ol'crickety

Woody B noun 1. an all-weather angler who always catches fish 2. an angler who catches spots and lmb as easily as an eagle soars

An hour. I only have so many fishing hours and I don't want to waste them in a car.

Great anecdote and lesson. Thank you.

No one does more with less than @PhishLI. He's fishes pounded ponds where the bucket brigade grow like kudzu. And yet he catches bass. And look at the length and girth on @Chilidog's bass! @Mbirdsley caught some beauties too.

Dang it! I'm sorry you worked so hard to catch that bass and lost it in such a wet way. It's brave of you to share the story. The guys gave you good advice. It must eat again. Give yourself an advantage by fishing at night.

I've told the story of being a kid unwilling to wait for warmth to begin bass fishing and riding my bike in the snow with my brothers to try and catch bass. That lesson stuck with me, so I waited until I was 66 years old to fish early again, nudged by watching all you southern fishers post your big fish through the winter and early spring. Here's what I learned: 1. Spring fishing can be hard. I was never skunked, but four times I caught only one bass. 2. Spring fishing is dangerous. Being a solitary paddler, I stuck close to shores whenever possible, lest I tip and die. I did wear neoprene through early spring. 3. Spring fishing doesn't deliver hot bites in Maine...at least for me. If I caught 15 bass, i was doing relatively great, but I oftentimes settled for three fish. I never got close to my 35-57-bass mornings of late summer/fall 2023. 4. Spring fishing meant more sub-surface fishing. My best sub-surface lure was a Rage Swimmer with a shaft-weighted hook. 5. Spring fishing also means catching big bass on the surface. My love of surface fishing had me pitching surface lures sooner than conventional wisdom suggests and they worked. Two of the three fish below were caught on a Whopper Plopper. 5. Spring fishing is confusing. Three times, I sat in the middle of berserk bass and couldn't coax a single hit. The last time, I didn't move. I just watched. And I had bass swirling and thrashing RIGHT BESIDE MY CANOE. If I'd tried, I could have touched them. 6. Spring fishing ponies up fat bass. I didn't post any of my ten or so four-pounders, just the five-pound-class-bass:

Yikes!

For your buddy's ^son.^

I took a couple friends to an area pond. The husband was fishing and the wife was paddling, so I did some fishing and some paddling, about 50/50. It was fun visiting with the wife and fun seeing the husband so happy, but he was fishing with 6 lb. test and lost a couple nice ones. I told him he needs to upgrade, that 6 lb. test in open water works for smallmouth, but not for the thickets were so many largemouth live. I caught a nice one, 21". Nice belly too and she had those strange bulging eyes like Alex's fish have. She took a Whopper Plopper in the Loon pattern right beside a laydown. I caught some smaller, fat ones too. It was cool to have the photo taken by someone else for a different perspective. I included a pic of a smaller bass so you can see they're all chunky, plus one of my friend's bass with a nice belly. Well, ^now^ I'm happy too! I enjoyed your photos, @TnRiver46. I'm a sucker for photos of kids with fish.

@gimruis, your third bass is so fat it made me laugh! Way to go, @Cbump! @LrgmouthShad, I like the last photo of your big girl. I am terrible at discerning the size of a fish when the fisher's arms are extended, but your big fish right beside you really lets me appreciate her size. Cool how you caught her too. You are wily! @Woody B, I hope you're not reading this because you're sleeping and getting well. Cool that you're fishing new water, @BrianMDTX.

Go get 'em, Darth!

I was off the water by 9:15 this morning. I caught 22 fish: 2 pickerels, 10 smallmouth, and 10 largemouth. Seven of the smallmouth were at the back of a windblown bay. They were fun. My biggest lmb was 18.5" and she's at the bottom of the photos. I'm going fishing again tomorrow morning! I saw an osprey dive on a fish that was so big that the osprey was struggling to fly with it. I caught them on a bone-colored Whopper Plopper, a Yo-Zuri popper, a Golden shiner-colored lipless crankbait, and a shad-colored paddletail. I took nightcrawlers with me in case I saw the bass smacking the surface again that I couldn't catch, but they were gone, so I never used them. The 18.5-incher wasn't thick, but she didn't look unhealthy.

Ah, I've come to understand your screen name now. 😉 Jeff, your friend's beauty is still thick for post-spawn. Heck, she's thick for pre-spawn.

Whoa! Atta girl!