Pat Brown

Played my steel string dreadnaught all night last night! Man that's fun! I been trying to figure out how to do them Tony Rice chords that sound like a golden orange sunrise hitting the water in April - the surface stirring with wonder and mystery....or something like that. 😉 If you haven't listened to Tony Rice and you like acoustic guitar - you're welcome. One of the greatest things to ever come from NC. Rest in Peace Tony

Arkansas shiner and Tennessee shad

Honestly bass isn't that bad - it is a lot better with some corn bread batter and a little tartar but what isn't!?!? Also fertilizing plants/liberating baby ducklings/feeding herons and turtles etc are all actually great uses for a dead 12-15" bass.

I don't think you can possibly hurt a healthy fishery by culling fish - from what I understand it's just standard practice for places that charge a lot of money for people to trophy hunt. The difference between a managed fishery and an unmanaged fishery. Will nature produce freak fish on its own? Sure. Will it produce a lot more freak fish a lot more frequently with very deliberate help from people who cull small fish? Yes.

For me - 7/16 oz tungsten weight pegged with a 4/0 offset worm hook and a 10" ribbon tail if I could only have one forever. Thankfully I can have a mag speed worm, mag speed craw and my D bomb and nobody will judge me! I use those a lot too. I also sometimes like heavier or lighter sinkers but for me I fish a t rig a lot through wood and in heavy cover and I like that pegged 7/16, 4/0 and 10" worm doing that. Big fish bait.

We buy all of the old school bass fishing 'How To' that we can find at thrift stores! We have a pretty good collection going! Worth it for the photography alone. Honestly, there's some juice in there you don't see on the internet these days 🤫😉

Just so y'all know - there are still living bass in NC THANK GOD!!! On the provoke at sunset yesterday. Boy that felt nice 🥹🥹🥹❤️❤️❤️

I'm very thankful that NC is mostly wetland filters in and out of reservoirs but I'm definitely very intrigued by all of this especially for small older ponds with lots of sludge etc

If you combine North and South Carolina which people from North and South Carolina would never allow, it would be a strong contender for the second biggest crop of anglers.

The brush jig comes through just about everything decently - it's as close to a do everything jig as there is! The weed guard is light enough to swim it and stout enough to flip it and it skips decently and comes over rock surprisingly well. Caught a lot of big fish on the brush jig Mike makes. Also a big fan of the grass jig/sniper and G2 offerings. Can't go wrong with anything Mike makes and his custom skirt colors have been highly effective for me on my pressured waters.

I'd probably go hi float for me personally but let the depths you typically fish dictate your choice! The hi float can be weighted to do near anything the low float would do I would assume.

I'd get a DRT Klash 9 and thank Pat later when you catch a new PB! Why? It does everything and it flat out catches the crap out of big fish for everyone I know that tosses one. They can float or dive or sink or suspend etc etc Best bait of its kind for the money out there probably.

I don't feel like I'm very bad at fishing and I'd wager for numbers the same is true on any of the lakes I fish. Probably even for size, who knows? It's just not really the same as having to do it with skill at all. I don't think that makes me or anyone else bad who doesn't have the money to play around with it and I don't begrudge anyone choosing to use it in their free time to have fun and catch more fish. I don't think steroids in pro level baseball is a great thing either? What are we teaching our kids by allowing that to be the way we measure greatness? It's just like more interesting when people who are good at something win with skill to me but I get that it's about selling a lifestyle and making sponsors happy and I respect the hustle.

I think that comparing pay to play sports to people devoting free time to rising up in basketball through merit and devotion is a false equivalency but I see valuable insights being shared by everyone. Good discussion!

NBA basketball = you have to be amazing and be picked out of many amazing competitors over the course of many years. The worst NBA player makes a lot more money than the highest paid bass fisherman on a great year after taxes and expenses incurred for each. Pro fishing - have enough money/sponsors to be able to buy into (gamble) your money with other similarly set up people while building social media following that centers around selling tackle for your sponsors. Not at all the same things.

And let's be doubly realistic: the best painter is someone we will never know their name. The best musicians same same. Etc etc. The way we discover people isn't based on their merit or skill or ability to succeed - it's really complicated what it takes for someone to be a professional at anything - the best are often not professionals at all and professionals are OFTEN not the best. I think starting an LLC and filing taxes and fishing in tournaments and building relationships with sponsors and selling tackle on social media and building a following independent of your tournament success is the bare minimum necessary to be a professional fisherman in 2025. And all of that has absolutely nothing to do with being good at catching a largemouth bass (excepting maybe building trust on social media providing examples of sponsor products working etc)

I think if I stuck you in a 200k boat with top of the line everything and said go fishing all you want - you'd be the next KVD 😂😂😂 I think older pro fishing was a different ball game and with limitations on technology etc - a lot of those guys could wax us. I think nowadays - it's more or less an arms race and having free time. If only pro fishing was just being good at fishing! Never has been that way and it never will be. It's a lot more than that.

I'm a rental jon boat bass fisherman who goes on weekends with my wife and son and I have nearly beaten a lake record that was allegedly set in 1967 - no verifiable pictures of fish on scale that I'm aware of for that 12.2 lber - my 11.5 lber - I got pictures and videos and everything. I caught submissions 4 times last year for the tri city big bass bash - I won finally in December with this fish. Never underestimate the average Joe.

Howdy there! Great group of people with loads of knowledge. I can tell you this much - bass are bass despite what the bait monkey would have you believe. 🙂😉 Read lots and take notes - everyone on here can teach you something. Welcome from Greensboro, NC! -Pat

The only time of year that I don't visually see Bass swimming around in shallow water almost everyday is when the water temperature is below the 40s. There are some years where the bass never leave the shallows like 2023. 2024-2025, I haven't seen a bass in shallow water with my eyes before making a cast since November. I did see some fish chase my lure in - but don't really think that counts. I also saw some bass busting bait offshore when one of the snowy fronts hit in December. Whats interesting is the water is the clearest I've ever seen it this year - when they return - gonna be easy to see them.

I'll give up even more juice because I'm that nice. Match the body of the lizard to the water tint/clarity. 😉😉😉👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 Around here I fish water that is kinda clearish iced tea color (gourd green) Water that is milky and kinda brownish orange tinted (moccasin) And water that is greenish and clear (watermelon blue). Take that and apply it to your water and you should see some cool results. My logic is most things adapt to camouflage in nature so I want the flakes to sorta shimmer but the body to disappear into the water. Sometimes black or no flake is the magic ticket though. You've got to do a little experimentation and then you'll know what works best for your fish.

I can tell every last one of you friends this: Florida bass under a sheet of ice do NOT bite in big lakes or small ponds in NC. 👍🏼😂

Making me give up all my secrets huh? Gourd Green Moccasin Blue Watermelon

Part of being a good coach to a group of people of varying skill levels and talents is helping people gain confidence in their special skills and helping them exploit them so that the group can achieve victory. In fishing - coaching yourself is a lot like this. You have to develop your strengths as they relate to your body of water and your fish and that requires you to make a decision as to what you want to be doing first. I think fishing is a skill we develop around fish and that's why I stress on here the importance of shifting your mindset over to what is the fishes doing. What's up with the bait and not bass and bass - what exactly are they all doing?? - all important stuff to understand before you pick a bait or an area or a time to go fishing etc. It's sorta like trying to learn to drive a car from a users manual. It ain't gonna work. You gotta go start doing it and then develop your strengths as you learn what they are - Coach yourself! But most importantly - where are the bass?!? That's the only thing in bass fishing that truly matters because the rest is a puzzle you can solve and learn in time!

I just start a turning those knobs til it sounds purty and then I swim around in that world for a while 😉👍🏼