It’s always nice to take a step back and look at the previous year. It’s hard to know where you are going if you don’t know where you’ve been. For those who want to improve their bass fishing, one important thing to consider is what lures won tournaments last year. Hopefully, this list of 10 bass tournament winning lures from the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2014 will help you get some ideas of how you can step up your game for 2015.

Bass Tournament Winning Lures

 
Here is he break down of the bass tournament winning lures on the bassmaster elite series last year. It is interesting to see that 6 out of the 10 events were won using some type of jig pattern. There were two tournaments won on a crankbait pattern. Another tournament was claimed with a blade bait, and the last was won with a small softplastic swimbait. If you are looking to improve your bass fishing for 2015, these 4 different patterns and 10 different baits are a good start to get you moving in the right direction.
Here are the 10 winning baits from all the Bassmaster Elite Series events including the Bassmaster Classic from 2014.
 
1. Bassmaster Classic Guntersville – Randy Howell used the Livingston Lures Crankbait, the “Howeler,” in the color Guntersville Craw to claim this event. This bait has EBS electronic technology which is designed to imitate the sounds of distressed baitfish. This crankbait was just different enough, and dove a little deeper to bring home the winning bag at the Bassmaster Classic.
 
2. Lake Seminole – Brett Hite won here with a Chatterbait. He used a swim senko trailer, and his chatterbait also had a black blade instead of the traditional silver or gold. The chatterbait in this event proved itself as a staple for fishing grass.
 

 
3. Lake Dardanelle – Jason Christie won at this event swimming a jig. The Jig he used was a black and blue ½ oz. Booyah swim jig with a Yum Craw trailer in the same color. The key was keeping the bait up off the bottom and swimming it past the shallow cover to draw reaction strikes from the tight lipped bass in Dardanelle.
 
4. St. Johns River – Chris Lane won here swapping between two different baits. He used a traditional 3/4 oz black and blue jig and pig, and a 7 inch black and blue worm. He focused on flipping a jig when the water was calm. When the wind started blowing Chris busted out a black and blue Texas rigged Luck E Strike 7 inch ringworm to grab some big pigs out of the pads.
 
5. Table Rock Lake – Mike McClelland took the tournament at Table Rock banging the rocks with a crankbait. The tried and true storm wiggle wart in a crawfish color helped him locate fish hiding in the rocks, and win this event at Table Rock.
 
6. Toledo Bend – Jacob Powroznik won at this event doing some sight fishing. He would pitch a ½ oz. tungsten weight with a Berkley power hawg in green pumpkin and red bug. He used his eyes to locate bass on their beds. Once he located a big bass, he pitched the power hawg into the bed and teased them to bite.
 

 
7. Kentucky Lake – Jacob Wheeler won at the Bass Fest event using an old school technique. His main bait was a
½ oz preacher style hair jig. The bait was hand tied to imitate the large gizzard shad found in the lake. He would rip it, and hop it up off the bottom to ignite those big bass to bite.
 
8. Delaware River – Mike Iaconelli took this event on this tidal river with a variety of baits, but his main staple was a finesse jig. A small ½ oz jig in brown purple with a green pumpkin chigger chunk trailer was the ticket. His other bait which caught fish was an Okeechobee craw havoc pitboss. Knowing where the fish were in the different tides was the key to his victory with these baits.
 
9. Cayuga Lake – Greg Hackney won at this event with a traditional jig. His jig of choice for pitching around the grass was a green pumpkin 1 oz strike king hack attack jig with a blue craw trailer. This bait was key for getting bigger bites for him to win the tournament.
 

 
10. Bays De Noc at Escanaba Michigan – Jacob Powroznik won this tournament using a couple different baits. One primary one was a Keitech swing impact fat 3.8 inch swimbait. He would rig it with a small jig head, and slowly swim it along to get those big smallmouths to bite.

If you haven’t already got some of these baits and patterns mastered, get on it for 2015 because they are proven winners.

Hope this will give you a good idea of some of the best winning tournament baits to throw this year. I’m looking forward to start using some of them to “Krak” some bass! Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog for more great fishing ideas, and leave a comment about your experiences with these tournament winning baits.

As Always,

Stay Stoked!