Pat Brown

Awwwww Bob. I’m so so sorry man.

Never felt the need to intentionally dull soft plastics but I have definitely taken some 220 grit to a jerk bait or crankbait to make it more matte and less shiny. There have been instances where a matte jerkbait catches fish on every cast but a shiny one doesn’t get a single bite for me - I figure they just see a lot of shiny baits. Sometimes a bait that’s very not shiny is the ticket when the action and profile meet their expectations. Don’t see why it wouldn’t apply to soft plastics also - by all means give it a try! Just never really felt the need - places I’m typically throwing a plastic bait - they’re not really seeing it great probably anyway.

I’m just making sure my line is fresh- hooks are sharp and my mind is ready. I know where they’ll be and what to throw. Just gotta be prepared and do my job right and should be a fun spring.

I think you said you’re not interested in learning to catch bass you just want to catch the big ones (paraphrasing). They’re the same thing. The specialization that you need to work on is locating bass and making them bite - big ones and small ones are often biting the same things in the same areas and are “patternable” and there’s no book or piece of electronics (yet) that can tell you where to cast and how to jiggle your bait - heck guys in boats paying a guide thousands of dollars for them to literally tell them where to point and shoot have days where they can’t figure it out - and you kinda learn that fishing every day for a few years. I consider myself a big bass hunter - people here know my success and can attest that I am probably am one - but for every big bass I catch, I probably catch 50 smaller ones and it’s not because I’m bad at catching big bass. It’s because that’s how fishing works.

6” of extra butt section is nice for a firm hook set- 6” of extra tip is nice for casting and hook sets from far away. They both have functional applications. The only time I like a short rod by choice is when I’m bank fishing under low hanging trees. I try to go as long as I can for everything.

It’s wild to me how different every year in NC is with regard to the spring transition. Last year the lakes had ice on them practically until April 1st - this year we had a cold winter but water mostly stayed wet until the last couple weeks and now everything is frozen over but it looks like a week or so and we will be back in the 50s every day. Makes it hard to know when to get out there exactly but my experience has been that if the water was frozen and then it’s not - that’s enough warming up for big bass to get all sorts of shallow! Hoping it’s sooner than later for all of us and that the change to spring weather sticks!

I like knowing my son has some skills to feed himself if the going gets tough. I think my dad liked knowing that with me too. I remember the sense of pride I felt as a kid bringing home a stringer of fish and cleaning them and cooking them for my aunts and uncles and brothers and parents and grandparents. That ritual was what fishing was all about in the beginning for me - I miss the excitement of getting enough fish for a big fish fry and the joy on my families face knowing we were having fresh caught fish instead of take out or a grocery store run. It’s nasty and it’s a lot of work to keep fish but it’s good for the soul and I actually try to help folks fishing for food these days - a few years back they used to upset me - but they probably help out more than hurt the chances of me catching a trophy every year with the culling they do. If you catch a bass - I recommend soaking the meat overnight in saltwater - seems to completely remove any muddy taste for any fish I catch - regardless of cooking method.

I pretty much throw the ones I like whenever I think they might want a top water - for me that’s a floating worm/buzzbait/frog. I use all three in all the seasons depending on the depth and water clarity and weather and mood of the fish etc.

My best big baits are always 10” ribbon tails and 7” swimming worms. I also do pretty well on full size jigs with big bulky skirts and trailers. I like fishing the larger topwater lures like a bigger Buzzbait or bigger frog when the fish are biting really well. I have pretty good success every year on big swim baits and glide baits when they set up right for that kinda thing - right after they finish the biggest wave of spawning in the early summer and in the fall are typically when big swim baits play for me. Fun when they’re on that stuff for sure.

My dad isn’t even that old (early 70s) and he thinks it’s insane to let any fish go! 😂😂😂😂 He says that’s perfectly good meat you’re throwing away! (he isn’t wrong!) I think the important thing is that we are mindful of the choice we make and that whatever we do, we do it with care. @TnRiver46 the bass we end up keeping are 95% out of 90 degree water in NC - that’s when they die from a normal amount of stress like just a decently long fight. They are delicious.

Frog/Worm/Jig all work really well for me especially in the early spring when I can’t see fish because water isn’t clear yet but I know they’re there.

Every year I help a friend manage his pond for bigger bass by culling smaller bass and bigger sunfish and catfish and crappie. It’s just standard practice at a small private pond if you want healthy trophy bass to be the dominant life form. On the lakes I let just about any bass go unless they’re gut hooked or gill hooked and then we keep and eat it. If I was gonna feed folks - I’d just keep the 12-16 “ ones around here for sure - that’s really only helping just about any fishery with a lot of bass in it.

@N Florida Mike with ice on the lakes for the foreseeable future - your consistent catches are mana for the soul! So happy that you get to fish with your boy again. It’s truly the best.

Too late - it’s blown up! But yeah I probably would not submit it because they kill the fish - I’d try to do as many pics as possible and weigh it somewhere credible with witnesses on video and release it.

I enjoyed doing this pumpkin a couple years back for Halloween:

I have a few of these from over the years worth telling stories about but we will do one to start with - my buddy from Charlotte came to fish and spend a day hanging with me and on that day a cold front hit with half dollar sized 40 degree rain drops falling non stop - not wanting to spoil the occasion or waste my buddies time - we fished about 2 hours of miserable soaked to the bone failure - it was so loud and constant we were yelling over it to speak to each other - just goes to show we were really making time to do something we loved in spite of the worst odds. A fond memory for me!

Pulled a nice one off of sun baked ledge when it was 37 outside in my backyard on the jig! She probably wasn’t in more than 2 feet of water!

I have started paying attention to Drew - he seems like he is probably the next Van Dam to me. Or Clunn. Or whatever. He’s ice cold and brilliant. Every time that man talks about catching bass I learn something new.

Get some Zappu boards so it can suspend - presentation is more important than color and sometimes you gotta let that thing set and then barely move it and also you have to target certain parts of the water column - my experience is glide baits work but they’re more situational and in general a tough bait to gain confidence in. Maybe find some fish without it and then see if you can make one bite.

Same but I use heavy mono. The irony here is 90% of baits I lose are when people who use heavy braid and can’t break off and leave 30 feet of 65 lb power pro cats cradle in my favorite lay down and then of course there goes my bait and that laydown for a few years. Do as ye will obviously but I just don’t think the theory behind the practice works out most of the time for most people.

From what I understand a big Florida secret to catching giants on this bait is fishing it on unweighted hooks. Fishing it more like a soft plastic wakebait etc. I do the same thing with the magnum speed worm from Zoom. That big EZ should kick and plop almost like a buzz toad or you can run it just under the surface slow for a nice V wake that wiggles and rolls a bit on the retrieve.

This thread is awesome ! @Dwight Hottle - that story had me belly laughing - glad you all made it out alive but wow hilarious! 😂😂😂😂 @Swamp Girl - 25 lb bags of small mouth is still insane any time anywhere from where I’m sitting - epic! I think it’s gonna be pretty hard to top my PB smallmouth because it was the fish that set off the life long addiction to bass fishing with lures - it’s written well somewhere on the forum - long story short - full moon fishing Lake Huron at night from a canoe with my dad and uncle and I nail a 4 lb smallmouth on a wiggle wart in 4 feet of rock flats. It was epic. Another one I’ll never forget was my son thinking he was hung on a log when he was all of 7 years old trolling a crankbait - only to pull up the biggest bass he’s ever hooked to this day - easily over 10 lbs- didn’t have a net and was using 6 lb mono - I was at the wrong end of the boat to lip her - my wife got scared - snapped line. We bought a net on the way home from the lake - Jake still hasn’t let her live that one down some 6 years and many big fish later! 😂 For me I’m gonna go with June 1st last year I fought a 10+ lber for over an hour in a beaver dam - got her to the surface and she came off right when she was in range. It was one of the most amazing fights I’ve ever had and she was massive. It’s a battle that forever has me wondering if I should be bringing a chainsaw and hedge trimmers with me into heavy wood cover! 😂😂😂

It was immensely difficult to get fish to bite. Notable observations - fish were tucked very very tight to undercut banks - specifically places where root balls created a hollowed out area. I spooked so many fish that just shot out from nowhere (under the bank) as I walked during the warmer days. I saw loads of baitfish along the banks throughout the warm period. I felt fish pushing my lipless a couple times but not slamming it at all - tried some finesse and power techniques and many different times of day and couldn’t get them to bite. In all honestly - I will add this to my database and conclude that I have more evidence that when weather is behaving in a seasonally appropriate manner - I tend to do much better even though warm fronts can be nice for us to fish. When winter is not too cold and not too hot - winter fishing is more approachable. I did see some beds get cleared and saw fish occupying very shallow water but I think the seasonal ark tends to overpower the strange trends in terms of what the bulk of fish do. It may be that when it’s appropriately cold - the bait fish are easier to consume and bass bite better - very difficult to make any real conclusions but mainly wish I had more free time to test stuff but it was a busy week while it warmed up!

And WHEN the wonderful Mike is fishing - Florida and Texas winters December/January are basically march/April weather here and may/June weather in Maine! Fish are up shallow and making beds in some places and they’re roaming the abyss eating a shiner every 3 days in others and even sitting under a block of ice belly down eating an alewife every month in even more north others! I’m hoping that the weather FLiPS to spring sooner than later here! 😂❤️👍

Todd makes some great videos and I completely agree! I almost always select the line for the action and weight of the bait - not really worried they see my line. I throw the heaviest I can get away with at all times!