Pat Brown

@BluegillsTightlines - hard to tell in the pics from here but almost looks like the same fish - awesome fish story and experience though! That’s a hawg!

Been a while again but mostly been busy - but had some fun with @IcatchDinks on a boat with buzzbaits! the backyard pond has continued to produce many little fat fish like this one: The morning sky is perfect in the fall and this is the view I get sometimes from where I’m casting: caught this nice fish in the creek next to my house on a free rig bubblegum trick worm and on the scale she was 4 lb 7 oz: A little beat up looking but a nice fish. I managed to get this tank to hit the Copper Red Baits Tsunami frog at about 4 am when I was unable to sleep and felt like walking the bank - she hit right at my feet and I could see her wake waddle right up to the frog in inches of rocky water - it was wild! She didn’t go on the scale but she was bigger than the 4 lb 7 oz fish by a good bit!

If all they will eat is an A-Rig I’m doing chores! 😝😝😝😝

exactly! It’s a good day for fishing during all conditions - that’s part of the fun of the whole thing is figuring that out! Sure clouds might mean a certain group of fish in a certain area on the lake stop biting but it don’t mean it’s not firing up a different group of fish on a different section of the lake. Knowing how to capitalize on these changes and adapt your presentation might just be the actual skill that is bass fishing!

May he rest in peace. One of NCs finest. Glad to bring his music to others!

To each their own! All it takes is one good cast 👍😎

Casting out in front of you with a little wrist movement instead of a big arm movement - handy when bank fishing tight stuff with trees and such all about.

I’m gonna offer some middle ground thoughts - I think rain and clouds can be BIG time good - *sometimes* - and BIG time bad - *sometimes* - and do virtually nothing to the bite - *sometimes*….. Allow me to expand: Lets say it’s late July and it’s been hot for 14 days straight with no wind getting heavier than 3 mph for more than an hour mid day and you can see shad on the surface dying and the few bass you catch are sore and beat up and skinny. These late summer early fall doldrums - I find - can be completely destroyed by cold rainy fronts that oxygenate the shallow water, wash away harmful algae and scum, wash bugs and terrestrial life into the water and get the creeks flowing and the dam pulling etc - big time fun time. This time of year especially - I’m always watching for those *cool* rainy fronts that usually signal the beginning of fall - lights out days have been had. Now let’s say it’s mid December and it’s been sunny for 4 days and warming up a bit with very low wind and you’ve been catching fish on jerkbaits and jigs mid day around wood on structure etc - life is good - suddenly a big rainy front that’s all of 38 degrees and windy as all get out wallops the banks you’ve been cleaning up on. That is some clouds and rain that will surely kill your bite deader than a doorknob. Lets say it’s April and it’s been warming steady for a few weeks at this stage and water temps are a fairly stable 70 ish - you get a week of steady 70 ish degree rain that comes and goes but mostly comes. The kind where it’s too warm for a jacket and it’s too cool for shorts and a t shirt and it just kinda pitter patters on and on - I find this does absolutely nothing to the bite at these times of years - fish continue going on about their business doing whatever it is they feel like doing. So yeah - it depends. I will simply echo - you can’t catch em if you aren’t casting so get out there and fish - usually that’s the best time to catch them is whenever I can go.

Ah yes the fishing log or laydown as I like to call them — great place to flip a jig 😉😉😉

the ones you’re bumping into are not at risk of being caught because they know you are you - or perhaps they don’t see you as a threat because they have tabs on you - I see bluegill swimming with big bass similarly - I think if you lunged at the bass near your kayak - they’d probably vacate the area in a hurry! I also think some fish are very locked in areas biologically and some fish are more free at various times in their lives! whether fish attack a splash or swim away from it varies directly day to day in proportion to how many fish are around and competing and how often the fish have been caught after a splash etc etc etc

You can’t be stealthy enough in a boat - they know you’re there just as sure as you know when someone barges in your front door screaming at 2 am.

Frog/buzzbait/worm/jig

I think think it sounds like you’re probably walking and casting a bit too much and fishing your baits a little bit too mechanically and expecting the bait to do the work - this is easy to do when we are learning because every tactical bassing video makes it sound like you just throw x during some particular season and you will catch fish - basically in 2025 - it’s way way more complicated. I would actually pick one bait that you’re extremely confident will catch you bass and then fish only that technique every time you go and try fishing it slowly try fishing it very, very, very slow slowly. Try only fishing it in areas you’re extremely confident should hold fish. Don’t just walk and cast. It’s so easy to forget to be intentional when we become mechanical. Timing is a big factor in fishing and you can’t just show up to any old body of water any old time and expect to catch fish anymore. Fish are highly educated and highly pressured and the majority of the time a very nuanced presentation is required to register as potentially something to bite vs definitely not something to bite - fish become conditioned very quickly to things landing clumsily on the surface and feet plodding the banks and tall dark shapes moving towards them in the distance along the water edge and then additionally annoying chatter bait knocking sounds and other mechanical and predictable lure categories get learned fast. I suggest the humble trick worm. It works 365 days a year and there’s 366 ways to rig it that all catch bass from 4” - 24” and beyond. It works in all conditions if you understand the ways you can present it to fish in when water clarity or wind or cover or forage preferences shift around seasonally - because you will absolutely have to understand to have success with just ONE bait category consistently let alone the whole tackle box. My experience is not that fish are biting X or Y. One person will absolutely wreck them on a chatter bait and then somebody else will catch a limit and big ones on a frog while another person does really well fishing a shaky head on ledges and what it really boils down to is your skill set the fish will bite just about anything if you’re good fishing baits around fish. imagine every time you picked up your smart phone, it was a different make and model with a different user interface. You’d probably go insane pretty quickly and want to throw your phone out the window because you would never remember or know where anything is - the user interface icon’s and branding and the way to access different functions would change every time you picked up your phone. This is what it’s like with lure categories AND bodies of water!!! Start with one bait AND one body of water you’re confident in and you will learn the fish you can catch is my suggestion. And think about high percentage times to fish and locations and structure and cover and don’t just show up expecting to catch fish any old time any old place walking and casting with any old bait because that doesn’t work for anybody! Be super stealthy and learn how to cast quietly - it’s worth its weight in gold and it’s more important than any tackle you can buy 😉😉😉

I fish slow retrieves while fishing fast all the time! Cadence is not how fast you’re fishing it’s how fast your bait is moving and cadence or tempo as Bobby Barrack calls it - can be extremely important. sometimes the fish are eating whatever lands in the water and sometimes you’ve got to talk them into biting. I catch a lot of very large fish with very slow cadence and also very fast cadence so I just try to do both in very fishy looking areas. I almost ALWAYS start with a slow cadence in a good area and try the silly stuff just to see if they’re stupid and aggressive before leaving.

Yes to all - the fish will tell you kinda and sometimes you feel like a few different retrieves or casts are in order but generally putting my bait as many places as possible as quickly as possible is the name of the game and I may alter surface bottom or mid column as I walk and will vary retrieve until I get bit and then try to replicate that in other areas etc.

Only fish 2 top waters ever - that’s how I do it. frog and buzz bait are all I ever ever throw.

My best days are the days it gets cold in the fall! They put the feed bag on. you just gotta cover water and make them react I usually speed up. This time of year wind and structure and bait are all good.

In the mean time try a small mouse style wakebait for similar fun! 😉😉😉🐁 🐁🐁 My son wrecks them on the tiny one made by CL8 baits. It’s essentially an egg shape with a lip and a sharp hook! He’s only got one - not 40 - but they’re readily available and get bit and he’s still tossing it and catching fish with it - no signs of needing 39 more any time soon. Also the old jitterbug gets a lot of bites. strike king makes some awesome wake baits also. I’m sure BPS will reissue the egg eventually.

I smoke them with a beaver or craw on a jig or t rig - just hasn’t worked on the free rig. Odd! Bass are odd after all. The Zoom Magnum Speed Worm is the one I like and then any unsalted 10+ inch ribbon tail or trick worm all are worms that have worked extremely well for me. I like the Berkeley Power Worm, Big Bite Baits B2 worm, Culprit, Deep Creek Lures, Dave’s Tournament Tackle, X Zone etc just unsalted is important to get that tail kinda undulating in the current and on the fall. I like to rig them with the plastic a cm or so past the hook eye so they really dart and glide! enjoy!

I need to come here and set the record straight - I committed to the free rig at my new house because they wouldn’t bite any thing. I have caught probably 200 bass since mid July and all on a free rig. flukes are amazing on a free rig with the right hook and when you are moving it more and searching more. Trick worm is also amazing for this. haven’t had a single bite with the beavers or craws. by a country mile my best producers are the boring 10” culprit ribbon tails that are unsalted and sort of float and undulate and the mag speed worm which really naturally separates and glides and is nice and easy to cast with even a 1/8 oz sinker.

My experience is that usually they stop biting if they get fished for enough - maybe they are not fished for enough!? -but they will never stop using that spot! You found key structure and bait uses structure in current to filter plankton and algae and bass are never far from bait.

My biggest jig bass were all taken with paddle tail trailers across the years followed by flappy craws. I’ve done decent with chunks/ pork but don’t know if they average bigger bass or not!

My experience is that algae blooms really shut the fishing down a bit but if you can find banks where there are baitfish that aren’t dying - you can find bass this time of year. Black is my go to when water is clear and there’s algae or vegetation on the surface. The baits would be buzz bait, floating worm, frog, swim jig, t rig etc - same lures I always try!

Long and short of it is that bass do not necessarily or even often think they are eating when they strike a lure at all! A lot of times they’re instinctively driving things away from an area that they are compelled to protect biologically.

I’m very anti banning things in general if everyone has access to it but I think on the subject of tournament fishing - the fact that it has SO little of an impact on the end results AND causes SO much controversy and negative energy surrounding the industry - banning or limiting its usage makes a lot of sense for the sport. I think the technology is good and should be legal for people to use when guiding or fishing commercially or recreationally. I like learning for myself and FFS just lets people do that for once instead of some nonsensical bass master magazine drivel that is intended to sell a bait.