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(2011) Bass are so much fun, but I wouldn’t have believed I would say that just a few years back. At that time bass were to me nothing but over-pampered, boring American perch. However, I stand corrected now. In April I was invited to Extremadura in Spain, where the anglers have adopted the American bass-ways and are catching an enormous number of fish with an impressively large array of baits and techniques. It was a real eye-opener, and today you will hear nothing bad from me about these aerobatic and ferocious fish.

Black Bass in Spain
Largemouth black bass (Micropterus salmoides) have been introduced into Spanish waters since 1955 – initially from France, originally obtained in the USA. They have been widely spread out in the rivers and lakes in Spain, even to the mountain regions of Galicia and Cantabria, and the bass do especially well in the regions of Andalucía, Extremadura and Aragón. The bass have really thrived, prolific to the extent where you could call it fauna pollution - but the Spanish anglers have, nevertheless, received this fish with open arms, so much that today it is probably the most popular sports-fish in Spain.
The IGFA all-tackle world record for largemouth bass is 10,12 kg, and the "official" Spanish record for the bass is 4,00 kg, caught in Guadalcacin dam, Andalusia.

The Great Lakes of Extremadura
The mighty river Guadiana runs for 829 km through Spain and Portugal. In Extremadura several dams have created some absolutely huge lakes (embalses), where phenomenal amounts of fishes thrive, including black bass. These lakes were our points of attention, though we knew that we could only “scratch the surface”, even with local guidance.
Our hosts were Pedro, Emilio and Javier - all three experienced bass anglers with techniques, skills, boats and fishing equipment to match their enthusiasm. They have fished these lakes for more than 20 years, so their knowledge was absolutely invaluable to us, besides their great company and generosity.

In April the bass congregate near the banks to spawn, and we landed smack in the middle of this exciting period. We fished in two of the big lakes, which constitute of many arms and islands giving us many km of bank area to cover. In both lakes we caught hundreds of bass every day, with many fish over 1 kg, and more than 10 of 2-2½ kg.

We fished from the super efficient American bass boats, which are easily foot-controlled from the forward fishing position. Along the banks we fished to sunken trees, reed beds, rocks and flooded bushes, which were the most obvious places to target; but in all fairness we also caught bass, where there was nothing to hide behind or under. They just seemed to be everywhere, even in open water.

Bass are definitely not fussy. They eat pretty much everything which moves in the water, and which fits into their disproportionate mouths. They attack frogs, salamanders, crayfish, insects, fishes of any species even pike, and of course their own species, when they are actually spawning. I wouldn’t want to be a small male bass trying to have a good time with a big female, when she has spawned – so I bet the males don’t stay around to socialize after having sex.

Well, this makes it so much easier for us anglers. You can throw just about anything at them, and if you make the lure move erratically, there is a good chance a bass will have a go at it. We had bass everything from big lures and spinner-baits for pike to small worm-like jigs, which looked more like a stick than anything.

What is important when you fish for bass is to leave the bait where it lands for a few seconds before spinning in, as the bass are extremely curious, and will almost always move towards the splash to investigate.

My favorite was to catch the bass in the surface, and there we used a variety of baits - one very efficient bait was the grey/white worm like jig with offset hook, which needed to be worked vigorously, as well as the small lipless silver colored SavageGear 4play lure, which at times out-fished all other baits.

In mid-water fairly big white spinner baits seemed to work best of all the baits we used - and in deep water we had very good results on big sinking worm like jigs and deep-diving lures.

On the bottom, we preferred lobworm imitations with a tungsten head and an offset hook with the point slightly hidden in the “meat” of the jig.

Try it yourself
If you want to have a fantastic time catching many and big bass with experienced and professional guides, you should contact Pedro on email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.