Pat Brown

Sometimes when this happens I like to lie to myself and say things like: 'had to be a gar' 'those pickerel again!' 'snapping turtle' 'that underwater rusty fence again!'

It's these ones that some how stick with us more than when we do land em. Sorry Mike. I've been there way way too many times.

I use sharpies a ton and the bass love em but I will say that the black marker ink won't penetrate the soft plastic as well on some colors....don't know why. I like the black dip n dye for when I really wanna go with a bold and dark new look on a soft plastic. JJ's or Spike It will work fine. The black marker I use more for little tips on jig trailers or maybe a black back on a crankbait that's too light on the back.

My favorite spots all start with some casts. Usually I catch a fish on a cast and then maybe it happens again and then maybe even on another trip again.....well that there is a spot now.

You got me on that Flashy Swimmer in veggie deal and it's lights out even on the toughest days here in NC!!! Great fish and a happy story to go with it!

I mean I don't care what anyone says, that's a cool looking fish, carp or not! Nice one @NorcalBassin!

Caught my PB 11.5 lb largemouth on a 10" ribbontail worm! Caught too many bass over 5 lb to count on em. I like them a whole heckuva lot.

I only got room in my life for 80-100 or so and that seems to be more than I can use in one lifetime despite all my best efforts to lose them.

Tackle Warehouse does a pretty good job splitting them up by flat side and non-flat side and lipless and I use mostly a variety of popular choices at different sizes and depths. But I use pretty much transparent shad patterns or black chartreuse because I don't want to buy 800 crankbaits.

I'd say it's still a little early for a lot of bodies of water because the fish are still so bed oriented right now. We are well into the post spawn here so I expect a lot of action when the bugs really start dropping. I do my best when they're keyed in on insects later in the day for some reason.

I'd take a pickerel that big any day of the week. When they take lures it's less fun but catching them is good stuff! I got some toilet bowls and toothbrushes here for ya @PhishLI, now can you point me to your fishing spots plz? I am here for ya and willing to help during this time. 🤣🤣🤣🌕🌕🌕

This question is something only you can answer for yourself. How deep do you want the bait to dive? Do you want it banging into the cover or just above the cover? Do you want it just under the surface? Are you planning on fishing it very deep or very shallow for the most part? I personally have some crank baits that could pass as top Waters and I have some crank baits that seem to find something to dig into no matter how deep the lake is and then I've got lots of stuff in between. My home lakes usually average somewhere between 3 and 10 ft deep, at least where bass like to be most of the year I find that something that dives about 6 to 8 ft or a medium diving crankbait is pretty okay as a catch-all solution but I don't like doing it that way. Because crankbaits are kind of a reaction bite and I really like to be able to burn them and kill them and burn them and kill them and do stuff like that I really do like to select the diving depth pretty exactly. Sometimes when I really want to go very, very slow. I use a very deep diving crankbait in shallow water so that it's very easy to keep it in contact with the bottom and move my reel very slowly. As you can see - just as with any technique in fishing, there are many levels to mastery and there is tons of nuance and tons of scenarios where you might want to be using one thing or another thing. Profile and action and size matter more than color for what it's worth. I'd be more concerned with having some very compact / small ones, some medium sized ones and a few larger ones than having the colors match my forage. You're going to probably want some that move a lot of water and wobble a lot with kind of fatter bodies and you're going to want some that wiggle very subtly and don't move a lot of water with flatter bodies. There are times of year and even situations where the fish just don't want one or the other. Crankbaits can definitely be a lot of fun, but they can also be a headache and as a result I don't fish them a lot. Typically go for a lipless crankbait because then I can do whatever I want with it basically. The times I still opt for a crankbait with a lip on it are when the fish are loaded up on steep bluff walls and riprap. Hard to beat something with a bill ticking those rocks or tops of trees and digging in and diving. Sometimes the tops of the trees is maybe 4 ft higher than the bottom of the lake and that's when the diving depth of the crankbait becomes very critical. Sometimes they want the bait to tick the cover. Sometimes they want it burying in the cover. Sometimes they want it whooshing above the cover without touching it at all.

There's big grass carp on every lake in pond that I fish in North Carolina. I'm not exactly sure how well they help keep the vegetation down or not. I think that they've used chemicals and grass carp around here on one of the lakes I fish because the first year I started fishing that Lake it was completely loaded with hydrilla and I was catching a lot of big bass and seeing a lot of them with my eyes. About a year ago we went out there in the summertime after focusing on another Lake for a while and all the grass was gone and the water instead of being kind of clear was more of your typical orange color for North Carolina. Never got the details on what happened but I'm guessing they treated the lake. The fishing definitely got a lot worse on that particular Lake, but it's starting to come back this year. By this time 2 years ago there would already be hydrilla visible under the surface. Starting to get close to topping out and there's no hydrilla anywhere to be seen so whatever they did worked. The thing that sucks is whatever they did can't seem to touch the snot grass and there's plenty of that still. So whatever. I personally prefer knowing the lake well and knowing how to navigate it and having the vegetation there, but that's just me. I guess the average weekend angler can't stand the stuff and I can accept that.

Those big bass LOVE some fresh copperhead and cicada etouffee. Guess I better bring a popper and a big swimming worm 👀👀👀🤣🤣🤣 In all seriousness, I reckon the bass and gills gonna be going bananas on them til they stop falling in the water. Birds condensed around tree lines are gonna be a good sign there's a lot of fish in an area feeding on them when it gets to be full swing. Seems like whenever these big insect events happen it really activates the whole food chain and I catch biggins.

I'm going to use the same colors regardless of water clarity or forage on a lake or pond - what's more important is that I generally like dirtier water or wind or low light conditions or some combination of all three if I'm going to be throwing a crankbait! You ever see the size of the sunfish or crappie or perch that big big bass like to eat? They don't eat the big pretty reproductively mature sunfish or crappie very often because they would die if they did. They typically opt for the bite sized juveniles when these are the preferred forage. Shad are totally different and if there are gizzards, big big baits work great because bass will eat a 14" gizzard without dying. The non shad species that bass prefer to feed on are generally not very 'developed' looking and I find that for the most part all of them are sort of transparent with a darker back and lighter belly. I think you're mimicking the food as good as one can with a piece of plastic with hooks on it if you stick to transparent baitfish patterns regardless of fish on your lake or water clarity. Again crankbaits are more about targeting fish at a depth and in cover that they target efficiently when good conditions for a crankbait present themselves. Being that they are sort of aggressive presentations that displace a lot of water and make a lot of noise, typically I go for them when there's a lot of disturbance or water clarity is poor for some reason (strong winds or heavy rains are good examples).

I just use transparent shad patterns for the most part. Black chartreuse is my favorite for when the water is dirty.

Weird @A-Jay, I do better at actual night under the full moon and better during the day around the new moon in general but I'll have to try more night fishing around the new moon this summer.

Been a cheap Chinese LiFePo4 battery user for 2 years now and they're great! Never buying another lead acid battery again. It's amazing how long I can run my trolling motor in heavy wind at full power. Makes fishing a lot more fun and hassle free when you just fish out of a small boat with a trolling motor.

I got skunked and broken off in shallow rock last night during my first sorta night fishing session of the year @LrgmouthShad. Happens to everyone. I'm gonna redouble my efforts this Friday and see if I can figure out what's breaking me off 😎👍🏼 Great fish everyone and congratulations to your dad @NorcalBassin! That's a tank! I know that lit his spirits up!

Same 🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

It worked for me quite a few times this year during the pre-spawn and I expect it to work pretty good during The post spawn. I will keep you updated on my success, but I think the best I got so far was a 3-pounder but I had one over five on for a second that I got to bite it!

Actual math wins every time but essentially bass are where you find em and catching em is gonna be a repertoire of confusion unique to you!

Hello there from Greensboro! Welcome to the forums. Nice to see more NC bass heads on here!

@DaubsNU1 if I go 15 minutes without another bite in the area I'm moving.

I think the biggest mistake most people make on the bank and in boats when bass fishing is they park their butts in a 'good looking area' and then do target practice next to bushes and trees in a vacant cove. You basically have to keep moving. Even when you are on them, it's usually only one or two fish max before they are on to you and then you gotta let an area cool a little which means...yeah...moving. I just keep a mental note of places. I've been getting bit and make a point of hitting them more than one time throughout the day if I really think they'll produce again. It's pretty rare that a population of Bass that I hammer on and catch a few out of bites more than once in a day. They're smarter than that around here.