Pat Brown

I could tell you...but then I'd have to get GPS waypoints to all your honey holes first 😎😎😂😂😂 Just kidding! I like the Storm Largo Shad, Rapala Mayor, YUM Scottsboro Minnow, Gambler EZ swimmer and the X Zone Swammer! Caught giant fish swimming jigs with each one of these baits but the Scottsboro Minnow 4.5" in Tennessee Shad on a Bluegill Flash 1/4 oz @Siebert Outdoors swim jig caught my largest bass ever swimming a jig at 9.1 lbs.

Tom if the lists I have pulled up are mostly correct you might just have caught one of the top 20 bass ever caught! 🏆🏆🏆 That's quite an achievement sir.

Oh I'll be trying to catch a fish on a frog between now and the 27th with fervor you better believe it LOL! We've been steadily rising for 3 days now and 2 days before the new moon is go time baby. 😎😎😎

I have a lot of them - it's why I'm a certified junkie for the bass. One wouldn't do that to a man. But when you got a nice pile of stories like this - it gets to be wher ya need to catch em to function. I don't know which of my giant fish truly is the most memorable but in my heart - it's gotta be a topwater story for this to work - here goes. I have caught this particular fish 4 times and hooked her a 5th AND my son has caught her once. Biggest I ever caught her was in February of 2023 on a swim jig. 9.1 I caught her AGAIN that March on a red lipless crankbait and she weight 8 lb 12 oz. Fast forward to July - I decide it's time to do an afternoon fishing trip with Jake - so we pack up and head down to the public pond we fish at nearby. It's a smoldering hot day. The sun is bright and there's hardly more than a tiny ripple happening when we arrive. It's probably 4 pm and there's tons of people at the pond. Boats being rented and paddled. Ducks being fed. Children running and screaming and playing. People fishing everywhere. Everyone I see is fishing worms and jigs and crankbaits and whopper ploppers and live bait and I don't see any fish anywhere near the bank (rare when it's as hot and busy as it was that day. I am not sure what possessed me to throw the frog but looking back on it - I think I just wanted to try something different from what everybody else was doing and failing with - basically as simple as that. I had the all white Strike King pad perch tied on to my trusty Falcon 7' heavy fast and I had my 8 speed Shimano SLX spooled up with 40 lb braid. I look at the spots I would normally want to throw the frog - the grass edges - all loaded with people bank fishing. The boat house sits at the center of the park and has a huge dock that sticks out into the center of the pond and to the right of it there's a huge rocky flat that's only a foot deep or so for many feet before it drops off steeply out towards the center. Normally there are a few boats docked - maybe one being paddled around and some people fishing this flat. On this particular day, the boats were ALL being used and as a result, the flat was constantly experiencing people returning rental or just departing - so there were no fishermen. I am not shy about casting baits around rental paddle boaters on a busy day so I wandered over to the flat and waited for the boat traffic to stabilize out on the main water and made my first cast. I had just spooled up the rod so it went further than I remembered it going the last time I cast it and marveled at how tiny and far away my little white frog looked bobbing gently on the surface looked at that moment. I am ALWAYS trying to be intentional with things like topwater and jerkbaits - never mechanical - and so I tell myself 'Pat it's very very hot - go super slow' And I begin my retrieve. I start with little gentle pulls just to get that frog sliding side to side nicely and I settle on a cadence of pop - wait 3-4 seconds - gently pop again - wait 3-4 seconds - pop harder a couple times in rapid succession - pause 3-4 seconds etc. I was basically spacing out and just enjoying the weather and having a little slice of water to myself when suddenly (practically a mile away) the water erupts around my Frog and it disappears. At this precise moment my brain decides that we don't have time to reel down and we don't have time to see if she's got it and she's a mile away so we better set that book and set it fast. Well - I told y'all I had just respooled my SLX - let me tell ya - the drag somehow got loosened and the first thing I noticed on that hook set was about as far back as I yanked that rod - just that much braid slipped out of my spool from the drag on that hook set. I'm turning that reel handle and she's out there wallering and tail walking and now suddenly people are gathering behind me and video taping the whole debacle. Some quick hands and I manage to keep her pegged while tightening my drag star and I manage to turn her towards me. This fish probably jumped 9-10 times clear out of the water and I could tell she was HUGE. Finally after what seemed like a very adrenaline packed 2 minutes or so I get her to where I can wade into the 7" deep water to lip her and that is precisely what I did. When I get my hands on her I realize this is not just a big fish but it is THE fish I caught (my then 9.1 lb PB) that February - now caught halfway across the pond in a completely different area on a third bait! The frog! She tipped the scales at 8 lb 3 oz on the third time I caught her and I let her go. Kind strangers from the crowd took the photo! This was the moment that solidified the frog as one of my secret weapons for catching big fish when you shouldn't be able to catch anything. 😎😎😎

Bill on Bass after Dark swim jig episode was super fantastic - a great dude - happy with how this one turned out for sure!

Extra large bass are much easier to catch when conditions make visibility poorer IMHO.

Green+White (shad) or black and blue (blue gill or crawfish) is about all ya need for any lure.

I get cut off clean at least 4 or 5 times every year fishing mainlake structure where I catch my biggest bass every year. It's always 15-20 lb big game and flipping baits and it's always instant and super clean cut on hook set. I was recently told our lakes have a ton of mudfish/bowfin in addition to huge pickerel.

Red has been better this spring for me than the shad colors so far. Guess the universe is telling me to try a red on my frog belly before spring is over! Red is one of those things where when it works it works and when it doesn't it seems worthless. When I see chocolate milk - chartreuse or red both get the call a lot! I think it just helps the fish find it when visibility is very poor but I think there are times when red is a good match the hatch color for clear water also!

Looks like a little slice of heaven there. Those are some beautiful bass!!!

Okay y'all - lazy is the wrong word and overused - tongue in cheek mostly - realistically the word is probably something more like 'efficient' Is being efficient the same as being lazy? To a person who is cynical - the two are misconstrued as being the same thing - but bass are not lazy - they are efficient.

Finally got a few to bite. One on the free rig which is sort of new to me and I'm excited when I have success with that kinda stuff Had a buzzbait fish after sunset! A bunch on the jerkbait but all little guys But it was cool catching a few on a super fast moving bait again! Finally the lipless bite kicked back on this week with all the rain - managed a quick trip around lunch time and did pretty well. Two little fish and a 4.5 lber on the red craw red eye shad! Heck of a fight! Biggest of 2025 so far and nice to run into a big one on the lipless! Jake lost a good one on the spinnerbait tonight at a different spot and missed some more bites on the lipless so they're slowly turning back on. These bass felt like I was grabbing them out of beer coolers. They were COLD! Hoping I can make a little more magic happen before the winter cold times come back in a big way next week! Amazing fish everyone! Great to see spring turning on some places!

Best topwater fishing of my life during these events some years!

Every single year I see the mayflies hatch and I see panfish AND double digit bass return to the trees for this event and everyone eats those little guys while it's happening. I personally think it's a mother's milk situation. They all got started on mayflies at one point in time. I think the big girls snag a crappie or two while they're in the area and don't make a big fuss about it also but they're definitely munching the bugs too. 🙂

Steve Bardin and other prominent fisheries biologists and fisheries management types talk about it on bass after dark. You can listen if you want. It's pretty interesting stuff and just more coal for the fire! I'm not sure that it's always one way for every fish - I seen way too many peculiar individuals in my own fishing.

It's worth it if you like catching bass on big swimbaits! The price per fish is much higher than a frog or jig - whether that makes it worth it or not is entirely up to you? I know a lot of people who just enjoy throwing a bigger bait and that is reason enough to constantly throw them. I personally have had success using them but it seems to be situational and I let the conditions dictate that lure choice more so than just throwing it for the sake of throwing it. To me - It's a really boring type of lure to throw a lot of time. Because they really don't catch a lot of fish most of the time, but there are times when it's better to throw one than other stuff

When available, bass will go for soft rayed fish 9/10 times. They also go for slower species in general when available. I definitely believe that bass eat whatever is easiest to eat and there's a lot of AKA opportunistic. If they got bluegill, they're going to eat bluegill even if it's not their favorite thing. I do think that if they have choices, the bigger bass typically will select the thing that they want the most to eat the same way that they do not select my lure when they recognize it! I think like others have said - the big ones know where to be and when and are very good at feeding themselves with minimal risk, competition and effort.

Maybe - just maybe - It's a relative body mass index thing and the amount of protein you get per bite relative to the mass is very high with a crawfish. THAT - I would believe. I see giant fish eating lots of tiny minnows too so maybe they just don't like big hard bones and stuff like that. It might be more of like a relative protein to body mass index ratio thing. I have also heard it said that bass have a long ingrained predisposition to hate crayfish and almost obsessive-compulsively kill them if they're in the area nearby. I think it could be possible for both of these things to be true and perhaps that is why jigs work so well!

Except when it doesn't. I've caught just as many big fish (8+ lbers) ripping and burning baits around as I have dragging or dead sticking. I would probably say a significant number more!

I say it's skill mostly and then timing and location and of course a sprinkle of some luck is there every time a fish bites, we successfully hook it, fight it to the boat and then land it!

I'm thankful you said that because now I feel normal. 😂😂😂

The buzzbait is definitely this bait for me. It's often a self fulfilling prophecy to be fair! That bait just seems to work when everything else is tough. I just go and keep making good casts and it's rare something doesn't happen.

Yeah I'd say that my key trait is persistance. I just know she's gonna bite on that next cast. 🙂

This is a @Siebert Outdoors black and blue 1/4 oz brush jig with a blue sapphire rage craw - but how it looks to a bass! 😮🙂

Funny thing is I have utmost confidence in every single bait here - y'all just PM me and I'll let you know where to send the samples! 😂😂😂