Pat Brown

You're gonna want a long heavy power rod with a more moderate action tip and some really heavy braid and like others have said you're gonna want to reel fast and walk backwards. I'd go 7'6 or bigger for what you're doing.

When you're vertically jigging a trailer free, weed guard free skirted jig with eyeballs you're fishing a silicone hair jig more or less. Nothing wrong with that at all but it's a different presentation than swimming a jig which is a horizontal deal and definitely relies much more on the 'action' of the bait creating the proper lift and fall rate and wiggle to entice bites in harmony with the profile. Color seems to be the least important thing but sometimes it can make a big difference!

I have far and away the best results with paddle tail swim bait style trailers in the 3-5" range. All the ones mentioned here are great and I will add the Yum Scottsboro Minnow and the Gambler EZ which both have caught me a pile of fish and giants on the backs of swim jigs. Trimming and thinning out your skirt both so it has proper secondary action and so it doesn't impede the action of your trailer IS critical to really getting into fishing swim jigs and tapping into their fish catching properties. My favorite way to fish here on my lowland reservoir loaded with threadfin shad/gizzard shad/shiners/crappie/sunfish/perch. Big fish with take the rod out of your hand with a swim jig. Slowly swimming it on the bottom so it's bumping into everything and giving it pauses and popping debris free every so often has caught me giants. Slow rolling it 'just in site' past cover like a spinner bait or chatterbait has caught me giants. Dragging them through rocks has caught me fish on days they wouldn't touch a worm or a craw. If baitfish is on the menu at your fishery, your gonna get your arm broke eventually if you keep tossing it! 3/8 - 1/2 oz work really well even in shallow water in my experience so don't sleep on throwing a heavier weight than everyone says to. I really like the 1/2 oz swim jig for the slow bottom bumping technique! Have fun it's probably my favorite way to fish!

I have it. It sucks. Also was treated for Lyme disease when I was a teenager. I am also a tick magnet. Basically, best advice I can give is get those ticks off quick when you find em on you. Go to the doctor if you feel weird or a bite isn't healing right. As far as prevention, tuck everything into everything and wear layers (hard to do in the summer), but going through tall grass like that you're lucky you didn't get covered in chigger bites also! They're almost worse than ticks.

I learn a ton on Alex Rudd's show when he interviews fisheries biologists and pond mgmt. Well worth the time on a car trip or a bad day for getting out where you're cooped up doing chores.

Been a rainy cold front but me and jr found a dink at the pond in the rain after work anyways. Supposed to be warmer and rain today so maybe we catch a bigger fish today? Definitely got my sites on the weekend at this point but I have been enjoying the nobody at the pond the nasty weather has brought!

Yamamoto twin tail grubs, zoom super Chunk Jr., SK Baby rage menace, Gambler boxer craw, Berkley chigger craw 3", Missile Baits mini D Chunk. Don't be afraid to try a small paddle tail swim bait trailer like a storm largo shad/SK rage swimmer/gambler EZ/X Zone Swammer on a smaller jig profile. The menace/chunk/twin tail grubs seem to consistently get bit when everything else is failing. The paddle tail trailers are the only thing that work at certain bodies of water I fish so at that point it's just different size/profile which is why I mention it's worth trying.

Weightless plastics work exceptionally well when dealing with a silty bottom. Flukes/senkos/the newer heavy scat style plastics all would work very well I would think. Buzz toad also. I like a 1/4 oz swim jig with a trailer that gives it good lift swam very low /parallel to cover and paused/banged into the hard cover when possible. Basically just keep things moving. If you can find hard spots anywhere/places where wind and current beat on some stuff and keep it fairly clean, targeting those areas during feeding windows will serve you well. Topwater is great if they will bite it. Suspending jerkbaits/super shallow/lipless cranks can work very well. Spinnerbait and chatterbait can be awesome. Sometimes the fish key on things rooting around on the bottom and stirring up the stuff generates bites. Times like this, a heavy jig or t rig dragged through the silt very slowly will often catch very large fish. Every body of water and population of fish is a little different so you're just gonna have to experiment! I definitely think weightless soft plastics are a great place to start/build confidence with any new body of water.

I like banks and offshore structure with a steep incline any time of year and at virtually any depth. Steep inclines seem to attract bass and even more so when they have cover. One lake I fish, the upper end is a huge muddy flat that's all about 1 ft deep and then there's a bridge connecting it to the rest of the lake where it's 7 ft deep directly under the bridge. The drop from 1 to 7 ft has lots of brush and stumps and rock and hold lots of big fish and bait year round and they move up and down in that small area where 7 ft is "deep" relative to that end of the lake and what fish there experience seasonally. In the middle, 17 ft is the deepest water and there are ledges and offshore sandbars where you'll be casting to stumps and brush piles in 4.5 ft that's a few yards away from 17 ft deep water. These areas tend to hold big fish and bait schools year round and fish move up and down on structure to feed for all sorts of reasons that change with conditions and seasons. Really I'd just get some way of mapping depth or find a bathymetric map online to aid you or start dragging a Carolina rig Round and count it down on casts and you'll start to figure it out. Good luck!

My fishing partner is 10 years old and he's half me. It's the best. I am so lucky to be his dad. I know there will come a time in my life when memories of these golden days will keep me going and not much else will.

Love my bluegill 1/2 oz spinnerbait from Siebert Outdoors. Those blades really thump and flash in a special way.

I really like night fishing for bass. Does wonders for your bite detection and you're gauranteed to get a few extra trophy class bass each year you commit some nights to it! Bring bug spray, a headlamp, a scale with fresh batteries (you'll probably need it) I haven't gotten out at night yet with Jake but summer is just getting started and it was a ritual last year during the dog days where it was miserable and still during the daytime. During the late winter and early spring, my favorite time to fish is the hour or so before sunrise and the hour following sunrise. Seems like the really big fish are the first ones to really activate in the shallows and they're most catchable and actively feeding in those pre dawn low light windows.

I am grateful for this community. The number of no BS, pragmatic and seasoned bass anglers here is staggering and the regional perspectives we often get as students of one location or area are always quite rewarding to experience. I find my northern bass fishing or west coast angler cousins from afar often have regional wisdom that holds true in my waters and is not often used just to name one functional application of this particular phenomenon. The amount of science and biology and fish behavior observation collectively being shared here is probably the most thorough in existence about largemouth bass specifically. I also appreciate that you hear a lot more about bass behavior and fish behavior than lures here. Reading things of that sort led me to a 9 lber in February and hopefully a double digit soon! The fish behavior stuff is the real juice and lots of guys preach that almost exclusively and it's appreciated.

Jimmy Houston says the exact opposite. He says there's no better attractant than bass scent on your bait because it seems to a bass like it must have just narrowly escaped being eaten. I don't think it really matters at all. I use plastics til they don't sit on the hook or jig head anymore and bite them down repeatedly and never have issues getting a bite. I do save my old plastics for one day melting and repouring.....in a plastic container at home.

I don't really think it's a hard fast rule and I think there are times and places where top water not only doesn't scare them, it attracts them etc. Another thing maybe I should specify: perhaps it doesn't exactly scare them away specifically. Poor choice of words. It just turns them off. Like a bunch of loud boaters or something might. They recognize it as unnatural and stop eating til they no longer perceive the unnatural disturbance. Some days they don't turn back on some days it takes 20 minutes for them to warm back up in an area. I think that top water is the first choice of every weekend angler in the state on most of the bodies of water that I fish and I think it's more just fish at my bodies of water are over it most of the time. Schooling shad off shore? Evening bluegill spawn? Fry guarders? Etc etc etc. Sure it works great. It's situational at best for us here in Greensboro. Do I still have two or three poles rigged with different topwater presentations in the boat or car at all times til September *anyway*? You bet. A boy can dream ?

The bait monkey is probably gonna read my eulogy some day. ? The monkey and I are very close friends. ?

I took a while to warm up to jigs before they became my most productive and used technique that would end up catching me the lions share of giants in my life so far. One might say the Chatterbait last summer was my doorway into the world of jig fishing and really gave me the confidence to start throwing them when I realized the situations they'd eat the CB in were so situational. Still, between July and August last year, a white 3/8 oz chatterbait with a z craw on the back caught most of my big fish. It's awesome in the dead of summer when the wind is blowing.

Totally dependent on a lot of things. I usually start with slow bottom baits that are quiet and subtle and work my way up in the water column and really only try topwater if I feel conditions are good for it, which seems pretty situational. Wind, what bass are keying in on naturally, sunlight and shade, cover, mood and personality of individual fish and presentation all play a big part in a topwater strike and you just get a feel for what your fish like with experimentation and time on the water/bank playing around with them. During active feeding windows topwaters work best so I like them early in the morning and late in the day this time of year.

I think this is true, but in my low visibility water it's important for them to know to get the heck away when they hear sounds that aren't normal! ????

I've never used rattles and I've never seen an animal that rattles around here and honestly bass hunt by sight and I catch my biggest fish on jigs consistently. I'd focus more on rate of fall, profile, action of the trailer and then maybe color but really just use black and blue and you'll be fine.

Never a fan of obligations that cut into fishing time but it's a part of life and we learn to accept it. Also it makes the fishing that much sweeter when it comes back! I also like to think I'm giving the fish a little break and they'll bite that much better when I come back. Enjoy your family time and get ready for a broken arm and a bent rod when you get back to your water.

The megabass dark sleeper is probably what you want. It is a dead ringer for a goby and people say they work really well dragged on the bottom and hopped along like a jig.

Today after work we had a really fun quick session and got some bass on poppers and Jake caught a white Nile tilapia and shared it with the kids who were playing before letting it go. Can't wait for more topwater action this week!!! @AlabamaSpothunter you're a kind gentleman and a brilliant bass fisherman and he's honored to have you say such nice things about his future bass fishing. He's gonna try to make good on all of that! ??????

Had some fun this weekend. No Giants but plenty of happy memories and some nice ones mixed in. Caught a slab crappie and Jake asked if we could keep it and we had crappie fresh from the lake last night. Forgot how good fresh crappie tastes!

There are days when you better set hard and fast or you ain't getting nothing in the boat. Just takes experience on your lake with your fish to know if it's one of those days. In general I set the hook on most bites because I can usually tell they got it in their mouth good pretty easy by feel. It's not necessarily a prolonged pause we're talking here it's just a 'stay aware of your bait and line for a millisecond or two while getting bit and when you feel a change reel down and get em. Worth pointing out how long fish will often swim with a bait in their mouths simply because I think as anglers we get locked into the idea that every bass is instantly gonna spit our bait out when it's not a shad. It's something to explore if you find you're pulling the bait away from fish a lot.