Pat Brown

Find a pond with big bass and throw em til you lose em in a snag or a big basses mouth! I like having my 'nice' lures and I like having some random cheap stuff around in case I am fishing from the bank in an unfamiliar place and don't wanna sacrifice one of my premium products to fishing line balls and ropes and errant stumps. I like the reckless abandon I find myself fishing cheaper lures with enough to keep a few around at all times.

With monofilament - heavy fast - but good parabolic action to the rod. Not a broomstick.

Small swimbaits - crush city mayor/rage swimmer Craw style baits - rage craw/ mag speed craw/ chigger craw Beaver style baits - d bomb/ rage bug/ z craw Soft Jerkbaits - fluke / spunk shad Grubs - fat Albert / Yamamoto twin tail/ rage menace Chunks - Paw Paw E Pork/ Zoom Super Chunk/ Missile Baits Chunk

I like stuff that can do lots of stuff but generally I like some heavier stuff and some lighter stuff for throwing bigger and smaller baits.

Thanks man. December has been a GRIND - but I'm so blessed to have caught and released that fantastic specimen and right before Christmas with good friends and my son with the net. That jig is going in my 'not for fishing anymore ' drawer with some other special lures to be passed down to Jake when I'm gone.

Went out today with Jake and @LrgmouthShad for a little pre X Mas / Post frontal NC LMB chasing! We had some good structure picked out when we got to the lake around 11 to check out. We split our way and LMS went his way in the yak to see if we could sort them out faster. We went up the sunny side and made it all the way to the lily pads on the flat sunny side and I say to Jake - let's go fish the deep shady side - they're supposed to be on steeper Banks this time of year - or something to that effect. Jake agrees we need to change it up and steeper contours seems smart to him so we put the motor on high and jet to the opposite side of the lake and start fishing our way back into a spawning pocket adjacent to a main lake point. I figure offshore and flat banks have been a bust and LMS struggled on humps and points - why not try spawning areas. I look at my Garmin and start seeing bass shaped arches suspending over 11 feet of water in very scattered ones and twos very near the surface - not doing very much. No bait. The sun is getting low - only an hour until we are required to get off the water at this particular lake. I throw my 1 oz 'Pats Gizzard' @Siebert Outdoors grass jig with a Watermelon Seed Zoom Mag Speed Craw on the back at some targets at the back of this pocket and we start bouncing around the channel swing back out to the point. I see some really good looking overhanging trees with some sun hitting some clear sandy bottom with some laydowns just beneath the surface right where the pocket transitioned to the channel swing and I throw that jig right up to the bank. Our boat is stationary but I have the sensation that my trolling motor is on high and my jig is stuck in something on the bottom.....but the boat is stationary.....SET THE HOOK DUMMY *screeeeech* and away we go.... She's out from the cover now and making a mad dash for deeper water. She starts to really load up and I can tell we got a real big one on the line. I ask Jake for a net and he quickly locates it and asks where she is and up she pops almost exactly on cue - his jaw drops and he says 'YOU'RE GOING TO WIN THIS MONTH!' (referring to the local big bass bash - I have submitted 3 bass and had each one taken out by ounces near the end of each respective month) Jake gets her and I lip her and we both realize she's a bit heftier than even dad thought. She may INDEED be worthy of submission I decide. We fill the livewell and crank the O2 and she seems happy chilling in there - I call the Marina. I am informed in all three lakes - 4.99 lbs is the largest submission for all of December. Jake and I smile and tell the park attendant to ready the scales and we high tail it back. She beat the current big bass by 2.36 lbs coming in at 7.35 lbs. She was all of 20" making her quite possibly the fattest fish I've ever caught and I am currently leading the month of December! Here she is! Here she is on marina scales getting certified for the competition! Here's the lovely jig that got her to bite 😏😏😏

Just to add a little - my experience is that night has bight windows a lot like daytime that are being dictated by a lot of things. Sometimes it's a very specific time and area they feed at night on smaller bodies of water.

I've lost my dignity and self respect and a small armada of rods over the side. The worst thing to lose boatside is a big fish though!

I think winter affects bait a lot more than bass so learning what your bait tends to do in the winter seems like really good advice. I know - personally - I enjoy fishing spots that have golden shiners and crappie more than shad when it's winter here. The shad tend to group up and move around a lot and fishing for the Largemouth can be very tricky. On the crappie and shiner spots - you'll see those guys up in the grass with ice on the banks. Sunfish oriented bass can also be tough when it's super cold. Cold resistant forage seems to be nice to have around if you like fishing shallow in the cold months.

I'm just glad it's getting cold again. It dropped 20 degrees today. I'll be fishing for sure!

And then you've got some really weird ones - there are times where high contrast and bright 'trigger' colors work much better than natural colors. And I love the transparent stuff on sunny days around shad or bluegill fry in the summer! 😏😏😏 Silvery/shimmery/sparkley semi transparent frogs work really well around here when I'm fishing the lakes and the water is clear. I have fished a frog a lot and I think sometimes color matters more than action or profile. It's weird how much it matters for whether they eat it or just whack at it.

I think you have to let the fish tell you but my experience is that bass can be very particular about topwater color in certain conditions/scenarios and in others - not so much. All I know is - I got a few different things for reasons that are unique and some that are pretty basic and there's different bodies of water and times of year where different ones matter. I think you could probably do fine with a white frog and some markers for the rest of time. But I enjoy buying tackle and sometimes the fancy colors they come out with do things like glow or pass light through them and I think sometimes on pressured Bodies of water being a little different is important.

On the lakes I fish in NC, yes I believe so at this current time - ponds there seems like there's some of both maybe? Ponds I fish were stocked out of coolers 😂👍🏼

I've gone from fishing my confidence and strengths - to fishing the moment - to frantically throwing the kitchen sink at them over the past 2 weeks and I'm pretty convinced that they're just about not catchable right now. If you're not catching em - ain't nobody catching em. I truly believe that consistent weather AND weather that aligns with the seasonal norms are pretty important to the FLMB and it's personal sense of security. I don't like cold fronts in the spring I don't like warm fronts in the winter. Funny how that works, ain't it? We just gotta keep piling on the wisdom and knowledge and then maybe by the time we learn something - they be biting again! 😂😂😂👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

I firmly believe that muddy water = bass on the bank - any time of year and any water temperature where the water is not solid. Bass that would be tight to the bank and feeding right now are hanging where they can not be seen at the deepest points. On a pond where that's a hole waaaaaay out in the center and the rest is gin clear and flat - tough times for sure.

I did catch one big fish on a Jerkbait a week ago but it's been slooooooooow. Few bites on the frog and lipless but no real commitment or consistency. Water temps got down to 40° on the surface (frozen in creeks and pockets wind blew into) during a very hard snap and then it went up to 65 day/40 night and the fish are acting confused. I think we are still losing daylight and the weather being funky and waaaaaay warm suddenly at the same time has had a very strange effect on the bass around me. Another thing that's odd/observably very different from last winter - I can see 6 feet down everywhere. Like water is so so clear around here. Rains and winds and dead leaves and mud have not seemed to do the usual tannic orange brown tea thing. I was pretty certain last year my wild lipless success was at least due in part to the uniquely poor visibility we got. Now I'm feeling very certain. Fishing Florida LMB in gin clear winter water ain't my thing it turns out - but hopefully weather getting back on its seasonal track after today has the fish acting a little more frantic and hungry and wintery. At any rate here's that ~5 I caught on the jerkbait last weekend at sunset during the last of the cold stuff before it got silly warm.

That color is sweeeeeet. We got looooots of yellow perch on my big fish lakes. 😉😉😉🥷🏼🥷🏼🥷🏼

Red Eye Shad Jig (too many to even list - mostly choice Seibert offerings in cool colors!) Drop Shot Buzzbait Spinnerbait Frog (strike king/scum frog/snag proof/spro) Mag Speed Worm Mag Speed Craw Fluke Glide bait (BPS Swerve)

I think I read somewhere that you only use braid in another thread. Apologies if I'm mistaken. Can't use braid with them IMHO

With the chatterbait I like trailers that basically don't have any drag or lift (fluke/spunk shad/trick worm) more than flappy or paddle tails. I think the point of that is basically getting the action similar to no trailer (wild and erratic) with a little more weight for easier casting. Also helps to keep the bait deeper. I would imagine - with that in mind - no trailer would have great action - just be a little tougher to cast.

So far when it's that cold a Jig n Pig and a Jerkbait have been pretty solid this year! Lipless crankbait/spinnerbait/chatterbait all work good when it's super cold. Blade baits and spoons. Ned rig/shaky head/drop shot.

Call me an old fashioned cynic - but this is just in line with the typical de evolution of the culture of pro bass fishing into something resembling pro wrestling. I don't have any dog in the fight - pro wrestling is fine - but it's entertainment - not sports and the pro bass leagues are cashing in on drama and controversy. Seems like during the off season when people are in a tree stand or shopping for Christmas presents - overblowing something minor could indeed just be manufacturing clicks and attention. I mean - it's working - we are talking about it! 😂😂😂😂

Smart fish that are still reluctantly whacking it. Honestly I prefer side hooking them with a jerkbait to digging the hooks out of their crushers/gills/stomach - but that's just me. Popping a hook out of their scales isn't as fun as knowing they got it good but it beats a murder scene and dead fish. Honestly - it's just a way that fish accidentally get hooked by an artificial lure that tricked them some of the time. You can try changing colors and going bigger or smaller to see if they choke it instead of swipe at it. Also try some different cadence/retrieves.

I like a green pumpkin top white belly Something greenish and orange belly Brown and purple. Black and blue. Black and red. Haven't really found many circumstances these don't work! I love the grass jig and the sniper and the G2 and brush. I also love swim and shot caller but I've kinda shifted to grass for those duties. It's a very very good jig.

I have before but don't anymore. Buzzbait - a lot I do - spinnerbait - nah - kinda messes up the action to me usually.