibration. Because this bait makes a little shimmy, and it looks like a little bait fish trying to get away and then you let it fall back to the bottom. And the bass tend to be down towards the bottom in these colder months, and this is a great little bait to get down to them effectively, but then also generate strikes. You’re not moving too fast because you’re just doing a little shimmy and letting it fall. The fish has a chance to hit that bait, but it looks like it’s trying to take off, and that a lot of times can trigger some inactive fish into biting. Once again guys, another great cold water bait that should put more fish in the boat for you. And it’s also not so much of a finesse bait, you don’t have to move real slow. So it’s actually, it’s fun to actually be throwing this thing because you’re not just sitting around dragging a worm, which can sometimes be a little bit boring. And anyway, this will keep you warm. At least going through the motions.

9:12

I think we’ve got another one. We’ve got another bait in here? We do, we’ve got more baits. Guys, the last bait in the box is Big Mouth Baits Instigator. Guys, during the winter and through the spring jerkbaits are crucial. It’s very important to have a wide variety of types of jerkbaits and colors so that you can effectively fish this time of the year. When you’re using a jerkbait, you want to make twitches on semi slack line. You really snap in that line. And the reason you want to give it a little slack is so when you pull it forward, it has a little bit of slack to then turn and create that erratic motion. So whether you’re using the jerkbait or the new Spaz in your box, you’re going to be doing that jerking motion. And that erratic motion really gets the fish’s attention, and then you want to throw in a pause every once in a while. Do two to three jerks, and then a pause from 1 second to 5 or 10 seconds if the fish are really slow to react.

10:13

And once you’ve got the fish’s attention, when you give it that pause, that allows the fish the chance to come up and eat that bait. A lot of times when you have clear water and you’ve got fish pretty deep down there and you’re doing that erratic motion, those fish are seeing it, they’re hearing it. And every time you pause they might come up a little bit, but they don’t come up all the way. Then you jerk it a few more times. They come up a little further, a little further. So, sometimes it’s not until the second or third time you’ve paused it that you actually get that strike. But you guys, definitely have a jerkbait tied on every single time you hit the water this time of the year. Ranging from colors, you want these brighter colors in kind of dingier stained water or on mud lines from the wind, and then you want more natural looking colors in clear water when it’s not too much wind chop on the surface.

11:10

But the best times to throw jerkbaits are going to be early in the evening. Or early in the morning, late in the evening, or my favorite time when there is wind. Anytime there’s wind up against some banks or something like that this time of year, fire up to that bank, bring it from shallow to deep water, and those fish are going to be waiting just on whatever ledge ready to come up and blast that thing. All right. We always have some hooks in the box. And so this month we had the Mustad Four Aught Big Mouth Hooks. Guys, these are hooks that you’re going to use a whole lot. You can rig the tubes, the MIZMO tubes that are in the box with a little bullet weight. You can rig your stick baits, your flukes. The three aught and four aught little wide gap hooks like this are the most common hooks you’re going to be using while out fishing. So hold onto these, you’ll be using them throughout the season.

12:00

All right guys, well that does it for the baits and hooks that are in this month’s box. But don’t forget, we always include a Lucky magazine in every box. My good buddy is the one that edits and produces this magazine, puts some great things for you to think about and hopefully apply next time you are out fishing. So make sure to take a look at that whenever you get a chance. Then as promised, I’m going to talk a little bit about upcoming boxes. Guys, we couldn’t be more excited to introduce themed boxes. This is going to help as we continue to increase our education side of Lucky Tackle Box. Creating themes like early spring, fishing structure, finesse box, top water box, will help you guys understand the baits that come in the box and will help us teach them to you a little bit better.

12:51

And because we’re doing this, we have been joined by a lot of brands that are excited to be a part of our education platform. And one of those brands is Dobyns Fishing, and we’re going to be introducing the Beast Spinnerbait in next month’s box. Guys, Gary Dobyns claims this is the best spinner bait on the market. It has the best components and it is exactly what you need to catch more fish. I am very excited to create a video with this and to get it in your guys’ hands and hear what you think. But guys, that’s one of the name brands we have in next month’s box. There’s a lot more. You guys are going to be super excited about the future and what 2020 is bringing to the Lucky Tackle Box family. Anyway, guys, that does it for this episode of Living Room to Lake. I’m Travis with Lucky Tackle Box, and I will catch you out on the water!

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