Pat Brown

I'm gonna try really hard to catch a fish on a buzzbait all 12 months in 24. Got my work cut out for me . Gonna be a meteorologist by the end of the winter. 😂😂😂😂😂

I stopped using EWG hooks a long time ago. Missed too many fish on the hookset for my liking. Specifically with Texas rigs. For Texas rigs, I like offset round bend worm hooks. A little trickier to rig but I stopped missing fish on hooksets. It seems to drive the hook point up and out and into the roof of a fishes mouth much more naturally. Beyond that, they do tend to bite a little lighter in the cold and sometimes I like to make sure they have it more so than warm months.

My wife always tells me that I love her like a rock. I assume she dated Duane Johnson at some point in time, but she's never accused me of loving her like a hammer. But one thing is for sure...... can't touch this.

I prefer transparent hard baits and some of my best baits are the ones that are chewed up beyond recognition but still catch fish every year for me. I've even sanded all the paint off of crankbaits and Jerkbaits I didn't like the color of and caught fish on those. I'd toss it til it fulfills it's destiny and snaps off on a cast and flies into space like a big heavy swimbait is prone to do! Bass aren't really too picky about color in general and I really like clear/transparent moving baits. But maybe repainting it would be enjoyable for you and give you more confidence throwing it? In that case - definitely repaint it!

Expand on what I learned last year and try to learn more! I am just about to launch a heavy metallic shiny thing barrage at offshore fish. I'm ready to start looking for fish on bed much earlier this spring (like last week of January). I have learned lily pads are good right as they all died. Gonna be keeping tabs on the stems all through the winter. Got a feeling early bird gets the giant female bass out of the stems long before they're proper lily pads again. Just continuing to dial it in and learn when it's the time to throw what on my bodies of water. If I had to point at a technique and say I'd like to do more with it next year, I'd say 'finesse' as a whole. It's not been my style ever in terms of lure choice but I'm finding it is pretty effective around here.

@RipzLipz This isn't even a regional thing it's like limited to a very specific body of water hence the winking. Tilapia and golden shiners and crappie and gizzard shad all get munched along with mosquito fish, perch, red ear, bluegill, greenies, frogs, crawdads, small rodents and baby birds at this particular pond but the exceptionally giant bass definitely follow the shiners and shad around offshore when it's not the spring. There are big ones that hunt the bream up shallow but they're a size class below the ones I have identified that feed primarily on larger pelagic baitfish species throughout the mid summer and mid winter. Primary forage is often a confusing puzzle to unfurl for the biggest bass at tiny bodies of water is all I meant to point out. 99% sure these strange species were all randomly stocked or released renegade by aquarium owners at this pond over the years. On the big lake I fish, giant bass definitely take advantage of the sunfish spawning more than the small pond because they get away with it but what really drives the big girls crazy at that particular time of year around here is the mayfly hatch.

@TnRiver46 just ask my wife how good I am at flipping a jig into her coffee cup while she reads her emails before work in the morning. 😎😎😎😂😂😂 I just know there's a big bass in there somewhere. I keep hearing you can catch them in the chocolate milk, I figure why not coffee?

But what if the BIG bass like the golden shiners and the tilapia??? 🤔😉

I think somebody here said it best and I'll paraphrase and make it my own: I can find the biggest bass in the pond any day of the week, but whether I catch her or not is up to her! 😂😂😂😂

Heaven is what that is @ol'crickety

And sometimes at 4:00 in the morning. You're there at the right time and the right place but they catch you staring off into space thinking about how nice the morning is and you don't feel them pick your bait up and swim 20 feet away from the bank in the pitch black with your line and the second you feel them, they drop it and there goes your chance for the next 6 months. Hi, my name is Pat and this happened to me. 😂😂😂

I agree! That's why I bank fish every day still. All I'm doing this time of year for the most part is hitting promising structure. I subscribe to the 1/3 rule. You only need to see one out of the three to warrant a cast: Bait Bass Structure

I think big fish biting windows are a huge deal and one of the most illusive mysteries of the small pond. On larger bodies of water, I feel like big fish are more willing to eat when there's food around but the small ponds, it seems like the more pressure they receive and the more the bigger older fish are caught and released, the tighter those windows get. I feel that the exceptionally large fish also learn that they prefer to eat a specific thing on smaller bodies of water and if you aren't around the big fishes favorite snack, you're wasting your time. I have witnessed gargantuan females simply hovering in a couple feet of water, watching a school of baitfish. Following the food around and eating when they please. Getting a lure in their face when they're eating is TRICKY! I think they mostly eat at night.

Honestly if y'all can fish a t rig, you can fish a jig. I like a jig more casting at specific targets or into sparser cover where I'm trying to get a reaction bite and I think there's a few fish, especially if water clarity is less than ideal. Harder cover seems to be where jigs are most efficient. I like a t rig pretty much the rest of the time. Vegetation, super dense cover, muckier bottom, clearer water, covering water more horizontally and less vertically. But this isn't hard fast rules.

@Mobasser there are certain times of years I just need one rod and a couple lures to retie if I break off. Those are usually my favorite times to bank fish. Right now during the transition from early winter to dead of winter, I tend to bring a slow bottom bait, a suspending mid column bait, a fast horizontal bait and a topwater because I can't seem to predict what they're going to bite! Transitional weather is often the time you can catch the biggest fish but the bite tends to be all over the place. During March, when we have settled into spring and most fish are bedding or protecting fry, I may only bring a t rigged lizard or worm and a couple hooks and weights for retying. I definitely prefer when I get a bite dialed in to junk fishing.

" and it just kept going...." 🥹💸

Dang @king fisher that just makes me want to go to remote waters of Mexico even more 😂😂😂

Currently been fishing: Suspending Jerkbait Lipless Crankbait Jig n craw or chunk Swimjig/swimbait Underspin/swimbait Buzzbait Worm (t rig/C rig/weightless/free rig/shaky head) I am working on fishing other things when conditions call for it or fish are set up funny but I feel like right now this is my starting line up/comfort zone especially if they're anywhere near the bank at all.

@ol'crickety I locate bait with my eyes 90% of the time. I like to look for birds, surface disturbance, main lake structure and current breaks and go from there. If I can't see bait doing stuff with my eyes or at least the evidence of bait in the area, I have learned that it's probably gonna be a pretty big waste of time to fish it on a bigger impoundment. Especially this time of year when fish are very very grouped up. Yesterday I puttered around on a lake I haven't fished in a little while looking at my cheap little sonar unit and the ONLY place I saw any fish at all in 4 hours of graphing was in 10-23 feet of water (really more like 17-23 of water for 90% of the fish) and they were carpeting the bottom out in the middle of the main lake relating to absolutely nothing but slightly warmer deeper water. I caught my only fish in 1 foot of water on a buzzbait casting my way in back to the marina. If I was to go back to that lake today and fish again I'd probably sit on top of that carpet offshore with Damiki rigs, drop shots, Alabama rigs, Jerkbaits and blade baits because it seems to me like that's about how you're going to have to fish to catch many at this lake in the winter! Most of the year I'm able to work cover and targets up shallow but around this time every year that becomes a struggle down south and the electronics are a big help adapting to that drastic migration.

Probably a lot of different sizes but the bass seem to key in on smaller ones here. A lot of this years sunfish fry that hatched over the summer are now 2-3 inches long and swimming around in schools as the surface water hits it's winter lows in the 40s. I assume it's similar with regard to the size the bass prefer but hard to say what size the forage is on your body of water without netting or catching a few on rod and reel.

Latest topwater fish ever today on the buzzbait and a nice chunk at that!

Would really like a giant on the lipless between now and new years. 😌😌😌

Nah she was bleeding and nowhere near a PB so a quick photo and away she went. I'd say a fat 3.5 if I had to guess. She was gutted but didn't have the widest shoulders I've ever seen. Heck of a fight though!

Gorgeous fish @AlabamaSpothunter I think we made it. This girl ate it over 10 feet of water way off the bank. Saw some shad busting as the sun was setting and walked towards it before I started casting.

Toad on the Berkley stunna at sunset off the rip rap!!!!