Pat Brown

That's just not true. The same groups of females return to the same areas every year and they hang around their beds most of the time whether it be shallow or deep around their beds. Sometimes they just patrol the area like sentinels and you can't see them. It's just not the way we thought it was for years. Sorry. Actually, with the biggest fish it's almost always only females around the beds and oftentimes you won't see any fish on the beds. They look vacant. Males learn that they will die if they stick around to guard the beds! 🙂 You know who kills more largemouth bass on beds every year than any other species combined? Largemouth bass! Momma is a cannibal.

This isn't actually entirely true - a lot of times spawning fish are not caught anywhere near their bed and are not protecting the eggs directly but rather more indirectly. Also generally speaking there are a few females and a few males around the bass spawning areas I find - it's almost never a pair like we see in pictures. Also - each bass spawns many many times per year - not just once in the spring - that's a made up thing. I agree if the recruitment in your body of water is bad - you need to figure that out but the chances of people sight fishing beds being the culprit is basically zero. It's like people with a rod and reel aren't as influential as we'd like to think - there's SO many bass spawning that you can't see - the only ones that get sight fished are the ones stupid enough to spawn where people fish regularly and can see the bottom. Don't sight fish if you don't want to! But it ain't hurtin nothin. Except for most people - it's probably a huge huge waste of a lot of time. Bed fish aren't any easier to catch than any other bass - most bass you catch are aggressive because they got babies nearby or something like that. They don't bite vision 110s thinking it's an alewife.

People are catching bigger and more fish now than ever and people bed fish now more than ever. I am happy to debate this respectfully with you and I'm always eager to learn more - show me large mouth bass fisheries that have been damaged by bed fishing. I'm eager to learn more and I'm always trying to challenge my points of view and think critically. If anything - I'm under the impression that people don't keep enough fish every year for healthy bass and a lot of bass are stunted and unhealthy compared to what once was (our ability to catch them has greatly improved for sure). I think up North - there was a LOT of wild stuff that happened in the Great Lakes historically that makes it a unique place to look at - and makes it easy to see why anglers are a bit passionate about this topic - but black bass species always seemed to fare well even during pollution and commercial fishing etc. I just don't see them as at risk.

How many people have we heard say - 'I can't catch a fish to save my life and I've been fishing 30+ years and catching them with ease my whole life!'? A whole heck of a lot is how many. Bass have become fun to catch and popular to fish for and what once was a very small group of people fighting over a smart and robust fish they didn't fully understand - is now an extremely large culture / population of people. The fish are not gone or overfished or poisoned or anything of the sort. They learned how not to be caught when they got fished for 365 days a year instead of whenever you felt like going out on the lake. I fish small ponds and lakes where I have caught the same fish multiple times and released it multiple times on multiple baits and I can tell you that the fish continue to spawn and continue to behave like fish as soon as you drop them back in the water. You want to know when fish are stressed out? Fish are stressed out in the middle of the summer when oxygen levels are low and they've been making babies for months and they're worn out and they're tired and they're starving and their bodies are hanging on by a thread and they've been fished for for months and all the well-to-do anglers decide that now is the time to Target them ethically LOL. I think that also you could get even more creative about your logic here very easily if you really want to be a person who is empathetic to the species. A kind-hearted conservationist like myself who catches and releases in 8 or 9 pounder who makes a mistake and bites probably increases her chances of survival on the whole for the year. If you consider that when I'm not catching and releasing her, somebody else is trying to catch and eat her most of the year. Not necessarily directly but just indirectly all the time. People who catch and release spawning fish give them an education for free and then allow them to continue doing what they're doing. What it does is make the fishing tougher for people who go out once in awhile and expect to catch a fish. Again this all kind of goes back to - it's in the best interest of the tackle industry and the fishing guide industry and basically the industry as a whole to promote a narrative where black bass species are fragile and we need to fish as little for them as possible. Because that basically keeps them in business and us in the dark. How many successful attempts to eradicate black bass are you aware of!?!? Last time I heard Japan tried to sponsor eliminating the entire species from the face of the Earth in Japan - they accidentally produced a world record and guess what? They've still got black bass everywhere. I don't really think we understand how this works correctly as a community because we are worth a lot more when we are ignorant.

There's a lot of stuff that we thought was true that we are learning is not true and that's just kind of part of what I'm trying to add to this discussion. People have been repeating what they read in a bassmaster magazine article in the '70s for 50 years now and there's a lot of stuff that's not true that is thought to be true. Elite series pros and guides who will take you out to catch large fish on Lake Fork or Toledo Bend or Sam Rayburn will take you out deep and put you on a spawning female bass and help you catch them with livescope - like sight fishing deep. There's a lot of things about the culture of bass fishing I like but bass are not deer or people. They are fish. They are definitely not trout. They are extremely robust fish that learn incredibly quickly how not to get caught and anything you can do to put yourself in a better position to catch them is better than paying somebody else $3000 to take you out on a boat to put you in a better position for you.

Jig or Texas rig usually gets the job done for me. Just kinda play around with size and weight and profile until you dial in what they're in the mood for. I find those almost always are good presentations for big bass.

According to biologists - as with most things - it depends. I've heard water visibility for human eyes/sechi disc x2-3 roughly a lot of times will be plenty of light penetration. But fish will still spawn deep in dirty water if it's warm enough and there's enough current and oxygen and good hard substrate but in general in dirtier water bass will spawn more up shallow and closer to the bank (in my experience sometimes literally on the bank). I think where we get confused is when we see 2-3 feet of clarity on our home lakes and think it's pretty stained - that's actually fairly clear to a bass and then if you've got areas with 4-6 feet of clarity - they can easily spawn as deep as 12-20 feet down.

Sight fishing is nearly impossible most of the time here. I have caught them on beds in 41° water at the end of December. I just don't think that you can target largemouth bass without catching bedding fish is all I'm trying to say and I think that actively targeting ones that you can see is not that bad. Most of the time they either bite and you catch them and then release them and then it's okay and they probably won't bite again all spring or they've been caught and they don't bite and you waste a lot of time fishing a bed. I just don't think it's really threatening the future of the species or anything like that. If anything, I think that putting pressure on a species that essentially runs rampant and eats everything in sight is probably good for that particular species even though it's hard to view it that way when we humanize the fish.

They will cluster spawn exactly the same way that Sunfish do in my experience. And large groups of females will guard general areas and not individual specific beds and pairs. But that's just been what I've seen over the years. I agree that they still live up there all year round, but I think that basically unless there's some sort of very special thing happening like Sunfish spawning or Shad spawning or bugs hatching, the aggressive shallow fish are around their nests and around can even mean like 50 ft from them. Just depends on the fish and their personality. I have absolutely seen five or six big females. Spawning on a single tree that is like smaller than all of the fish. I'm not saying that's what you were experiencing. I'm just saying that it absolutely happens.

When you throw a jig next to a juicy lay down and feel a solid thump and jack a 6 lber out in May you think she's ambushing bluegill there and feeding on them - but you threw a 12" worm - that ain't no bluegill - I reckon you just caught a nesting bass - seeing as how you targeted optimum spawning habitat. Consider this - scouting fish and then blind casting to them - you actually are often MORE likely to catch spawning fish - so is it knowing where they are that takes the sport out of it? My experience is that spawning fish are just as difficult to catch as any fish - most of the time on a tough day fishing it's a tough day and you're making casts to beds - I find actually on small fisheries - bedding fish are near impossible to sight fish - like many here are pointing out. Another scenario : how about a deep ledge on a clear water fishery? Well in clear water the sun penetrates a lot deeper than we think - that hard spot just to the left of the deep grass edge isn't a hard spot they prefer because they're odd creatures it's optimum nesting substrate near cover where their fry can eat and grow. It ain't rocket science. We think of bluegill as nest raiders and egg eaters when it's actually way more often tiny golden shiners and gizzard shad that are at a stage where consuming eggs makes sense. Shaking a minnow on deep structure? Why do you think the bass on structure activate when bait is nearby and stay tight to the structure? They are on alert and protecting their nests. If we wanted to catch feeding bass the areas and techniques we'd have to utilize routinely would feel like the abyss and realistically the chances of fooling a feeding bass that has been caught a few times goes down to zero. We think of the spawn as a thing that happens shallow once or something to that effect but many fish spawn many times at many different depth ranges throughout a year and basically - it's not realistic to separate things into pre spawn and spawn and post spawn as static periods bass pass through annually but more as fluid states that bass are ALWAYS passing through sometimes biweekly.

People don't like sight fishing because guides and pros need to sell tackle 😂 There's kind of this narrative that like trying to intentionally catch a fish is bad but random casting is ethical - kinda absurd. In my humble opinion a lot of the narrative we are fed surrounding bass behavior is made up and most shallow bass that are biting artificial lures are near their nests. It is now my belief that this is ALSO the case in deep water with artificial lures 😯😯😯 YMMV - I think people kinda need to understand that bass spawn literally everywhere and for the most part it's about the only time they are biting in the middle of the day. People will burn me alive for saying this - but it's been my observation year after year. Make no mistake - a spawning fish isn't necessarily a catchable fish but it sure is a fish and casting at random spawning habitat and hoping for the best doesn't make you a better person than someone who wants to see the fish they're trying to catch IMHO.

I have had the opposite experience. I fished a retention pond that is nearby a sturgeon farm my brother manages that has loads of bass that have literally never seen a lure or human and I got to fish for them for the first time in their lives. For the first hour - it was literally fish on every cast in gin clear water that could see us casting and reeling them in again and again and after about 1 hour it slowly became really good casts to cover only worked nicely and then after about 2 hours they wouldn't touch anything and were nowhere to be seen. This is backed up by multiple studies that are referenced in bass fishing podcasts I listen to fairly regularly. Bass learn noises, shapes, colors in all manner of specificity and generality and learn to associate them with unpleasant stimulation and learn to avoid. I have seen bass leave a cove and watch us fish it from behind probably to return to whatever it was they were doing when we decided to leave. It really really depends as with most things in bass fishing but they definitely definitely learn from regular fishing pressure that people are bad news. I regularly fish small pressured spots where people fish all the time every week and keep most of what they catch and people kindly walk up to me and assure me that there are no bass in the pond to be caught and that it seems dead almost every year. People put live bluegill on hooks dangling over active beds and can't get bit. These are smart fish. They do not want to be seen. They do not want you to know they are there and unless you are trying very hard to catch them or see them you will never know they are there. They absolutely learn to feed when the sun goes down and when the lakes and ponds are closed. It is very easy to get the calories they need everyday during that period of time - make no mistake. I regularly catch 6+ lb bass at this pond in the wee hours of the morning in the dark on all manner of lures as though they had never been caught before - when the sun rises - nary a fish to be had unless you get very very methodical. I think that what you say about noise spooking fish is generally true and you can definitely shut an area down being noisy and obnoxious even if fish have never seen people before. But my general experience is absolutely that they learn to avoid people from fishing pressure. Generally speaking, when you're hunting a wild animal in its natural habitat where it has all of the advantages, it pays to be stealthy regardless of how many people the fish have seen or not.

That rules she ate it like a topwater almost! That sounds nuts and incredibly fun - great times! That's a beautiful smallmouth dude!

Gorgeous smallmouth everyone y'all know how to make a southern boy jealous! 🙂🙂🙂🎣🎣🎣 Keep on em! I sense some 4-5 lbers coming real soon!

When it rains it definitely erodes the bank somewhere. Find those places. Those are hot spots on bowl shaped ponds.

Nice little retention pond haul at Jake's soccer practice last night. Jake finished practice and fished the floating worm for 10 minutes and got the big fish of the trip! I got two on the jig and two on the floating worm. Bought some bubble gum and merthiolate Zoom Trick Worms (no salt!) from my local hardware/tackle shop - has them in stock! They work great! Glad I finally gave them a try! Good 5 fish bag for a quick hour long trip. Missed a couple on the frog - I feel like any day now that bite is gonna pop off but it's been slow to get rolling this year.

Fish areas leading to shallow areas that are like highways underwater for fish. Usually they follow Creek channels back into coves and stop on hard spots and structure leading back into these coves. It is very tough to catch fish before I gets warmer and they migrate shallow so don't beat yourself up too bad.

Yeah I do not think of it like that at all personally. Bass eat small turtles and bugs and do not vacate areas that attract lots of life - they tend to be attracted there for the same reasons +/-. Also this time of year ain't nothing moving bass off the shallow spots they are on.

I'd just get the curado 8 speed and be done personally. I don't dislike my 7:3:1 curado 200 but when it dies or I get bored it's getting upgraded to a curado 150 8 speed. They just feel more sturdy and frog reels tend to accumulate a lot of junk and having the reel be 8 speed does not hurt one bit these days. Fish will bite down really well on a long cast and you've got a split second to reel a good bit of slack out and set that hook and a few extra inches per turn can indeed mean more hooked fish.

Those are some broad shouldered northern beauties - awesome the spinnerbait is doing so well this spring for you! It's one of the funnest bites for sure! Glad to see you're O fish ally back on em. 🙂

Never use EWGs with flukes personally - I tend to go with offset worm hooks or screw lock hooks but I'd go 6-7/0. Different hook sizes and rigging methods produce different actions and I find that the hook up ratio with offset worm hooks and the action I get with them is much better. I tend to go lighter wire with flukes because I really like to work them near the surface.

Buy albino and some spike it markers and don't look back. They definitely work straight retrieve and on surface and deadsticked etc. Don't sleep on the jr, the 6" and the Magnum. But albino + markers is the only colors you need basically to mimic just about anything.

Creme and mister twister are OG and make some good stuff but most of the time I use zoom which is also cheap and very very high quality plastic etc. As far as cost goes - hard to beat Zoom for me. I buy and use it all though and I buy whatever is on sale usually 🤫😏😉

@bishoptf I'd just bring plastics on the boat until you start catching them with ease on plastics and then expand. Plastics are a catch all that works regardless of the mood or season and they are good deep and shallow. They get bites and fish don't learn them too easily. There isn't a ton of nuance to selecting locations to throw them or retrieving them and the money lost throwing them into heavy cover where bass live and stage and often spawn is low. Back to plastics would be my suggestion and then branch out when you feel like you're on them again. It's really a time of year where they should be spawning literally anywhere and everywhere and plastics catch bass near their beds extremely well. Just slow down in shallow bassy looking areas with soft plastics. Remember to target the areas around cover not just the cover. I'd bring a spinning rod with a weightless plastic and a casting rod with a heavy t rig and a casting rod with a light t rig and go to work! 🙂

Went to the pond after work with Jake and found 3 that wanted to bite - caught mine on the Neko Rig with a Mann's Jelly Worm 9" in grape fire tail! Missed one that was bigger than these two that pulled me straight into the pads and then came off. These two also pulled me into the pads - multiple times for the bigger of the two - but didn't come off - PHEW! Jake got his on the old t rig D Bomb! Fun times. Missed a couple that hit the frog real quick. Hoping that they start to commit to the frog here soon! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🐸🐸🐸🐖🐖🐖