Glide baits are designed to move in one direction with each twitch of the rod, perfectly imitating wounded or dying prey. (Photo courtesy of Shimano)
June 13, 2025
By Rick Bach
What if there was a bait that so perfectly imitated forage that the largest bass in any given body of water couldn’t resist it? That was the logic that started the glide bait craze in Southern California, which has taken off nationwide over the last decade.
In short, bigger bass tend to be loners and often relate to structure where they can ambush larger prey. While smaller bass might chase schools of bait, heavier fish seek substantial meals. Lures that imitate larger baitfish, like perch, crappies, shad and herring, have yielded some massive bass all over the United States. The trend has spread across species, too, with pike and musky devotees taking to these baits just as eagerly as bass anglers.
Put simply, a glide bait is a lure with one or two joints that swims by “gliding” in one direction and then the next with each twitch of the rod. While a swimbait’s multiple joints allow it to work in a tight S-pattern, a glide bait mimics a wounded or dying fish by moving in one direction at a time. We spoke with a host of glide bait devotees to find out how they wield these monster magnets.
GLIDE BAIT GURUS Mick Maynard Captain Mick Maynard has put anglers on Lake Champlain’s trophy largemouth and smallmouth bass for decades, and for the past 14 winters he’s been guiding on Florida’s famed Harris Chain of Lakes. He uses Secret Weapon Custom glide baits in both places and fishes the baits slowly with a twitch of the rod tip to send it in varying directions. He likens the technique to walking the dog, but underwater.
Advertisement
Maynard prefers throwing glide baits, as opposed to swimbaits, in areas where the grass is less dense, allowing the bait to more effectively demonstrate its enticing motion. He says that the shoulder seasons are typically good times to fish them, as rapidly rising or falling temperatures have bass looking for a more substantial meal.
Glide baits confirm the notion that big lures catch big bass, which are often more interested in a substantial meal than chasing schools of baitfish. (Photo courtesy of Travis Swift) Mark Shepard Mark Shepard is a Florida-based guide who has been putting anglers on bass for more than two decades. Before he was a full-time guide, he competed on the Bassmaster tour. He remembers when the glide bait trend first started and custom creations could cost as much as $100. These days, he prefers the Berkley Nessie in the shad and shiner patterns. He’ll pitch these baits, which come in 5-, 7- and 9-inch sizes, over the top of structure and along the edges of grass beds.
He cautions clients not to give them too much action, as he wants them to mimic wounded baitfish. Anglers need to vary the speed of the retrieve to see what bass might be keyed into on a given day. While there are times when bass will crush these baits, like when they’re defending beds during the spawn, other times they’ll “pick it up like a tissue with a booger on it,” according the Shepard. Paying attention for subtle hits can be critical.
Advertisement
Shepard uses a braided main line with a fluorocarbon leader. It’s not uncommon for fish to follow these baits right up to the boat, so he keeps working the glide bait as long as there’s line left. Fishing them shallow like a wake bait can be productive as well. The jointed Nessie is capable of an S-pattern on the retrieve, like a swimbait, but it can also turn 180 degrees back on itself with a sharp snap of the rod tip—something swimbaits can’t do. Shepard says that a major advantage of the glide bait is that it can work anywhere bass are pushing baitfish. Matching the lure pattern to the forage, whether that’s tilapia, bluegill or shad, is crucial.
The Berkley Nessie features a magnet in the belly to which the treble hook attaches, therby streamlining the lure both on the cast and during the retrieve. (Photo courtesy of Berkley) The Nessie features a hook holder on the underside of the bait—a clip that keeps the treble held tight to the body so that it sits flush underneath and doesn’t impede the bait’s action. Although the Nessie is designed as a slow-sinking bait, it has bullseyes on the underside of the head and the tail where you can insert nail weights to achieve a faster fall through the water column when targeting bass in deeper water. The combination of the weight system and the bait’s action allow it to remain suspended at a specific depth, mid-glide, in a way that swimbaits can’t mimic. The Nessie has clear hard-plastic “rudders” on its underside as well, designed to keep it swimming right-side up. Without added nail weights, you can fish the bait just underneath the water’s surface like a submerged topwater.
Alex Wetherell Alex Wetherell has fished glide baits of all sizes in his three-plus years on the B.A.S.S. Elite Series circuit. To him, the Shimano Armajoint stands out for its versatility.
This bait has a little bit thinner body, which allows you to fish it effectively at varying speeds, whereas some of the wider baits can blow out if you move them too quickly,” he says. “It’s hard to fish it wrong.” Wetherell adds lead strips to the belly of the bait or wraps lead around the shafts of the treble hook if he’s targeting fish in deeper water. It adds action to the bait and helps it gain depth.
John Anderson Bass fishermen aren’t the only anglers who recognize how deadly glide baits can be. Pike and musky fishermen are using them too. And while they most often throw one-piece gliders, hinged baits are gaining popularity in that world, too.
John Anderson has been guiding on the Ottawa River in Canada for giant muskies since the 1990s, and prefers custom glide baits made by Ottawa-based Spratt Hand-Crafted Lures for their ability to mimic everything from suckers to trout. He’ll throw bucktails to active fish, but when fish are glued to the bottom, glide baits excel. He lets the reel do most of the work, with pauses in his retrieve that allow the bait to suspend and glide.
The classic boatside figure-8 is still a crucial tool to utilize, as many fish will follow the bait right to the hull. He has seen muskies on his electronics follow baits as many as eight times without committing. Allowing the bait to belly-roll, meaning it’s shimmying side-to-side even as it sinks, can elicit strikes. A bright or light color on the underside of the bait will accentuate the bait’s roll.
Let the bait sink down to the fish and use an off-speed rotation of the reel handle to cause it to pause as it swims,” he says. “Most guys fish fast or ultra-fast. Fishing slow is key with these baits, and learning to pause them is a big part of that.”
Whether fished fast or slow, the Shimano Armajoint’s thin profile contributes to its enticing movement. (Photo courtesy of Shimano) The roll of the bait that exposes the brighter color on the underside is “like a strobe light” to nearby muskies, says Anderson. He maintains that fall can be a great time to throw them, as they’re more of a finesse presentation that’s more effective in colder water.
Bill Wetzel Bill Wetzel has been guiding striped bass anglers in the surf off Montauk, N.Y., since 1996. Between the thousands of fishermen who ply these waters every year and treacherous rocky conditions, Montauk is a place where attention to detail means everything. Wetzel says there are times when glidebaits like the Sebile Stick Shadd can be particularly effective (Sebile discontinued the Stick Shadd, but used models can be found online).
With its zig-zag pattern, a Stick Shadd will cover more water than a bait with a straight retrieve, which can make it more capable of drawing fish from a distance. When fishing a glide bait in the surf, Wetzel stresses the importance of keeping the entire rod still by locking it between your legs and controlling the bait’s motion with taps of the rod blank, making it dart erratically. The harder the tap, the more it darts, he says. When herring, shad or bunker are around, glide baits imitate the larger profile of those bait fish.
No longer the exclusive domain of bass anglers, glide baits are used to catch giant muskies, pike and striped bass among other species. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Klein) “One time, the stripers had bunker pushed up on a bar. We were throwing tins, we tried bucktails, but all they wanted was a glide bait because they were on bunker,” says the guide.
A 3-ounce bait allows you to punch into the wind when it’s howling, which makes it pretty much indispensable on Long Island in the fall of the year. Wetzel replaces all the factory hooks with Spro split rings and either a treble or a single Siwash hook. During the day he’ll fish them with a quicker retrieve and harder taps to add more action; at night, he slows it all down to give fish a better look at the offering.
CASTABLE ART Custom glide-bait makers craft creations that would look just as impressive in a museum as they do on the end of a line. (Photo courtesy of Mike Spratt) Mike Spratt, of Spratt Crafted Lures in Ottawa, Ont., spends as many as 30 hours on a single lure, which he tests in a small aquarium. To see exactly how much weight one of his creations needs to swim perfectly, he flattens sinkers with a vice, then tapes them to the bait. Once he discerns the exact amount of weight required, he drills holes and epoxies the weights inside the bait.
His higher-end glide baits have hand-painted eyes and scale patterns. The fins are made from polycarbonate plexiglass. He does larger “batches” of baits, too, that he can sell for a lower price. Despite the enormous attention to detail he devotes to each piece (the catfish glide bait, for instance, has rubber worms that act as barbels), he still wants them to get eaten by fish.
Scott Bethel is the owner of Secret Weapon Custom Baits. He makes each product he sells by hand, and counts crappie, smallmouth, largemouth and perch among his favorite patterns. According to Bethel, there are a couple significant aspects to a successful glide bait, and one is the contrast in the pattern between the top and the bottom of the lure. He thinks that a distinctively visible underside on a baitfish is a key visual element that bass will use to home in on potential prey. To complement a glide bait’s alluring movement, Bethel paints wounds or scars on his baits to further the ruse of a wounded or dying specimen.
Bethel will paint the eye socket a darker color and use lighter colors for the eye itself. He’s especially careful with detail. By accentuating the parts of the prey that bass are visually keyed on, namely the underbelly, the eye and wounds, Bethel creates what represents an easy, satisfying meal to a big, marauding bass.
U.S. Army veteran Chris Mellowship, of A-Bay Lure Lab, has known he wanted to be a lure designer ever since he was a kid. A Pinewood Derby car he once built in Boy Scouts became three topwater lures shortly after race day.
His first glide bait, made more for fun than anything, was patterned after the fish in Finding Nemo. When a 48-inch northern pike smashed the lure on the St. Lawrence River near his Alexandria Bay, N.Y., home, he got more serious about it. He uses an iridescent paint called Colorshift that allows his baits to shimmer in the light like the scales of a baitfish, and he works directly from photographs of whatever baitfish he’s trying to imitate.
“I notice the subtle things on those fish, the identifiers that, if they’re missing, makes the lure look not right,” he says.
This article was featured in the May 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe .
