Pat Brown

I love the action you get with either no trailer or a split tail. Not a fan of trailers that add lift to spinnerbaits. I have theories about smaller spinnerbaits in clearer water and with less wind but have yet to truly prove them to myself.

@gimruis Actually when I'm super shallow in my boat, I will indeed drift fish as much as wind allows and in general I try to maintain speed and healthy distance from cover when I can't drift. I find that I still get bit as long as I'm not banging into stuff or stop/starting the prop. I definitely have noticed that up very shallow is the only time it seems to matter. When fish are schooling, the pings become pretty irrelevant.

@Zcoker My theory is that bass behave a lot more like bait fish than we realize and when wolfpacks are hunting (and make no mistake when you catch one. You're usually catching one out of a school of at least three or four that's in an area) if one of the big fish reacts negatively to something, the rest of them learn to react very quickly. Imagine this for a second. You're a hungry wolf pack of bass and one of you happens to see a heron swooping down. If one of the bass darts away rapidly and the other four bass do not, how do you think that typically ends for those other four bass? I think they learn to sort of be curious together/ be aggressive together/ be afraid together. I've seen this so many times around beds in the later spawn when the big wolf packs of females are examining my glide bait together and spooking together or attacking it together. I completely agree it ain't going nowhere anytime soon but I reckon eventually, like all gizmos, it's gonna go the way of the flasher. I can't wait to fish with my AI controlled robot Jerkbait. 🤣💀

I have noticed (on my lakes) in the summer when the bass are pushing shad up to the surface and destroying them all over the place for a few weeks, where the bass are, the gulls are not. My theory is a kind of mutually assured destruction that puts pressure on each species to 'find their own fish' 🤣

Makes a lot of sense because bass are sight feeders and I think that the single easiest thing for them to really quickly evaluate is the profile of a bait when reacting to it.

My 0.02 ¢ Bass have adapted to run away from the whopper ploppers, spotlock, silent trolling motors, chatterbaits, people walking nearby, banging sounds, things flying through the air, everything that actually evolved to kill them for the past 3,000,000 years, not to mention flashers, down imaging, 2D, 360 and guess what....forward facing sonar is the latest flash in the pan and what's happening overall is not that all the big bass are dying or being caught, it's just another thing for them to learn and every angler willing to spend xxxx amount of money per year to have til it's another gizmo that their boat has on it. The things that worked well for catching exceptionally large bass back when all the major records were set back in the 80s and 90s are the same as they always have been....learn seasonal patterns and bait movement and behavior and how bass relate to it and then learn the subtle nuance of skillful presentation. If you are good at that stuff, you will be trend proof and the latest gizmos are just gravy. I turn off my 2D now fishing shallow and I get a lot more bites. Fish learn fast what's happening and they're so much more aware than we give them credit for. Todd Castledine also makes the point on his channel that basically if every fish that every angler caught all year got killed, it still wouldn't touch the population of fish that has literally never been caught and never will, which is always much much larger. And fish overall are being caught and released and not kept which is education. We release the aggressive fish that are curious and willing to bite with an education and they signal that danger is nearby and the school responds negatively from that moment forward. Only exceptions I can think of is when you're bed fishing but you can exploit that without FFS and people have since the 80s and 90s. Interesting points all around. I don't have it and don't really have much desire to have it mainly because I don't seem to need it to catch a bass or even a big bass.

I'm starting to see green vegetation come back on my hooks already. Won't be long before the first trees blossom. I assume it will do the typical zig and zag of spring and winter doing battle or is it dancing? The big bass simply don't care. Surface temps are 52° in the coves which means they're fairly well about to start making little bass. Which means they're eating a LOT up shallow! It happens so fast every year it blows my mind.

Got a fish up shallow on the red eye shad and that was it this morning. Wind changes directions tonight to SW and stays that way through the weekend. I think tonight could be great. Looking forward to my after work session.

The biggest bass I ever caught was on a power worm. Was it the power bait!?!? Who's to say. I think the pros who 'marinate' their soft plastics probably stand the most chance of seeing results. I doubt a quick spray is gonna mask much for long.

Epoxy + horse hair maybe get you there

I like to fish targets with the spinnerbait. It's not my favorite lure for 'covering water' but when I'm fishing lots of targets in shallow dirtier water, there are few more deadly baits in the winter.

Oh I am. That fish still shakes me to the core. Like what the heck kinda luck!?!? So thankful.

@ol'crickety I mean winter time surface temps! This year we only got winter time surface temps for a week! Not much opportunity to practice winter fishing 🥹 It was weird because the weather was mostly awful so not much being on the boat throughout the month of January but February is looking promising. In all honesty probably best not to tempt fate by risking falling into 45° water for me or my son anyway but I would have been out more had it not been a perpetual hurricane-like Jan. I skunk plenty though! Just how it goes sometimes especially when you only got a minute or two to fish and it might not be the easiest minute of the day. Very thankful for the targeted moments that have produced for me though. This weekend will be one. SW airflow starts Wednesday night and warming trend peaks with light rain and 67° day high on Saturday with lows in the high 40s at night. New Moon. Oh yes. You better bet I'll be looking for Nadine.

@casts_by_fly Never liked a crankbait anywhere but above submerged grass and in general I'd probably opt for a spinnerbait or buzzbait in those circumstances but in terms of being a Squarebill that is somewhat excessively large that I fish in places I'd fish a Squarebill (shallow hard bottom areas with rock and wood cover and poorer visibility), I enjoy using the Hybrid Hunter. Haven't had as much luck with the jr.

The bigger hybrid hunter is basically a larger squarebill and it catches the snot out of fish. Comes through wood like nothing I've ever fished.

Yeah when a fish makes a run for deeper water he's usually pulling me down into 3-5 feet of water 😂😂😂 On my lake they always run into the cover and it works a lot of the time for them. Gorgeous bass Alex. In my book 6 + is legacy class gigantors and anything over 7 is a behemoth. That's a daggone Alpha class behemoth. Not many fish on that lake like her. I think I probably missed the super deep offshore bite for the year but it's okay, that gear is gonna play in August when I'm on the struggle bus. And then hopefully I'll be ready when we bottom out for 5 whole days next winter 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😂😂😂

I think line matters the most fishing slowly and horizontally in very shallow open water. Most of the time, the line doesn't matter. They're either biting or they're not. I think bass are much more likely to 'feel' your line and leave than see it and leave most of the time.

Buzzing the baits in February to bass success He ain't much but he's a dat gum topwater bass in winter 😎😂

Basically this. I'll expand on this a little more. I'm 37 and really got into bass fishing within the last 3 years and I'll tell ya, fishing nearly every day for 3 years I'm only beginning to build a data set that looks remotely like 'wisdom' for my local fish/waters. I'm a little older than your grandson, sure, and I fished my whole life for this and that with friends.... but I still consider myself a newcomer to the sport of targeting the LMB with artificial lures on lowland reservoirs in the Piedmont region of NC. It takes a lot of dirt time before you get bit and even more dirt time before you can catch em all year. You gotta put the time in just like any passion or pursuit. There's no shortcuts! I love that it's unpredictable and that there's always new stuff to learn. It's been one of the best things I've ever committed myself to!

I would love to drop brush at the pond I fish but it would stick up out of the water! 😃 I see the Christmas trees on my down imaging on the bigger lakes. Amazing how they retain their shape underwater! Glad to see you're back on em. It's cool to do a nice thing for the future generations and help those young anglers. 😎😎😎

Tackle warehouse order showed up. I got a pile of the 1/4 and the 3/8 oz red eye shad in green gizzard, blue gizzard and shizzle. I am a big fan of the smaller ones in shallow water and I'm just about always fishing these things in 0-2 feet so. Here we are. Also snagged a few more of the 3/8 oz Hammer Trap because they handle a lot like the red eye shad in terms of shallow water and rising up some on the retrieve. Got a silent Damiki Tremor and ThunderHawk SGT (not pictured/already in the tackle bag) in bone color. I got some fun topwater/Wakebait stuff to try. Heddon Swim'n Image to go with my spit'n image. Strike King Wake Bait, Cl8 Baits Mighty Mouse (which I predict will get destroyed), Cotton Cordell Rippling Redfin (cold water), 6th Sense Trace Floater in the Shad Burst, Suspending Quake in the Table Rock Pro and some suspend strips and Owner ST36s to round out the order with some terminal odds and ends. Feeling extremely ready for the spring this year. Can't wait for night time lows to start going up so we can really get the party rolling!

X3. Viper head just sounds too cool to not want to try it. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Nice chunky fish in the cold muddy water today at the pond on the Jimmy Houston single Colorado blade spinnerbait! I'm beginning to really like throwing this bait. It's almost a stealth buzzbait when you work it on the surface!

Gorgeous fish @thediscochef! Glad you're back on em!

Just to offer a yin to the yang/different horses for courses/everyone is different observations to give you some food for thought: I fish jigs a LOT. I used to ALWAYS miss jig fish. Like I could get bit. I could put it in the right places. I would feel the bite. Reel the slack out of my line and set the hook hard over my shoulder. I think I actually caught maybe 20% of the fish that bit and I did like that. What got me closer to 80% over the years IS waiting. Contrary to popular belief bass will often swim around with a jig in its mouth for a while and you'll get MUCH better hooksets if they're not swimming off with your jig dangling out of their mouth grabbed only by one claw. This isn't like a lot of waiting. I just reel down and make sure the fish is there and then set the hook. Another bonus to this is a big fish is probably swimming with it in its mouth AWAY from other big fish who want it. Setting the hook on a slight delay you might get another big fish out of the laydown rather than pounding the hookset the minute she bites deep in the cover and alerting her bigger smarter friends to fishing pressure. This next part is where I REALLY was also losing a lot of MY fish. On a T rig you reel down quick and hit em hard and fast to get that hook through the plastic and these days I almost have to remind myself it's a t rig and do that because it is maybe the one bait I still set the hook like that. On a jig what I personally recommend after many many many many experiments and fish caught and hooks removed from the roof of the mouth: a lot of jig bites come on the fall. A lot of them come on the end of longer casts. I reel the slack out of my line and point my rod down and at the fish *at a moderate pace in case they run suddenly* and as soon as my tip starts to load I firmly and swiftly sweep up and to the side (almost like you see people do on Carolina rigs but with a smidge more oomph) while reeling FAST! When I remember to do it this way I often have to get the pliers out and I use monofilament and sometimes set the hook 50-100 feet from the fish AND I like a more moderate tip so I can really see it load up before the fish feels me there. Also rip holes less in their face. I find that with a jig, you often blow their mouth out or barely penetrate their lips OR rip a hole so big you lose them when you pound them super hard and fast with a stiff rod. Basically with jigs try to let the rod and reel do more of the work on the hookset and save your strength for the t rig. YMMV as always! Tight lines. P.S. the vast majority of my biggest jig fish i see the line swimming out. You're lucky when they slam into it. Be a line watcher ALWAYS while jig fishing or you're gonna get frustrated fast. My favorite is when they just open their mouth and your jig doesn't make to the bottom of the laydown and your jig feels like it's in a pile of old underwear or fishing line. No visual cues. No swimming away. Just the jig feels funny and stops a little early. Yeah that's Nadine. Set the hook. 😂