Pat Brown

I pretty much cut it off when the guides on my fishing poles and/or the surface of the lakes and ponds I fish freeze - anything warmer than that - I will fish for bass. My preference is to fish 40 or warmer for air temperature. Don’t get very many bites when it’s consistently lower than 40 during the middle of the day time. Best days in the winter are warm sunny days with little to no wind where the water is wet.

I use 65 lb braid lol

Generally speaking - the bodies of water I fish are so small - you just move because they know you’re there and stop biting if they didn’t bite and they know you’re there and stop biting if they did bite whether you catch one or not. I will check good spots a couple times in a day sometimes but for the most part - moving seems to work best on very small fisheries that see a ton of pressure.

Been using this knot for many years! My personal favorite for any monofilament type line that’s larger in diameter. The double San Diego jam is my go to for pre spawn jig fishing! That knot is tough!

They just came out with a 7’ medium heavy fast and I’m getting them for everyone in the family this Christmas for cheap frog rods for our backyard!

Hear me out - the ozark trail rods from Walmart that cost 35$ are really really good rods. I am still using the one I bought in 2020 and many many more expensive rods have died since 2020 - ozark stands strong. It’s sensitive and light and the guides aren’t complete trash. The reel seat isn’t complete trash. Cork composite grips.

Absolute certainty is not the goal or the result of learning bass habits and behaviors to better predict their location to catch them. It’s like some people enjoy being able to do a puzzle with the lights on. It’s still a puzzle.

I am gonna be the odd person who says that in fact - yes - bass are doing very similar things in the fall and spring. Obviously fish the conditions you’re presented with but as the water gets into the mid 50s - I’m doing a lot of the same things in a lot of the same places during both seasons.

I start by finding a spot that has giant bass. I don’t look at fishing pages or ask people if there are giant bass - I walk the banks at sunrise and sunset and look with my eyes for the giant bass and if I see them - I might devote some time to that fishery. I have found that lots of giant bass live in places where people catch dinks or are “fished out” around here. Once my spot with giant bass is selected - I like to start by fishing mid day/sunset and on weekdays. I usually skip weekends and early mornings until I have a sense of where fish live and what they eat. Fish tend to get tight lipped on weekends when they are being fished for constantly. Early morning has been very good to me but only during certain seasons and conditions so I am a lot more selective about my mornings these days and feel it is for the best. The odds of catching a giant bass tend to be the best at mid day so that’s when I really like to go. The next order of business is figuring out where the big forage is. What is the food that can sustain these bass and where is this forage reproducing and where does it feed. My experience is that with giant bass - location is everything with timing being a close second place everything. Location is MOSTLY around food EVEN during times where they are spawning. Really big girls will make a nest next to 300 sunfish beds for the easy pickings during a taxing time. They also take full advantage of the predatory nest raiding golden shiner and gizzard shad populations they make their nests near - I believe even enjoying guarding their nests and the calories it provides at certain times. Really big girls typically require patience and close attention to detail and persistence. You have to be in the right place at the right time often and those locations and windows change seasonally as conditions move plankton and baitfish around. I am a strong advocate for cracking the giant bass code one fishery at a time - meaning - once you’ve established you’re in a place with giant bass - you don’t go try other spots for fun every other day - you commit to these big fish until you figure out how to catch one and then you try to catch a bigger one using what you learned from the first big one. My experience is - dancing around from spot to spot casually you can get lucky occasionally but to get out of the 6-8 lb range and into the true giant range around here - you really have to learn those fish and commit to one body of water to do so. You know you’re dialed in when you can put yourself around them every single day even if you’re not hooking or catching them. There’s nothing more exciting than figuring out where and when they feed and being in the thick of it with your heart racing and the clock ticking and the sun going down and you just got bit but she shook it and you think maybe if I real quick tie on a little smaller bait - they’ll fully commit….the thrill of it when you’re really fishing one cast at a time for big ones and you KNOW it is very very hard to top and I’d take it over casual opportunistic chucking and winding any day. The feeling you get when you are this dialed in and SUCCEED is impossible to quantify and it’s what makes trophy bass fishing unique. These are smart smart fish.

I love Smithwick, Cordell, Storm, Rapala, Bomber - they all catch the snot out of fish but I can throw the bomber and Cordell stuff into heavy cover without being extremely worried about snagging and as a result I tend to catch nicer fish on them. you can upgrade hardware and hooks if you really want to be fancy and make a 3$ bait a 5$ bait that catches like a 12$ bait etc.

One time I gave her slack and saw her pulling and swimming 30 feet to the left of us with my line buried in the wood 5 feet in front of me - whoops. I have definitely gotten a fish or two letting them swim but REALLY big ones seem to take everything you give them rather than swim out. You can lean hard on a very big bass with 20 lb big game and a stout rod and powerful reel - and they run out of steam and come the way you tell them when your gear is up to the task.

20 lb big game has kept fish hooked for 1 hour while I disassembled a beaver dam she pulled into - when you use 20 lb big game you should be able to get away with much tighter drag and that helps turn their head on the initial run. Also a big and powerful rod and reel both help for this application. Unfortunately when a fish gets running into a tree - you usually just lose them - if your line wraps around something even once - you’re probably SOL. Turning their head initially is everything.

Caught fish on everything from something I found snagged in a tree to a 35$ bait I waited years for the right moment to throw and the good news is - the fish you catch is the same amount fun for both. I think nice lures are worth the money because often times they’re more enjoyable to fish and get more bites even if they cost a bit more. I also enjoy cheap lures because I can be reckless and do things to get bites I wouldn’t dare doing with my nicer stuff. Like so many things in fishing - it’s all worth it in the right context! Heck the Spro frogs I like throwing are getting close to 20$ a pop and I thankfully mostly paid 5-10$ a piece for the ones I own and I have a few I’ve caught a hundred fish and counting on - in this case - definitely worth the money to me. I have Alabama rigs rusting at the bottom of lakes that snapped off on the third cast that I paid 50$ for - not worth it to me! 👍🙂

I’ve only used pork twice - both times I was broken off instantly on the hook set fishing deep rock structure in the winter on 20 lb big game. I’d say it gets bigger than average bites.

White chartreuse is about all I throw for spinnerbaits!

99.9% of all “sexy shad” frogs are *drumroll* white belly with a red throat. That means the bass is seeing - yep - white and red.

Dwight that’s the stuff dreams are made of right there. Legendary!

Keep on rippin lips and learning and enjoying the ride!

Hard agree - in NC - you really can’t beat fall and sometimes fall basically lasts til February and then we get two weeks of winter and they start spawning - really hoping we get a winter like that this year! 🙂

Lost plenty of glide baits and Alabama rigs aka baits I don’t fish anymore lol

Adult gizzard shad also eat little gizzard shad and little bass and little panfish and little crappie - which is one of the reasons people advise against stocking them on small ponds without large predator fish already taking up residence!

Threadfin also die if you look at them crosseyed - small gizzards are confused for threadfin around here all the time just because they’re small. I don’t think unless people stock threadfin annually - that they stand a much of a chance if there’s healthy populations of gizzards and golden shiners present (there usually are) and your winters get properly cold (ours do).

you ain’t gotta fish it on the bottom - I caught 10 in an hour last week burning one under the surface over thick grass 😉👍

I’m really hoping NC gets to pretend we are Florida or Texas this winter like 2023 (the Winter of Giants). 2024 we had ice for 3 months and it was really tough on me paychologically 🤪🤪🤪. Tired of when we pretend we are Michigan in the winter - it’s not as fun. If we are gearing up for a milder winter - fun is just about to start. If we get hit with a proper winter and get a 3 month sheet of ice - gonna be learning to tie jigs too 🥹

I use silent lipless - blade baits are very close to a silent lipless also. I also use suspending lipless baits. Really they all have a time and place but when I’m on a good lipless bite - regardless of water clarity or fishing pressure - the rattle seems to produce the best. Dunno why.