Pat Brown

Last bass of 2023 tonight on the red eye shad. What an amazing year of bass fishing it was for me. And what a great bass to end the year on!!!! Beyond grateful.

Duuuuuuude. That's some daggone stud hoss ditch pickle piggy fish. 🎣🎣🎣🎣🎣 Congratulations and here's to more in 24

Well....that lipless bite made jr a little bit jealous and we went out for more after lunch on account of the conditions getting worse 😎😎😎😎😎 aka better for a lipless We were not disappointed.

Got that tank I was after on the ol' Red Eye Shad this morning right when a cold front hit and dropped the temp 9 degrees and brought a bunch of clouds and a North wind in. She crushed it on a slower pumping retrieve.

That was fascinating and yet another great video that suggests that fishing is evolving and livescope is, perhaps counterintuitively, a money saver and could result in better conservation practices by anglers that are going to be catching them one way or another anyway. I kinda liked the narrative promoting a small electric motor craft angler with limited but useful rods reels and baits and a powerful piece of technology. 2000$ seems a lot smaller when you consider the barrier to entry up until the advent of the scope, was a 100,000$ boat, 20 rods and 4 graphs. Process of elimination gets fairly expensive fairly quickly when you turn out the lights. Maybe the only entity that really needs to worry about livescope, ironically, is the tackle industry! 🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️ Sure seems like an interesting take on the whole debate to me!

Buzzbait - caught a pile of fish on this bait and lots of big fish Jerkbait - caught a pile of fish and kept me skunk free and got me quality bites on many a tough day. Little swimbaits - fished alone/on a jighead/flashy swimmer/swim jig trailer - this year I caught a TON of fish with these popular soft plastics and many many quality fish. The 3" and 4" size get the most use and my favorite rigs are the flashy swimmer and a Siebert swim jig. Glide Bait - bought a couple for fun and they ended up being VERY fun and caught me and some friends and family members some big fish during the post spawn. VERY cool when a fish smokes a 7" bait. Fluke - more or less replaced the weightless worm for me and was very fun to fish. Looking forward to more time and fish caught with this bad little guy. Frog - caught a lot of really good fish on the frog and had a million blow ups that tell me next year I'm gonna be that much more ready to get em when they strike. Lipless Crankbait - became my favorite moving bait this year. When I'm just trying to catch a fish at a small pond, I know I can grind with a lipless and probably get one or two bites and they're usually better fish.

Chatterbait/Senko/Deep crank. Mostly used lipless/spinnerbait/Squarebill/fluke in place of these. Also fished weightless trick worms more this year and had awesome success. All three bait categories have caught me nice fish and plenty of them but for some reason they just didn't get tossed.

@Catt I can't catch em with 6 hooks anyways. It's fine. 😂😂😂

Hey I figure I'll take not hanging up and putting my bait in dumb places over maybe missing a fish now and again. I mean it's just 1/6 of the hooks. I think the trade off is probably worth it if it is. Also, this is only something I'm doing when I'm bank fishing a spot I know is loaded with snaggy stuff. I have lipless cranks I leave alone for rockier bottoms and when I'm in a boat.

I think with stuff like this, best not to overthink it. Try respooling with some stiffer line and see if you like how the bait performs. I find in general, when I'm not super satisfied with how a bait swims, I'm just not super into the bait. Glide baits usually either do the stuff or they don't and the technique required to impart the action that seems to get bit is fairly specific.

Put me down in the 'it depends' camp but as a rule outside in is wise. However, if I establish a pattern, I try not to waste time. Also if I have a limited time to fish and spooky fish I might hit the money shot on every piece of cover ONLY in a day. Some of my best days ever have been days where I 'trim the fat' and just hit the absolute best cast and keep moving.

Managed one nice one on the underspin. Looks almost like a spotted bass! Super defined lateral colors and small mouth. I missed a really big fish on the jig inside of a tree that got me wrapped up and came off. Felt the head shakes. Not small. Missed a fish in the same area as I got the nice one a couple casts later on the underspin. Not bad for a couple hours before they closed! Saw the mad spaghetti and tried tail spinners and blade baits. No dice. Gonna try the flutter spoon next time.

Well....I got a twofer this morning: First bass on a Ned rig and a first bass on the Damiki rig..... because well I caught it on a Ned rigged fluke fished Damiki style 😎. I guess a ned-miki? So I'll preface this by saying I witnessed a very very cool thing before catching this little guy: I was casting the Nedmiki out pointing my rod up, shaking the tip and feeling fast enough to keep my fluke just below the surface, occasionally pausing my reeling etc I saw the laydown I've lost a thousand lures in at the mouth of the feeder creek and figured what the heck, make a couple casts past it and see what happens with this silly thing, mind you I haven't had a sniff in an hour of tossing this thing without really knowing what I'm doing.... First cast I bring the fluke between the major junction in the wood and a GIANT bass comes out of nowhere and breeches trying to swallow the thing - clearly very reluctant to commit - but I have NEVER seen the big fish come unglued like that EVER on this pond. I make a second cast. Same exact thing happens again. The fish rolls on the bait aggressively, breeching briefly and swirls around back to its spot. I make a third cast, this time I see a smaller swirl and feel a thump and set the hook! I think a school of bass was hunkered down in this wood ambushing shiners and I came at the right time with the right bait and they had never seen anything like it so - don't be afraid to do the Damiki rig shallow power fishing style!!!

My wife was checking the weather yesterday to see when we can all go out and test out Christmas fishing lures offshore! (It's been torrentially raining for 4 days) I picked a good one. Been married 11 years this past July.

Awwwww shucks it just happens to be getting around to the best time of year to bass fish in NC is all that's happening I reckon! I'm actually off em plenty - but I appreciate the vote of confidence! I sincerely hope you catch some good ones when your water gets right for it! 😎😎😎

No. I was holding something stupidly and using a sharp tool at work and sliced into my finger. Thankfully it was mostly a surface tear. Fishing line this time of year makes the tip of my thumb cracked and bloody from thumbing the spool on casts in the cold!

A couple little guys on lipless cranks. I think red is the deal for those right now. Got a nice one on the underspin with a little keitech in bass candy on the back. Saw tons of big fish glued to the bank today. It's looking like we might get a false spring and round of early spawners this week!

Yeah it's kinda just like....choose what you will....but the statistics are coming in slowly from DNR and WRC, who basically have no skin in the game but protecting fish and have the resources to do more than conjecture and guessing - are saying that in most cases, FFS has no positive or negative effects on bass populations. I do think what is undeniable is the quality of fishing for the average angler is laterally shifting and that forces people like me to adapt and that always causes grumbles. But IMHO, bass are smarter than we give them credit for and they are developing into a species that understands collectively that they are being targeted by us and just like lures, they're learning to associate electronics with our presence and I think slowly but surely, the pendulum will swing back the other way. A lot of it has to do with the balancing out that's going to happen after the peak angling pressure that COVID put on a whole generation of bass. Just be patient. Keep fishing. Keep adapting. Use it. Don't. Bass gonna keep getting caught.

Just pull out MapQuest and input the marina! Siri will guide you home. 😂😂😂♥️♥️♥️

Yeah straight mono of fluorocarbon for Jerkbaits for me. The stretch seems to really help keep them pinned!

I modify my lipless cranks for bank fishing. I cut off the hook that hangs down on the front one and I can't seem to snag em. I catch fish on the modified front hook and back hook both and I have not lost a single lipless since I started doing this.

The Bull Sharks are the ones that need to watch out, I've seen your success! 😂😂😂

Fighting 40 lb red fish or 250 lb sting ray from kayaks in the sound surrounded by hungry bull sharks and God knows what else is always a rush! You should come down to the NC coast if you like to be pulled around in a kayak by big fish! Red fish hit all the same lures bass do also for what it's worth so that's kinda fun.

Buzzbait, lipless, jig!

This is what I do now and it definitely works great!