Pat Brown

@Joedodge heres the thread! First page has the formula for calculating your “score”. 😎😎😎

Hey!!! Good point! Joe you need to submit this for @A-Jay ’s annual biggest bass on the website thread. The way it works is relative sliding scale based on region (details in the thread etc) but basically I think you’re in the lead by a wide margin for largemouth with that one if submitted! Absolute brute and a super cool accomplishment and memorial of the catch!

I see females in ponds I fish every day 365 days a year for 6 + years show up on the same beds every year - get caught and swim off and show up for 2-3 days around each full or new moon generally from about April til November in NC. Literally every single one. Do people catch them?? Not much! 😆 those big girls didn’t get big being dumb. They’re super tough fish. That being said - they don’t survive being tossed in a bucket and taken home and cleaned and eaten and they don’t survive being badly gill or gut hooked so I try really hard to swing hard and fast and take my licks knowing I’m fishing more safely - do NOT wait to set the hook on bed fish or use treble hooks on bed fish you’re sight fishing - and you’re gonna probably be just fine and so will she. Female bass are the healthiest and most likely to survive being caught during the spring while they’re spawning. Not during the winter or summer or fall when water quality is poor and they’ve been hammered for months - in the spring they have good water quality and good temps and lots of food and are the most likely to survive being caught. Don’t keep fish out of the water for more than 30 seconds without reviving them. Quick photo and back on the bed and for the most part - you’re not gonna hurt the bass population. Another small comfort that’s worthy of consideration: most professionally managed ponds that are focused on curating giant bass fishing experiences require very intentional and deliberate harvesting of bass annually and to some degree the fish that die from bed fishing help the overall size in a small pond - contrary to popular belief. People loading buckets from the bank can seem to fish a spot out but the fact is bass spawn in places you can’t see more than places you can in every body of water on earth and they’re gonna be fine - but you might be left with only smart hard to catch fish that live deep after a few years of people over harvesting on the banks etc. The key is always being intentional and respectful and you can learn a lot about bass from sight fishing. You’re really learning all the stuff that people with forward facing sonar are learning but you learn it with your eyes and a real fish instead of a screen.

In my backyard I fish an ultralight, 1/16 oz jig head and a Bobby Garland minnow on 6 lb test mono a LOT. It’s addictive.

There’s a mess of clear to clearish hollow belly frog colors from a mess of manufacturers to try now. The Spro popping frog in misty shad and sunfish are worth a look - they walk like a dream. Copper Red Baits wave frog, loud mouth, tsunami and ripple frog all come in a color called stranded shad that is clear with chrome glitter and it’s real good. All of them walk great and have the added bonus of being able to fish over slop or wood or under overhangs.

My favorite cheap glide bait is the BPS swerve but I’m also fond of the shine glide and the Walmart one. With some zappu floating boards - just about any glide bait can be fished very skillfully.

I’ve been there many times Koz - I don’t think you really did anything wrong. Those big fish are good at coming off. Maybe in the future try to get a system where the net is easier to grab without switching hands and maybe try to lift her and get her to the boat as quickly as possible if she’s thrashing like that. Sometimes a fish just is coming in and you’ve gotta get her in and there’s not really like a way to land her gracefully - especially really big ones. It sounds counter intuitive but I just lean on them and try to keep them moving - basically don’t play them at all - works pretty well.

The c rig is very fast and very slow - it’s a 1 oz weight generally so you can just reel it in ticking rocks like a crankbait or you can slow it down or stop it. The football jig and wobble head are similar as is the shaky head. All work very well around here.

Have you tried dragging a Carolina rig with a trick worm on a 3 ft leader around that brush and on flats and harder areas? Here in central NC - very much lowland environments - that technique catches fish. Deadsticking it and slowly dragging it you can really milk a good spot and catch some big ones. It’s slow fishing but when you find em it can get busy.

I have thought about putting a couple finishing nails inside of the palmetto bug to get it to sit “level” I definitely initially was drawn to the “let it float and pull it back down” novelty idea for sure and have had the bait get pecked at doing it but haven’t caught fish yet. That said - it was the first thing I ever tried with the free rig and I failed for years with the free rig until cracking the code last year. Probably need to revisit the floating plastic and nail weight it so it sits horizontal for extra saucy presentation. @Joedodge - missile baits d bomb is a great cheap alternative to the bellows gill. Save them when they get torn up and cut the last 1/4 off where the hook blows the bait out on a pair of them and heat them up and join them together for a long ribbed straight flat worm shape - hang on tight.

Same - I actually prefer baits that sink fairly fast after the initial bait and weight separate - unsalted normal plastics work great when you want more undulation and slow fall after separation. Floating plastic has potential to get bites but it’s never worked for me.

Offset round bend worm hook user here - messed around with EWG and straight shank hooks for a couple years and then switched to offset round bend worm hooks and saw a huge increase in hook up to land ratio.

That spot looks like a mean mouth! NICE tank @NorcalBassin !!!

My wife is legit addicted to the Debbie Christmas tree cakes and every year we go through a lot of them - we even have a lil Debbie Christmas tree cake light for our front yard display when Christmas rolls around. She loves bass fishing with me - she’d probably do a backflip if i bought her this lure! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

A lot of bass are spawning shallow and mid depth and deep right now - it’s just that time of year. A lot of the places you’re likely to find significant catchable populations of bass that are identifiable by biting your bait - are gonna be spawning areas like shallower flatter banks with good cover and hard bottom - think 0-6 feet ish. Not saying electronics can’t help - but this is a time of the year you can throw your cricket at just about any pale spot or tree in shallow water and catch a bass.

Nice work Koz! That’s a tank! Congrats on the new PB and thanks for sharing the story - I hope you do well in your tournament!

knew it was gonna happen Joe. That’s why if the water is wet - we fish in the spring. 👍😎 I am super excited for you because I KNOW - this is just the beginning for you. 🙂

I’ve heard shallow running jerkbaits will often do the same thing to deep schooling fish - great one @FryDog62 - gives me something to try this summer when I see that!

It just blows my mind that people think they should cheat to win a bass tournament. Sad. It’s why I don’t fish a lot of tournaments - that and all the fish that die.

Kinda the opposite of the “which baits have stopped producing for you?” - maybe inspire some new anglers and old hammers to pick up that fancy lure they bought and gave up on! I’ll start - this forum has so many fantastic anglers aboard - it truly is a chore keeping track of everyone who is good at fishing - but back when I joined 6 years ago - there was one dude who was absolutely wrecking big bass in Alabama - @AlabamaSpothunter ! Sadly he doesn’t come around much these days (hope you’re well if you see this!) I was getting really deep in the trenches with some giant urban pond bass and struggling mentally with them and my confidence and here he is posting videos of 6-7-8-9 lb bass being caught out of a Jon boat on modest equipment. Come to find out he’s doing most of his damage on something called a “free rig “ I was pretty sure it was a gimmick but I could see maybe how with floating plastic the bait presentation could work. I sent him a private message asking how it works and he did his best to explain the finer points as he saw them etc and away I went. I threw it and threw it and never got a single bite for 3 years. I convinced myself it was a gimmick to sell drop shot weights. Went back to fishing exclusively jigs and Texas rigs and felt fairly confident I had made the right choice. Last summer I moved into a neighborhood with a 15 acre pond in the backyard with giant bass in it - I could see them I could cast all my favorite fishing t rig plastics and jigs at them and they simply laughed at me. It was extremely frustrating to say the least and then a little voice in my head says “‘maybe that old “free rig” might get them to take a swipe at my worm.” I took the clunky 3/16 oz tear drop sinker and my 10” culprit ribbon tail in red shad and “free rigged them” and made a cast into the creek of many skunks in my backyard - instantly get bit and catch a nice little 3 lber. I’m literally aghast. I can not believe that this is happening. I continue to fish it and catch another and then another bass. I lose one and that feels huge that evening at sunset. Now I’m pretty sure I need to keep trying with it. I caught my first backyard brute the next morning - 6 lber. I proceed to replace all of my t rig fishing with the free rig at the end of the summer and catch many manny big bass and small bass out of many different types of cover. Suddenly what I truly believed to be a gimmick was showing that it really is something different to a bass. What was I doing wrong years ago to make the fish not bite? To put it bluntly: Everything. Looking back on it I wanted the rig to do the work after I cast. Can you imagine fishing a frog or jerkbait like that? Hehehe - well that’s kinda how the free rig is. Turns out you gotta very deliberately and masterfully manipulate the bait and manage the slack line very intentionally throughout the retrieve and there’s not much “drag and pause” to it at all. Fancy that. A fisherman experiencing user error and deeming a bait worthless! Hah! Now I always fish a free rig AND a pegged t rig. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Whatcha got!?

The good news for everyone here is that my experience has been that you do the sport long enough - fads come - fads go - the bass forget old fad baits and bite them again and stop biting the new fad baits. It’s expensive and exhausting trying to figure out what lure will make them bite like live bait - just use live bait! Eventually you learn that any bait can work on any bass if you throw it at the right time to the right place and that’s why old staples catch old Smart Bass. Eventually you learn that 90% of fisherman struggling with any bait is the fisherman. Look at most any tournament and they catch fish lots of ways with and without the aid of electronics - same with local urban pond hammers. Eventually you learn that the bass will bite a bait you used to love well again if you just give it some time - don’t sell them all on eBay and buy 3000 urchin baits. It’s good to have a nice variety of things around - not 60 of one thing you like - contrary to popular belief.

For me having a outboard motor is a safety concern. Even on a lake that doesn’t allow wakes etc - I know when a storm rushes in and I’m a mile from the marina - they can fine me.

Siebert and Nichols work great for me as do the old Booyah/Strike King/War Eagle. I don’t care if a spinnerbait is only 1/4 oz because it’s extremely easy to make any spinnerbait heavier. Simply use a drop shot weight with a large enough line tie and a piece of milk carton to keep it from coming off the hook (think stinger hook but weight). Works like a charm.

Like @king fisher i am a big fan of the “reel and feel” approach to determining whether to set the hook or wait for another hit. Sometimes they don’t have it but you pop it really hard knowing you just got bit and they slam it good. There’s a lot of practice and personal stuff that goes into developing your hook set and it’s largely dependent on your personal fishing style and gear preferences with regard to line and hook diameter and weedlessness and rod action etc. Basically there isn’t really a right or wrong way but I will say these things - you can not catch the fish that inhale and spit your bait no matter how fast you think you are - @king fisher is wise - I agree with this and basically this is more philosophical than practical to even worry about - of course we don’t catch the bass that don’t commit to our presentations - that’s kinda how it works. That being said - I also agree with @Catt via @Jar11591 - don’t wait for nothin. I think there’s a nuanced but learned little series of events that take place when you feel a bite that you yourself have to develop in tandem with your gear. But don’t “wait” - if you feel the bite - start the series of events and get to settin’ the dang hook if she’s there!

Biased - but I’d stay put. 🙂