Pat Brown

Yeah I agree their hard baits are silly good for the money. I find them all the time and happily add them to my pond fishing tackle box.

Yeah I peg mine all day every day. I caught two converting my pegged T rig to a C rig on the fly while it rained this morning. All I can say is bass LOVE BIG WORMS. Throw them.😎👍🏼🎣⭐

It's funny how when your really commit to something you see results. Congratulations on the toad and the new found confidence in the best bass fishing lure ever created!

Lately the bite has shifted to outside weed lines here as well. Basically sparser cover near deeper water seems to be the post spawner preference....and around baby sunfish 🤫😉 Caught the 7.8 lber on the Frog fishing over the main Creek channel next to a weed line. There are isolated brush piles and stumps in that channel and the water is very clear right now.

When I start fishing top water in the morning I catch a lot of snapping turtles. Sometimes they trick me into thinking they're a bass for a couple of seconds and it's really fun LOL!

I fish from the bank a lot and I fish in about 1 ft of water on the lake a lot. I still use down imaging just to be safe and because I find it an educational tool to enhance my enjoyment of my hobby. But I catch them plenty from the bank. Eye scoping 😉😉😉 Electronics don't make people any more or less likely to catch bass unless they're already purty good at it I reckon.

You could maybe pay to have a shock study done? 😎 I dunno what the rates are but seems lots of people who manage private ponds have this done.

Some day she will 😂👍🏼 It's just something to consider/be aware of @gimruis but I hear ya. It seems like she's got that calibre of fish dialed in and hasn't yet encountered the dinks or the giants that doubtlessly inhabit the pond. I find that if I change techniques I can catch lots of 6 to 12-in bass and if I change techniques I can catch very few 20 to 22-in bass and sometimes there's techniques that really do Target those welterweight bass extremely efficiently and sometimes you're unaware of the fact that you are doing that!

I'm in the 'they are there, you probably haven't 'fished for them' yet' category of folk. By this I mean, the big fish might eat different stuff and do different things on this small pond than the smaller fish (often find this to be the case) and you just haven't figured out the 'big fish techniques' that intersect with your repertoire of confusion yet. I find it's rare that water that has bass in it that are good size and healthy doesn't have great size bass in it. Small private ponds that people enjoy and fish over the years can be like any pond and the small population of big smart bass can get ever more clever by the year. Something to consider: you could try managing for bigger size more deliberately. Cull bass under 14" for the rest of time and I'd wager the 16-18" that are able to make the jump to 20-22" would then do it. It's all about freeing up space at the table so the bass sitting at it can unbutton their pants and gorge a little more.

Love to see a Crickety-Slugfest™ Well done bass buddy! And - thanks for the beautiful scenery and reminder I need to get back up North to visit my family one of these days! 😎👍🏼🎣

I have had luck with Colorado spinnerbaits with swimbait trailers. Water can definitely get ripply and backlash you but you can also definitely skip under trees. I had a day where the only fish I caught was this way with Jake last year and since then it's caught me a couple (need to do it more).

A fun way to fish slow is with a heavy weighted t rig or jig. I like to try to guess what I'm bumping into and imagine a big smart fish being very curious but only if it moves very naturally. I don't think being forced to slow down by weightless plastics worked as good for me. Once I was good at fishing slow with my training wheels (a heavy jig that telegraphs the bottom), I was more ready to fish slow with any presentation. I still am not a huge fan of weightless plastics unless it's very very shallow but they get used.

@Siebert Outdoors weedless ned jig head. They work just fine.

Evening trip with Jake after work and we got us a baby - brush - HAWG! Not a bad day! 😎🎣👍🏼🤠

I fantasize about retiring on Santee Cooper someday. It's a magical place.

I'm outta reactions for the day and y'all are too funny and kind. Glad to be a part of this cool group of great anglers - happy to share the seasonal splendor with you fellow bass heads. 😌😌😌

For the record I 1000% went wading for that fish this morning. Water was way too skinny to drag her up the bank so in I went as soon as she was close enough to lip. Worth it!

Went out yesterday for mother's day and had a lot of fun. Found them in wood on points. Missed way more than we caught but we caught and they were biting. I did something I haven't done in a long time. I caught a 4 lber on a spinning rod with a weightless senko.....and BOY was she fat for how short she was. Jake got a nice one on the baby brush hog. And even a bonus crappie on the last cast of the day with a Jerkbait! Went to the park before work today and threw the frog around. Missed a few takers and then found a sun warmed channel swing bank and paralleled it and this monster slurped it. Haven't had to get the scale out in a while but this one earned it. She jumped and thrashed and then finally submitted to my 40 lb braid. Unbelievable how spawned out this girl is. Giant gaping maw of a mouth and huge wide shoulders. Seems she just started feeding today! Probably a 9 lber all day a week or two back.

Dang another one just in time for this thread! Never underestimate the bank beater. 😎😎😎👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼😂😂😂

Freezing cold windy days (frozen guides) Breaking off big fish Discarded fishing line snags Lure prices/addiction Stinging insects

Okay if I gotta 😁😁😁 8.9/9.1/8.0/9.3

Done really well with shaky heads/swimbaits/buzzbaits/finesse jigs and frogs around the bream beds this year.

Lakes around here tend to be so small that bank anglers and boat anglers are about equally challenged in terms of presenting baits to resident fish effectively, but I still personally get more jazzed when I catch big fish from small pressured waters under tough conditions. It always makes me chuckle to say the least. It's my preference to do it in the still hours of the morning with just me and the fish and the creator of everything, but I'll take either as long as they're biting! 😂😂😂

Last night we went to the local lake for a quick bank fishing foray and I found this beautiful fish willing to eat my frog - then promptly lost my frog and burned a spool of braid on the next cast thanks to the arboreal splendor of Greensboro NC 😂👍🏼 Made a move to the rip rap and played with reaction baits with nary a sniff and then just as we were preparing to leave I got my Yamamoto Tanuki bitten but they took the plastic. Put a stick bait on the hook and caught my second fish of the night. Got nibbles on every cast after that and had I been able to stay, think I could have caught a few more but was happy to get these two! Jake caught a nice cat on a live bluegill he netted and then lost one over 10 lbs right at the bank. Would have been his PB bullhead and it was the biggest bullhead I've ever seen!

A weed guard is actually more stiff when it's condensed down the center but really, IMHO a jig is generally not what I reach for first when fishing heavy brush loaded with snags. I prefer jigs in standing timber/stumps/pads/laydowns/rocks/over hanging trees/dock pilings/sea wall/rip rap/big points/little cuts with hard bottom/humps/ledges etc. Heavy brush, I just throw a t rig or a shaky head or something where I can bury the plastic. 👍🏼 Try a punch skirt for a jig presentation in heavy brush and see what happens!