Pat Brown

The Crawfish in my lakes and ponds are very accomplished percussionists and often can be seen crawling around on the bottom with miniature maracas. I always use rattles. 😎🤣 All jokes aside, I've never had rattles on my jig before

Dad gum this tropical storm nonsense sure is wild middle of January! And the polar vortex coming in hot on Tuesday. Gonna be a wild spring! The good news is those fish arent gonna be missing a meal on account of the weather and they just gonna be that much fatter when we get back on em! 😉😉😉

The weather is absolutely terrible for fishing but I'm still gonna trudge through the slop and mud to see if I can get bit tonight. It's been a long week and I need to at least cast. It's raining pretty hard which usually is terrible for fishing in the evenings but it's kinda warm rain so maybe it balances out? Let's hope! I haven't been on the boat in 2 weeks and if nothing catastrophic happens tomorrow after Jake's basketball game I'll get a short trip out. I need to catch a bass y'all 😭😭😭

I think a tandem blade configuration comes straight the easiest without any mods or trailer at moderate to fast speeds. Double willow will sometimes want to roll a little more in general without some kind of trailer to help keel it but can be retrieved the fastest all things being equal.The easiest to retrieve slowly and with the least roll is the Colorado. Indiana is a great in between. Blade size matters tremendously for how fast you can retrieve it without rolling also. Bigger blades create more lift and let you retrieve the bait more methodically. My current favorites are double willow and the Indiana Colorado configuration. Also starting to fish more single Colorados in the cold muddy water while it's around... hopefully have some success there. I really like gold and silver with white and chartreuse or just white with silver for most of my spinnerbait fishing but sometimes I'll do double gold with a golden shiner skirt or double silver with a crappie or shad skirt in cleaner water.

Killin it @Team9nine 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🎣🎣🎣

But will it make the monkey proud? 🥹🥹🥹

Sure that makes sense @Bass Rutten - mid strolling a swim jig with a straight tail soft plastic jerkbait trailer. We'll call it Bama Strolling since every micro adjustment gets to be a secret new technique now 😂😂😂😂😉🎣😎 I hope it gets you some big bites!

I guess basically, it could be a great way to present a skirted jig horizontally. Only one way to find out! I already got a 5/16 oz finesse jig in shad pattern with fluke jr on the back. Gonna tight line and gently shake + pause it around and see if it gets bit tonight after work. Been tough so I don't expect much, but it's gonna be warm and sunny today so could be great also. 😎

Yeah i think I'm just saying (like all these guys) that some kinda EWG based design will be exponentially more weedless than a skirt less swim jig with a weed guard and will look more natural. Whether with a keeper/screw lock weight under or out front, I find that these are much better when dragging swimbaits through very dense cover. I still think it's harmless to try a shirtless swim jig! I just LIKE the skirt part. I think it's part of the appeal of a swim jig and why I would throw one. I really do like the weight/punch skirt/hook idea a lot though. Maybe this is the year I try that. The flashy swimmer is a bad dude tho, they work so good in vegetation that's healthy! Really nice just bumping it around pad stems and feeling a *THUNK* and seeing your line start to swim into the grass.

Jig heads with swimbaits are very popular! I like swim jigs when I want a big bite because they present a bigger bulkier bait fish profile. If I'm desperate for a bite, I'm more likely to tie on a more toned down swim bait presentation. I'm a big fan of the Owner Flashy Swimmer for something in between the two extremes that is very very weedless.

So what I hear everybody saying is: Yay on Bama Strollin' 🤣🤣🤣😎😎😎 Kay Let's mix it in there next few trips out and see what happens....😎🥷🏼😉

I find the skirt lends itself to a really nice slow fall that will keep the bait hovering. I mean literally we are talking Alabama shaking but with a straight tail and a skirt. More horizontal and more geared towards shallow cover perhaps is what I'm imagining. I have successfully hover strolled with a ball head jig Damiki thing so I think a LOT of this stuff is more or less the same presentation at different depths with different speed and profile. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

I hearby vote that we pre-emptively name this technique 'Bama-strolling' You heard about it here first. I'm gonna take the lack of engagement to mean I've spilled the juice by accident 🥷🏼🥷🏼🥷🏼😉😉😉🤣

Okay so I did a google search and found a lot of people over the years saying 'jig trailer needs more action/swimming fluke sure...but normal fluke on a jig? Naaaaah' Fast forward to 2024 Nobody predicted shaking a fluke on a jig head around suspended fish was actually like the deal..... So...I first saw this technique and IMMEDIATELY thought of fishing a swim jig with a no action trailer like a chunk and doing the Alabama Shake to impart the action....it seems to be exactly the same technique targeting different parts of the water column/slightly different profiles. Josh Jones does really well hovering swim jigs with NO trailer for DD bass. So is *shaking* a jig and fluke through the water column going to be something we see developing into a big fish pattern up shallow? 🙈🙈🙈🙈

Frittside and the Crush Flat 75 are the only ones I have! You can't go wrong with many of the rapala cranks for colder water/tighter action also. Not *quite* flat sided but perhaps more versatile!!! My favorite flat sided crank by far this time of year is a lipless crankbait though 😎😎😎

Yeah the rain and wind really messed things up here too @thediscochef Let's hope when things stabilize the fish are hungry! 😎😎😎🎣🎣🎣

Looking like paradise.... ACHIEVED! Congratulations and here's to a great spring! 🎣🎣🎣🎣

I will say a weightless fluke works best for me using the technique described above in the winter! But basically exact same principle - light line, weightless plastics, work it slow and gentle in areas where they're likely to hold until it starts to warm. Another way to catch fish when it's incredibly cold is to just grind and speed up. Lipless crankbaits and spinnerbaits can be deadly on small ponds and are a little more fun to fish when it's cold. I usually like some stain/mud or some clouds/wind for these techniques but I'll still throw them when it's calm and sunny.

MacIntosh looks amazing and I'm planning to fish it some in the spring! That's pretty close to you I believe and they have lots of ways you can fish. The river systems and creeks are all really good around here too (Pee Dee/Tar River/Cane Creek reservoir) If you make the trek out this way: Randleman, Belews, Higgins, Brandt, Townshend and a variety of small pressured ponds await! There's big ole bass everywhere round here as far as I can tell! They're smart but that's half the fun 😉 Welcome to BR!

I don't really go for the super heavy hooks on swim jigs but I think they're designed for fishing tules and dense pads and stuff where heavy braid and winching fish out of cover are called for. I just don't actually have a lot of 'heavy vegetation' around here. I tend to fish rock and wood a lot more and clear lines work much much better in those scenarios for me. I like the lighter wire hooks for every other scenario because they allow a lot more flexibility with rod, reel and line choices and tend to penetrate more easily in general in a wider variety of hook setting scenarios.

Boy they sure do eat good in that lake brother! Shewwwww! 🎣🎣🎣🎣🎣

I wish I knew exactly why the plastic is more flimsy and moves more but plastic seems to 'harden' in cold water and the Yamamoto is so soft it stays natural looking. That's all I can theorize. I use lots of grubs but in cold water I use the softer plastics.

Honestly the Yamamoto smokes all the other grubs in water below 48° The thin tentacles undulate in current subtly when other plastic sorta just sits there. My favorite jig head for these around here if not on a Siebert finesse jig would be on any weedless EWG jig head design on the market. I like the Siebert one for this as well!

I just wanna be the slow methodical Starsky to his fast and swimmy Hutch! It ain't a big ask 🤣🤣🤣

Id bring maybe a Carolina rig or a really big jig 😎😎😎🥷🏼🥷🏼🥷🏼 I reckon I could find 'my' fish in his boat over there.