Pat Brown

@T-Billy I'm being fairly tongue in cheek with that one. The Pressured Pond ™ I fish at where I caught a 9.1 and multiple 8 lbers and there are double digits that have eluded me, the closest deep water is about 10 minutes down the road at a different body of water ? These ponds max out at 4 feet of water and are 5 acres a piece and have virtually no cover. Most of the castable water is 2 feet or less. So yeah, deep water nearby is only a requirement until it's not at all. I have also caught some big fish at the very backs of creeks on lakes not particularly near deep water access. Just depends on the time of year.

I personally have more confidence in the red eye shad than any other lipless crankbait but I'm going to be putting a lot of time in with the trap this year. Got to give the classics a fair shake.

It's ALWAYS gotta be near deep water. I mean deep IS where ole big lives ???

I actually hooked a 4-5 lb class fish on the buzzbait that bent it in half about half an hour before I caught that 2.5 lber later on. It got off 2 feet from the net. I'm learning quickly to look for big flats with stumps or grass clumps or rocks or all of the above in sort of dirty water in wind. This is where the buzzbait is probably the best lure to throw. The shallower the better it seems.

Buzzbait fish number 2 on the books! Jake caught a monster on a morning dawn trick worm off a bridge piling. SUPER spawned out. I caught one on a creature bait and Jake got a nice one on the old Siebert brush jig. Fun fun afternoon. I'm flattered by all the big bass expectations but I usually catch 100 normal size bass at LEAST for every 5+ lber! It's called fun for a reason! Wouldn't be fun if they was giants every time!

I have two different cavitrons! Never gotten a blowup on one yet but maybe they're just so dang popular my fish have seen/heard/felt em. I haven't had bites on the Strike King head banger either but fished those a fair bit as well. They seem to hate my dinner bell though so maybe it's the clacking flavor they prefer at my waters? But yeah I find that most days and most of the year, topwater is a big old waste of time but I'm LEARNING to watch out for opportunities to be productive with topwater....

I got a white skirt one that doesn't clack that I do more surface oriented retrieval with right now but it doesn't seem to anger the fish as much at my pond. I definitely will be mindful of rotating styles when they 'should be hitting a buzzbait' but aren't as I continue to expand my knowledge on the technique. Had some solid hits this morning where I pulled it away in the darkness. Seems like as with all topwaters, being momentarily patient right after the strike pays in dividends.

@WRB with that in mind, I usually do better when I make sure 'he's got it' before setting the hook in general. There are times I don't bother and you just gotta know when that is by feel and experience. I still have all y'all in the back of my mind chanting 'SWING YA DUMMY' don't worry. ????

It ain't much. But it's my first fish ever on a buzzbait and at the Pressured Pond ™ no less. Storm rolled through leaving clouds and wind. Fished an hour after work. Got 7 blow ups on the buzzbait and connected with this one. My retrieves are 'keeping it just under the surface and gurgling it up occasionally by accident and keeping it just under the surface and then sorta slow plinking it with occasional squeaky acceleration flurries. Seems all of these retrieves trigger bites. I'm gonna be tossing this thing a lot more this fall as I know it's basically made for the fall. Bizzbaits dinner bell with the old rage menace on the back. Skirtless.

@ol'crickety I plan on investing some real time in that little under spin doohickey this winter time. I just know it's a fish catching machine and I feel like when 'not much is going on' in terms of weather or fish activity, that sneaky little critter would get munched by even the pickiest of bass. Do you like to burn them, steady reel em, stop n go?? Heavier or lighter? I feel like there's a big population of LARGE bass at the upper portion of the Pressured Pond™ (where I tend to not fish as much...lower pond seems more hackable), that ONLY eats tiny shad things all year long and this presentation could be the key to getting one or two of them.

Fish any soft plastic weightless if you want. Just be mindful of line twist. I like weightless soft plastic worms with straight tails and buzzing toads.

I like yum dingers. I think the softness of the plastic contributes to the willingness to hold on and the action and in general stick baits are one bait: one fish for me. I don't fish Ned rigs.

Yesterday evening, I actually got my first real blow up on a real clacking buzzbait on a real public lake in North Carolina from an actual boat during daylight hours. 2-3 ft deep clear water rocky flat, 6 pm ish, with a gentle ripple on the water and cloud cover produced that bite and it seemed big. It slurped it down more so than blew up. I set the hook too fast because of course I did. ?

Been catching toads and little fish alike on the plastics and jigs and also had my first buzz bait blow up on the dinner bell this evening on the big local lake. Very eager to try more of their stuff and happy to support a local small business.

Some more random thoughts on large bass: Yeah you can't catch em if you aren't where they live. You can't catch em if you're not fishing the right times a lot. I can tell you this much. The areas I catch 8 + lbers are usually 'carnage zones' (thanks Paul at The Nature of Fishing....). These are sort of high percentage check points that occur on and around main lake structure, especially the heaviest pieces of cover at the optimum depth for the season (this summer the magic depth has been 9-10 feet). Identifying these key pieces of structure and then the key pieces of cover and then fishing them often and as many seemingly high percentage times of year and day as you can. If I feel like 'its a good day for a bite ' for whatever generic reason, I almost always catch a big one, so don't doubt your instincts.

I'm not saying you HAVE to basically just throw a jig or worm almost exclusively to catch giant bass, but it certainly seems to put the odds greatly in my favor when I'm throwing one of those around here. I've caught em on plenty of other things but the numbers of giant bass I've gotten to bite have overwhelming been on worms or jigs.

I feel like the bass are so dialed in seasonally here, it would be super easy to get to thinking something wouldn't catch fish until you figure out when and where it works. Thing is, do we have time or patience to glean that information when we can catch em on every cast on an old standby? Probably not. Buzzbait is slowly becoming like this for me. I KNOW these things catch BIG fish in my state and nearby states this time of year. I know I'm fishing it well technique and location wise. I just haven't figured out the timing /conditions I need to be looking for on my lakes. Will I ever figure it out? Gosh I hope so.

I always wait to feel the fish and reel fast and then set the hook like a worm as folks say. Firm and quick. Sometimes you feel the fish instantly. Sometimes they take a second to chomp down on it good. This is why it's important to reel fast when they blow up. You can't feel the fish great on slack line with braid so getting that slack out of the line is essential. Sometimes they eat it and swim with their mouths open towards you. Nothing you can do about that and those ones almost always get away unhooked. Bend the hook points so that they're pointing up and away from the frog and you'll hook a lot more fish.

I have felt this unraveling feeling you speak of. When the blow up comes at the end of a 100 ft bomb cast before I have time to reel down in the pitch black after two hours of casting with no action, it WAKES YOU UP. ?????

@ol'cricketyyou definitely inspire me to throw topwater this summer and it's been extremely educational and fun. I'm thankful for your influence in that regard and now I can definitely say the frog is always in my hand as I walk the bank or take the boat out. It may not be the best topwater for hookups but I have supreme confidence in it now and it's been catching me big fish this summer! ?????

Berkley hit stick comes in a big version and megabass Kanata if you're feeling fancy! Big jerk bait season is definitely coming and I'm excited!

I have never not broken my leader knots on baitcasters. Some people make it work and love it! I can tell my knots are good. With spinning tackle I think it's fun. The drag on spinning gear lends itself to leader knots better I think. YMMV.

I'm partial to the old Zara Spook. Those are silent right?

Okay, so a really important part of getting the right action out of your skirt is manicuring it nicely. I like to turn it upside down and start feathering it out from the inside out cutting little bits of it out and kind of working my way down and get it to where the skirt is no longer impeding the trailer and also has kind of an unevenness to it and randomness and is thinner which is very critical for swim jigs. Second, you need a trailer that really gets that thing thumping and I feel that the x zone swammer and the gambler EZ are second to none when it comes to making that skirt dance and the jig wiggle on the retrieve. Out of the package, swim jigs often don't do a whole lot of much and if you got a trailer on it that doesn't thump hard, it's really not going to do much. Give these tips a try and get back out there and work it real slow even letting it fall and hopping it and dragging it occasionally just like a normal jig. Work it around really nasty cover and places that normal people won't put their bait. Try to stay open-minded and you'll catch a giant.

I got that exact one @Catt. Might be tossing it tonight ? On super sunny days white bellies don't suddenly turn black or transparent. At night or when it's cloudy, white bellied critters are also still white bellied. I think plenty of other colors will work when bass are hot and ready to go....but..... When fish look up they're mostly just looking for a belly. I'm sure there are times when some specific color might outproduce white and it's good to be prepared but I'm still thinking white is gonna get bit by topwater fish more than any other color. Because 99% of natures bellies... regardless of reptile, mammal or fish or bird are white.