Pat Brown

I really like the Irod gen 3 Fred’s magic stick a lot! It has caught me many many frog bass up to 9 lb and it works well for setting the hook up close and far away - pretty versatile. It’s a heavy action but it has some tip and I can skip and cast smaller frogs in addition to bigger frogs well with it. The guides are Fuji and seem to stand up to all the braid and junk and horsing fish through slop with flying colors.

@king fisher - you have good logic but some of the key details that make lactic acid build up fatal for a bass and not for you and I: Closed vs. Open System Clearance: When you exercise intensely, your body shuttles lactate to the liver to be converted back into energy via the Cori Cycle or oxidizes it. In a bass, the lactic acid is dumped from the muscle directly into the bloodstream, where it drastically drops the blood pH. The "Bohr Effect": As the bass's blood becomes acidic, the oxygen-carrying capacity of its hemoglobin drops significantly. This causes oxygen deprivation in their tissues. Lack of Air Breathing: While your body can keep taking in oxygen from the air during intense physical stress to help your metabolism recover, a bass is severely limited by how much oxygen its gills can extract from the water—especially if it is already exhausted or in warm water. Temperature Sensitivity: Largemouth bass are highly sensitive to warm water temperatures. Higher water temperatures accelerate their metabolic rate and lactic acid production during a struggle, while also lowering oxygen levels in the water, making it virtually impossible for the fish to neutralize its blood chemistry before dying. To the OP - in hot water especially - it’s best to land largemouth bass as quick as you can! It’s always good for the resource when you are able to hurry them in and land them without injuring you or them and let them go. One should never make a habit of boat flipping bass or long arduous photo shoots. Nobody here is advocating for those practices that I can see in this thread. Nobody is saying hurt one’s self or behave recklessly or rush - just saying it wouldn’t hurt if people added “get them in as quick as you can” to the fish care and stewardship database. If you enjoy the fight on lighter tackle - that’s fine - it just might kill fish. Something I consider when going into a gunfight with a knife so to speak. If that is something you want to avoid - proceed accordingly. Also agree that we should all do our best to handle and release fish considerately - not trying to exclude other good fish care practices - just addressing what the OP asked.

I can’t save every fish I catch and obviously some must be sacrificed for the spectacle of the weigh in - but I am just making people aware of the fact that fish caught out of hot water die much faster and fighting the fish objectively does them no favors. No judgement here. Just facts that people can choose to do with that which they please.

I only fight a bass for a long time if I absolutely must. Fish build up lactic acid in their muscles during a long fight and poor water quality and high temps + tired old fish = dead old fish. I try to get em in and take a picture and let em go as quick as possible especially right now.

Weightless trick worm. Target cover and shade!

Nothing is better or worse - just different - if you’re just looking for a bait that catches fish better than a fluke and is similar - that’s not likely to be a thing that we can determine for you and your body of water etc but there are lots of soft jerkbaits on the market to try if you have the itch and they all work fine. My favorite alternative to a fluke for targeting fish higher in the column eating bait would be a weightless trick worm fished faster and higher in the column.

I have to skip at times with all the line I use and all of it works great. 6-20 lb mono and 20-65 lb braid all skip well with various spinning and bait casting set ups. The key is throwing baits that skip well and keeping your rod level with the water and not overpowering the bait - I can skip everything from a weightless senko to a 10” swimbait on a 3/4 oz beast hook. Rod tip that isn’t too stiff helps a lot but isn’t essential and having the spool be slightly under filled are both useful for skipping with any line type. It’s really hard to skip when it’s very choppy - calmer conditions are your friend.

i think a live worm is a good idea when you’re fishing with kids - if the fish won’t eat a live worm - good chance the ones you’re trying to catch aren’t there. Also worth trying a hand net and one of the minnows from just along the bank at the spot you fish. Water quality can make fishing extremely tough and droughts/flooding has made for very poor water quality in NC this summer and it seems like bite windows are very important when they aren’t comfortable just roaming around all day and eating. Hour before sunrise and the 1-2 hours before the sun goes down are very wise times to fish when water quality is poor and fish are tight lipped. Mid day you are going to find concentrations of fish in shade and around spawning areas and they can be caught but typically you gotta work a little more to get bites mid day. Fishing is tougher now than it’s ever been due to fishing pressure and angler skill being at an all time high. Covid educated a whole generation of fish. You really have to do something a little different to stand out and for me - traditional baits all still work but I almost always have to be doing something different like fishing it very fast or very slow or very aggressive or very very gentle etc. We have a tendency to want to make the fish bite and sometimes less is more when they’ve seen the same eager twitching 10,000 times in a day with 17 different baits etc.

I have lots of rivets and blades and beads- when a rivet wears out, I shorten the arm and often modify it in some way when I put a new rivet and bead on - I like smaller blades on heavier heads - great for clear water.

Here in NC - the bass are always tight lipped and it’s always a puzzle - there is no easy option for the day. I like it just fine. 🙂

Agree with @Bazoo - great on a finesse jig for a more streamlined compact profile. Just bite it down to where it just sticks off the hook and it looks amazing on the fall/dragging/swimming.

You can do a lot with green pumpkin + spike it markers!

Zero important.

I didn’t quite beat Mama Shads Ole Muddy PB - but I got my biggest bass of the year at Ole Muddy and I got it on a popper which was really exciting! The day started at around noon and we had a good balance of sun and shade mingling with intermittent bursts of cloud cover with fairly steady breeze - we tried all manner of worms and crankbaits (things we have all had success with in years past at Muddy) and struggled and then a nice 3 lb popper fish to start the day for @LrgmouthShad gave us our first clue that perhaps topwater would be worth our while. I picked up my frog rod and wandered over some flotsam and debris in a windblown pocket to where water met the bank and could see lots of sunfish beds and in this pocket there are a few really nice laydowns and the banks are lined by buck brush - I threw my frog to the laydown sticking out into deep water and I can’t even engage my reel and I see a 3-4 lb bass breach the surface (full body) eating the frog instantly! I reel down as quickly as I can and set the hook and my frog comes flying back at me but now I’m getting excited - getting blow ups like this in full sun at 1 pm is usually a great sign. Next cast back to the laydown I slow way down and start barely boiling my frog and then letting it sit for 5-10 seconds and then making it boil again - very little horizontal movement. I feel my line go slack and hear a deep thunk and the water around my frog boils in a very ominous and subtle way and my frog is gone - I am ready this time and reel down and set hard and fast and connect BOOM - my rod is bent over and a GIANT bass is doing backflips 100 feet from me with my frog completely gone down its throat. I manage to get her about half way back to me and she dives hard right and throws enough slack in my line to come off - I saw her come out of the water 4 times fully and she was super tall and wide and long and had a huge head - probably 7-8 lb fish. I toss my frog back in there and do the same retrieve and this time my frog is crushed violently - it’s only a 4-5 lber this time doing backflips and she does a similar zig zag move throwing slack in my line and comes off. I toss the frog back in there and they are wise to it at this point. I slow way down in the area and can’t get a bite on anything else and decide to tie on a spook. I toss my spook to the lay down and about halfway back a 3 lber slurps it down lightning fast. She swims to the right (like the big girls) but I’m throwing my spook on a spinning outfit with 8 lb mono and my drag is set pretty loose and she drags me straight into a big tree and I lose my spook and the fish. Jake and @LrgmouthShad are smashing 2 and 3 lbers all over the pond the entire time I’m transfixed with this corner and I’m getting sad and antsy missing all these fish and decide to go for a walk and flip some cover and try some other stuff. I have no success doing this for a relatively long period of time. Eventually I make my way back to the side of the pond with my pocket around 2-3 pm and decide to cast from the lone boat dock over into the general area of that corner using a small Rebel Pop-R in chrome shad pattern on my spinning rod and I decide to work it very very slowly. I’m about 1/3 of the way back to the dock - bait is probably 80-100 ft from where I’m standing and I’m just barely boiling it and letting it sit 10 seconds and my attention is truly beginning to wander other places and I notice a very very large boil under my popper. The kind that typically means a carp or catfish or big snapping turtle is about to make life interesting. Against my better judgment I don’t reel the cast in quickly- I let it sit and barely twitch it again - the popper barely gets slurped down - a bite that usually means sunfish is hitting it - but the sound is LOUD and DEEP - before I know it I’m setting the hook and my drag is screaming out and a GIANT bass is doing backflips out in the middle of the pond. This time she doesn’t have a bunch of wood between me and her and after a really fun fight on 8 lb mono - I get her dock side and lip her - a true giant - spawned out but tipping the scales at 6.5 lbs! Notable because not only is it my biggest fish of the year - it is also my biggest fish on a popper! The rest of the day we caught more fish on poppers and frogs and floating worms and had a blast and even missed a few more really big ones - but that was where the day peaked and we got another giant at Ole Muddy to take the bait! It was a blast and @LrgmouthShad and his families hospitality and kindness sharing their wonderful spot were truly savored by myself and Jake and it was a wonderful day fishing with friends.

Yes folks - the great 2026 Ol Muddy summerstravaganza is about to commence - we are eating breakfast and taking care of the animals and getting our tackle ready and on this cool and cloudy day with low pressure on the heels of a new moon - we will be throwing all manner of orthodox and unorthodox bass fishing presentations in an effort to elicit a strike or two from lurking predators…..hopefully we catch one or two that are related to Momma Shads beautiful fish! Stay tuned…..😎

I have tried a lot of braid and all of it works good but for my money - hard to beat the Kast King super power braid - I use different diameter for different applications but generally use a lot of 50 and a lot of the 25.

Don’t be afraid to whip out the ultralight with some 6 lb mono and a 1/16 oz jig head with a Bobby garland minnow when times are tough. Just cast it out and wind it back with the rod tip pointed up to about 11 o clock - vary speed and try popping your rod tip very gently occasionally and shaking the line as you reel it back very slightly every so often. Make sure you try reeling it fast and slow and medium speed and try steady retrieves and retrieves with lots of variation and you’ll catch some bass if there are bass to be caught. A solid rule when you’re starting out is to just cover lots of water and move constantly until you get a tug or a bite or see a bunch of fish and that’s when you’re gonna wanna start mixing it up and slowing down and being more methodical and then if you go for about 10 or 20 minutes without a bite or another fish, then you need to keep moving in the process needs to keep going. You definitely don’t wanna sit still when you’re bass fishing.

Fun sells! Fun names sells baits! Plus you gotta name them something - branding is everything in today’s world because everyone is selling the same thing to you and the only way to stand out is branding. As for violence and such - we are forcefully moving a hook point into an animals skull against its will and removing it from it’s environment for pleasure and the animal is violently trying to kill your bait in order for this to take place. The violence branding makes sense.

Whoever recommended scum frog - those are the easiest frogs to hook fish on! I have a ton of confidence in the “bass rat” which has a round bend lighter wire hook and a thinner profile but still casts well. I have caught 30 fish in an hour on one and you almost don’t even have to set the hook with them. They also have an ingenious design that vents water through and they basically never sink. And they’re good people - small American company. Also very affordable frogs in today’s market and seem to last many fish for me. For skipping back under trees and overhangs the Copper Red Baits Wave Frog is second to none but you gotta bend the hooks out a touch with those and set the hook more like you mean it. Spro Bronzeye 65 and Scum Frog Launch and the Bobby’s Perfect are all excellent for this as well. For open water the Spro Pop 60 is king in my world. Scum Frog popping trophy and the Copper Red Baits Loud Mouth are great also. For heavy mats - I like the big frogs - king daddy/tsunami/pop 90 etc

Bending hooks out is a must for frogs or you’ll miss like every single one that bites. They’re still plenty weedless - the hooks point up and aren’t in the water. If the hooks are pointing back into the frog - hardly a way for them to get any mouth meat! One thing I’ve observed in every good frog fisherman lately is when they get hit the FIRST thing they do isn’t reel DOWN into the bite they actually lift UP to about 9 o clock AS they reel slack and then if the line is starting to tighten up (fish has it) they complete the Hookset with a firm UPWARD swing to behind their shoulder. You can’t reel down and swing sideways - you’ll miss every single one that bites. Slack line management throughout the retrieve can help but you’ll pull the frog away from fish that are almost ready to eat it but smacking it - lifting the rod to 9 o clock while reeling quickly gets you In position no matter what the fish is doing AND if she drops it you are still in the strike zone. This is what guys who feed their families do with the frog. I’m working on it right now.

Try a big pool and 20 lb big game for deeper than 10 ft divers and you should be good. That loss of depth is just part of the technique IMHO. They kinda become more like high power mid divers which is what I want them to do anyway for brush. Try cranks that hit the cover but don’t dig into it - they work the best for burning and brush.

I think I started coming through brush piles better when I started to fish moderate rods with heavy monofilament and burning the bait more rather than working it slowly. So it kind of boiled down to gear and technique for me!

Milfoil is my absolute favorite grass on earth to fish. It beats hydrilla 10:1 for me. It is crisper and baits come through it better and I catch more big bass out of milfoil than any other type of grass when I can find it. Free rig with a 3/16 to 3/8 oz sinker on the edges with a big worm will get you into the giant fish in a hurry. Try to cast to the top of the canopy and work it like a ledge down the edge to the hard bottom and then work the hard bottom a bit. Just gentle lifting and dropping or popping the bait free is all that’s necessary. Bonus points if there’s sunfish beds honey combed on the edge of the milfoil. 🤤🤤🤤

Favorite: DT6 - every so often I get a DT6 that suspends or ever so slowly sinks. 👀 Yeah - those ones are the special ones. Hang on to those ones. Also great: frittside/speed trap/OG slim/bandit 200/fat free fingerling/5Xd/Money Badger/wiggle wart etc etc

Post spawn lasts a different amount of time for each individual fish - depends on the conditions and section of the lake and depth and water clarity and size of the fish and water temperature etc etc etc Most fish can not incubate all of their eggs at once and as such tend to spawn over the course of many months and depending on water temperature - many produce eggs between each spawn cycle which backs up the factory even more. Every full and new moon after the water gets into the 50s - fish will begin spawning in waves. Females can’t lay all their eggs in one bed or all at once and it’s not good for the survival of the species so groups of females will cluster spawn and drop little bits of eggs on multiple beds in an area and deplete a small percentage of their eggs that are mature and ready to lay while the majority of their eggs are in a different state of development (all dictated by blood circulation which is regulated by temps which is why big females suspend on rock and wood in the sun up shallow even when it’s freezing cold in the early spring) Once fish begin spawning - they’re perpetually “spawn”/“pre spawn”/“post spawn” until it’s winter again. This doesn’t apply to every fish on every reservoir. Smaller mature fish are able to deplete all their eggs more easily and may only spawn a couple times and of course some fish don’t spawn at all. It appears the more we learn about largemouth bass - they adapt to their environments hour to hour and minute to minute and are not slaves to some sort of biological regimen the way salmon or trout are. They do what they want when they want for the most part and they do different things every year and basically - the only way to know if a fish is spawning or Prespawn or post spawn is to look at it. If it’s skinny and beat up - probably feeding back up and done with laying eggs for the most part. If its belly is sticking out - that’s not “a healthy fishery” - those are eggs that are ready to lay. Prespawn. If it’s somewhere in between but you see blood on the tail - she spawning. Could that fish produce more eggs and incubate them and spawn again before the winter after you release it? Absolutely - even mid summer. They do what they do. It’s all about food and reproduction and avoiding threats for a bass. If you can perpetually do all 3 of those things - you can become a very big and very happy bass. It’s important to be aware of this because it simplifies things and basically you’re looking for these key areas where they can eat and make babies and are safe all the time. It’s not like 3 defined seasons of fishing that tackle companies like to push to sell their baits.