Pat Brown

@Aaron_H - 1000% I never have my drag super duper tight on any bait - even frogs - that's not the purpose of drag! Also most people use too stiff of a rod for the job they're doing in bass fishing IMHO. I lose more fish ripping holes in their mouths or breaking my line or when my rod is too stiff and unloads during a fight than I do letting my drag slip a bit during a fight. Can't count the number of BIG fish I landed that made a run or two where they would have come off if my drag hadn't been a little loose. Don't want to think about the number of BIG fish I lost that I might have landed had my gear been set up right for the task.

Yeah - @senile1 - absolutely. It's very rare that it gets below 48° for very long on the surface here BUT we did have a hard freeze on ponds and lakes two years in a row - but it only lasted about a week and then it went straight into the spring transition. I caught the 9.3 that I caught this past January 5 days after the pond was covered in ice paralleling the rip rap with a red eye shad 1/2 oz model. Water was real cold and real muddy but I was fishing a steeper drop with some rock. I think you're right though. When it's sustained cold front conditions or the surface temps dip into the mid to low 40s for a day or two - best to fish deeper areas slower with subtler baits. I might still use a heavier jig and pop it up hard to try to make them react - but you can bet that I'll also be crawling it around and dead sticking it too. All of this sort of comes back to fishing the conditions - the fish are gonna eat no matter what when it's super cold but what's been happening the past week? What's happening now? What's about to happen? These questions are important to answer when trying to locate winter bass for sure - and when you're trying to dial in your presentation for them!

Rivers are FUN and they keep on being fun when it gets real tough at ponds and lakes IMHO. Biggest this year was a 9 lb 3 oz on a red eye shad in January. Caught an 8 lb 9 oz on a BPS Swerve glide bait last week. Caught an 8.4 and an 8.0 and a nice pile of fish well over 7 lbs. A nice pile of fish over 6 lbs and a very large number of 4-5 lb fish. It was by far my best year for numbers and size I've ever had but I didn't get a new PB or a second DD....yet. 😎😉 Fished the frog and became a frog monk of the order of the frog and now I can catch fish on a frog anytime and anywhere. It's one of my super powers in bass fishing and it's a good one because it tends to reveal big fish that don't do much revealing themselves otherwise. I fished the jig and lipless a lot also and did quite well with both. Less fish on t rigs and buzzbaits than years past but still plenty of those too. Got some really big dropshot fish also which was cool. Overall 2024 was one of my favorite years ever for bass fishing and in terms of water temperature: looks like Nov - Dec is gonna be a GREAT shot at a new PB for me this year so fingers crossed. We are still hovering around 60 on the surface up shallow here in NC and to me the ideal late fall early winter temp window is 58-51°. It looks like that temperature is gonna be stabilizing into view during the remainder of the year and we may not even have much of a winter this year. I feel as though they're probably gonna be looking for places to spawn in late December and I plan to act accordingly this year.

I think the absolute biggest mistake folks make fishing in the winter is slowing down. I actually generally speed up when it gets cold and fish things like lipless crankbaits and Jerkbaits and heavier jigs and things like that. In the winter I'm trying to make a fish react and bite and I'm looking for large concentrations of baitfish near main lake structure. In winter I prefer a warm low pressure rainy front or a calm bluebird sky day with very little wind. Things that get bait fish up in the water column a bit and feeding tend to also get the bass active and feeding. If you're going to be throwing your bait up to the bank and feeling for bites, I like very tight contour lines and I like to fish rock and wood on tight contour lines, usually just outside of the creek or on the point or just inside of the creek. Depending on what kind of mood the bait fish is in and sometimes right in the center of the ditch can be the deal.

If I have no idea what's going on and I'm fishing a lipless I let it fall to the bottom and then start reeling and pump the rod tip up and towards me at various speeds and intensities and distances and frequencies - sometimes holding the rod tip up and sometimes dropping slack back to the bait immediately and picking it up with the reel - sometimes letting it fall back to the bottom etc etc Give it life 😎😎😎 Usually I'll start to see a little bit of a pattern if they're biting a lipless at all on what part of my little cycle of cadence variations they hit on and then I will sort of hone in on that type of retrieve exclusively and sometimes you can wear them out! One of my all time favorite baits when the water gets cold.

One of the many reasons one should always have a worm and a jig tied on! For me I would have to say top water is my weakness. Hear me out. I fish a frog and a buzzbait a lot and I do really well with both of them but I don't consider them traditional top water baits. Poppers and Spooks and devil's horse and wake baits and things like that. I have had very, very little success with in my life. Try as I might. I've had a couple really good days with a popper and a couple really good days with a spook but that's about it and it's not for any lack of trying. But then I tie on a frog or a buzz bait and it's game on. I think the Frog is basically a floating Texas Rig and the buzz bait is basically a spinner bait meant to be reeled on the surface, which is why I don't really count them as traditional top water baits. I think they're more specialist categories. There are a few categories that I don't use very much, but it's mostly because the cover around here isn't really right for it. Not because I've given up on them or because they aren't fun.

Any of the suspending ones are worth their weight in gold.

We are cut from the same cloth! I am also a musician that no longer performs or teaches but I still love doing it. Fishing is just part of what makes me feel connected to my life. I feel my grandfather, my uncle, my dad, my brothers with me even when I'm alone on the water. People that are still around but I don't see as often as I'd like and people that have passed on. Fishing helps me sit with the memories of good times and be at peace.

I do that also but 90% of the time do a fluke or a mag speed worm or craw - maybe next year I'll do the swimbait a hair more.

My favorite ways to fish paddle tail swimbaits are flashy swimmer style keel weighted hooks with little blades. They make tiny ones and they make the giant ones for the big soft swimbaits and both are excellent options to try in a pond or lake. In a pond that has bigger bass that key in on sunfish or perch or shiners or big gizzard shad, I'd definitely toss around a 7" zaldaingerous swimbait every so often in rotation with the smaller ones. Another way I really like to fish them in on finesse jigs /football jigs/swim jigs etc I find they often get a bigger bite and more bites than a craw or grub trailer. Last way I like to fish them (this is sneaky juice so enjoy!) is on a dropshot. Just do it - nose hook open water and texsposed around cover. Go with the lightest weight necessary to keep it down and work it slow on a semi tight line. I like points or ditches or flats or ledges or really main structure that seems hard to fish or get bit on for this technique. Try a fluke if they don't want the swimbait. So so deadly in lakes or ponds with mucky/muddy bottoms.

I use a very small single skirted hook finesse a rig with a single Colorado blade and do quite well at spots like you're describing. 😉😉😉

Hmmmmmm - I rotate stuff out based on what the bass seems to want or not want and then rotate things back in sometimes many moons later when I feel they may want the thing again. It seems to work pretty well. I may do more stick bait one year and more trick worm another year. I may do more swim jig one year and more flipping jig the next. Might fish more Colorado blades one year and then switch to willows the next. Might throw a smaller popping frog one year and bigger walking frogs the next. Etc etc. I mostly rely on the same basic lure categories that have been around forever though. Not much in the way of special new techniques or baits. I think I just try to keep changing things around a little bit within the categories I am good with so they get a little thrown off and keep biting it each year.

Here in NC - we put on a sweater and fish the frog a little slower. 😂😂😂

Yeah this year I think I finally figured out the whole 'you can't catch em if they don't bite' thing but now I just need to start catching all these fish I get to bite just a little more consistently and I'd be a happy camper. This year was definitely the toughest year of the past 4 that I've been seriously targeting bass. I had to really *make* the fish bite a lot of times. Not a lot of *toss jig next to log and feel a thump* this year. Seems like all the big fish I got to bite were some kinda violent reaction bite - very few where I was working a bait slowly or hitting targets. Lot of moving baits just a little faster than I like this year. Seems like a lot of fish are getting conditioned to the usual slower presentations around here and you really gotta make em react.

I think I just wanna fish for them when they actually move up and not when I think they're gonna be moving up or whatever. I feel like the big girls do the thing earlier and earlier every year and I'm always a day late and dollar short for the real beginning of the spawn.

It may not be the lures but the way you're retrieving the lures that is presenting problems in this scenario. A couple details on the mechanics of fishing emergent vegetation that have made it far less frustrating and far more productive over the past couple years - when I'm casting around sparser vegetation this doesn't really apply but it sounds like you're fishing the thick stuff so here we go. 1. Keep your rod tip up. When I am working pads or grass I gotta keep the rod tip up. It keeps the slack line from getting all tangled up in stuff. It Spooks the fish less than line that's touching the water. *Generally* I am fishing any bait I'm fishing in the scenario you're describing fairly rapidly across the surface of the pads. This rod tip up retrieve greatly benefits keeping the bait on the top of the vegetation and in the strike zone AND keeps your line tight and in communion with your rod tip. 2. Get your boat situated. There are very few things that will deter me faster in vegetation or around vegetation then my boat blowing all over the place and creating large u-shapes in my line that are wrapping around emergent stalks of vegetation. I'm very unlikely to feel a bite, let alone be able to pick up the slack and set the hook on a fish that bites in this scenario and even if I did fighting the fish would be very difficult with the line wrapped around tons of vegetation from the get-go. I have found that the best way to remedy this is to let my boat get into the vegetation somewhere where it is not going to move and then begin to fish for a while because I want my boat stationery and my line tight and straight so that when a fish eats or bites I can reel down and set the hook instantly with as little slack in the line as possible. 3. Make super long casts. I find that when I'm fishing vegetation where I see a lot of activity around me, the big fish that bite are usually far far away from where I am in the vegetation. I find that usually there are pieces of structure or cover within the vegetation, often near the banks where there could be creek channels or ditches with little stumps and things like that and a lot of times the bigger fish hang back there and I can catch those fish with slower retrieves on things like frogs. If you can kind of identify these key pieces of cover or structure or whatever it may be that the fish May relate to, you could come back at another time when they're on a similar bite and approach the area and position your boat for optimum distance and likelihood of getting bites on this area that you've located. Things like this have paid off big time for me in the past. My favorite baits for these types of areas are definitely weightless plastics/buzz toads, hollow frogs, punching rigs and little swimbaits on keel weighted hooks or big swim baits on keel weighted hooks sometimes with blades, sometimes without blades, you got to kind of play around with all that stuff. Jigs can also be pretty good sometimes and I always toss a jig in there when it's happening just to see if it's a jig day. Almost every bait, I work on a straight tight line basically on the surface of the pads or the vegetation sometimes quickly twitching the reel and stopping and sometimes with very slow or very fast steady retrieves with pauses or no pauses etc. All this stuff is just let the fish tell you. The weightless fluke and the speed worm are both incredibly good suggestions for this scenario because you can work them a ton of different ways and they both cast really well on braided line which is what you need to use for these techniques and this kind of area. I find sometimes I have to work the fluke or the speed worm like you would imagine somebody working a Carolina rig in the winter time. Sometimes I have to work the fluke or the speed worm the way that you see people fishing buzz baits or jerk baits or crank baits. Sometimes I fish them more at targets and get bit the minute they hit the water - so they're very versatile in these types of areas for picking the areas apart without disturbing the fish - I recommend, while dissecting these sorts of areas, starting with lures like fluke/speed worm and then maybe trying other stuff in the areas they are biting best in.

Ain't no bluefish and marlin in Central NC and saltwater is really hard on fishing gear - but I DO enjoy fishing for redfish and sharks and whatever else bites when I'm at the beach. It's definitely the fact that it requires me to be very good at it that I enjoy it. Presentation - knowledge of fish habitat - seasonal movements and behaviors etc. I don't fish to be mindlessly entertained! I like being mindfully engaged. Bass fishing is very engaging and the feeling when everything clicks and you trick a smart giant fish is the best fishing feeling! 😎

Reasons 😀

Special post time: Had an incredible weekend all culminating with an ABSOLUTE monster fish. Started the weekend out with a couple nice frog fish - made plans to hit it with @FishTax and we did and we caught them great! Did most of our damage with buzzbait/jig one two punch! Caught em just about everywhere on the lake that we went but couldn't connect with anything bigger than ~3 lbs. Fun fun. Me and Jake waxed the crappie and small bass when the cold cloudy front hit on Sunday. Caught all our fish on spinnerbaits. Jake caught 10 bass and 3 crappie on a Johnson beetle spin! We woke up this morning - Jake had the day off and we decided to go to the lake for a boat trip around noon. We caught 3 decent sized bass - I missed a big one in the lily pads on the buzzbait. Missed one in the back of a wind protected shady pocket on the frog that looked big. Lake wants everyone off the water by 4:30 this time of year so me and Jake went to one of our bank fishing spots with the waning daylight and it had a bunch of fellas crappie fishing and cooking the fish they caught in real time on the bank! Got my stomach grumbling. Saw some GIANT wakes on my frog that wouldn't commit. A man fishing a point for crappie packs up and moves down river and I move up to his point and grab my glide bait rod. Remembering a giant I saw shoot out and grab my big soft swimbait earlier this month - I throw my glide bait parallel to the same channel swing. The wake this girl produced freight training my BPS swerve was comical to say the least - impressive and magnificent and powerful to put it more bluntly. She looked like a motorized beaver going 30 MPH 20 feet to slam the glide. I felt the THUD and set the hook and felt her on. GIANT I shout to Jake. He's pretty far away and she comes up and she's WAY bigger than I expected... I scale the sandy bluff wall of the point while keeping my pole tip candy caned while she thrashes around in some brush right where the water meets the bank and I lip her triumphantly. 8 lb 9 oz NC monster on the BPS Swerve Second biggest of 2024 and my biggest ever on a glide bait and such a special memory for me and Jacob! If she wasn't spawned out as heck she'd easily go 10+!!! Wow!!! Happy veterans day to all who serve or have served! Thank you! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

1000% my experience @AlabamaSpothunter

I think it just really helps keep the bait down near the bottom banging into stuff and helps me slow my retrieve down so it's in a strike zone for longer. And yes, it definitely helps when I'm trying to fish it deeper! Also think when you're working a bait with the reel to get the action, you can get a lot more nuance with a slower reel. I especially like to fish the Bill Lewis rattle trap, specifically with the reel more so than the rod.

I'm getting away from anything over 7. Seems kinda pointless for me most of the time and I find I work the bait better on slower reels a lot of times. I don't hate an 8 speed but for me, a 7 is just as good. For spinnerbaits and lipless crankbaits I'm becoming very accustomed to a 6 speed. The one time I absolutely have to have an 8 speed is with a buzzbait. It's just more efficient for that type of thing.

There's a bass eating something somewhere every second of the day on every lake that has bass. That's my confidence.

Well done Papa Joe! Sounds like another day for the memory banks for SURE! Multispecies with some big bass? Doesn't get any better IMHO

ALSO this 😂😂😂 I been thinking back on my 4 years seriously targeting LMB and I go back to all the scenarios: Cold water Windy Slick calm Hot water Full Moon New Moon Waning crescent Waxing crescent High noon Sunset Sunrise Pre-spawn Spawn Post spawn Bank Boat Small water Big water Raining Drizzling Hurricaning Floods Drought High water Low water Etc etc etc And the only REAL wisdom about ANY of these scenarios that I can absolutely take to the bank is : GO FISHING AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN. The best scenario for me to catch a bass is with a wet line in some water that has bass. The rest of it I don't worry about anymore.