Pat Brown

Sometimes on a bigger reservoir, you aren't around a substantial number of them and this time of year it can be feast of famine. I'd try to find some shallow dirty water that's maybe four or five degrees warmer than the water around the dam. That seems to hold the biggest concentrations of fish during the transition from the winter to the springtime.

Tyler Williams is looking real strong. Bet he catches a 8+ soon.

Tournaments do make fish harder to catch which makes them more likely to survive people who are just casually trying to catch them with the intention of maybe eating a few or something like that.

Because if you've got maybe 30% of 52 x (5x4x X number of anglers) dying at the ramp on lakes that have maybe 2,000,000 bass swimming around that have never seen a lure or been caught.....how many fish are you really affecting? Also I believe I heard it said on a podcast with a fisheries biologist that 40% of all fish on a lake die every year without anglers contributing at all and this is all species. Of course all of them are reproducing constantly and replacing fish that die of natural causes every year. What would radically change things is people starting to keep bass to eat regularly and especially the large ones. I don't see that happening anytime soon so I don't really feel afraid. There's actually a lot of data that suggests if people started to keep the 12 to 15-in bass on their home lakes routinely, they would produce record class bass pretty quickly. Another really important thing to remember about bass fishing which is primarily a catch and release sport is that when we release the fish and they do survive, they are well educated and very much less likely to bite again All things being equal. And then there are the fish that will never ever bite a lure in their entire lives because of their genetic predisposition for caution. How else can you explain on 2 million fish lakes, bass with cull tag holes in their faces. I think we kind of catch the stupid ones most of the time.

Everything that I know about lakes and fish tells me that tournaments don't even touch a fraction of the fish that exist on a lake. Even the ones that get hammered every year. Tournament anglers only lay hands on a small small percentage of the fish. Forward facing sonar certainly seems to be a controversial topic and a point of contention for a lot of people. But I understand both sides of the fence and I personally sympathize with both points of view for and against the technology. I think the fact of the matter is technology keeps moving regardless of how people feel about it and the people who adapt are the people who stand to benefit. The fish are going to keep on fishing like they have for bazillions of years. If regulations need to be put in place, I hope that various state agencies do what's required to protect the resource.

I bet we see some giant jerk baits and the 12" glides being thrown today. People are gonna be busting out all the hail Mary big fish tricks. Should be a mega fun final day. I predict Trey McKinney wins it and is the next KVD for this era basically 😂

Short but sweet trip yesterday where all fish were caught on a swim jig with a chunk on the back of wood. Found some pretty big concentrations of fish staging and going back tomorrow for a longer trip and hoping the warm weather has them eating up shallow!

I haven't seen anyone throwing a drop shot which I find weird in a high pressure situation where fish are sliding back during a front.

@alonerankin2Looked a lot like a jerk bait to me, which is what he's been catching most of his fish on the past 2 days.

Tyler Williams is fishing a football jig with a white skirt and a small straight tail soft plastic jerk bait (looks a lot like a spunk shad) to catch his fish that are out deep feeding on shad. Looks like Bama strolling is taking off 😎😂🎣

Honestly hornets nests inside of wood laydowns has been seriously bad news for me and my family on the boat a couple times. You get stung enough far enough from a hospital it could be real bad. Consider this a PSA about partially submerged old dead wood laydowns especially in the summertime. Wasps love making their homes in them.

One thing is for sure. This tournament will be legendary when it's over. Lake Fork is really showing it's potential and it's not even truly the best time to fish Fork.

Those are some tanks y'all! Beautiful fish and good memories with old friends. Couldn't ask for a better way to spend time.

Not his finest moment but I forgive him for wanting more money 😂 I'm glad they all worked it out and he's back where he belongs.

Jordan Lee is having an incredible day for not being in the top 10. He will probably fish day 4.

I would have reeled up a little more line before going boatside for her and maybe held tension with the rod and not my hand on the line. Other than that, fish get off. Sucks but it happens.

Matty just lost a 10 lber. 😵 Hopefully he can keep his confidence high. He's doing the right stuff and they're hitting his presentation. He just needs to make more casts to more fish.

Matty Wong is another dude I'd love to see with a trophy. He is a hammer and his day is coming.

The number of big fish I catch somewhere my intuition told me to skip over tells me maybe just cast at everything! 😉🥴🎣😂

Nice to see Welcher and Williams doing well. Like both of those guys a lot. This has been a fun one for sure! Will Davis Jr. is looking strong and had a really strong 2023 season. He's my pick for this event at this moment. I feel like he's the kinda guy that could easily seal the deal. Jordan Lee could do it for sure if he's on the right fish. Curious to see what happens with Milliken and Taku after 12-1 pm when the afternoon feed window starts to open up.

When targeting big fish I like to do extremes. Extremely big bait, extremely small bait, extremely fast presentation, extremely slow presentation. Fishing extremely late or extremely early, or in extremely heavy wind or maybe extremely calm etc. I really like lures where I can kind of control the depth that the lure is doing its thing because I feel like big fish are more likely to come up to attack something that is kind of dancing around in their face and there's a lot of different presentations that sort of achieve this hovering dance that they seem to like so much.

The top 10 on this one is a cool group of dudes. I hope Taku wins. Agree that he's one of the most likable elite series anglers on the circuit and he's a total hammer.

Big fluke. 😎

It depends but wind definitely will influence where I fish and what I use from my confidence baits. If it's very windy, I almost always fish a reaction bait and something with drawing power. If it's not very windy I'm more likely to slow down on areas that I know should be holding fish. Wind is important but I care more about prevailing winds than anything else. If you have a wind hitting a bank for 2+ days, good idea to fish that bank. 🙂

Oh boy this morning was fun. Bout to hit it again. All of them caught on the wind blown bank after 3 days of warm SW wind.