Whats your most productive pattern ever? and when was it in the year? Weights and total fish caught?

Something like that magical day you just whacked them?

Anytime I'm fishing pressured lakes, I keep one thing in mind.  Ignore the obvious.  Those places have been beat to death and have a million lost lures hung up in the rocks, grass, or submerged timber.  I like to key in on less pressured points, dropoffs, humps, and submerged structure.  

When I'm fishing lakes that don't have that stuff, I just key in on isolated structure.  Baits change with the seasons and weather, but I'm working on getting a jig to work year round like it's supposed to.  For some reason, me and jigs just don't play well together.

I can't really remember any weights or totals of fish caught, but you really can't go wrong ignoring the obvious and backing off of the pressured spots.  Too much of one type of cover will lead me into looking for something different.  Bass relate to differences in their environment.  A piece of rebar sticking in the mud on the outside of a huge grassline might attract a big dude simply because it's different.  Work key changes like that religiously.  Great patterns can be established relatively easily on most days.  Experiment, search, and change up if your initial plans fail.  Keep adapting.

My favorite pattern(if you could call it that)is and has been for years is to be on the lake when everybody else is still in bed.Relatively shallow flats(2-6 ft.) with loads of grass and submerged stumps and brushpiles,creek channels and ditches running down it and deeper water nearby.Baits include the following:Floating minnows,prop baits,buzzbaits,shallow running crankbaits,spinnerbaits,etc.I usually slay 'em,although sometimes I go fishless.The big girls like to move up into the shallows at this time,and you can expect to catch at least one really good bass along with the others.This is a late spring ,early summer deal.Also,a split shot watermelon seed lizard or finese worm is a standard bait to take along.

Off shore bends with anything weedless around structure is my blast so to speak.

A close second is around visual structure. i.e. docks

For largemouth bass, the ultimate pattern is a DEEP WEEDLINE THAT MERGES WITH A DROP-OFF.

In reality, the drop-off creates the sharp weedline.

Every species of aquatic plant has a minimum light requirement, and beyond a certain depth

(hinging on water clarity) photosynthesis can no longer take place.

In spite of hypothesis to the contrary, largemouth bass are perfectly designed

to fill the vital "shallow-water niche" in the weeds. The weeds may leave the bass,

but a bass will never leave the weeds. Deceptively, largemouth bass instinctively

align themselves in close proximity to deep water. In a future post I'll attempt

to explain the reasons why largemouth bass seek deep water that they never actually enter.

Roger

I love top waters.   Have you ever had that feeling, because you've been surprised on a hit and it kinda scares you because of the not knowing "when".

Any top waters, frogs, chuggers, poppers, buzzers, any and all.

The best I ever did locally was fish a big Zara Spook over 3 nearly connected 30 foot deep stumpy humps out in wide open lake near Bird Island. It was on a Saturday morning April 2005, with hundreds of anglers mining the shorelines, lined up by 7 am waiting their turn to fish. Not one boat was out there with us. I was with an off duty hatchery technician who suggested that. The two of us caught over 100 bass that morning until neither of us could hold a rod. Our largest was one 7#, a half dozen 6-7#, and lots of 2-5# LMBs. That's the way it was in the lake's prime in 1965, and I think we're seeing the good days return. I haven't repeated that since then, my best 34 keepers in a whole day, though I've guided trips for customers that did better. We have over 150 known bass tournaments a year here, which makes this a very pressured lake.

Jim

Jim,

You know how to make a guy jealous.  A half-dozen 6 - 7 pounders!!!  Geez.  I see you're from Arkansas.  Is this lake in Arkansas and where?  I'm somewhat familiar with some of the larger reservoirs on the White River in Northern Arkansas but nothing else.  

I love watching my line on a weightless senko jump when a fish hits it, gets me goin' every time  Also, topwater poppers get my vote as well.

The best pattern I have fished would be a jig or big worm fished on main lake ledges with stumps on the top.Last year in June I fished a BFL as a co-angler.I drew a very good local pro.We started out dragging a jig on the bottom.My first fish was 6lbs. 14 oz.,my second was 6 lbs. 3 oz.As the day went on the fish became suspended so we started lifting a big worm off the bottom.I ended up with 19 lbs.1oz.My boater ended up with 20lbs.15oz. to give us an even 40 lbs combined.

With out a doubt, main lake structure (drops, humps) with stumps or brush piles.  Texas rigged plastics and jigs.  Do my best in the heat of the summer.

I remember that when I was stationed in South Ga, I had the bass pegged at a PFA I fished alot. I had a good pattern running a C-rig over submerged brush.  I also found that isolated patches of weeds that I could kill them on with a fluke.

My favorite pattern is to fish a soft plastic frog over and around shallow weeds at night.

I like the Flipping bite that takes place at Bugg's Island when the water is high in the spring. The bass move up to the submerged bushes and you can flip them up with various plastics, but I prefer the jig. Right now the water is just barely high, so I'm not sure we'll see this pattern like in years past.

Archer