Pat Brown

Time to go fishing I reckon! That's the kind of change those bass just can't get enough of this time of year.

You betcha. 3/8, 1/2 and I like 3/4 because reaction strikes and getting deep fast. Also my favorite weight for stroking a jig. I would get black and blue and some sort of brown/purple and some sorta green/orange/blue and you should be golden. Jigs are less about mimicking a specific kind of forage and more about creating a reaction strike from aggressive fish. Rate of fall and action and profile are your key considerations. Color in general tends to be secondary but these colors work in all water clarity and all seasons on largemouth bass.

I feel like the times when color matters the most is when visibility is very poor or exceptionally good or when the bass are keyed in on something very specific. Beyond that, when you're getting a generic run of the mill reaction strike, I think it matters zero.

Fluorocarbon leader???

That's a lights out session anyone would consider a lifetime day down here. Congratulations @ol'crickety Your bass are so dark and plump. I love the football player physique of northern LMB.

@LrgmouthShad: popular mod is swapping in the smallest and thinnest willow blades you can find on the heaviest spinnerbait you've got (ideally 3/4 oz). You can keep it very very low and move it very very slow and keep those blades spinning hard and fast. This is the deep offshore structure spinnerbait mod that people who use them all winter for deep water giants really like.

I actually mod my lipless crankbaits so they sound and look different so I can't imagine it being different for a diving bait that has a unique sound or action that stands out above all the others made exactly the same way. Glide bait anglers talk about this all the time actually. I figure this is the same thing as rigging a menace vertical vs horizontal on a jig. Another one I've noticed lately: when you take the time to get your pegged weight and soft plastic aligned and seamlessly rigged with no gap where the not is below the weight, you get tons more bites, I reckon on account of it looking a whole lot more natural. Sometimes a little tweak can mean suddenly a bait gets bit on every cast. Bass are site feeders and I think something that looks a little different is a big deal.

There's like six varieties of sunfish, including bluegill in most of the ponds and lakes around here, but the presence of crappie and/or some kind of shiner definitely seems to dictate whether or not there are giant bass similarly to trout out west etc Id keep fishing that pond for sure.

If there's a crappie fed bass pond, probably a giant bass or 5 in there. Crappie seem to make bass fat and happy as far as I can tell. The funny thing is I hear on all these podcasts with the pond management seminar type discussions that crappie ruin bass fishing and that they should be kept far away from lakes and ponds with aspirations of trophy fish, but I have seen the exact opposite on my small ponds and big lakes here in NC. Usually if there's crappie, there's giant bass. Seems like the bodies of water that DON'T have crappie, the average size of the bass is much smaller.

And sometimes they want the 6 inch and sometimes they want a 3 inch. Sometimes they want it fast. Sometimes they want it slow. Sometimes they want it to fall like a rocket. Sometimes they want it to float. Bass are weird but it's fun.

You can fish a bluff a lot like you would fish an offshore steep face on a hump or off of a flat. Lot of the same techniques and wisdom apply. Find cover on those steeper drops that hold bait fish and adjust your presentation to the depth they're keyed in on. People can fish 30 ft of water in the center of the lake and 1 ft of water at the back of a creek the same way and catch fish. But I think that understanding that offshore fishing is about identifying these underwater locations that draw fish in is maybe the reason it's a separate thing. It's more of a maps/electronics/structure deal. Shallow is more about visual targets.

Here in NC it seems to matter a lot. The seasons really seem to be clearly defined and fish key in on different things like clockwork as the seasons change. If you're not aware of their schedule and trying to present baits in line with where and what they're feeding on, you're gonna have a tough time. Classic example would be that right now a frog seems to be the most productive technique along with a worm. Most of the year they won't touch a frog. Worms work year round but the size and rate of fall and action of the bait that I choose in the summer will be different from the size and rate of fall and action I choose in the winter. Finding active fish and figuring out what they're eating can help dial in your presentations seasonally.

Senkos work best weightless for me but I seem to catch more fish in general when I have a senko tied on in lieu of other stick baits. Love the big bite bait and Yum stick baits as well as the Berkley General and Strike King Ocho. Caught fish on all of them and they all fish a little differently from one another. Main thing is just use what works for you and don't sweat when people say that "x is the best" about any bait. Just means it's better for them on their water. If it's catching you fish, it's good!

What's really stupid is when people are afraid to ask questions. This is a good discussion and we're all learning something here.

@LrgmouthShad I compare it to fishing inside of a labrador retrievers mouth that just got done playing fetch. At least here in NC, that's how it feels. Bring 4 large canteens of ice water and lots of sunscreen and you still end up burned and dehydrated. It's downright dangerous.

When I first got into bass fishing a little over a year ago now one of the first things I did was hit this spot at sunset during the summer A lot where I knew fish were. It was just kind of like a little pocket along a public trail where I could see them feeding occasionally and busting occasionally and caught a few here and there on this and that. I brought a pumpkin (not green pumpkin) Zoom finesse worm and dipped its tail in chartreuse dye and fished it on a 2/0 worm hook with an unpegged 1/8 oz lead sinker and I caught 5 bass in 5 minutes and the biggest was 4 lb. It was unreal. Definitely don't sleep on the finesse worm.

I'm certainly getting very very excited for hunting season but probably not for the same reasons you are ??? For me personally fishing gets really fun in October ???

Excellent video Glenn. This summer I committed myself to offshore fishing and plan to do the same thing this winter! It can be incredibly fun when conditions set up for it!

Lately I've been slaying with a 4" senko and a 2/0 hook and a pegged 3/8 oz sinker on 15 lb fluorocarbon. I can bomb this rig on a bait caster and I just 'hop hop pause. Hop hop hop pause' all the way back to the bank at the super shallow pressured pond with clear water and it's getting bit a lot. This rig also flips and skips exceptionally well. Excited to test it off shore this weekend at the lake.

@GoneFishingLTN In my experience they hang in different locations. The young ones school up like crazy and suspend near hard cover and shade in very very skinny water. The bigger ones seem to disappear after the spawn and move back to deeper haunts. Of course things like a mayfly hatch will radically change this on your lake for a few days.

Baitcasters, I like shallower spools but I don't like the super shallow BFS spools. Main reason is it saves me money on line and I hate backing. With bass I've never had a bass come close to spooling me but I er on the side of heavier line and winching and lean on my drag a lot less than some folks. With spinning rods I'm the opposite. Gimme as deep a spool as I can find I want to bomb that bait out there. I use as light line and hooks as I can get away with and use my drag liberally because thats usually what works for those techniques. I haven't caught a LMB on a spinning rod this summer. I have only caught them on plastics and jigs, frogs and bigger crank baits at my home lakes. Caught one on a popper but they seemed to wise up to that fast this year.

This is when you fire the cannons! Avast! Y'aarrrrr!

Crayfish are active during lowlight periods. ?

They're gonna still be loaded up shallow. That's not only 'not terribly hot', it's optimum temperature for a shad spawn and bluegill spawning, so you should be fine targeting bass up shallow still. Some bluegill will spawn deep and will use those steep drops with hard cover that intersect with the thermocline. Especially when they also intersect with shadelines. Big bass will gravitate towards all of this.

How hot is your surface temperature currently and how hot was it last week?