BROWN BASS TOOLS ~ Questions & Answers

[AlabamaSpothunter]

1 hour ago, Dwight Hottle said:

If I may add to the sunny versus overcast question regarding the smallie bite window. 

 

This fish was caught in the first week of May in 20-22 fow on a bright sunny day.

The next fish was caught the first week of May many years later in 20-22 fow on a rainy highly overcast day. Both fish were caught around the same time mid day. The moral of the story is just get out there when you can regardless of the conditions as long as it's safe. 

 

Big SM tails never stop amazing me.   There is no wonder why they fight so hard.  They have 300hp engines pushing them ?

[PaulVE64]

I prefer the sun and I cast at shade lines too.

[A-Jay]

 A couple of summers ago, right around this time, I was making tackle preparations for what we all know as "The Fall Run".  I even made a brief post about what that meant to me and how I went about it.

So the more things change, the more they stay the same, right ?

I've already scouted some stuff, and even though it was only one time, expectations are high.

According, the past few days, I've been 'making a plan of attack'.

What spots when, what will I throw, how deep will I fish, will I fall in the lake, you know all the usual stuff.  Prime time is coming up quick and I wanted to be ready (which I was not).

Despite it being Africa hot in my garage today, I spent the day finalizing the rigs.

Vibrating jigs, A-Rigs, Spinnerbaits, Topwaters (walkers & Poppers) Tubes, swingheads, Drop Shot, Swim jigs and a token crankbait, because I'm pretty sure there's some kind of rule.

Got it done.

It's a big deal for me and it feels good. 

Early next week begins the 'hunt' in earnest.

I say, bring on the mutants ! 

And with any luck I'll be able to introduce myself to a few. 

Fish Hard

A-Jay

[A-Jay]

Late summer into early fall can be boom or bust for me.

Fish seem really scattered all over the lake.

But when the conditions are right early morning, shallow topwater can be the deal.

Fish Hard

A-Jay

[tunaman]

I just have to thank you for all of your contributions! I grew up in Southern California, moved to Northern California (Delta area) for about 7 years, and fished all over the State. In those waters, smallies were always a bycatch if they were present at all.

 

I know largemouth well, and spots, but aside from occasional trips to Havasu, Mead and Mohave I never had the reason to target smallies.

 

As the saying goes, “a bass is a bass is a bass”, but now that I predominantly fish Mohave I’ve discovered that isn’t quite true and have learned how much I didn’t know about them - they are quite a different beast.

 

I stumbled on this thread while trying to get to understand them a little, and this has been a master class for sure. Please keep the discussion going - it is very much appreciated!

[A-Jay]

13 minutes ago, tunaman said:

I just have to thank you for all of your contributions! I grew up in Southern California, moved to Northern California (Delta area) for about 7 years, and fished all over the State. In those waters, smallies were always a bycatch if they were present at all.

 

I know largemouth well, and spots, but aside from occasional trips to Havasu, Mead and Mohave I never had the reason to target smallies.

 

As the saying goes, “a bass is a bass is a bass”, but now that I predominantly fish Mohave I’ve discovered that isn’t quite true and have learned how much I didn’t know about them - they are quite a different beast.

 

I stumbled on this thread while trying to get to understand them a little, and this has been a master class for sure. Please keep the discussion going - it is very much appreciated!

@tunaman Thank you very much for the support and the kind words.

Super glad to hear some of this has been helpful.

The 'learning' never ends (if we're lucky)

and I get schooled all the time.

I appreciate every one.

A-Jay

[A-Jay]

With the final curtain drawn on 2023, and looking back,

it's easy for me to admit that getting out there

and chasing brown bass this year was especially challenging.

Consistently staying with the bait & the fish through each seasonal pattern is a big part of most any and all success I may have.  But it requires time on the water.  Not just any time, but The Right time.  For a couple of different reasons, that couldn't happen.  So I fished hard when I could and let the chips fall where they may.  While I did sprinkle in a few 'new deals', I depended heavily on many of the 'most productive baits' and 'brown bass tool' from seasons past to get me through. 

Just about all of that is noted at least once somewhere in this thread. 

All said & done, worked out ok.

I'll talk about these baits again later in another thread but for now,

this is what it looked like . . . 

A-Jay

[tunaman]

Awesome sir - well done. Looking forward to seeing more next year!

[WRB]

Welcome to BR from a WB member👍

The Colorado River Smallies are different regarding lure preference but similar bass behavior.

You also have Pardee in NorCal with big Brown bass.

With the US Open at Mojave now good time to focus the Smallmouth.

Tom

PS, AJay is a phenomenal resource.

[cyclops2]

Where I fish we had a ...ONLY largemouth Bass STOCKED... reservoir.  Odd because they also stocked baitfish for food.  The L M B quickly started forming large schools to catch food.  Just like S M B do. 

 

The L M Bass & bait schools were gigantic. Limits on each trip did not reduce the amount of bass or baitfish.  Back then fish finders were rare on the 10 hp water.  With wardens all over.

[A-Jay]

18 minutes ago, cyclops2 said:

Where I fish we had a ...ONLY largemouth Bass STOCKED... reservoir.  Odd because they also stocked baitfish for food.  The L M B quickly started forming large schools to catch food.  Just like S M B do. 

 

The L M Bass & bait schools were gigantic. Limits on each trip did not reduce the amount of bass or baitfish.  Back then fish finders were rare on the 10 hp water.  With wardens all over.

Thanks for sharing ~

So is that green bass tools then ?

A-Jay

[A-Jay]

Been a long time since I've been able to wet a line.

That means it's time for Brown Bass photo explosion !

Yup - I feel better now.

Fish Hard

A-Jay

[gim]

Judging by the title of this thread, Brown Bass Q & A, I’d say this is the “answer.”

[cyclops2]

I find SMB are really a moving school of similar sized fish.

 

With the following few exception's.

 

A few fish will take up residence in a dense weed bed. Why ? Maybe they can not keep up with the schools of moving bass.  Age disease  size.....Lazy ?  I have caught the same several bass in the same 100' area.  With lots of food for them in the area.  I use a special rod line & lure with no hook on it.  A attack & grab counts as a caught.   🙂

 

[A-Jay]

The views and opinions included in this thread belong to each originating member

and do not necessarily mirror the views and opinions of the Original poster. 

Additionally, the use of special rods line & lure with no hooks is expressly confusing.

🥴

A-Jay

[A-Jay]

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO ?

 

The age old question.  The one so many bassheads, including myself, ask themselves at least once a trip and often times it’s quite a bit more than that.

I’m referring to when we are on a spot, whether it was producing or not, we’ve given it what in our own minds is ample opportunity to produce and it hasn’t.  So, do we stay or do we go ?

 Let me back the truck up a little here and say, since this is

The “Brown Bass Tools” thread, the following thoughts will relate most in that direction. Also, I do not fish competitively so “Time” has a different meaning to me.

 

   Clearly no hard and fast ‘rules’ can be drawn upon during these deals but here’s my version of it.

 

I am going to start off with a couple of ‘deciding factors’ that often cause me to lean one way or the other.

Seasonal pattern and what I’m fishing, so boat position.

 

Early season before and of course during the spawn, fish are looking & wanting to come shallow.  Not exactly a new flash and something we don’t even need FFS to figure out. This can be one scenario where I am often willing wait it out on a known or recently producing spot or area.  And if I do chose to relocate, I’m generally not going very far, like maybe just 2 or 3 cast lengths one way or the other; depending on what type of structure/cover I working with. If I’m feel particularly confident that the fish are ‘coming to me’ (eventually), I may Talon down, shut everything off (electronics wise) and have a sandwich while the area ‘settles down a little.’  Might be just enough to have a few more fatties roll right into casting distance.  Sometimes it happens by itself if I need to retie or perhaps change baits or hardware. 

 On scene weather conditions can & do play a role here as well. Especially is skinny water;10 ft or less.  Increase or decrease in cloud cover and or wind speed can effect my decision making matrix.  Forecast or not, if it’s been a sun’s out bite and clouds move in, I may wait them out if I can see an end in sight.  Reverse can be said if it’s been a cloudy skies deal.  Bites in the wind rarely get better if it flattens out, so I’ll usually not put too much extra time into an area if it and when it goes flat calm. But going from calm to windy is a whole different ballgame and one I like to play.

Chuck & wind baby.

 

 As the season progresses and the spawn is done & over with, the local brown bass population on the bigger inland lakes, makes themselves very scares by spreading out all over the place.  This goes straight into summer and is the time of year where I do The Most moving around and will only stay on spots very briefly. Except for some early morning or late afternoon topwater off the end of long deep main lake points, I’m almost always fishing deep(er).  Trying to focus on targets of deep bottom cover (rocks/wood) that could hold bait/bass.  If I can get a bait in front of them, they’ll usually eat.  Maxscent flat worm is a confidence bait here for me. Need decent conditions, some sun helps, boating traffic does not.

 

It’s easy to admit that this IS the toughest fishing of the year for me.  Accordingly I don’t spend a whole lot of time on these bigger lakes late June thru most all of July.  But sometime in the first week or two of August, things get much, much better.

  Bigger bass start showing up shallow again.  It’s almost always on flats.  They seem to be a bit more scattered/spread out but there’s some real brutes up there.  And they are looking to EAT.  As the shallow weeds die back and the bait fish become more and more exposed, the fishing just keeps getting better.

 Almost becomes the same type of deal for me as in the spring.  Fish are coming to me so I don’t move much.  But that’s sort of a relative thing, I still need to cover water, but it's just over one or two special flats.  So I’m not running all over the lakes, just doing a lot of casting.  From August to say mid September, it’s all about horizontal moving baits. Could be topwater early and just about whatever you want to throw after that,  Vibrating jigs, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, swim jigs, A-Rigs, Squarebills & rattlebaits.   Some of the best flats are also the biggest.  A basshead could spend an entire day just crisscrossing one flat with different baits at various depths.  And this one does exactly that. So in this case – I stay.

 Come October, the weeds have died back completely, the waters cooled off considerably, the bass start looking deeper for their winter time haunts.

 If the the weather cooperates, and I can fish the deepest flats that have hard cover effectively, this can be the best time of the year for me for sheer numbers of 3-5 lb smallies.  Blade baits & swimbaits on a jighead are Big time players for me now.

I’ll stay on a spot long enough to get a couple of biters and then hop over to the next spot and do the same deal.  It’s usually late enough in the season where boating traffic is not an issue (everyone’s deer hunting) and the few boats on the water are targeting walleye and rarely on anything I’m looking to get on.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Fish Hard

A-Jay

[12poundbass]

Good write up as always.

[Dwight Hottle]

My first thought was should I stay home or should I go fishing. Especially since it’s still winter up there. Good read.

[Tom Rust]

AJ, having just plowed through this fantastic tutorial, I have to say you are an amazing teacher! And your writing style reminds me of some of the greats of all time. I’m not sure what you did in the coast guard,(maybe ran the whole service?) but you missed your calling as a college professor teaching hundreds of eager students…soaking it all up. You, sir, are the modern day Buck Perry of smallie fishing! And I meant that with all sincerity. It’s time for me to start again on page one of this thread and see all the tips I missed the first time through. Thanks again for all the time and knowledge you have passed along!

[A-Jay]

20 minutes ago, Tom Rust said:

AJ, having just plowed through this fantastic tutorial, I have to say you are an amazing teacher! And your writing style reminds me of some of the greats of all time. I’m not sure what you did in the coast guard,(maybe ran the whole service?) but you missed your calling as a college professor teaching hundreds of eager students…soaking it all up. You, sir, are the modern day Buck Perry of smallie fishing! And I meant that with all sincerity. It’s time for me to start again on page one of this thread and see all the tips I missed the first time through. Thanks again for all the time and knowledge you have passed along!

@Tom Rust

Holy Smokes Tom, what a nice thing to say.  I really appreciate the kind words. 

So happy that you found this material helpful. 

A very big aspect of my duties in the service was training. 

Which is essence is 'teaching'.  

With some experience, my favorite part of all of that was being able to 'train the trainers'

how to be effective.  Very satisfying, guess some of that stayed with me. 

Additionally I was a drill instructor and later trainer them how to make it happen. 

All pretty intense.  

Thanks again

A-Jay

[A-Jay]

April winds and warming sun has helped the fish I'm looking for get all fired up.

Past two trips have taken me straight through Trophy Town . . . .

A-Jay

[Tim Kelly]

Epic thread gents! Getting my mind juiced up for Bassfest 24 in about 10 weeks time. Can't wait!

[A-Jay]

Fishing History ~

 There’s been a metric ton of stuff written about fishing history. 

Right here on this very forum and on just about every other bass fishing platform on the web.  

Some say do it, some say don’t and some bassheads are somewhere in between.

I am not here to say anyone’s right or wrong.

Instead, I’m going to relay some recent and not so recent,

personal events that have reinforced what I have sort of always gone with when it comes to fishing history.

And that is, remember it, use it and most of all, be flexible. 

That flexible part is generally not part of my own DNA. 

In fact, it takes a concerted effort on my part to even come close.  

So, here’s what I’ve got.

 

  How I chose which lake to fish, where to fish on that lake and exactly when to be there, is always something that I struggle with.  Mostly because there’s plenty of great options here and just as many less productive ones.  Recently, I had a pretty decent day on the water catching some pre-spawn brown bass.   

The reason I selected the lake that I did, the places I fished while I was there

and the timing of it all, was based on the expected weather conditions,

the seasonal pattern and what I had observed on this lake just a few days before.

On top of all of that, I have to admit, I was also fishing history. 

You see, back in spring of 2017, I discovered this same deal and I had a really good day.

 

 The spots are all classic up north brown bass spots, at least for me,

but the right bass are only there and biting during a very specific time and with very specific circumstances.  I’m pretty confident in saying that because ever since that one particular outing so many years prior, I have tried to ‘force’ this bite literally hundreds of times. 

Including every single spring, summer and fall for the LAST SIX YEARS. 

Never panned out.  

  Oh sure, I got a few here & there but they weren’t really the right ones.  

Additionally, I caught some nice smallies in other areas of the lake using an assortment of presentations.  However none of that compared to what happened in 2017

and again this 3rd week of Apr 2024.

 

   So what does all this actually mean ? 

Not really sure, maybe nothing. 

Perhaps it’s all just a big coincidence and I’m just stupid, horse shoe in the butt, lucky.

Either way, it’s something that happened and I thought I’d share it. 

Please – I’d really appreciate any and all feedback on how this effects your own brown bass fishing – if at all.

 

Pulled this clip out of the archives.  It’s the action from 2017. 

Some of its pre-GoPro.

 

 

 

This is the recent deal.

7 years apart – To The Day.

 

 

Fish Hard

A-Jay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LrgmouthShad]

@A-Jay same wind direction?

[A-Jay]

35 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

@A-Jay same wind direction?

Yes ~ SW

My absolute Favorite in the early spring.

And, In my mind one of, if not the most influential factors. 

A-Jay