Christmas gift ideas for anglers include hand warmer holders, Silver Buddy blade baits, Yamamoto Double Tail Hula Grubs, MegaBass 110 Vision jerk baits, gift cards, and Ned rigs such as the Slim SwimZ, the TicklerZ, and the Finesse TRD.
You know, “Christmas gift ideas” is always a popular December topic, especially for writers who primarily cover open water fishing. Fact is, a guy like me, who mostly writes about kayaks and bass fishing, has little else to write about this time of year.
Before we get into our ultimate gift ideas, let’s look at other possible topics for the last month of 2025. Most or all of these have already been published here in the decade or so I’ve been contributing to this fine publication. All of them have some gift ideas intertwined.
Extend Your Kayak Season. Dress warm, wear your PFD, and get a dry suit to avoid hypothermia just in case you turtle your boat. Staying warm and safe is a big part of angling success, even if you don’t catch anything in a snowstorm. I just bought a pair of HotHands Glove Warmers, which hold those air-activated HotHands warmer packets against your hand under gloves. They were $15. I’ve had a pair of wristbands with a pocket for a hand warmer for years (apparently no longer made, as Google couldn’t find any more), and they work great paired with fingerless gloves.
Winter Ned Rigs. Shorties, such as the 2 3/4-inch Z-Man T.R.D. or the TicklerZ (a sort of solid tube bait the same length), seem to work best. If you have the patience, anchor or put the trolling motor on spot lock, then cast out and dead-stick it. Just let it sit on the bottom. Sometimes, slowly dragging the lure works better and other times, swimming it back with the slightest rod shakes works best. Pair them with a 1/15-ounce Z-Man ShroomZ head. The best Ned rig during the warmer months this year has been the 3-inch SwimmerZ, a skinny swim bait, and I feel like it will work just as well for bass (and lots of other species) in cold water. We paired it with Z-Man’s 1/20-ounce Micro Finesse ShroomZ head, which delivers the shakiest, fluttery swim you might ever see in a little swim bait. For colors, try Green Pumpkin/Orange for the TRD, Sprayed Glass for the Tickler, and The Deal for the SwimmerZ. All of these things are available on the zmanfishing.com website.
Blade Baits for Cold Water Bass. Silver Buddies, Heddon Sonars, and a plethora of more recent designs are sometimes the best, if not the only, lures that make bass bite in the winter. I have always had success with the 1/2-ounce and 1/4-ounce Silver Buddy, but you can find more expensive, fancier models that might work just as well. Nothing too complicated here. Find basin areas or remaining green weed clumps, cast, let the lure settle to the bottom, then retrieve with just enough pull to lift the blade bait, make it vibrate three or four times, and then let it settle back down. Repeat. If fish are around, they’ll just suddenly “be there” when you lift. Usually, the more subtle your retrieve, the better.
Flats Fishing in Winter Wind. Some lakes have a period from when the water chills below 50 degrees, when bass roam expansive shallow flats of 4 to 8 feet deep. Blades and Ned rigs work, but swim-scooting mid-size jigs and skirted, double-tail grubs can be the most phenomenal presentation. In a kayak or boat, a deployed drift sock keeps the boat moving slowly enough downwind to fish effectively. For jigs and hula grubs (my favorite of the latter is the 5-inch DT Hula Grub; worked in the 1980s; still works great in modern times), you make a long cast, let the lure settle, throw a little slack in your line, and sweep the rod so the lure scoots forward a bit. These days, a lot of anglers pair hula grubs with 3/16 to 3/8-ounce football head jigs; we always used 3/16-ounce Arkie-style head. BassCrack Jigs, a small, Michigan company, makes both kinds of jig heads with very nice hooks. The company website is under construction but find BassCrack Jigs on Facebook to order.
Suspending Jerks for Chilly Bass. Okay, I’ve never written this story since I rarely throw a jerkbait. I don’t like dealing with a writhing bass that has a face full of treble hooks, especially when my hands are cold and I’m seated in a kayak, my groin inches away from said writhing bass and treble hooks. But the technique works and the best lures for the job are those dang MegaBass Vision 110s, minnow baits that, a decade ago, cost $25 apiece when I bought $175 worth (seven lures!?). Most have never been in the water because I was afraid a pike would bite them off. I was surprised to search these baits online and learn they still cost $24.99.
Any of the above products mentioned would make great Christmas gifts, but honestly, here’s the ultimate gift for kayak and bass guys—really, any angler, for that matter: Gift cards.
Most of us would rather get a gift card to a local store, preferably a privately owned retailer.
If you suggest this idea to your spouse, you might get some blowback. I know mine feels like a gift card is impersonal, and the lazy person’s way out from getting a truly meaningful gift. But we anglers love gift cards. Part of the gift of a card is going to the store to use it. It’s just plain fun to shop for new fishing tackle. My spouse always balks at getting me a gift card because she says I already have too much stuff. While that’s entirely true—I have WAY too much stuff already—there’s always a need to restock specific sizes and styles of hooks, certain pound tests of braided lines, fluorocarbon and monofilament lines, and new bullet weights and drop shot weights.
Plus, a gift card is kind of like mad money—you can buy something you usually wouldn’t risk your own hard-earned cash on, just to give it a try.
Gift cards are truly wondrous gifts.
