A bass doesn't care what's new at the tackle shop. It cares what's available, vulnerable, and worth the calories — and in June, in most of the country, that menu reads: bluegill spawning shallow, crawfish active on rock, shad sliding out to the first deep water.
Bluegill beds first: bass patrol the edges of those colonies like a toll booth. Anything in bluegill colors worked past the beds gets attention — and the big females that just finished their own spawn are the ones collecting.
Crawfish second: warm rock means molting craws, and a molting craw is a candy bar. Greens and browns most days; the loud red-orange craw patterns everyone buys actually match a craw at its most defensive, not its most edible. That one sentence starts a fight every time we say it.
The full menu — by region, by water type, with the bait aisle translation — is below.