Big Bass By Starlight
The Brag
 Editor’s
Note: “If you can get that Phillips’ fellow
to fish with me for three days and three nights, I’ll
put a bass in the boat 10 pounds or bigger,” the
late L.J.Brasher of Opelika, Alabama, told a friend
of mine, Joe Price of Birmingham Alabama. Now that is
a big boast for even the nation’s best anglers.
And I had never heard of L.J. Brasher nor had many other
folks. But Brasher’s boast was not an idle challenge.
Brasher, like Dizzy Dean, felt, “If you’ve
done it, then it ain’t bragging.” And Brasher
had done it. Each weekend during the spring and summer
for years, he traveled to ponds and lakes around Madison,
Florida, and caught big bass. In one year alone, he
took over 80 bass that each tipped the scales at  10
pounds or better. So, I decided to fish with Brasher
to learn his tactics.
“There’s really only a few ingredients
required to catch big bass,” Brasher said. “You
have to:
* “be in an area where big bass live.” For
Brasher that was a 200-mile circle around Madison, Florida,
that included a portion of south Georgia. “There
are more bass over 10 pounds in this region than any
place I know of,” Brasher explained.
* “fish a bait a big bass will eat. A big bass
is an old bass. He’s much like a 90- year-old
man. He wants plenty of food that’s  easy
to get to. For that reason, I fish a big black Muskie
Jitterbug at night. I reel the bait so it sounds like
a man with a wooden leg walking across a wooden floor.
As that slow-moving, noisy bait passes in front of a
big bass, all the bass has to do to eat is to jump on
it. In the daytime, I fish a large shiner on a cork
so the shiner can’t swim too fast.
* “fish when the bass are hungry, to get the bass
to hit. During a three-day period, bass will feed at
some time. Most of the time that feeding period will
be at night. However, I have seen bass feed at high
noon. So the best way to make sure you get a wall-sized
fish is to keep fishing non-stop for 3 days and 3 nights.
You just outlast the bass.
* “have the right equipment. Most conventional
bass tackle isn’t designed to catch hawg fish.
A big bass in cover can tear the hooks out of a bait,
break line and bust rods. You have to rig right to catch
big bass at night. I use a muskie rod, a substantial
reel and 55- pound-braided nylon line. I put bigger
brass screws into the harness that hold the treble hooks
on the Jitterbug,  and
I replace the original hooks with bigger stainless-steel
hooks. I utilize channel-lock pliers to tighten the
drag down on my reel, so that reel won’t slip
when I am winching in a hawg. When the bass’s
head comes out of the water to take the lure, that’s
the last time it should touch water until he is on the
stringer.” Brasher’s tactic of laying with
the bass for 3 days and 3 nights may not be for most
anglers. However, knowledge, endurance, dedication and
brute force produced hundreds of 10-pound bass for Brasher
at night.
Tomorrow: Finding Nighttime
Bass With Your Ears
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