BROWN BASS TOOLS ~ Questions & Answers

[A-Jay]

Big fan of refreshing my more  'seasoned' spinnerbaits.  This special bait has accounted for a redonkulous number of very respectable brown bass; including the only 7 lb smallie I've ever seen. No exactly sure why but I do know that retiring it was simply not an option.  Couple of minutes of TLC and this hero is once again fully operational.

Fish Hard

A-Jay

 

[A-Jay]

This has been me the past week or so on two different lakes.

And it should get better the rest of this month 

Fish Hard

A-Jay

[J Francho]

On 8/31/2022 at 7:19 PM, A-Jay said:

No exactly sure why but I do know that retiring it was simply not an option.

I know the feeling.  Trust of the wire wears out though.  That bait look fine, though.

[MassBass]

Definetly some yellow perch vibes there

[A-Jay]

When I'm checking the wx forecast  (Chapter XIII)

(something my bass fishing lives by and I do several times a day)

I'm always looking for what I like to call (and Hope) are 'good big fish days'.

Several factors go into it.

Wind speed, direction and duration, sunshine or clouds, air temp trend up, down or stable.

However, Pre-frontal opportunities are almost always pretty decent,

especially this time of year here. 

So I'm eyeballing that Thursday, Friday and perhaps even the Saturday morning bites - HARD. 

 

Fish Hard

A-Jay

[J Francho]

This ^^ 100%

[Tim Kelly]

Likewise, plus tides here at home. Ontario next week, been eyeballing the weather forecast for that at least twice a day! ?

[PaulVE64]

I'm in Ontario.

Weve just had the first colder night temps this week. It follows the full moon and the bass have been triggered to feed up.

 

Good luck.

 

PS - are you fishing lakes or rivers?

[Dangerfield]

I hit up Simcoe last night for a little topwater bite, I wish I had since Ajay's post and gone in the morning. Only managed rockbass on the dropshot.

[PaulVE64]

I'm fishing the Thames River in London.

Having a blast.

[cvaicunas69]

New to these parts... Just wanted to remark on the quality this entire page as been. Got back into fishing 4 years ago, and seeing as I live not 5 minutes from some prime river smallie habit, predictably became a river rat. I am now realizing how entertaining gin clear highland reservoirs, and yet challenging they can be. I'll be re reading much of this numerous occasions over the off season in preparation for April. A-Jay clearly knows a thing or two regarding smallies, and funny enough I had already been following his youtube page.

[A-Jay]

Hello @cvaicunas69 and Welcome to Bass Resource.

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

I certainly appreciate it.

Best of luck during this coming season.

A-Jay

[casts_by_fly]

Where did you get this weather summary?  I've been looking for something like this all year but not found quite what I want.  This is perfect.

[padlin]

Looks like the 10 day from Weatherunderground 

[A-Jay]

@padlin Nailed it.

I can not and will not make any claim regarding forecast accuracy

because IMO, this one's no better or worse than the other three I follow.

But I'm going to use something to see the weather besides my tarot cards,

and this one offers a decent look at 'the big picture'.

Sometimes it's pretty close.

A-Jay

 

[casts_by_fly]

Thanks guys!

 

Dark Sky is my usual and I find its pretty good, especially with 24-48 hours outlooks.  BUT, 1- apple bought it and integrated it into apple weather but took out a lot of the data and details that I use and 2- the air pressure is always in MB and I prefer to read inHg.  Separately I use windfinder to look at wind (its excellent at that).  This looks like its all tied up in one place with everything I'd use in a format I like to see.  I'll be exploring it.

[padlin]

I’ve been using Windy but after checking out Windfinder, I like that one better.

[A-Jay]

SUNSHINE vs The SMALLMOUTH BASS

 

Back in Chapter II of this deal, I penned the following paragraph . . .

“SMALLMOUTH BASS LOVE FEEDING IN THE SUNSHINE - to disregard this statement will lead to many, many, many fishless trips - over and over and over again.  Can they be caught on cloudy and or overcast & rainy days? - yes.  But if you want to improve your chances of getting bit - At Least Some sunshine will always help.”

That was in December 2018.

 

 At the time, I believed in that philosophy very strongly as so much of own brown bass results (or lack of) seemed to conclude this was mostly the way to go.

Well, after 4 more season on the water and quite a few plus sized brown bass later, I am singing a different tune.

 

Besides some nice smallies, these local lakes are home to big trout, deep water walleye, pike & muskie.  About half the water’s I fish regularly have largemouth as well.  The green bass seem to populate the skinniest water, perhaps out of self-preservation.  And when I get a few LMB, there’s rarely any brown bass mix in with them. This is sort of what discouraged me from even looking for SMB shallow very often. Shallow in these instances means less than 5 feet or so.

 

While First and Last light have been eternally productive, I’ve still slipped my Frabil under plenty of good ones with the sun shinning very brightly; all be it usually deeper than 5 feet.  As a retired human, I can pretty much pick & choose when I am and am not on the water.  Once I got over my ‘cloudy skies phobia’, there has been at least as many brown tanks on the scale hooked with a decent layer of cloud cover or even no sunshine at all. In fact cloudy might even be better for big bass.

 

  Either way, the more it happened the more it made me rethink my approach and in a big man way.  As I did, I realized that I needed to adapt my presentations, timing & mostly locations to fit the conditions.  The biggest factor has to be that, almost like night fishing, I started finding bigger smallies much shallower than I would have ever believed. 

 

  So the cloudier it would be, the shallower I would fish.  Dark bottom area’s turned out to be just as key as when the sun was shining.  Stealth & long casts became even more important.   

Admittedly, none of this is exactly rocket science.

But it has opened both my eyes as well as my own big brown bass fishing opportunities quite a bit.  Especially when one considers ALL the cloudy/overcast days I spent on the beach when I could have been yanking on trophies.  Frankly, I’m a little embarrassed by the whole thing.  #knuckhead  

But that’s how I learn sometimes.

Fish Hard

(Rain or Shine)

A-Jay

[TnRiver46]

Love a cold rainy day for smallies but we had one today and I only Got two dinks. It was pouring though, had to retreat.  still drying out 

[MassBass]

I believe the philosophy that cloud cover prolongs the early morning bite. No need to put away the walk baits or poppers if the clouds hang around. Unless it's a sour East wind.

[PaulVE64]

(pirate voice)

Eeiiii, a nor'easter! (/pirate voice)

[A-Jay]

Clouds & Snow yesterday . . . 

A-Jay

[12poundbass]

11 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

Clouds & Snow yesterday . . . 

A-Jay

Turkeys didn’t cooperate yesterday, glad to see the smallies did! Nice work. 

[A-Jay]

And sunshine today ~ 

Wish these fatties would make up their minds ! 

A-Jay

[Dwight Hottle]

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.