5 Bass Fishing Books You Need To Own

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If you want to improve your bass fishing skills or love to chill out reading a good bass book, then you are not alone!

But there are hundreds of books on bass fishing to choose from and to get the most out of one; it needs to be well-written and filled with good information and match your fishing experience.

In this article, we will focus on a range of options focused more on beginners and intermediate anglers so that this can increase the knowledge that will take you to the next level. 

If you are looking for other categories of fishing books, check out the links below for your fishing interest.

Our selection of Carp Fishing books

Our selection of Saltwater Fishing books

Our selection of Fly Fishing books

Our selection of Coarse Fishing books

Our Best Books on Bass Fishing

  • The Pocket Guide to Seasonal Largemouth Bass Patterns: An Angler’s Quick Reference Book
  • 101 Bass Fishing Tips: Twenty-First Century Bassing Tactics and Techniques from All the Top Pros
  • Kevin VanDam’s Bass Strategies Revised Edition
  • Striper Pursuit: Surf Fishing Beyond the Basics
  • High Percentage Fishing: A Statistical Approach To Improving Catch Rates

The Pocket Guide to Seasonal Largemouth Bass Patterns: An Angler’s Quick Reference Book 

The Pocket Guide to Seasonal Largemouth Bass Patterns: This handy-size angler’s quick reference book is designed for those who are addicted to catching largemouth bass and want to become pros at it. 

The largemouth bass is one of the most popular species to target in the US, if not the most popular, but they are quite tricky to catch, especially during different parts of the year. 

This book aims to take the ambiguity out of largemouth bass fishing by giving an angler a deep understanding of how largemouth bass behaves. Once you understand how largemouth bass act in different seasons and conditions, you can target them far more effectively. 

It goes into pre-spawning, spawning, and post-spawning behavior, plus what bass do in the different seasons, weather, and water conditions. This is all explained with clear pictures and diagrams that help you pinpoint where the fish will hold in different conditions and at different times of the year. 

Once you understand this, you will be able to quickly find where the bass are located in your local waters and pick the right tactics for catching them. 

This book only suits anglers who target largemouth regularly; if that is you, it is well worth reading! 

Pros 

  • Full of very useful information 
  • It helps you understand the life of bass
  • It comes with pictures and diagrams to help you find fish 
  • Covers bass behavior across all seasons, spawning, and conditions 
  • Allows you to hone in your bass fishing to the max 
  • Great for experienced and beginner anglers
  • It will help you catch more and bigger bass  

Cons 

  • It is only about largemouth bass 

Specs 

Author: Monte Burch

Pages: 136

Type: Paperback, Flexibound

Kindle Availability: Yes 

101 Bass Fishing Tips: Twenty-First Century Bassing Tactics and Techniques from All the Top Pros

Reading a book by the pros on how they approach bass fishing is always the best way of picking up tips and new secrets. This 101 Bass Fishing Tips book does both and is a great read for beginners, especially on the “how to” and tactic chapters. 

Written by an experienced bass angler, John Neporadny, who has published multiple articles in all the best fishing magazines and other online publications.

My only comment on this book is the lack of good illustrations to go with the detailed explanation of how to do a certain rig or bait. But this is self-explanatory, even for a novice, once you know a little about bass fishing.

Overall a great read! And is a great resource that can be referred to multiple times to act as a refresher.

Pros 

  • Full of very useful information on tactics 
  • Great for beginner anglers
  • A lot of information on setups and rigs
  • Plenty of various tips
  • Covers still waters and rivers  

Cons 

  • Lacks sufficient illustrations 

Specs 

Author: John Neporadny

Pages: 240

Type: Paperback

Kindle Availability: Yes 

Kevin VanDam’s Bass Strategies Revised Edition

The Bass Strategies book is written by Kevin VanDam, one of America’s best-known bass anglers. It covers in detail any topic related to bass fishing and targets those new to bass fishing and the intermediate angler.

The book explains his proven strategies and tactics for catching bass in both rivers and lakes throughout the United States. 

If you are a casual bass fisherman or enter small bass tournaments, this book has something for you. Another excellent part of this book is that fishing in an unfamiliar location can help you understand how to read the water better. It could help you save time and find bass faster, and at the same time, point you to the better areas to fish and what are the preferred baits you should use.

The book focuses heavily on lures and baits and also has a section on what rods, reels, and other tackle are best for bass fishing. 

Overall, a great bass resource book that I highly recommend due to its ability to give out perfect information to the reader.

Pros 

  • Great for beginners and intermediate anglers
  • Written by one of the greatest ever bass anglers
  • Covers multiple aspects of bass fishing
  • It gives an insiders view of Kevin’s thought process on bass fishing
  • It has some quality photos

Cons 

  • Not suited for those experienced bass anglers 

Specs 

Author: Kevin VanDam

Pages: 210

Type: Paperback

Kindle Availability: No 

Striper Pursuit: Surf Fishing Beyond the Basics

The author of this book John Skinner has several great books on fishing. The Striper pursuit book is a tale of his own personal journey of catching big stripers. 

The book focuses around onshore fishing and goes through all the key tactics, baits, lures, and tips he has used to catch these fantastic-looking bass species. It’s quite a technical book, but the explanations and reasons he uses are very informative to both beginner and intermediate anglers.

The book also has some great links to videos on his striperpursuit.com website. Anyone who loves to surf fish from the shore will enjoy this highly-rated book.

Pros

  • An excellent and compelling read
  • A detailed personal account of striper fishing
  • It has excellent links to free online videos 
  • A very knowledgeable angling expert in striper fishing
  • Good for beginners and experts

Cons

  • Dedicated to striper fishing

Specs

Author: John Skinner

Pages: 216

Type: Paperback

Kindle Availability: No 

High Percentage Fishing: A Statistical Approach To Improving Catch Rates

This book focuses very heavily on the impact of the weather, water, colors, and external factors to improve your fishing. 

High percentage fishing explains why the bait and gear you use may not be the most critical factor of fishing. Still, it analyzes data from multiple sources of catch information throughout the US and compiles it to give different views to help bass anglers catch fish.

It can get a little tedious in places and somewhat obvious to some anglers, but the perspective it gives is worth reading the book. 

The author Josh Alwine is not just an angler but also a statistical engineer, allowing him to put the data into a format related to catching bigger and more bass.

Pros

  • Lots of analysis and statistical information
  • It covers a lot of information on tides, water, colors, etc
  • Focus on the bass’s best locations and habits
  • This provides an alternative read for anglers if you like data-driven ideas
  • Good for beginners and intermediate anglers

Cons

  • Not as many pages as most fishing books

Specs

Author: Josh Alwine

Pages: 126

Type: Paperback

Kindle Availability: No 

Winding Up 

Thank you very much for reading my article. I hope you enjoyed it and have found exactly the type of bass fishing book for your specific needs.

You can read more on many different types of fishing books. Check out the below links for the top reads in each category.

Our selection of Carp Fishing books

Our selection of Saltwater Fishing books

Our selection of Fly Fishing books

Our selection of Coarse Fishing books

Steve Fitzjohn