Pat Brown

@Swamp Girl Jake just caught his first fish on a glide bait absolutely burning that thing in on the surface yesterday evening - big baits FAST seems to be working for him! 😂😂😂 Meanwhile I caught 4 on a fluke Jr burned back on the surface like a topwater. So yesterday - FAST and close to the surface was the deal and size was basically inconsequential, seemingly.

They do! Guarantee it. @bishoptf - in the fall - probably more than any time of year - I will fish many baits in an area I believe has fish in it. At the very least top/middle/bottom and fast/slow. Fall is a time of year that it seems like they do want one bait but that bait changes a lot day to day and you basically have to rotate baits pretty deliberately all day. It's amazing how sometimes I will be skunking hard with some proven fish catchers in areas I KNOW are loaded with bass and suddenly I'll remember to try *burning* that fluke back and BOOM - 4 fish in the boat in 10 minutes. Little adjustments to speed or depth in the fall are a very big deal.

A 7 acre pond - I just walk and cast and fish it all ideally!

Yeah that looks like a lot of fun! October has been a ton of fun here too - November looks promising! 👍🏻😎🎣

Agree with what you're saying 100%. You don't need 13 of the same size and model frog with a white belly and a slightly different back 😂😂😂 I DO need toys to take the sting of traversing this mortal plane away slightly for just one more day *occasionally* though 😉😉😉

They're transparent all the way through. I'm not that much of a sucker! I fish a lot of clear water so I'm interested to see how they perform. Also slightly different profile And action can be a pretty big deal around here And they definitely do their own kind of thing just like all products on the market or whatever. Etc etc The Amazon color is pretty nuts actually. It's like yellow with the big red stripe and a bunch of black stuff. Definitely like a dirty water reaction bait kind of color. I like it! Definitely don't have anything quite like it in my arsenal and it's the '70 size so it's a huge profile which is also neat! But I appreciate your criticism 😂😂😂😉😉😉

They're very nice frogs and they walk easily! Great time of year to toss em around. 😉😉😉

I fish lakes loaded with gizzards that are about that size. It's tough to fish a lake that small - everyone knows where the fish are - they get trickier to catch. If I have no idea what's going on, I'm going to go to the side of the lake that the sun is touching for most of the day and try to find areas that the wind is blowing into or across have a diversity of cover. Areas like this make it easier to eliminate types of cover and depth and usually you can just kind of bounce around and try to find active fish by targeting these high percentage areas. In the fall, fish typically congregate around inflow points and they will be anywhere from outside of the creek arm on the points leading back into the creek all the way to the back and everywhere in between, and sometimes they'll be out on the main Lake relating to depth changes outside of these Creek arms away from the points - usually on channel swing banks with hard bottom somewhere. I really like fishing a jig on areas like this. If you've got any sort of vegetation I would fish a frog or a buzzbait or a fluke through those areas. Hard to beat a jerk bait or a swimbait on flats or humps or rip rap etc. I typically go with the kind of sneakier baits with single hooks on most days and then I kind of tend towards the treble hook baits that make noise on days with some wind or current, or maybe even a little stain to the water from some rain or something like that. There will be bass everywhere on the lake eating everything that can be eaten at various points in time so it's really all about depth and speed and location and timing. Once you get those things dialed in it's pretty much just details like profile and color that will get you a few more bites here and there. But basically depth and speed and location and timing are the keys to unlocking the fish. I really like midday in the fall and winter because you're typically dealing with falling water temperatures and fish typically get more active of shallow when that sun is up high and the wind is generating current in the middle of the day. Good luck and let us know how you do!

Got some Spro frogs with the 20% off tackle warehouse sale. Got way more than these 4 - but this is the idea 😎 Got some pop 70 to try - more pop 60s and some bronzeye 65 and jr to try. Got mostly transparent colors because that's a big hole in my frog box but I really liked the Amazon color in the pop 70 so I got that to try. The frog bite has been insane this week so hopefully catch something this weekend with my new toys!

Probably! If you like fishing frogs 😎👍🏻

I use the flashy swimmer year round in all conditions! Sucker gets bit! 👍🏽😎🎣

I am going to bring 4-5 rods on the boat or in the car so I might as well make sure they're suited to their jobs - beyond that I tend to think it doesn't matter much. I'm not trying to snap my rod rated for 1 oz baits with a 4 oz swim or glide bait and I'm not trying to sling 1/8 Oz jig heads On a 7'8 heavy fast with 20 lb big game. At the beach this past summer I caught Largemouth bass out of a retention pond with a spinning rod that had 8 lb monofilament on it on hollow belly frog lures. The gear was as wrong as you can possibly get and it worked fine.

I'm gonna say for me it depends but basically some times of year it's a 2-3 rod deal and sometimes I bring 8-9 rods and tie different things on all day - usually the toughest times. A LOT of the time I carry one rod and fish one bait - primarily when I'm bank fishing.

I personally love these threads because I know what to look for at lil local shops with random stuff! Gotta cast my vote for the Mann's Baby -1 and the Jelly Worms. I'll never not buy those when I see them at a small tackle shop. Got a special place in my heart for the Terminator frogs and spinnerbaits. Both very high quality offerings that would be nice to see rebooted by American Baitworks or something like that.

I mean Texas and paying a guide would be like the only ways to guarantee that and still wouldn't be a guarantee. I feel pretty confident there's giant bass in all those states to be caught!

TX/FLA/GA/AL/MS/NC/SC/TN Hard to go wrong with any of the prime fisheries in any of these fantastic states. I'd personally go for Florida - best chances at good fishing weather year round I'd wager and MANY small ponds and ditches loaded with trophies.

@BrianMDTX - and the sales/discounts are actually good 😂😂😂

Definitely going to try to get better at fishing a bigger reservoir in the winter time. Last year I leaned heavily on my shallow ponds and probably will do that again because it makes it harder for fish to hide in the cold when they don't have a lot of acreage. That being said, I am definitely excited to get into it and try to figure out the winter thing on the big lakes. If anything probably gonna be doing more map study and camping on structure.

Lately it's been pretty much pointless to cast until about 10 am at my spots but it's been dropping in temp like an anvil. Bite seems best from 12-4 pm right now. Stable/prevailing conditions = better morning bite usually. Warm low pressure front arriving early in the morning? Better get there early!

I don't think it's really necessary to lay the hammer on a fish with a frog. Most people don't reel enough slack out of their lines regardless of the bait that they're using, and that's really the key with any bait while setting the hook. Frog hooks these days are razor sharp and braid allows us to be plenty fast and rods are plenty powerful. I think if anything more people Miss fish on frogs doing exactly what you're talking about. Hammering. You DO usually have to modify even the best frogs on the market for better hook up ratios with some pliers and a little elbow grease. I try to think back to 1976 when Alfred Williams started winning tournaments on a frog with a 6" pistol grip with big game. I can't count the number of times where a fish sets the hook on itself because I wasn't paying attention to the bite and I think what really matters is a fish taking the bait properly which usually goes back to presentation in the end. Deprioritize? Nah. In terms of the practical mechanics of bass fishing that truly matter - it's paramount. You gotta learn one way or another how to set the hook in a way that works and that takes a lot of practice. I think hookset and golf swing are in the same category. If we don't get good setting the hook with each bait category - it's gonna cost us some day. I think treble hooks are a category where not setting the hook at all is ideal. Really any exposed hook moving bait will be better the less we snap the rod.

This past week we had a steady north wind in the 10 mph range with plummeting night time lows with long cold mornings. Surface temps on the main lake went from 70 to 64. This is the ~ two week period where you can catch a giant up shallow power fishing like in the pre-spawn. I find that the turnover has a 3-5 day period where the fish are basically uncatchable and then they go bananas up shallow til the water gets to your annual version of cold and then they go back to doing pelagic shad eating things. We are pretty much in the peak of fall fishing at my shallow spots. Deeper spots won't be far behind.

For what it's worth, any sort of reaction bite tends to work better in cold water for me than a slow presentation. I'm usually fishing swim jigs and jerk baits and lipless crankbaits In the winter time. Sometimes I will have to slow my cadence with a jerkbait a little bit but usually not much. Sometimes I will have to yo-yo a bait and let it fall but usually not that often. It seems like during the winter time bass are chasing bait and you can move your bait pretty quickly and get bit. Bass metabolism may slow down a bit in the winter but I haven't seen evidence that they swim slower or react slower when it's cold.

@Swamp Girl I think also you gotta lie about the bait - and it's always 'i caught every fish today on a R2S whopper plopper 120 in bone' 😉😉😉😂😂😂 Send em on the wildest ploppiest goose chase of their lives.

Go later or even better *earlier* than everyone hammering it and you will be greatly rewarded 😉

I've seen spots that always produce bites get turned off and I've seen spots where there's never fish turn on suddenly and then turn off just as fast. I think if they're there and they're biting - Get while the getting is good! Especially with the technology people have available to them these days. It's only a matter of time before it's somebody else's honey hole anyway.