Pat Brown

For throwing weightless I always try (in addition to the fluke and trick worm and senko) mag speed craw, mag speed worm, the heavy poop baits (pick your favorite). My experience has been that with weightless plastics - where in the column it is and how fast it’s moving and what it’s doing matter a lot. It could be that they are digging the slice and dice or a minnow ish thing right now so might just be worth throwing various weightless minnow baits for a while and mainly trying different sizes. Another fun rig is the donkey rig which allows you to fish two minnows at once and looks amazing in the water - surely you could adapt it to fishing a pair of any soft plastics and even could mix and match profiles to figure out stuff faster. The mag speed worm and craw both have the added bonus of fishing like a whopper plopper/buzzbait and they catch well on the surface in addition to swimming mid column through reeds and grass and wood and also crawling along the bottom for bites. Caught many giants on both. Both fish weightless extremely well. Also worth a shot are large straight tail worms like the manns jelly worm (8-12”) and the Zoom Mag Trick worm - both of which tend to get bigger than average bites and have unique action in the water weightless.

I wish it was that way with bass - it just isn’t. Get good at figuring out quickly what isn’t working and listening when they tell you what is and you’ll save a lot of time - don’t forget to have fun! 😉

I’m pretty sure most of the rules are broken most of the time by fish except this one! Let the fish tell you. We want rules and short cuts and hacks for this and that and all the knowledge in the world is just a framework for guessing and the more days you fish the more you realize your guess is wrong and you have success doing something completely off the wall. I have caught fish on slick calm hot days burning loud crankbaits in clear water. I have caught fish on windy days in dirty water with tiny plastics. I have caught fish in inches of water that’s near 90 degrees with no current anywhere at all. I have caught fish in raging current that’s sweeping my bait faster than I can reel slack. Point I’m trying to make is - just get out there and learn to efficiently eliminate unproductive patterns and spend your days asking the fish where they are and what they want with your imagination and your intellect. Pay attention when you get bit. The fish are telling you that you are at the right depth and speed and size and area and you need to try to replicate whatever it is that made them interested. To some degree, no matter how good you get at fishing, this is the essence of what good anglers have to do every time they fish. Let the fish tell you.

Got pics of the bass? I love X Zone. The swammer on a swim jig has a body roll to it that no other bait quite does. They get chomped.

Over it.

@scaleface - amazing fish - can we get a fishing story on how you got that one!?!?

For panfish I like a Bobby garland minnow on a 1/16 oz jig head or a drop shot with a 1/16 oz split shot, a tiny hook and some nightcrawlers from the garden. Just put a tiny piece on the tip of the hook. I’ve filled two 5 gallon buckets at a friends pond in 6 hours with that worm piece drop shot deal.

I like big plastics and big jigs in muddy water and sometimes you just gotta go low and slow near that heavy shallow cover! Another great muddy water target bait is the old popper. Just cast it near the laydown or grass line or brush pile and let it sit til ripples are dead and then bloop it good and let it sit and then bloop it again etc. Sometimes in muddy water fish will not chase regardless of how flashy or thumpy it is. You sometimes gotta stay in the strike zone for the whole “retrieve” to get bit.

Caught piles of fish on destroyed plastics that I continue to cobble back onto the hook and toss back into the cover. It’s a game every time I rig a new plastic that I enjoy playing: “how many bass will this worm catch and will it get the biggest fish when it’s full sized or when it’s a nub of worm on my hook?”

The thread title is a good one because it allows for folks who don’t own it but follow fishing closely to weigh in - no pun intended. I have been watching channels that demonstrate techniques and teach FFS for years without ever owning it - thinking maybe I can learn some of things that folks who use it have learned and benefit from. Well - I can certainly say forward facing sonar has changed how I fish a lot at lakes. I fish much more slowly and much more quickly. I’m much more mindful of water column and trying to keep my bait above fish. I’m always on the lookout for isolated cover with my bait or eyes or 2D. I now know that bass swim out in the abyss and chase bait all the time and it’s good to be on the lookout for that kind of thing even on 2D. I’ve learned that “cat and mouse” works much better than dead sticking most of the time with bass that aren’t locked on a bed. I’ve learned that fish spawn all year and spawn deep and people have been capitalizing on this for years knowingly/unknowingly and FFS essentially lets people site fish deep beds and such. Much like smallmouth guides in 50 ft of clarity but with electronics users with largemouth in murky water down south etc. I’ve learned that fish adapt to literally everything we do and learn from their fellow fish to not bite things without biting themselves. I’ve had to master the art of bait modification and imparting nuance to my presentation because I can see how important it is for FFS masters. Basically being a little different is often better than being great at fishing a popular bait. They learn profiles and shapes and actions fast. One way it’s changed fishing is it has made fish incredibly difficult to catch compared to 5 years ago on our local lakes. You can not have any errors in your approach or presentation anymore these days. Probably forgetting stuff but this is a good start on “what FFS has taught me” about fishing as a casual observer and student of the tech purely through videos and podcasts.

I would use a big blade spinner bait, buzz bait or a whopper plopper or a bladed jig or a square bill with a knocker in it or a rattle trap or something that gets their attention and is fairly easy for them to track. Target, shallow areas and heavy cover and try to get your bait to make contact with whatever cover is available.

1.5 feet of clarity is a lot more than you’d think. I’d just stick to natural colors. Probably something similar to what they eat. I’d worry less about a bunch of different brands or types of crankbaits and pick one you like and get a bunch of different sizes and diving depths and if the brand allows for it - some silent and some noisy variations. An excellent line of crankbaits that gets bit and features silent and clicking variations and lots of sizes is the Berkeley Frittside line. They work great. Similar price point and perks - the Rapala DT line is awesome. For less money the Bandit 100/200/300 stuff is awesome and Bomber also makes some really good crankbaits for not much money. Can’t go wrong with Cordell Big O variations for 4-6 foot and they have lots of sizes. For me - in general - crankbaits are more about how active the fish are. Unless I'm burning squarebills through wood and then you can do that anytime - that’s just a reaction bite and anything will work. It’s awesome when the bluegill are spawning and you can just burn something over their beds and get smoked! Crankbaits are awesome when the bass are active around those areas.

Power Finesse is 90% of what I’m doing in NC these days. It’s extremely rare that I’m throwing something big and noisy and mechanical. Examples of ways I make finesse a priority with traditional power presentations: Lighter weights, lower casts where I thumb the spool and try to dampen the splash, using smaller variations of baits I know work well like small poppers, spooks, worms, jigs and crankbaits, I modify crankbaits to be silent and often to suspend, I take markers and make baits look more natural all the time, lighter line, lighter hooks, I try to fish my baits more methodically when I’m in finesse mode and really take my time with retrieves. To me finesse is just applying nuance to your techniques and not chucking and winding but over time it’s evolved into branding for small lures and I think that’s part of it but it’s more an approach than a size of lure.

Almost exactly like a big blade spinnerbait or heavy swimming jig. Pretty cool - thanks for the tip!

I never thought I’d be quitting but honestly - at least in my case - it’s nicer than having it which is rare when it comes to vices. 😂 Sometimes we just get so locked in to a ritual we don’t stop to ask is it really helping us and that turned out to be coffee for me this year. I may not quit forever but I ain’t doing the daily IV lifestyle anymore.