Go to soft plastic for bass

If you really want to get bit above all else, I find a baby brush hog is about the most versatile plastic there is. It can be fished dead slow finesse and also has some action if swam or hopped.

Color is either natural or dark for me, keep it simple. Green pumpkin or watermelons for clearer water, black/blue to junebug for stained water.

That said, I'm not used to spots and they may prefer something else.

I fish my red shad worm everywhere

The absolute GOAT. plenty of weight by itself for casting and if there are bass present, this will find them.

The YUM Dinger

Super fluke.

I like the magnums for big fish fishing.

Rigged correctly they'll walk the dog on topwater or go subsurface; rigged with a weighted hook they'll fish those deep tops in clear water with seedless ability and catch even the most lethargic of fish.

I also like slug go flukes as well.

Any type of stick worm/ senko style bait. You can rig it weightless or Texas style and it pretty much fishes itself especially weightless. When the sun comes up and under the docks are shaded underneath skip it back in the shade.

Depending on water color some variation of watermelon and junebug will catch fish just about anyplace.

weightless

Agree with Sofa King above for spots, but I prefer the Zoom version to his Yum.

Texas rig weightless, fish really really slow. Then slow it down some more.

Bigger deeper water you can add some weight.

Spots fish different than largemouth to a certain extent and generally focus on baitfish and craws whereas largemouth are more generalists (baitfish, craws, sunfish/bream, frogs, mice, snakes, etc...)

The weightless senkos are always going to catch some fish and are easy to skip under docks. For flukes/wsoft-plastic jerkbaits, go down a size vs what you see for largemouth as the mouth on a spot is a good deal smaller than a largemouth.

Two other techniques you should become familiar with are drop-shot (using a fluke or drop-shot specific plastic like a SK dream shot, robo worm or even a finesse worm) and shaky-head rigged finesse worms. Focus on natural colors unless it is extremely low light or muddy water. Straight green pumpkin or gp with a chartreuse tail (dip-n-glo is your friend) is a good place to start. Watermelon red, sprayed grass, and green pumpkin blue are also good to have in the repertoire.

Same here. Watermelon red is my go-to. Been wanting to try other colors but can’t seem to put down the watermelon red. And they’re usually the most sold out at the stores so can’t just be me.

That watermelon senko fished weightless and wacky is deadly in the ponds around here. Never fails to put bass in the chest.