Pat Brown

Berkeley Frittside, Rapala DT Line/OG Slim and Rocco, Spro Lil John.

Weightless Fluke, hollow frog, weightless Mag Speed Worm, swim jig.

My bass are almost always looking for bait fish when they are actually eating food not just killing stuff - regardless of season or conditions or other available forage. There are exceptions - but in terms of 'preference' I believe it is 99% bait fish here almost all of the time. Bait fish to me is any fish that's under 10" or so. Small crappie, small sunfish, big shad, small bass, small catfish, small carp, big shiners etc etc. they seem pretty content to eat minners' . They are opportunistic and get around events like hatches and other things knowing it will draw in these other bait fish a lot of the time. I think when they eat something that isn't bait fish it's probably around their nesting area and they kill two birds with one stone.

I often purchase lots of different brands of soft plastic but when I'm casting and the fish are biting it's generally one brand at a time so even though I have different things available that exist - I very very rarely fish more than one brand of soft plastic at a time. I suppose I could do it on an Alabama rig but it might run weird with a keitech on one hook and a rage bug on another and a trick worm on one of them. Some sort of cursed chandelier.

I rarely see the beds either - most springs up the lake - it's like <6" of visibility where they spawn. 😉 The tiny ponds I fish - totally different story - but yeah good luck sight fishing those girls 😂😂😂😂 you might get them to hit a bait one time and that will be the last time you see them til you're gone and that's a really good day and probably a fish that is under 6. These fish have ivy league diplomas.

@Swamp Girl Hard to say why you've never seen a bed but I guarantee you've caught a spawning fish. There are guides who say on the podcast Bass After Dark that the only time you will EVER get a 12+ lb LMB to bite an artificial bait is around her nest. These guys aren't idiots and I tend to think the same holds true in a relative sense for smaller big fish in smaller bodies of water. I tend to think the big females get most angry and aggressive around their nests and most of the rest of the time are content to leave even a tasty or annoying looking thing completely alone. Around their nests is a very relative thing and Paul Rogers on the nature of fishing has shown that one big bass can spawn in like 7 beds in a cove and be kinda angrily protecting them all? But not be anywhere near one specific bed? Like it's kinda more nuanced than the usual anti bed fishing propaganda would have you believe.

I think even on small ponds - sections fire first and then other sections fire at other times and it's all pretty closely related to prevailing conditions/fronts/protected areas/current /water clarity etc etc. So many variables. I don't believe anymore that there is a majority of fish that spawn at a certain time - I think that fish spawn in shallow water where they are visible to the naked eye each year during a window of water temp and clarity that is *generally* around 50-80° give or take and there are fish that will spawn up shallow when it's colder and hotter than that. This spring I have launched with 44° surface temps and come back in with 55° surface temps. I have found sections of the lake mid day that are 46° while other pockets are 56-59°. Areas that are protected from prevailing colder fronts (could be from any direction!!!! - not just the North!) tend to be your friend. Don't get too locked into 'protected from the north wind'. Protected from the wind at all is more like it. That can mean deep. That can mean shallow. In clearer parts of the lake fish may never spawn up shallow - they don't have to. Dirty water - fish might be spawning up shallow all winter long if you don't get way below 50° SO many variables and every individual fish behaves differently to compound things. The best you can do is be out there often and pay close attention to water temps on your fish finder and if you start to consistently see 50° + on the surface there's almost always some fish trying to push into the shallow water. I like targeting shallow fish in the spring in the muddy shallow creek arms which warm up WAY faster than the clear deep main lake water. If you see fish spawning on the main lake - they're spawning everywhere usually. I find it's the last place fish spawn most of the time. If you're throwing baits up shallow and catching small males - look for deeper or colder or clearer sections of your lake for bigger pre-spawn females that may still be staging and big - the areas where males are already everywhere up shallow are pretty much done with the big female pre spawn thing sadly. If you see low 50s and don't get bites and catch small fish up shallow on every cast. Fish slow. Fish smart. There's giant females around you.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Asymmetrical forms with lots of blurby circles and tunnels and bubbles can be beautiful and interesting to one person while star mandala things can be kind of contrived and boring to another... But I do think it's good to be kind and spread goodness in the universe! I was only kidding about abusing the fish verbally LOL

I mostly verbally abuse the fish I catch. I call em small. I tell em they are slow. Tell em they need to get back out there and grow or they're toast etc. Sometimes I say something unsavory about their family etc. I'm not sure they speak English or not but I'm very hard on them emotionally. Unless they're big girls - big girls get compliments.

Bass eat: Herring/Gizzard Shad/Threadfin Shad/Perch/Sunfish/Crappie/Shiners/crayfish/mayflies/worms/water bugs/frogs/tadpoles/carp/catfish and all other manner of things that seem to be pretty well in tune to the position of the moon and how dark or bright it is. Big bass like to be efficient. Big bass like lots of food in one place that has no choice but to stay put. One might say I'm a LUNA-tic seeing as how my superstition has resulted in fairly close to all of my exceptional fish including this 9 lb 14 oz fish that I caught last week - 2 days before a full moon in March. (I'm a firm believer in the days leading up to full and new moons *generally* being the big key days to hit em hard and of course the solunar peaks 😉😉😉) I'm a Moon Guy. 🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

Only when I am able to land them successfully 🥹😂🤦🏼‍♂️

Nah not only spawn or anything like that - I just believe in periods where animals and critters and bait fish and all sorts of things (insects birds frogs crayfish) sort of cause little flurries of opportunity each month 😉😉😉

Okay okay - to be fair I'm a solunar guy. I'm a moon dude. I believe in moon stuff. Is that superstitious or scientific? Who knows? 😎

They truly are - any sign of them is like winning the lottery for a big girl man like myself. Any time you get one to reveal herself you know you could be dealing with her in that area for a good while this time of year. Very exciting with a tournament on said lake this coming Saturday! 😉🙂 Thankfully I don't think I poked either of the big girls - meaning - they could play. 😎

A FAT healthy fish that slammed the spinnerbait yesterday for me. Missed a couple mega giants on the weightless fluke fished super erratic around spawning areas. Missed 2 more on the spinnerbait. They are definitely on the move! Big things coming up shallow I reckon!

I don't think I'm very superstitious or good at it. I'm aware of them and I like to point them out sometimes when I encounter one - but I love a banana on the boat. High potassium and calorie snack with good fiber out on the water sounds like good luck to me!

The Bill Dance hat + the drum + the smile = I laughed 😂

Looks like fun to me. Getting it done in my 80s is the very very tentative but hopeful goal. We salute you sir!

This is something I constantly have to remind myself when I get wrapped up about bait color or size or action - it's more about being around em and using something that efficiently gets to where they're at at the right time. It's always about right time and right place. The location is extremely important. If they're in 14 feet of water belly down on rock - a frog or buzzbait aren't the best choices necessarily. If they're buried in emergent pencil reeds in 1.3 feet of water - a suspending jerkbait or DT10 probably isn't the best choice. If they're suspending at 12 feet down over 20 feet of water a half mile off a point eating balls of threadfin - dragging a football jig isn't gonna be getting their attention probably. Long story short with bait selection is think about the depth and type of cover and the bait is gonna be obvious. From there you play with speed and size and color and that is where the real fun begins. When you really get them dialed in - you can do no wrong sometimes.

You spelled 'frog addict' weird there. 🙂

Here is where I fished this morning Enhanced so you can see lol. It was dark.

I'm 6'4 and 240 lbs - definitely have some sort of viking leprechaun mixed genes. But one thing is for sure: my ancestors were big on setting the hooks on donkeys. This much I'm certain of 😂😂😂🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️ I'm scared I won't be posting again in this thread this year - but I'll try not to jinx it. Fingers crossed I get one bigger than 9 lb 14 oz. The way I'm missing fish on frogs at the ponds this spring - probably not gonna happen this year 😂😂😂

Well, Andy told me to come here - and we all know how annoying he is when he wants you to do something 😏😏😏 so here I am! 😉😉😉 9 lb 14 oz caught on a 1 oz @Siebert Outdoors grass jig in Pat's Gizzard with a TN Shad Largo Shad in the big size glued on the back slow rolled in 14 feet of water at 3 pm 2 days before a full moon. My state record is 15 lb 14 oz 9.9/15.9 x 100 = 62.26 Hooray! 😎😎😎

Maybe it's too dirty. Maybe it's not dirty enough. Maybe they've seen too much red. There's so many variables at play with bass fishing but don't use it if it doesn't work, am I right? I catch fish using red but I think mostly it's when you throw it more often and you have confidence in the lure that it works then anything else. At least that's been my experience with just about every lure and every color.

Thanks everybody for the kind words! The Big Fish bash for my local Lake that I qualified for back in December with the 7.35 is coming up. Not this Saturday but next Saturday and I'm really glad I'm getting my mojo working finally because I need that confidence going into this event. I'm going to be going up against some serious hammers and sticks that have been doing this event for decades. I'll be fishing out of a Jon Boat with a trolling motor! 😂 These two fish are just the juice I needed in my tank and I'm hoping I can develop some patterns between now and then and follow some fish to some places that could help me win the tournament! It's really nice seeing all the big fish here being caught - it was a really long, very educational winter with very few fish caught for me and a lot of ice on top of the water and these two fish right here were two of the best feeling fish I've ever caught.