I am a good fisherman but can not seem to catch the 25 pound bags the other guys do. I am consistantly bringing in 15 - 18 pounds. I fish everything you can think of. Any suggestions?

If you can bring in 15 to 18 pounds on a regular basis then you will be winning many tournaments in the D/FW area

Do you have a particular style you fish most often?

The Internet Pattern........

You have to fish patterns and baits that tend to produce big fish rather than numbers. You will likely probably also have more low weight days doing so. For instance on a particular lake a Shakey head pattern might produce alot of 2 to 3 pound fish but rarely anything bigger. A jig or crank might catch less but average bigger. You might be trading 20+ bites for 5 or 6. You also likely will need to either fish slighlty different areas or fish your current ones better. On some areas it's a certain casting angle that makes them bite. Certain times of year you have to use a certain technique. Sight fishing during the spawn for example.

Best way to figure it out is fish with someone who can catch 20+ with some regularity. Of course that's easier said than done. If you are catching good sacks you likely aren't giving out any good info. You might have to marry someones fat ugly sister to get in a click......lol.

Yep

the bigger the baits the bigger the fish

Yep,

Jack hit it there.

Thanks everryone. I think fishspanker has the right plan. I will go all day catching bass but all same size. Sometimes just can't figure the bigger bite out. Thanks for your inputs

Umm, I would not change a thing.. If you are consistently bringing in 15-18 pound bags right now, you will be in the hunt in every tournament unless you are from South Tx area lakes. Consistency will beat the home runs in most cases and you seem to have a secret that consistently puts double digit bags in the boat

The trick is to fish where there are a bunch of seven pounders feeding. You need at least three that size then two more keeper swimmers to be close to 25# depending on how big the two swimmers are. You would have to cull at least one swimmer with a 3# to break 25.

15-18lb bags day in and day out would make me a happy man. heck this winter i can't rememeber what a limit is like...rick

15-18lbs that�s a nice sack on most tournament day!

I don't think you can go out and pattern 25 pounds unless you know where there are a bunch of big fish on beds. I think it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Well, that and not missing or losing good fish when they bite.

We never caught more than 10 pounds prefishing for a tournament on Palestine last year. Then on the Friday before the tournament, we finally caught some three pounders and one five. We went back the next day, caught two over six on back to back casts, had 23 pounds by 8 o'clock, and culled our way up to 25.66.

We weren't doing anything different than when we were catching 10 pounds. The big fish just cooperated that day.

Go to a different lake.....