We’ll break down four of the best ways to fish a jigging spoon for bass during fall. One disclaimer, though: Along with largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass, you’re apt to catch stripers, white bass, crappie, walleyes and more with the spoon-fishing techniques detailed below.
Target Bass Seen on Forward Facing Sonar
Forward Facing Sonar Bass Fishing

When Bassmaster Elite Serie pro Blake Capps is chasing bass during fall, he virtually always has a War Eagle Jiggin Spoon tied to one rod and handy on his deck. When bass follow schools of shad around in the creeks this time of year, they might be 5 feet beneath the surface or suspended 25 feet down. The heavy spoon allows him to reach the key zone quickly, whatever the depth, and the profile and action are ideal for trigging strikes from fish relating to shad.

Capps gets in areas where shad are plentiful and looks for what he described as “eyeballs” on his forward facing soar. The eye is a round gap in a cloud of shad. The pupil is the bass in the middle. He also watches for bass that are not necessarily in the school of shad but are nearby.

Either way, Capps casts or pitches his spoon to just past any bass he sees and watches the bait sink until it is just above the level of the fish. He then works the spoon with repeated sharp upward snaps of the rod. With each snap, the spoon surges upward and then wobbles back to the same level. Sometimes he’ll let it swing on a tight line for a moment. Often, he’ll snap the rod again immediately.

Because Capps is watching both his lure and the bass on his electronics, he can quickly gauge how they react to the spoon and how that varies with different lengths and sharpness of snaps. That allows for quick patterning with presentation details. His default snap is sharp and aggressive.

Capps generally favors the 7/8-ounce War Eagle Jiggin Spoon for this approach because the heavier weight allows for longer casts when needed, and it gets to the key strike zone faster.
Cast to Schooling Bass
Blake Capps with War Eagle Jiggin Spoon

Probably because it sinks quickly and is so often associated with deep-water approaches, a jigging spoon gets overlooked lures for casting to surface schooling bass. However, it ranks among the BEST lures for this approach. Capps typically has his spoon rod right beside his Spook rod for schooling fish.

Compact weight and an aerodynamic design allow a War Eagle Jigging Spoon to be cast long distances with accuracy. That means quick deliveries for fish that pop up and feed on top. The narrow shape suggests a baitfish, and the wobble and flash trigger attacks. When bass are busting the surface but not taking topwater lures, they’ll often attack a jigging spoon swimming just beneath the surface. Also, the spoon is an outstanding lure to throw when schools “go down” but you believe the fish are still in the vicinity.

For schooling bass, cast just past visible activity and start reeling immediately, with the rod tip held high to keep the bait within a few feet of the surface. Experiment with steady cranking with the rod held steady and repeatedly snapping the rod tip upward as you reel. The former produces a quick wobble, and fish must react before their would-be meal escapes. The latter is more erratic to trigger attacks and allows you to slow the presentation slightly but keep the bait high in the water column. Neither is necessarily better. It varies from day to day, and sometimes the best presentation falls somewhere in between, with mostly steady cranking broken by occasion rod snaps or slight hesitations.

Minimal hook setting is required. Fish typically grab the spoon decisively, and just leaning into them, like a crankbait hookset, generally does the job. When they slap at the bait but don’t connect, keep working it and be ready. The next strike probably will connect!
Hop a Spoon Down Rock Slopes
War Eagle Jiggin Spoon

Anytime bass hold on the sides of points and humps, along 45-degree rock banks or against bluffs that have stairstep ledges breaking the drops, a spoon allows you work the structure methodically and offer flash that suggests a wounded baitfish.

The presentation resembles working a Texas-rigged plastic worm down a slope, except with a bit more pop with each movement of the bait. Begin by casting to the bank or toward the shallower part of a structural feature and letting the bait fall to the bottom. As soon as it hits, snap it off the bottom and then let it fall again, repeating until the spoon is out of the zone. The bait snaps up into the fish’s view and then flutters and sends out flash as it works down the slope.

Most hits will come as the spoon is falling, so watch the line carefully, including during the initial drop after a cast. If the line jumps, moves sideways or seems to move at all unusually or if it stops sooner than it should, based on the water depth, set the hook. It costs nothing to swing, but it may cost you fish, if you don’t do so. They’ll commonly drop the heavy feeling spoon quickly, so you’ll miss fish you never felt if you don’t err on the side of setting the hook.

The War Eagle Jiggin Spoon comes if 1/2- and 7/8-ounce sizes. If you can get the needed casting distance and you’re fishing mostly in less than a dozen feet or so, the 1/2-ounce model has slower, freer action on the fall and is generally a better choice. For deeper structure or for fishing in a lot of wind or noteworthy current, the larger version is better for keeping your bait in the strike zone.
Vertical Jig for Concentrated Fish
Blake Capps with largemouth bass

Finally, don’t overlook a jigging spoon’s namesake technique. When bass congregate on structure or in deeper holes that are loaded with baitfish and the water is sufficiently deep to position the boat directly above them, a jigging spoon proves highly efficient and productive.

As fall progresses and gradually melds into winter, many baitfish and bass alike move into deeper holes, often in hard bends in the lower ends of a lake’s creek arms. The bass commonly hold tight to the bottom, directly beneath the baitfish, positioned to dart up and grab a meal at any time.

The basic spoon jigging technique is elementary. Get directly above the fish, drop the spoon all the way to the bottom, and work the spoon by snapping the rod upward and dropping it again. The spoon darts up with each snap and then wobbles erratically on the drop. Most fish hit it while it is falling.

While the core technique is simple, little-seeming details can be critical for maximized success. Vary the length and sharpness of snaps, try mixing in two or three very quick pops in a single upward motion, experiment with letting the spoon fall on a fully slack and semi slack line and mix in occasional shakes of the rod tip. Also, watch your electronics. If some fish seem to be suspending, don’t hesitate to jig the spoon partway down in the water column, ideally just above the level where you are seeing fish.

Pay attention as you jig a spoon, and the bass will reveal their preferences.

Jeff Samsel, Lurenet.com