Pat Brown

I think a lot of times rather than over or under the mud kind of funnels through the clear water in these big muddy under water streams and places where the clear and dirty water mix can do really good. Beyond that everybody's been giving up good information here.

Mike @Siebert Outdoors came through as always with some straight 🔥🔥🔥🥵🥵🥵 Got some snipers in my clear water Pats Gizzard, some snipers in our new 'Mud Gizzard' which is a chartreuse variant of the clear water color that I'm VERY stoked to throw on big lake this summer 😎 I got Northern Craw and Mud Craw which are absolutely incredible sunfish colors if you've got Sunny's with muted oranges and purples with blue or orange hues. Absolutely incredible for mimicking the late spring time craws around here - particularly the Northern Craw which nails the ones my son has been finding. Got them pictured here with Zoom Speed Craw and Strike King Scounbug - my favorite finesse jig trailers. Dig it. The Pats Gizzard caught me my biggest fish last month at 6.3 lb in gin clear water so it works as intended. 😎

They should probably just allow live bait and dynamite and sharing information if they're gonna encourage people to spotlight a bass during tournaments where an anglers skill and knowledge are being tested for cash prizes. But what do I know? 😉😉😉

Dang @Woody B let's go buddy! I had the pleasure of doing an impromptu guided bank fishing safari with @FishTaxand his son this morning with my son. It poured hard as all get out but Jake and Josiah got on some catfish and crawdads and frogs while the dads bass fished. Managed to get Jeremy on a real live bass fish and in fact he did indeed hook one that we estimate was between 5-7 lbs on a Shakey head that came up and jumped 2-3 times before snapping him clean off out in open water on a drop off. He also got a 50 lb grass carp to hit his finesse jig TWICE and almost hooked her the second time. We messed around with some bluegill feeders and some wolfpacks but the rain had them literally sliding up and down right before our very eyes all morning! We had a blast and it was nice having the pond to ourselves on a Saturday and hopefully next time we land that 7 lber when we hook her. 😎👍🏼🎣

Sounds like you're a prime candidate for a guided fishing trip in your new home state! I betcha there's a lotta guides who could help you get past 7 lb and at least close to 10 lb in Fla. Beyond that, in Florida, I'd be fishing for the DDs when most people aren't fishing because of how popular of a state for bass fishing it is. Good state to master topwater and punching techniques.

Siebert Sniper finesse jig or a Siebert Swim jig in the .5 oz range would do me. Some kinda baitfish pattern works for me.

Got my first fish on a walking topwater yesterday evening. Then I went out for a little stroll this morning and caught my first solid frog fish at the pond of the spring! So topwater is officially the game plan until further notice. Thank you for your cooperation. Tight lines this weekend people. 😎👍🏼🎣 Pad perch gone down the throat. Loving that bone color.

Topwaters and weightless plastics seem to do me really well when it's lots of grass under the water.

Just a quick one on the buzzbait before work but it was on a buzzbait before work 😍😍😍🎣🎣🎣

I lost one last year at 4 am that was probably my second DD. I feel like the really big ones often bite when we are spacing out and not doing much of anything with the bait. It's really hard to watch your line in pitch Black though. And I didn't feel her til she was 40 feet to the right of me. That's just ONE that's gonna haunt me forever. Nevermind the fish that broke me off when I backlashed a cast with my hybrid hunter and then proceeded to jump repeatedly trying to throw the bait. That one was well over 2 ft long. It felt like trying to reel in a sack full of concrete until it came to life and just snapped me off. Probably a DD. That's another fun one. I could keep going. 😂

Those look durable. How you think the 'medium' would handle bank fishing for bass?

We have a local hardware store that sells lots of really cool tackle in Greensboro NC called McKnight Hardware and I love when the wife wants to get gardening supplies in the spring. Poorly photographed but I got some: Zoom 6" Lizards in Rootbeer Green flake Zoom Salty Tubes 3.5" in GP Candy Zoom Double Ringer in Watermelon Red Zoom Centipede in Chartreuse Pepper Zoom Mag 2 in Scuppernong Zoom Horny Toad in GP/White Belly Strike King Rage Craw in Moon Juice Gene Larew Salt Craw in Black n Blue Norman Speed N Crankbait in Holy Shad Rapala Maverick in Green Shad The monkey is happy with me. Got a special order from Mike Siebert on the way too and I'm pumped for that to arrive this week 😎👍🏼

I think lunar cycles hit Bait fish more than bass and I think that you typically are going to see the effects more offshore on structure than near the bank....but not always. There's times when you see it's effect up shallow. Like during the spawn when the majority of the fish are shallow anyway. Great fish and story @deep. I bet if you threw a jig or a drop shot you'd catch a few more over the course of these long rare trips but I appreciate the big bait grind. It's satisfying when you get one and that's a beautiful fish! Nice stuff @A-Jay! Glad to see you're back on em! @Jmurphy87 and @TnRiver46 wrecking it out there also! Have been busy with work but got an opportunity to meet up with fellow NC basser/forum member @FishTax / Jeremy for some night fishing last week! Had quite a few frog blow ups but I think they were spawning carp!?!? It was weird. Definitely not bass. I also had some bites on the drop shot but they were sheepish. Caught my only fish of the night on the single Colorado and it was an absolute monster: Fortunately Jake kept our spirits high by hooking into his new PB common carp on a piece of chicken liver!!! Looking forward to more fishing with fellow forum members and hopefully better luck next time 😎👍🏼 We thankfully recovered somewhat at the lake the next day but giants have been hard to find. It feels a bit 'post spawn funk'y already around here! Got a feeling it's time to start fishing super early in the AM and throwing reaction baits again.

Yeah that's the kinda day where you catch a fish alright. I'd be looking shallow for prespawners! Probably covering water with a lipless 😎👍🏼

Best Lizards Evar are made by a local pour 🤫🤫🤫 They have amazing action and colors. https://www.deepcreeklures.com/product-page/6-lizard-solid-colors

Gee Wiz.....never thought about this....quite like this but I guess I'll do my bank fishing necessities for fun: Scale Rod n Reel my bank fishing satchel Spike it Hemostats Terminal tackle Soft plastics Some hard baits Scissors Polarized Glasses

The main reason I like to throw top water in the pre-spawn is because it catches really big fish most of the time. There are other times of year where you can't keep the small fish off of it, but during the pre-spawn a top water is definitely a big fish bait. But you're not going to get a lot of action and even the bites this time of year aren't always very explosive. They're very subtle a lot of time.

I have to rotate baits because my lakes are small and the bass learn what I'm doing to them repeatedly lol - and there's layers to that because eventually they completely learn techniques that are obviously not at all in the right ballpark of what they eat regularly/situationally/seasonally. There is nothing that works all the time. You basically have to learn how to fish the conditions when you deal with fish that have seen a lot of things and will only bite the right bait presented the right way for the situation. There are days when the bite is wide open and those usually coincide with compounding factors like wind and low light and lots of bait fish activity in the area that I happen to be fishing or something along those lines.

The only thing that gets me outside of my box is committing to a new technique and learning it inside and out and then reaffirming old techniques and then adding it to my quiver of tricks/ repertoire of confusion. Every year I try to take advantage of a really hot bite and use it to learn something new. The trick is finding those really hot bites and sometimes you got to find a really unpressured private pond or something like that to learn a new technique and get used to it, which can be tough LOL.

My sneaky sneaky with any swimming worm is keel weighted screw lock hooks that are typically used for swimbaits. You can use flashy swimmers too and the bass don't seem to mind the blade. Extremely weedless and very natural looking.😉👍🏼

I caught fish this past year on topwater in December and January and February with surface temps in the 40s. I like to throw topwater when the fish are active and chasing things in shallow water. I like frogs and floating worms and poppers in calmer water and buzzbaits when it's a little more choppy. I don't like topwater when it's completely dead slick calm or when it's windy. I like it to be rippling a good bit or nearly slick calm but ever so gently rippling. The kind of 'calm before the storm ' that happens in the spring literally before a storm gets turbulent and breaks with the rain and thunder is often the perfect kind of ripple. I have caught fish on windy days on topwater and on slick calm days but I usually do better with other things when those conditions present themselves. I wouldn't worry too much about water temperature. I'd focus more on conditions. I like more overcast days for topwater and I like warming trends and again I generally focus on shallower water with lots of cover available - preferably where bass are actively feeding. Temps largemouth bass will eat something off of the surface of the water? Any temperature. I have heard from northern anglers that bass will actively try to get through ice to attack things they can see through it. So literally any temperature.

They may not actively swim away when they're spooked they may just not bite LOL You'll get em!

7'6 Medium Heavy Fast Abu Garcia Veritas PLX with 15 lb red label (one of the last fish I caught with fluorocarbon!) and a 8:3:1 Daiwa Fuego with a pegged 3/8 oz Siebert tungsten flipping weight and a 4/0 Owner worm hook and a 10" power worm in motor oil red flake.

Well for one thing if you can see them that well they can see you 🤣👍🏼 Might want to try casting to big fish that can't see you as well or you can't see at all. Might also want to cast past the fish you're fishing for by a good little while and very nonchalantly and slowly work the bait into the area that they're feeding. Big fish are aware of anglers and being caught and the whole lure on a line thing. You gotta stalk them and outsmart them and be stealthy. What you're doing works better for catfish and panfish and smaller less educated bass and things like that as you have found out! Big bass are very smart and very pressured these days so you're going to have to work on your presentation.

White lures catch fish! I've caught fish on green pumpkin jigs with white trailers and white jigs with junebug trailers and basically all manner of color. Lots of things matter a lot more like where you cast the bait and how fast it's falling/how bulky or compact it is etc.