provided by John Phillips
Mossy Oak Fishing Pro Brandon Lester, 31 years old from Fayetteville, Tennessee, has fished 87 Bassmaster events and won $603,374. In 2018, he was the points champion and Angler of the Year and has 19 top-10 finishes on Bassmaster. To learn more about Lester, visit https://brandonlesterfishing.com/.
If I could only take 5 lures to a tournament, here’s what they would be:
1. I’d take a jig because there are so many different things you can do with a jig. You can flip it, you can swim it, and you can crawl it on the bottom over rocks or wood.
2. My second lure of choice would be a shaky head with a straight-tail worm. This lure gets a lot of bites and is a finesse tactic. When fishing is tough, I most always can get a bite with this lure.
3. The third lure I like is a Z-Man Ned Rig - a mushroom-style jig head with a little 3-inch worm most often fished opened hook. I fish the Ned Rig on extremely light line. Since it catches big bass as well as little bass, the Ned Rig is a really good way to catch numbers of bass and a really big bass. The jighead I use has a No. 2/0 hook in it, and I like a green-pumpkin finesse worm.
4. My fourth choice would be a Square Bill crankbait, because I can cover a lot of water with it. Too, it can help me locate actively feeding schools of bass. I can fish it around heavy cover and retrieve it through underwater trees. If I only can fish one color, I’ll choose some type of shad pattern, since there are shad present almost anywhere I fish.
5. The number-five lure I’d select would be a 1/2-ounce spinner bait with double willow-leaf blades. If I only could pick one skirt color, I’d choose chartreuse and white.
