A crayfish tops the meal menu for any bass living on rocky lakes.

Rocks provide shelter for crayfish so when you fish rocky lakes for bass you should consider selecting lures that best imitate a crayfish. Here are four mud bug imitators you should try when fishing lakes with rocky bottoms.

Jigs

A jig tipped with either a plastic chunk or craw is one of the most effective year-round crayfish imitators. You can drag a heavier jig and keep in close contact with the bottom to imitate a crayfish crawling along the rocks or you can lift and drop a lighter jig to mimic a crayfish fleeing from a predator.

Crankbaits

A crawfish-colored crankbait produces mainly for me in the spring but I have also caught bass from rocky lakes on this mud bug imitator in the late fall. In the early spring I retrieve a medium-diving crawfish crankbait slowly along chunk rock banks. As the water gets warmer I concentrate on banks mixed with chunk rocks and pea gravel where I retrieve the crankbait at a faster pace and try to frequently bump it into the bottom. I employ a steady medium-speed retrieve along chunk rock banks in the fall.

Twin-tail Grubs

A double-tail plastic grub attached to a standup jighead produces best for me late in the pre-spawn and during the spawn when bass have moved to gravel banks. A variety of retrieves with this crayfish imitator triggers strikes from pre-spawn bass cruising the shallows. You can hop it, drag and shake it on the bottom or slowly lift and drop it. When bass are on nests, you can drag the grub into the nest and let it sit there. An occasional twitch of the rod will activate the grub’s tails and annoy the bedding bass.

Plastic Craws

A Texas-rigged plastic craw worm is an ideal agitator for spawning bass. You can tempt bedding bass into inhaling this intruder by using the same presentation as I mentioned for the twin-tail grub. Bass have a hard time resisting a craw worm standing in its nest.

When bass move to deeper water after the spawn, you can catch those fish by attaching a plastic craw on a drop-shot rig or a shaky head jig. The shaky head craw works best for bottom-hugging bass while the drop-shot craw is a better option for bass suspended slightly above the rocky bottom.