Pat Brown

My son wrecks everything with a mepps #3 black fury! Get some! Skunk beater for SURE.

A Texas rigged Zoom Magnum Speed Worm with a pegged 3/16-7/16 oz sinker in a natural color like watermelon seed or green pumpkin. 3/4-1 1/2 oz @Siebert Outdoors Grass jig with a 3-5 inch trailer in a green pumpkin top + white belly variation of some sort. Mud Shad/Dirty Shad are excellent. Buzzbait - 1/8-1/2 oz black with black blade and trailer hook and menace grub trailer and skirt. Frog - spro pop 60 or Bronzeye 65 in a shad color. Spinnerbait - 1/2 oz Siebert cosmic willow in a shad color. Lipless - 1/4-1/2 oz red eye shad or rat l trap in shad color. Squarebill - I like the hybrid hunter even though it's technically not a squarebill in shad colors. Jerkbait - flukes and hard Jerkbaits Swimbait - big and small weedless swimbaits on skirted jig heads with eyeballs or with little blades on screw lock keel weighted hooks or just on keel weighted hooks - 2"-10" Glide baits - I like 7" or bigger shad profiles that 'chop' and nearly suspend. KGB Chad Shad the real one or the DRT Klash 9 are great. The BPS Swerve is awesome for the money. Weightless plastics - trick worm/buzz toad/speed worm/senko/rage bug/craw worm/poop baits etc.

Shade in your situation is the point where your bait disappears essentially. Deeper spots. Find deeper spots with clean bottom and work the contours parallel and work them from deep to shallow making contact and keeping it off the bottom and varying your retrieve. Try a 6-8 inch profile like a zoom magnum speed worm in natural colors like watermelon seed and green pumpkin with a pegged 3/16-7/16 oz tungsten sinker with a 3-4/0 worm hook of your preference.

Stick with what works is always a good move! That's a piece of the puzzle you may already have figured out. 😎 Bluebird skies are big fish days. Target shade and heavy cover near main structure!

I would imagine a crappie being pursued by a hungry bass doesn't look much like anything except for a flash of white and then nothing. Not really gonna be able to mimick that! The best crappie imitators out there in my experience are KGB Glide baits that are made to look exactly like a medium to smallish adult crappie that a large bass might eat - making it look like anything other than a Glide bait in the water when it's moving is another story! I'd worry more about where the bass live and when they like to hunt, water clarity, structure, whether bass are wanting to chase or have it slow, near the surface or feeding low etc. and other things like that when determining lure color and size and category and all that. Bass eat crappie though! White is a pretty good crappie/shad/sunfish/baby bass/frog/living animal imitator because most things have white in their bellies and especially the juveniles of most species that bass are likely to favor over fully grown ones - most are just a little pale wisp in the water.

It's not really bad in rock or wood as long as the wood isn't super heavy, but it's really pretty incredibly awful in any kind of vegetation LOL. To me it's not really a replacement for the Texas rig. It's really more like a lazy Carolina rig kind of thing. I don't dislike fishing it on pretty clean, bottom and structure but in general the Texas rig is still King for me. The Texas rig is also very good at being a lazy Carolina rig. If you use a peg it on either side of the sinker like I do 😏

@TnRiver46 - she was at least 25" based on the fact that she didn't fit in my 24" live well without mashing into the corners. Absolutely insane fish. @Dwight Hottle - it was one of those bites where USUALLY - historically it's on a day when I'm not catching much - it's usually in an area I rarely get bit - and I'm throwing into the heaviest cover and suddenly I feel a BIG thump and then I reel down and set the hook and my line comes right back to me and I am left wondering what could have been. Glad this time I got to meet the offender! @Swamp Girl - thanks - I try to remember the details because the details are the juice that helps you repeat your success. 🙂🙏🏼 Thanks to everyone again for all the kindness and encouragement - it's really great being a part of the bass fishing universe and trying to figure out the puzzle year after year. Bass fishing is never something that bores me because it's a playing field (big fish) that adapts to the opposition (us) both in miniscule ways day to day AND on a large scale with every season that passes by. And every year there are new big fish to catch that grew into monsters under our noses somewhere on the lake we don't know about. It's all pretty exciting and I'm just glad to be a part of it.

I'm going to go ahead and add a little bit more outside the box thinking to this thread - I fish a lot during the spawn in a state where bedding fish are visible and shallow. It is my experience that slowing down works the best when fish are aggressive around their nests and not feeding. It is my experience that's speeding up and forcing fish to react is your best bet when they're nowhere near their beds and the only thing making them bite is the occasional compulsion to eat. Winter time for me is about reaction strikes when I'm doing it right. I've never done well going slow in the winter time but I've done extremely well fishing jerk baits and lipless crank baits at normal old fast speeds. The key is definitely timing and area and both of those things can be so tricky to figure out when there's nothing really keeping them in one place for very long.

Great suggestions here but in the dead of winter we actually get what's referred to as inverse stratification for most of the winter and the cold water rises to the surface (look it up - why else would lakes freeze top down?) and stays there most of the winter in a thin layer that changes a lot and beneath that the water can be as much as 10+ degrees warmer. It's the opposite of what water does in the summer time. I fish protected areas that are getting lots of sunlight when it's the winter time. And yeah - seems like they're always deeper than I am fishing!

The trailer plastic has to slide through them differently or it looks kinda funny but beyond that they both seem to catch me fish that bite jigs if they're sharp and I do my job right 🙂 It's a more interesting discussion/question as it pertains to Texas rigs IMHO but still - when rigged properly and I'm doing my job - hooks hook fish usually - regardless of the way they look.

Making a fluke keeper with any hook: Large gauge peg it Hook of your choice Fluke Rig fluke through the tip and pause before you return through the body - insert hook point into peg. Slide peg up to body of fluke. Finish rigging fluke. You can also use some super glue on the underside of the fluke where the shank comes through the belly the first time.

I try to share anything I learn with others - I like seeing people catch big fish and small fish as much or more than I like catching them myself. Go buy some green pumpkin mag speed worms and tungsten sinkers from @Siebert Outdoors and go catch a new PB y'all! They definitely work! 😎♥️

I really started fishing it more last year as a lazy alternative to buzztoads and had insane success really rapidly with it and then started experimenting more with it this winter and spring as a proper t rigged worm and it has quickly become my favorite do everything swimming worm/flipping bait for Texas rigs. Y'all are too kind! She sure made up for the countless giants I have lost on the way in or at the net or bank this spring. It's been rough for how good it's been and she made everything all better!

@A-Jay - you're too cool to fish down South! Is that an insult? Gosh I hope so! 😂😂😂♥️♥️♥️ Well - I went ahead and tied my PB of 11 lb 5 oz today! Absolutely beyond blessed and grateful to have caught this monster - details in the latest catch thread! 11 lb 5 oz (11.3) ÷ 15 lb 14 oz (15.8) x 100 = 71.5 Wooooo! 🔥🔥🔥🎣🎣🎣 NC bassin' in the house ☝🏼😎

Well today was one of those days I'll never forget. Jake and Meagan and I decided to hit our favorite little lake today - lotta big bites happening there lately. I'm eager to try my big swimbait pattern - Jake wants to catch one on his spro popping frog and complete his mepps challenge. Wind is blowing 11 mph when we arrive and the lake is stuffed to the gills with boaters and recreational anglers. 30 people on the fishing pier. Kayakers tossing buzzbaits on points. Families anchored on panfish beds. Part of me loves to see it and part of me is thinking where are we gonna fish! I decide to hit the often neglected pocket right next to the marina - super clear water - but some large fish around that area. I see a good one and can't get her interested and a buck gets my floating worm for the first bite of the day! We can't produce another bite and exhaust this pocket fairly quickly but we can see fish near beds everywhere and go looking for more water we can cast. We see a bass boat leaving a creek and fish the point slowly while he trolls out and idle back in there. Jake nails a beautiful yellow perch on the Mepps right away! Absolutely gorgeous fish and now I gotta throw more red belly's on my frogs officially (mental note!)! I see a good one cruising and toss my swim 5/16 oz black and blue @Siebert Outdoors sniper with a 4" largo shad ahead of her and she rushes it and nails it. Fish on! It's a good one! Crazy one eyed fish! But she likes swim jig and I liked her for biting! I run into another buck on my floating worm on the way out of the pocket and the wind starts to pick up. We see people fishing the areas we plan to hit all the way up the lake and come to the half way point and round a rock point corner and the wind is steadily hitting rip rap in about 8-10 feet of water leading back into a spawning cove that has produced a 6 for Jake and a 5 for me this past month and I've had eyes on bigger ones here earlier in the spring. It's also very close to the hard ditch in 14 feet that produced my 9 lb 14 oz fish and 7 lber in March. I figure because there are no boats back here at all that I can see and the area up the lake is being pounded by a bunch of nice rigs we saw passing us on the way up - we set up shop. I am trolling on low and pitching my sniper swim jig up to cover and slow rolling it down and around whatever I can. And out of the corner of my eye I see something big and gold flash on......a bunch of minnows? I have pulled a 5 off this particular piece of submerged wood recently and the gold flash and flickering shiners in the tops of the wood scream slow down to my bass senses. I make 5-6 casts into and around the wood with my swim jig and nothing hits. I reposition my boat and fire my 1 oz grass jig into the area hoping a faster fall might trigger a reaction. I pull back grass a few times and don't get hit but can still see the shiners all over in the submerged wood tops - seemingly eating very small insects off the surface on this windblown rock bluff over the grass just beneath that wood. I remember dumping a giant last weekend on the old mag speed worm and pitch my pegged 3/8 oz tungsten weighted green pumpkin mag speed worm on 5/0 offset worm hook one good time right into the sweet spot of the cover and let it fall and feel one really nice thump and immediately set the hook and I'm greeted instantly with the very familiar feeling of my line shooting INTO the wood cover fast. My drag is peeling out and my line is going deeper into the tree. I can feel her on sand I can tell my 20 lb big game is wrapped up in the wood and she's playing see saw with my heart. This fish is big. I've broken quite a few off in this exact scenario and my heart is racing. I keep my rod candy caned and pull hard. I feel her shoot hard right up and out of the tree - she's in control the whole time - this fish is nuts. She comes up and out of the wood and out of the water all at once and she's absolutely massive. She jumped probably 6 times and dives down stripping drag and I can already tell she's one of the biggest bass I've ever caught or seen in my life I pull her up boatside and start to lift her head towards the surface and try to get her into the net and it's clear she doesn't fit and she dives AGAIN and pulls under the boat my rod is now bent down and my line is on the aluminum hull and after another impressive drag stripping run I get her up and practically SCOOP this fish with my net just enough to stabilize her so I can grab her lip. She is too big for my net. We get her on the scale and she tips my scales at 11.5 - tying my current PB. Her nose and tail touch the inside corners of my livewell to the point where she cannot be completely straight inside of it and that's 24" - the longest fish I've ever caught for sure. She was almost impossible to hold in one hand without feeling like her jaw was going to give out. A true monster bass. She was close to 7 inches wide. Basically a submarine of a fish. I'm fairly certain if I had caught her before she spawned she'd be my first teener. But I'll take tying my PB in May! Jake didn't want to let the fireworks stop there and decided it was spro frog time and got his first frog bass of the year. I manage one more nice one on the mag speed worm and we call it a day! To say that I feel blessed and grateful is an understatement! We really had one of the most fun days ever today! I'm always gonna have a pack of magnum speed worms with me every where I fish the rest of my life that's for sure! 🥳🙏🏼🎣 Bass on friends!

Call me old fashioned: but I fish south winds and full moons with my game face in. Great fishing Katy! I see big big ones coming soon.

Catch clean cook consume? Sometimes 😎 Oh yeah pics.... Sometimes they swallow the hook and that's when you gotta have a fish fry!

Got too stormy to properly fish from the boat today after Jake's final soccer game of the season. We pond fished instead in between thunderstorm blasts. I caught all my fish swimming jigs just beneath the surface! Jake did most of his damage on the Mepps! Storms are supposed to lift and tomorrow creeks should be nice and loaded with fish - hoping we can make that boat trip happen! Tight lines fellow bass heads!

Yes

I wouldn't say I'm opposed to using skipping to elicit a reaction strike. It's just not necessarily my first move if you catch my drift. Sorry if I seemed in my post like I was excluding that option. It's just not generally speaking something that I lean heavily on even though it has caught me fish! I definitely skip my bait into areas and they react but I feel like most of the time that same fish would bite a nicely placed cast with little to no splash right on their nose.

My favorite fluke bite of the year is in the fall when the bass start to pretend to be stripers for a month or so and you can pretty much burn a fluke as fast as you possibly can and kill it and some bass is gonna smoke it 😂 My favorite way to fish them is in site like a sub surface spook 😉☝🏼 When fishing a fluke like a subsurface topwater I fish it on straight braid and the appropriate sized offset lighter wire hook of your choice and (here's the free juice for ya) I bury the hook eye when I rig the soft plastic. Burying the hook eye really lets it glide and stay up in the column and is very very optimum for topwater fluking. When I want to run it deeper more like a jerkbait I will expose the hook eye from the front of the fluke which makes it fall faster and stay lower. Took me years to figure that out! 😂😂😂😂😉😉😉😉 If fish are nipping your fluke add a treble hook to the shank of the main hook so it dangles under the belly. Gosh there goes all the juice. 😂😂😂😂

I think @Catt is the one who got me to skip skipping baits and start casting baits accurately. There's very very few situations where a skip is a better move than a low quiet soft cast. Sure docks and overhangs sometimes do require a skip and sometimes a skip gets a bite so play through in learning it but I think good casting is where good skipping begins. If you want to be decent at skipping start by getting great at casting. Also honestly - spinning rods are what I use when I need to skip a bait - just infinitely more efficient - but I have skipped swim jigs and buzzbaits and frogs into strange spots and caught fish it's just not the most efficient most of the time. 😂😉

Flukes are really hard to do wrong. They're like a floating worm meets a vision 110 is about the long and short of it and you can't really fish them in a way that won't get fish to bite.

Something is happening with that big swimbait bite this week to be sure. Paralleled a steeper bank with a Zaldaingerous swimbait and nailed this 5.5 lb beast! We caught some more on the floating worm and Jake wrecked beautiful bluegill and now we are going bowling! Gonna test the big swimbait pattern on the lake this weekend and I'm anxious to report what we find! 😎☝🏼🎣 Oh yeah I got a monster on the hybrid hunter also. He ate it like a topwater though which was quite epic. I knew it was coming @bp_fowler congratulations dude! @MIbassyaker that's such a beautiful beast dude - epic!

Not being allowed to troll in a bass tournament is so anglers don't gain a competitive advantage over each other. I think trolling when you're trying to gain a competitive advantage over Mother Nature while trying to figure out how to catch very smart fish for fun on your free time is perfectly acceptable. 😂😂😂