Pat Brown

It was my confidence moving bait for a good while and caught me many nice fish but I sort of adopted the spinnerbait/lipless/swimjig holy trinity and began to use it less - but believe it our not I have a Siebert Fogy in 1/2 oz tied on right now. It was my favorite moving bait in the dead of summer the year it exploded for me. Did great on rip rap and ledges with grass and rock around. Ive caught plenty of fish around wood on them but it's definitely not good around wood. I definitely think it's best kinda yo yo ing or moving it small increments near the bottom and I feel it is best in that 4-12 ft range.

I cast 1/8 oz buzzbaits all the time on my heavy braid buzzbait set up. I use 50 lb braid and a 7'6 MH/MF and with a trailer it casts like a bullet.

I've been dealing with a LOT of hot sunny ->cooler cloudy rainy -> back and forth. It seems like the cloudy days with rain I gotta fish the bottom slower and sunnier conditions puts fish up high in the water column and you get them more near the bank or on the fall or on surface lures in shade etc. I have done really well with reaction baits in cloudy conditions with rain and cooler weather but it always seems to be after the summer solstice once the days start getting shorter.

Fun on the boat with Jake and mom Saturday and then we fished Meagan's family land out west of us in NC and I caught a mess of little bass on worms fished a variety of ways. No giant bass but a super fun weekend where many many fish were caught! Rained and stormed off and on all weekend so none of the trips lasted super long but it sure made for some eager bass.

Right now I just bring trick worms and 10" ribbon tails for pitching and flipping! The trick worm i throw weightless, t rigged, shaky head, neko rig, wacky rig. Maybe a lizard or a mag speed worm - but pretty much trick worm or big ribbon tail. I would say from about June until about September - I pretty much only throw the big ribbon tail on a weighted t rig. Why? Catches the biggest fish in the lake and will also catch fish smaller than the worm all summer long deep or shallow.

Same.

Yes sir.

I have switched over ENTIRELY to the grass jig for all horizontal jiggin' 😎👍🏼

Giant pressured Florida largemouth bass hit frogs on 65 lb braid in 1 foot of gin clear water in calm conditions. I don't think it's that big of a deal - for me personally - I'd just go with braid for backing and tie a cast + a little extra on and not constantly worry about leader knot failure or knot getting caught in my guides!

In the end - I completely agree with my friend here. It's not fun. It's dirt time. It's work. But it IS rewarding (eventually).

I tend to find that how I rig a big worm has a LOT more to do with how long it lasts than anything else. Yes fish destroy soft plastics and that's life - biting them down and continuing to use them is a great work around most of the time to get some more fish per bait but what really busted the doors wide open was really dialing in exactly how I stuck my worm on my hook and WHAT hook I'm using with each worm. You said you use straight shank hooks. Those tend to have Barb keepers which very quickly rip your plastics up because they have to go in and tear the plastic up before they can grab the plastic on the way back the other way and that usually in a very thin plastic like a worm just doesn't work. I like straight shank hooks better with a fatter flipping bait that has more meat for that little toothy thing to grab. It seems like the straight shank hooks with the little bait keepers still tear my plastics up the most unless I'm using plastisol/floating plastic baits or something. I would just go with a boring offset medium light wire worm hook from your favorite manufacturer of the appropriate size and practice rigging it so that hook eye is just barely beneath the plastic and the tag ends of the knot are just sticking out of the plastic and what happens is everything there kind of protects the knot and if you use the right sized hook for the plastic, it won't slide down every time on your cast or tear the plastic up and it will slide down the hook properly on a hook set and not tear on the hook set and you can slide it back up and use it a couple times because of the lack of that bait keeper. Just something to consider.

Now you're on to something. Some points to consider from the point of view of doing this kind of madness: Around here you can't get bit doing a D+ retrieve with a good lure for the conditions - even at private ponds, let alone public water with actual good size bass in it. Heck you probably gonna struggle most days with a B+ retrieve. But if you can figure out what it truly means to stretch the limits of both what can and should be done - sometimes getting into the lower echelons of A- territory AND doing things that are just different and weird (which you discover in desperation out of necessity!), you might get a couple bites and they might even be really dang great old big ones! If you happen to live somewhere - where you toss your lure at the water next to something that looks good and violently pop your rod tip once and get bit +/- every time - disregard what I'm saying! Enjoy!

Nice short trip out with Jake. He was a star. Long 6 lber and 3 nice ones (one frog fish caught by Ole Dad™) He lost a 5+ right at the net and a couple in the 2-3 range. All on the floating worm! We stopped at a friend's house and Jake got one more lil guy and home we went before the storms hit! Summer has begun! Frogs and worms and skinny 6 lbers! Pure fun!

I'm just not very good at fishing Tom. 😭😭😭🤣🤣🤣

Yeah I did this with a frog this past year it was sweet! I basically enjoy fishing this way in general and do it a lot when I want to learn something inside and out.

We missed probably 250 bites yesterday. Not sure if they were very enthusiastic sunfish or small bass or big bass that love to bite and spit big worms, but we got nailed and spit almost everywhere that looked good, I'm still amazed we got these 4. Jake did lose one that was probably around 4-5 on the way to the boat when it swam towards him faster than he could reel. It was hot and slick calm and the bass were not nearly as easy to pattern as they were while the wind was blowing steady.

I completely agree with this. I have a hard time calling a dying pattern dead as it dies and then switching gears and finding where they moved to. I find that for me, if a pattern is dying, it's almost better to take a break on that lake and come back in a few days, just to trick my brain into seeing the lake as new. I think that basically the key is learning how to ritualize being open-minded and systematic every time you go out on the water. Looking for patterns is not always the best thing to do even though it can result in a good day sometimes.

It seems to me that wherever you go, there you are. I think if you're bored - spice things up. If not - be happy. This is how it is with anything in life?

Been a busy week with family related stuff but still some nice fish in there for sure! Big ole catfish on a the mag speed worm. Some real nice ones on the boat - Jake got his best 5 ever on the lizard! I caught some nice ones too. Ended the day with that cow on the big ribbon tail. Last night after work I got one bite but it was on a spro frog and she was a big girl. Jake's out of school and we are fixing to do our first summer break father son bass adventure today. Hopefully we find a fish or two!

And much heavier for both deep AND shallow fishing - especially when it's a liiiittle clearer than I'd normally throw a spinnerbait but they're chasing and it's windy or cloudy or both.

Here it almost boils down to the water conditions for the year. Some years, dirtier and more wind and rain and more cold fronts - I'll go through more hard baits. Some years, much cleaner water, more calm days on the water, more stable conditions - I'll use a boat load more soft baits. Which is more "expensive"? Soft baits without a doubt. I have frogs and jerkbaits that have caught 100+ fish. I can't count the number of worms that came apart before they caught a fish.

That is a LONG bass @thediscochef, @IcatchDinks - catching on a homemade crankbait is honestly impressive. @Bird that fish has quite a gut on her! @Dwight Hottle that walleye is why I don't swim in the Great Lakes! 🤣🤣🤣

Yeah I mean I wouldn't want to fish for bass somewhere that they struggle to get enough food. Wouldn't really be any big bass there. I think time of day and presentation and where you put your bait and all that stuff matter the most because I'd argue you're almost always fishing for a reaction bite with artificial lures. We are not mimicking forage with lures as much as the bait monkey wants us to think we are!

I cannot like this enough. Hear, hear!!!!! Harrumph!! Amen! You speak truth.

Get em dudes. 😎😎😎