Pat Brown

"He would have wanted me to make a cast or two." 🤣🤣🤣🙈🙈🙈

This time of year buzzbait or swimjig or swimming a worm usually get the call!

Deep structure and wind are big middle of the day. That's completely relative - applies to small ponds and lakes about the same - tidal river systems probably more about the incoming and outgoing tide. I like wind because it typically activates the food chain and gets the thermal layers mixing and oxygenates the water etc. This time of year a tiny ripple is better than flat. Current is very very important. Rain can make for some wild and crazy fishing mid day - especially the hour before the front hits and the first hour after it hits. Target prime cover and structure before it hits and target inflowing drains or creeks or ditches from erosion or any place rain is concentrated and flowing into the body of water. On those fun days where it's flat calm and there's no wind I'm going to fish any shade I can find. I will fish finesse in the summer on days where there is no wind and no rain. It's pretty much the one time of year I do it pretty consistently. The most important thing to do this time of year is locate fish. They tend to be pretty loaded in areas when you get a bite so I HIGHLY recommend moving fast and using something you can efficiently cover water with until you get a bite and then I might throw the kitchen sink in that area especially this time of year. Good luck! I still tend to think - if you you have the luxury of choosing - in the summer - windy sunny days and targeting deep structure with wind blowing across it can be the giant bass pattern mid day for sure.

Fun day on the lil local lake with Jake, @FishTaxand @LrgmouthShad - 4 fish between the 4 of us (one fish a piece) between 12 and 4 and then @FishTax had to go and @LrgmouthShad had to make his trip back up the mountain for family stuff so me and Meagan and Jake went back out for another couple hours and I caught a dink and a fantastic fish on the Aaron Martens buzzbait (that bait has been doing WORK this summer let me tell y'all!) And we saw the largest hornet nest of all time in a tree line we were casting to! 🤣🤣🤣 That thing is the size of an NBA basketball at least!

All my truly giant fish are caught (usually) around 1-4 pm! Also don't sleep on taking a nice long break and hitting the pond while the sun sets and most people pack up to go home! Hoooo weeeee - that sure enough is some good fishing in the summer! Go get em! 😎😉🤙🏼

It's the same as the rapala minnow. Jerk baits are affected by line type and diameter and water temperature. So even though manufacturers will tell you that certain ones float or sink or swim, I always try to be prepared to modify them to do what I want. Because with the line choice or water temperature I find that the manufacturer claim is often false on any given day. Lighter line also lets them kind of dart around more easily and move more erratically whereas heavier line will keep them moving tighter and require you to hit the bait harder to make it move. The jerk bait is pretty much a pure reaction bite if there ever was one. You're just twitching the bait around and something is whacking at it and typically they hook themselves. It's pretty fun! You can use them deep or shallow but I like them in the shallow to mid depth range and I like them around pretty active fish. It's not my favorite bait for a slow day where it's tough to get a bite. But if the wind is blowing and a front just moved in and you know they're going to be chewing, sometimes a jerkbait is the best way to catch a pile of fish.

Dinks are just fun size!

6 lb smallmouth makes me wanna pack up and head up north for the summer! Congratulations! That's a pig!

Been using Siebert tungsten flipping weights for years now! Caught many a giant with a pegged 3/8-7/16 oz sinker above a large worm.🙂

I think in dirty water fish will often look pale compared to clean water - white is hard to beat. When it's dirty I like to fish tighter to cover and slower and shallower.

I think basically sometimes fish learn you - sometimes fish move - sometimes bait moves - but this is why I don't have too much confidence in any one thing for too long - I'm usually trying to solve the puzzle based on the conditions not what they been doing. That being said, the winter was severely long and the spring was severely delayed, which basically means that probably the post-spawn funk was pretty delayed and it might just be happening right about now! Whether it's the bait or the bass that are in the funk - hard to say - but they move when it hits!

First a slow but fun weekend with a few dinky summer fighters and TWO(!!!) skunk boat trips in a row...... But then....after work today - felt big frontal stuff hitting hard and went to the Pressured Pond™ and caught an 8 lber on a black buzzbait. That'll do! 🙂 July has begun!

I think basically fish are pre spawn and spawning and post spawn when they want to be and not all at the same time and you catch 'pre spawn' fish during all 4 human seasons. Pre spawn fish are fish that are full of eggs and food and preparing to lay - those fish are generally uncatchable without advanced electronics regardless of season because of how small our lakes are and how aggressively those fish are targeted. You're generally more likely to catch fish when they're post spawn or on their beds because believe it or not - those fish are generally less pressured AND they tend to hit lures even when they know better which those prespawn fish do NOT have to do. But I think I have caught fish that are prespawn in July and fish that are Post Spawn in January. The point I'm trying to make is THE LARGEST Florida LMB bite the easiest NOT in cold water. Regardless of which part of the spawn she happens to be in during those months!

No. Almost all of my giant bass are from summer patterns. I catch some fat ones in the cold when the winter isn't frozen surfaces - but never the biggest fish and never my PB and bloated bellies? Heck around here, you catch them out of just thawed water in January here with bloody tails and empty bellies.

If you land 9/10 fish - jig schmig! - congratulations, you are really good at fishing!

You liberated a very cute and very cheeky frog that was on his way home to his tadpole cluster from certain death. You saved a whole community of shad from termination. There are lots of very hard working tax paying blue gill that will get to sleep a little easier this evening. There's a starving blind old turtle that might get to enjoy a couple more warm breezes now after a good protein rich meal he found much to his appreciation. All is well and as it should be. Edited to add - blackened or grilled or fried - bass is tasty - great way to honor a life.

Probably gonna run into @LrgmouthShad and @FishTax a few times this week over the holidays and then in September I think we are gonna try to help @IcatchDinks catch some not dinks *hopefully*! Bass fishing is definitely a great activity for friends! I love learning new stuff and I truly love helping someone catch a fish that makes them smile! I know some folks like to fish alone and I do too - so I get that - but I also enjoy sharing adventures with good company and look forward to opportunities to do so!

This time of year in North Carolina, there are 150 billion young of the year and fry of every sort swimming around all over the place on most lakes and ponds. I think that there's a lot of insect hatches dominating. If you think about hot water loaded with insect larvae that basically can't escape or protect itself versus minnows that are exceptionally good at surviving, most predatory life is going to key in on that extremely available and extremely vulnerable forage. I think this time of year thin and inobtrusive baits do very well because there is a lot of inobtrusive and vulnerable forage available that everything is eating constantly. On the bottoms of my Lake I see piles of shells accumulate this time of year and I have to wonder what percentage of the available forage/biomass on my home Lakes is freshwater clams! It's absolutely wild! Point being, in the summertime, I often do really well with small and inobtrusive things. Little popping frogs with the tails cut back very short. Moved very little. Even a 3-in stick bait. Weightless or a weightless trick worm is even better this time of year. Try cutting a trick worm in half and putting half of it on a 1/0 straight shank or worm hook. Put a little finishing nail in the tail so you can cast it a little easier. You'll catch giant fish and panfish and everything that swims with that thing!

I don't think it matters the way I fish most of the time. I'm just putting baits in their faces so they gotta bite it. Don't do a lot of letting them look and smell the bait most days. I did catch one of the two 11 lb bass I have caught on a power worm! Who knows!?!? I think fish can learn just about anything that threatens them on a regular basis and I think it's entirely possible that they eventually learn the power bait scent means death.

I think part of maximum confidence in a lure is knowing when to have zero confidence in a technique that you have caught lots of fish with. It's the final stage of mastery/confidence building of a technique IMHO. Now that I've thrown a frog in every condition during every month of the year, I know exactly when to leave it at home or on the deck of the boat.

Okay for me - I try to expand laterally if I really think I'm on a pattern but want to weed out smaller fish. A mag trick worm instead of a trick worm if they're eating a weightless worm could be a change I might make if I know they're eating a floating worm but I want to stop catching 2 lbers. I also think it's ALWAYS wise to at least rotate slow and fast and high/mid/low in areas you're catching fish or getting bites. And even small/big to some degree. So with that in mind I try to rotate more within or around the things that are working rather than all over the place for funs sake. Hope that makes sense?

The most important stage of developing your confidence in a new technique is being confident that it should be working and thus knowing when to put it down and try other things. The first phase of confidence building is definitely the fun part 🙂 I always have a jig and a big worm tied on because you just never know what kind of mood the bass will be in and I have reached late stage confidence with both techniques. I know when it's gonna work or when to throw something else within 10 minutes on my lakes usually.

Just here to say I love the dangerous swimbait and caught a pile of tanks on the 6 and 7 on beast hooks. Texas gizzard and black back shad are all ya need!

You typically catch fish *at their heaviest* out of cold water not necessarily *the biggest bass* IMHO. Not saying you can't catch the biggest bass in winter but I'm assuming she'd be much easier to catch not in winter.

Your hatred for the rock bass is admirable. I'm honestly more in awe of it than I once was - at this point - I'd even say that I applaud you for your passion and commitment to the cause of sullying their name for eternity in the bass fishing community. Bravo. Carry on sir. Carry on. 🤣🤣🤣