Pat Brown

I see females in ponds I fish every day 365 days a year for 6 + years show up on the same beds every year - get caught and swim off and show up for 2-3 days around each full or new moon generally from about April til November in NC. Literally every single one. Do people catch them?? Not much! 😆 those big girls didn’t get big being dumb.

They’re super tough fish.

That being said - they don’t survive being tossed in a bucket and taken home and cleaned and eaten and they don’t survive being badly gill or gut hooked so I try really hard to swing hard and fast and take my licks knowing I’m fishing more safely - do NOT wait to set the hook on bed fish or use treble hooks on bed fish you’re sight fishing - and you’re gonna probably be just fine and so will she.

Female bass are the healthiest and most likely to survive being caught during the spring while they’re spawning. Not during the winter or summer or fall when water quality is poor and they’ve been hammered for months - in the spring they have good water quality and good temps and lots of food and are the most likely to survive being caught.

Don’t keep fish out of the water for more than 30 seconds without reviving them.

Quick photo and back on the bed and for the most part - you’re not gonna hurt the bass population.

Another small comfort that’s worthy of consideration: most professionally managed ponds that are focused on curating giant bass fishing experiences require very intentional and deliberate harvesting of bass annually and to some degree the fish that die from bed fishing help the overall size in a small pond - contrary to popular belief.

People loading buckets from the bank can seem to fish a spot out but the fact is bass spawn in places you can’t see more than places you can in every body of water on earth and they’re gonna be fine - but you might be left with only smart hard to catch fish that live deep after a few years of people over harvesting on the banks etc.

The key is always being intentional and respectful and you can learn a lot about bass from sight fishing.

You’re really learning all the stuff that people with forward facing sonar are learning but you learn it with your eyes and a real fish instead of a screen.

Ditches/drains/culverts/saddles/ledges/low spots etc etc etc

Places where a flat bank suddenly becomes a little deeper and more concave that usually corresponds to a place where water is constantly concentrated when it rains.

Backs of pockets usually have multiple ditches - flatter banks usually have subtle ditches. Big steep banks often have huge ditches that you can see sticking out of the water where the landscape makes a hard “V” - that V usually keeps going underwater and forms little points and ledges on either side of the ditch.

Saddles are where two islands or humps or even points are close enough together that there is kind of a “valley” that runs between them - this is another form of ditch basically.

It’s just places that get eroded and as a result stay pretty clean and hard and have well defined depth changes that provide good opportunities for ambush and reproduction and moving up and down in the water column without leaving the area.

Walk a bank during a drought and you’ll see the little snakey looking depressions in the bottom that seem to randomly shoot off the bank - those are ditches.

I think a better thing to look out for that makes a LOT more sense is “look for depth changes”.

It’s like a big swim bait or a big jig - you’re really headhunting when you tie on the bigger frog but my experience is smaller fish can and will hit it plenty - I like the big frog exactly when a bigger bait makes sense - super heavy cover, dirty water, deeper water, darker conditions, heavy wind, bigger fish, super active fish etc
 
90% of the time I fish a standard size frog - I reach for small ones on small ponds with clear water and calm conditions and smaller fish, big one during the aforementioned extremes and the regular size is my go to because it is a great compromise on bite getting and drawing power that tends to work the best and be easy to present effectively without special gear etc.
 
in the end - big baits are more psychological than other categories - you have to dig deep into your confidence and remember the body of that frog is not much bigger than a small bream or perch or a larger mouse or bird or frog that has their attention.
 
I just try to think of it mechanically rather than fish preference - lot less guessing.
 
There’s times when one offering makes mechanical sense over another and I try to adjust to the conditions UNLESS fish are showing a STRONG preference for one size or profile over another and then I’ll throw that til they’re sick of it!

Some days they just don't bite where you're fishing for em.
 
For what it's worth - I feel like regardless of season - 90% of the water on my lakes is a waste of time and that 90% changes weekly.
 
It's not that there aren't fish everywhere - there are - but the places they're biting seem to fire for bits of time and then shut down and then other areas will fire.
 
Being around lots of fish doesn't always mean lots of bites for sure.
 
Sometimes those shallow ghost towns have some big fish hiding in there.
 
You just can't see em all - they're good at hiding!
 
I think also sometimes it'll be one little thing like rate of fall or speed of retrieve or profile - you can be doing all the right things in the right spots and not getting bit and then make a small change and suddenly the flood gates open.
 
There was one day this summer where we were fishing for hours and everything looked good. We kept getting nips and nibbles or nothing and then my son made the switch from the big ribbon tail to the lizard and then he caught a 20 lb bag in about 2 hours.
 
I figured maybe it was timing or something but we took that ribbon tail to places we had already fished and gotten bit and started catching those fish too afterwards.
 
But like usually if there are fish and they're not biting, I'm going to keep moving and fast. 
 
I'm more likely to come back to a fish that's not biting then keep trying to make it bite with lots of different lures. 
 
But that's just something I've learned to do from sight fishing (similar to what forward facing sonar shows you).
 
You're almost always most likely to catch the fish if you let them rest and try something different after a while instead of cycle baits on their face repeatedly and then leave and not come back to them.
 
I don't know very much about how you approached it or what you did, but these are just some things that come to mind. 
 
Summer is definitely a tough time of year because the fish have seen a lot of stuff and you have to be pretty strategic about your approach to areas you think have fish. Because even if you're doing the right thing in the right place, the fish are pretty much over people by this point in the year.

Sounds like you're doing everything right!
 
IMHO - you pick the bait for the cover you're fishing - like @FishTax alluded to - if you're fishing a lot of wood go something you can get in and out of wood - if you're fishing a lot of rock and hard bottom - baits that take advantage of that would do well - lots of grass could mean certain lures excel etc etc.
 
Once you have established the type of cover you will primarily be fishing - next order of business is to try presenting baits at different depths and speeds.
 
On larger bodies of water from the bank, options are pretty limited unfortunately and finding active fish is very difficult this time of year unless you have access to a steep channel banks where the main river swings up against and you can hit deep spots easily.
 
On ponds and the like, it can be easier to find the fish, but this time of year - periods where fish are active and feeding are very very small.
 
I tend to do the best on calm super sunny days this time of year unless you have a super warm rain during a cloudy front - that can be a VERY good time to go fishing in the late winter for sure!
 
When water temps are below 40 - you basically have to slow way way down.
 
A lot of baitfish die when temps get below 40 and basically, bass don't gotta chase nothing when that's happening.  Your only hope is basically deadsticking baits in high percentage areas when it gets like that and my luck has been zilch this winter.  I do NOT like targeting Florida bass on shad fisheries when temps are below 40 - it's just really really hard.
 
If your temps are above 40 - definitely a different situation.
 
I like steep banks with rock and wood and clear water (good sun penetration to temporarily warm areas throughout the day) that are protected from the wind.  Heavy wood cover is very good this time of year.  They don't like birds.  Birds eat them.  Wood is protection.
 
Lipless cranks and neds and all that stuff are staples for winter fishing around here - I like a lipless when it's dirty and warming up MUCH better than when it's clean and bottomed out.  I have never done well with crankbaits when the water is on the clearer side.
 
Ned rigs are good but snaggy - I like shaky heads and finesse jigs and dropshots when water is very cold and clear and fish are not having to chase meals at all due to shad kill etc.
 
Super super slow and subtle is the way to go.
 
It's not unreasonable to say 'cast it out - read a chapter in a book and drink a cup of coffee and let that line hold STILL' this time of year.
 
That's how everyone's grandpa in NC caught bass in the winter and it still works if you have the patience!
 
Good luck and show us your success in the latest catch thread when you catch em!
 
-Pat

Smart fish that are still reluctantly whacking it.
 
Honestly I prefer side hooking them with a jerkbait to digging the hooks out of their crushers/gills/stomach - but that's just me.   Popping a hook out of their scales isn't as fun as knowing they got it good but it beats a murder scene and dead fish.  Honestly - it's just a way that fish accidentally get hooked by an artificial lure that tricked them some of the time.
 
You can try changing colors and going bigger or smaller to see if they choke it instead of swipe at it.  Also try some different cadence/retrieves.

Here in NC in the Piedmont region the fish are trying to spawn but persistently being shifted back and forth by cold fronts. So you're going to have to kind of find them where they are regardless of what lure you use. But for largemouth bass around here that are shallow cover oriented. I really like a pegged Texas rig or a jig with some kind of craw trailer.  I also very much like spinnerbaits, bladed, jigs and buzzbaits and frogs for covering shallow cover and targets this time of year.

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.

@king fisher catching a Mexican DD on a snoopy pole sounds like a noble pursuit that I fully endorse.  😂😂😂
 
I love the Walmart fishing section.  Where else would I buy my Berkley mean green 15 lb?!?!?

1/4 oz - 1/2 oz lipless crankbaits can work very well if it's not choked out grass.  Many people have success fishing over the tops and around the edges of weedlines with a rattle trap or red eye shad, myself included.
 
If it gets hung a little in the canopy, you can usually rip it free if you learn the rhythm and cadence and you'll get some violent strikes pulling it free of the top of the grass.

I will try to add a little to what @Catt is saying.
 
If you know you're on em real good and they're munching soft plastic worms, that can certainly  be a good time to try a jig out.  Sometimes you'll catch the bigger fish out of that school.  Sometimes the school will vacate the area when a skirted jig falls into the water.  That can sometimes offer a clue as to what certain schools of fish on your lake are willing to bite.  
 
I find the best way to gain confidence in a jig is to pitch and make short casts to pieces of cover and let it fall to the bottom and then hop it in place a couple times and wait.  Hop a few more times and wait and kinda work it out til you're maybe 3 feet from the cover.  Repeat this around pieces of cover from different angles.  The best pieces of cover tend to be the ones you can only see a little bit of and are mostly under water.  Start with small profiles and lighter weights.
 
In the summer you can just go down a bank with shade and submerged laydowns and pitch a 1/2 oz black and blue jig with a craw trailer tight to every log, stump, brush pile or lay down and you'll stick a few good ones if you make good casts.  Learning to slow the descent to the water of the heavier jig to silence the splash by making casts low to the water and thumbing your spool are essential for those shady over hangs.  Those heavier weights will have a faster rate of fall and really trigger the big fish to react.
 
Have fun!  Jigs are my favorite way to fish year round.

Nice.  Love the stinger hook feather tails.  Hope you catch a DD with that beautiful rat!!!

One thing you can do sometimes is take some epoxy and fill the hole where the water is coming out. (usually where the hooks are leaving the frog on the under belly IME)
 
Then you drill a very tiny hole in the top of the frog so that it will collapse when a bass eats it.
 
You might get a little bit more use out of the frog that you spent your hard-earned money on. I have done this a few times now and the frog's last a LOT longer.
 
Beyond that, I'm a big fan of the Strike King Poppin Pad Perch, but I like to bend the hooks out a little bit.
 
That product seems to be pretty good about resisting filling up with water but after a few fish every frog will fill up and sometimes you just got to do some quick tackle surgery to get more use out of it.