The Best Bass Fishing States in America

There’s little doubt that the black bass—largemouth, smallmouth and spotted—is indeed America’s fish, a piscatorial brawler that is found in 49 of the 50 U.S. states, is the king. From swamps to timber and vegetation filled reservoirs to rivers and creeks and even roadside ditches, a bass is almost always there.

While trout, panfish, catfish, walleye and muskies all have their fans, there’s also little doubt that the pugnacious largemouth bass drives fishing’s big economic engine in our country.

So. where are the best places to indulge in your bass-fishing daydreams this year? While I know that not everyone will agree with the opinions expressed here, nonetheless, here’s one angler's Top 10 bass-fishing states across America:

1. Florida

Florida is the king of bass fishing in my opinion, because the legendary state has superb yearround fishing available for largemouth bass in virtually every single corner of the Sunshine State. From the far western panhandle to the main peninsula and on south to the Everglades, the bass is king in Florida.

Why is it king? To start with, consider that it is Florida’s storied bass genetics spread across much of the United States in lakes from coast to coast between Interstate 10 and Interstate 40 that that has ushered in the golden era of lunker bass angling during the past 50 years or so.

Then look at the annual proliferation of professional bass-fishing tournaments, like the recent Bassmaster Elite Series event on the St. Johns River and the recent Bass Pro Tour event on the Harris Chain of Lakes. In fact, almost every year, the pros kick off their slate of derbies somewhere in the Sunshine State.

Then there’s the official state record largemouth bass in Florida, which stands at 17 pounds, 4 1/4 ounces, a fish caught in an unnamed Polk County lake by Billy O'Berry in August 1986.

But unofficially, stories and photos of bigger, uncertified bass have come from a variety of Florida waters through the years, including a 19-pound lunker landed on Lake Tarpon in Pinellas County back in the 1940s. Then there’s a 1923 photograph that shows a fish reported to weigh 20.13 pounds. on the scale, a lunker caught by Frederick "Fritz" Fiebel, and a fish that earns an asterisk ranking in the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s official rankings. 

And then there’s the fact that Florida is home to the Florida largemouth bass, the fish and its genetics that have been transported all over the United States and led to inland fisheries revolutions like those in California, Texas and elsewhere from one coastline to the other. Those states have become as good as they are since the early 1970s, generally thanks to Florida.

In short, you can’t find many bodies of freshwater in Florida without a bass swimming in it, and there’s a good chance that there’s a pretty big lunker lurking somewhere nearby. It’s the tops in my book and everybody ought to fish for bass in the Sunshine State at least once in their lives if you ask me.

2. Texas

The Lone Star State ranks second, and not just because of the state's reputation where everything is said to be bigger and better.

For starters, there's the state's current benchmark bass, an 18.18-pound lunker landed from Lake Fork on Jan. 24, 1992 by Barry St. Clair. That fish topped another Lake Fork giant, the previous state record 17.67-pound largemouth known as Ethel, a legendary fish that lived for several years at the Springfield, Mo. Bass Pro Shops location after guide Marc Stevenson caught the big sowbelly on a Stanley jig—a Texas lure company, no less—on Nov. 26, 1986.

Those two fish are a part of an onslaught of 13-plus lunker largemouths caught and donated temporarily for spawning purposes to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's ShareLunker program. That program has helped put Texas bass fishing on the map, with a Top 50 largemouth list that takes a 16.58-pound largemouth to even crack!

Lake Fork has been known as a lunker factory with more than 270 ShareLunker bass donated through modern history—the most recent one came this week at Lake Tawakoni, where Clayton Braddock's 13.30-pound bass became the seventh Legacy SL bass of the 2025 season. In total, 79 Texas lakes have produced a SL bass.

Add in the state's dozens of top bass waters—O.H. Ivie, Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend, Falcon Lake, Amistad and Conroe, for examples—not to mention dozens of top professional bass anglers like Rick Clunn, Tommy Martin, Alton Jones Sr., Kelly Jordon and Clark Wendlandt, and the state's storied bass history is rich indeed. 

And with Texas preparing to host its fifth ever Bassmaster Classic derby this spring on Lake Ray Roberts, reports of the Lone Star State’s extraordinary bass angling status is certainly not a tall tale!

3. California

There’s little doubt that California has dominated the bass-fishing history books in a way that not even Florida and Texas can claim. In fact, the state is home to its own legendary bass waters, lakes like Clear, Casitas, Miramar, Dixon, and plenty more.

Some of California’s water bodies became virtual household names for anglers in the past two or three decades because of fertile water and the state's wintertime rainbow trout put-and-take stocking program. As millions of protein-rich big bass “Happy Meals” were stocked, the Golden State began a bass explosion in the 1970s that made Cali the odds-on favorite for a the next world record. 

In fact, on Bassmaster.com's "Top 25 Largemouth Bass of All Time" list, California has 20 of the 25 entries, including a 22.01-pound giant caught on March 12, 1991 by Robert J. Crupi at Castaic Lake. The list—which takes a 19 pounds or better bass to get on—even has a 20.9-pound lunker caught on a Zebco reel by Dave Zimmerlee at Miramar Lake on June 23, 1973. And reportedly, the Zebco reel wasn't even working properly.

Alas, California's hey-day as the nation’s lunker bass king has trailed off some after the state's rainbow stocking program received a serious facelift in recent years. That means that the trout buffet line is a thing of the past and California has not been able to produce that world-record bass eventhough the fishing remains plenty good. 

It did come close to the top run of the record-book ladder, though, all thanks to the famed catch of Dottie, a legendary Cali bass that Mac Weakley foul-hooked on March 20, 2006. A part of a seven-year long saga where several anglers sought to hook the behemoth bass, California law prohibits the retention of a foul-hooked fish and Weakley released the fish after a weight of 25.1 pounds had been taken at a dock on southern California's Dixon Lake. 

But California's date with world record destiny was to never be fulfilled as only a couple of years later in May 2008, Dottie was discovered floating dead in Dixon Lake, ending a record book tale of a legendary fish.

There's no way that one can talk about California bassing and not mention its world-class spotted bass in the northern part of the state. Or, at least what once was the spotted bass, thanks to bass reclassification work announced last year by the IGFA.

With that news last summer, the Miami-based record-keeping and conservation organization now noted that the "Alabama Bass M. henshalli—an emerging invasive species—is now distinguished from the smaller, broadly distributed Spotted Bass M. punctulatus.“

What that means for California's famed spotted bass fishing is that it’s now the state’s famed Alabama bass fishing. And while that might be as clear as mud, it includes the lunker weighing 11 pounds, 4 ounces when it was caught by Nick Dulleck on Feb. 12, 2017 at New Bullards Bar Reservoir.

Dulleck's one-time spotted bass world record—now reclassified as the IGFA all-tackle world record for the Alabama bass—is a specimen that looked like an overinflated football about to explode, measuring 24 1/4 inches long and 20 3/4 inches in girth. All of those numbers and name change talk simply means that California’s bass fishing is still supremely good, no matter what you call the fish at the end of your line!

4. Alabama

Alabama knows about excellence, as evidenced by the NCAA sports teams at the University of Alabama and Auburn University. The state also boasts some of the best bass fishing in the country including lunker potential and some of the country's best lakes to wet a line in.

How big can a largemouth bass get in 'Bama? Ask Thomas Burgin, who landed the state-record largemouth on Nov. 3, 1987 at Mountain View Lake, a sowbelly weighing 16 pounds, 8 ounces. 

Then there's the plethora of great bass waters in the state, many regularly hosting Bass Pro Tour and Bassmaster Elite Series events each year, a sure sign of good fishing. From Lake Eufaula on the Alabama/Georgia line to Pickwick Lake in the northwestern corner of the state to Guntersville in the northeastern part of the state, those three lakes are some of the best in the country. Lay Lake, Logan Martin, Wheeler and Neely Henry can also make a 'Bama basser smile.

The fishing is so good in the state–including angling for largemouths, smallmouths, and world-renowned Coosa River spotted bass–that many professional anglers have chosen to live in Alabama, including North Carolina native Randy Howell. 

When you look back on a magical day in late February 2014 when Howell fished a single bridge with a Livingston Lure Howeller Dream Master Classic crankbait, Guntersville was the sight of Howell's legendary come from behind victory in the 2014 Bassmaster Classic being staged there. And when you can land a five-bass limit weighing 29 pounds, 2 ounces at Guntersville, you can begin to understand why Howell and his wife Robin built their home there!

5. New York

Why does the Empire State rank so highly in this list? In a word, smallmouths!

From rivers (the Susquehanna River is really good) to Lake Erie (especially in harbor areas, tributaries and nearshore reefs near Buffalo) New York has some epic bronzeback-bass action. 

There's also a lot of fishing for largemouths in New York, a state with a largemouth record of 11.25 pounds. If you'd like to fish lakes that the pros regularly sample each year, chasing the green bass and brown bass is a winning combination at Oneida Lake, Cayuga Lake and Lake Champlain, to name some of the state's best.

There are other lakes in the state that harbor a good variety of bass-angling opportunities, including a variety of water bodies in the Finger Lakes region and also at Chautauqua Lake. With great aquatic vegetation and warm season docks at the latter, an angler can pretend to be a bass-angling Jedi Master like retired legend Denny Brauer was back in 2013 when he put on a final day dock flipping clinic for the ages to capture a big Major League Fishing Challenge Cup trophy.

6. Michigan

Michigan is one of the top overall fishing states in the country, and is home to both smallmouth and largemouths, including a state-record LMB that weighed 11.94 pounds when it was caught at Big Pine Island Lake in 1934.

Lower Michigan has Lake Huron on its eastern flank, Lake Michigan on its western flank, and Lake Superior to the north of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. All of those Great Lakes can produce some solid smallmouth bass fishing action, particularly on the southern reaches of Lake Michigan, on the same body of water around Traverse City, near Alpena on Lake Huron's shoreline, and certainly in the Saginaw Bay region of Lake Huron.

Venture inland, and there's a great supply of bass waters for both largemouth and smallmouth bass on smaller lakes and river systems. Just ask Kalamazoo native Kevin VanDam, the unquestioned GOAT of professional bass angling who grew up fishing Michigan's wealth of bass waters.

KVD—who retired last year from competitive angling and now films The VanDam Experience television show for Outdoor Channel—is an International Game Fish Association Hall of Famer thanks to his tournament greatness that includes more than two dozen tournament wins. 

One of those came during the 2014 Major League Fishing Summit Cup on inland Michigan waters near Alpena where VanDam put on a smallmouth fishing performance for the ages in the final day’s Championship Round where he smashed his way to a then MLF record single-day catch of 82 pounds, 7 ounces. 

During the era when I regularly covered MLF events, I was privileged to witness that virtuoso performance first hand, and KVD’s runaway victory cemented in my mind not only how great VanDam is at catching bass, but also just how good his home state is for bass fishing.

7. Wisconsin

Like its neighbors to the east, Wisconsin boasts some great smallmouth and largemouth angling, the latter to the tune of a state-record lunker weighing 11.18 pounds. 

Like New York and Michigan, both inland waters—many of them small to moderate in size in the same areas that the late great outdoor writer Gordon MacQuarrie used to explore for good duck hunts and bass fishing adventures—and Great Lakes shoreline come into play, especially for big bronzeback bass in the Green Bay area on Lake Michigan.

But it’s the rivers in the state that gets the attention of many bass anglers, including those trailering a bass boat to search the myriad of backwater regions on the Mighty Mississippi near La Crosse. If you’re a pro or amateur trying to win a derby there, you had better go big at the weigh-in scale or go home!

And then there’s the wealth of smaller rivers that host some epic spring and summertime smallmouth action. In drift boats and fly fishing rafts, streamers and poppers tossed into shady shoreline areas on a summertime afternoon float can produce dozens of big smallmouths and a weary grin.

8. Minnesota

Making my case for the North Star State is pretty easy. And the reason for that is the fact that one of the other nicknames for the state of Minnesota is "The Land of 10,000 Lakes!"

From shallow vegetation that supports good largemouth action to deeper drop-offs that lures hungry wolf packs of smallmouths in many of these glacial lakes, there is never a shortage of good bass water somewhere in Minnesota. 

Covering an MLF fishing derby back in the day, I got to watch the late Aaron Martens have one of the greatest single days in professional tournament angling history. A-Mart set the then-MLF single-day catch record on a lesser known Minnesota water body in round one of the 2017 Summit Cup, raiding smallmouth bass “wolf packs” to the tune of 88 pounds on that epic day.

And last, but not least, there’s no shortage of smallmouth bass opportunity on many of Minnesota’s river systems, including the Mississippi River on the state’s eastern flank.

9. Tennessee

The Volunteer State gets on this Top 10 list for several reasons. One is the 15,000-acre natural lake lying in the state's northwestern corner, a swampy water body filled with bass, bluegills and crappie.

Reelfoot’s creation is legendary, coming from a series of three major earthquakes that shook the region from December 1811 to February 1812, including the last major quake on Feb. 7, 1812 when the 8.6 earthquake flattened much of the region, rerouted the Mississippi River for a period of time, and caused the final formation of Reelfoot.

Tennessee also makes the list because of fabled big-water bassing,spots that routinely host major professional bass-angling events as well as supporting superb recreational angling for bass largemouths, and in some cases, smallmouths too. Impoundments like Pickwick, Kentucky, Chickamauga, Fort Loudoun and Tellico all are fine bass waters (the latter two will host the Bassmaster Classic in 2026.

Big bass? Well, the state-record largemouth is 15.18 pounds pulled from Chickamauga Lake in 2015 by Gabe Keen and the state-record smallmouth is the IGFA's much discussed 11-pound, 15-ounce smallie—the world record bronzeback bass—caught by David Hayes at east of Nashville at Dale Hollow Reservoir on July 9, 1955.

The state is also known for smaller, lesser known bass waters. One of those is near and dear to my heart, the place where my fishing career got started to the east of my hometown of Memphis. The 177-acre lake near Collierville is one of several lakes in the state that are a part of the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency’s so-called “Bill Dance Signature Trail.” 

If the small lakes in western Tennessee is good enough for Bill Dance to put his name on it then it remains good enough for me.

10. Georgia

I’m probably going to make a few anglers upset in other southern states for this last selection on my 2025 Top 10 list. And if you bass fish in North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma—all of them with worthy claims for a Top 10 bass states ranking—I can understand your complaint.

But there’s simply no way I can leave off the state that produced the legendary world-record largemouth caught by the late George Perry way back on June 2, 1932. That's when a strange and twisting record book tale began with Perry finding his farm fields too wet to work that particular day, instead going bass fishing with his pal J.E. "Jack" Page on nearby Montgomery Lake in southern Georgia.

The rest is history—and history that some dispute—with the landing of a 22-pound, 4-ounce bass that eventually became the IGFA world record. It remains so to this day, even after Manabu Kurita landed a bass from Japan's Lake Biwa that is a statistical dead heat record according to the IGFA, with lists both fish in its record book as the world record bass at the same weight of 22-4.

But Perry's long-standing world record bass isn't the only reason that Georgia makes this list. There are great bass fishing lakes in the Peach State, including Lake Sinclair in the central part of the state, Lake Eufaula on the Alabama/Georgia border, Lake Seminole on the Florida/Georgia line, and the Chattahoochee River-fed Lake Sidney Lanier not far from Atlanta. The angling is good enough on some of these that the professional tournament trails visit from time to time, along with Lanier being arguably the best spotted bass lake in the country.

Add in the state's rivers—including the Tallapoosa River in the west for the Tallapoosa bass, the Savannah River in the east for smallmouth bass and Bartram’s bass, and the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers in the central part of Georgia for shoal bass—and there is a whole lot more to Georgia bass fishing than the long ago world record.

With wintertime coming to an end, and another year of bass fishing now at hand, all that's left to do is to figure out how many of these states one can visit this spring and summer. Because when it comes to fishing in America, the bass, from coast to coast, is clearly the king.

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