Swamp Girl

It's hard to catch sluggish bass. We had several days in the fifties and one in the sixties this past week, but I expect the water to chill again with days in the low forties and nights in the twenties and thirties. Sigh.

Can someone please find the thermostat for New England and crank up the temp ten or fifteen degrees? PLEASE!!!

Dwight, that wind with that sky and those bass, well, that's hardcore.

You could have won many tournaments twice with those two bags. Well angled!

Mr. Fly, when I last fished, I was actually thinking about your advice. I think you also advised me months ago to cast to laydowns from as far away as possible and to fish the perimeter water before casting into the laydown, which I've done ever since and I value your sagacity. However, I'm passing on the anchor. I fished for decades with anchors, so I know the drill, but my Old Town NEXT is only thirteen feet long and it's already carrying a big net, two rod holders, my tackle box, bump board, dry box, camera, two paddles, and up to seven rods. There are also painters at both ends, so there's so much to tangle. An anchor rope would add to the mess. Plus, if I were to run it off the bow, my tipping risk increases as I'd have to creep forward to raise and lower it where the canoe is thinner and tippier. Sure, I could install an anchoring system, but I'm sure i'd hook that rope along the gunnel many times. Plus, I'm Thoreau. If I'm pulled into the laydown and miss the chance to catch another bass or three, that's okay with me. We've had two 60-degree days in all of 2026 and none are forecast over the next 15 days.

Hooray for what you do!

That sounds like fun!

If fish with The Kid and am looking forward to fishing with Bob!

We buried the dog we lost two years ago in our Japanese garden, the most beautiful part of our yard. I planted Creeping Jenny on the mound above his grave. The Creeping Jenny is so plush and bright. It comforts me to see life rising from his lost life. You might want to consider something similar.

I love how you keep on keepin' on, Alex!

That's crazy. Basically, you're experiencing a different climate in just twelve miles.

@casts_by_fly: Heckuva morning, but look at your shorelines compared to mine. Yours are green on green on green. Mine are brown on brown on gray on brown. What a difference a few hundred miles make!

@Glenn, in one of his videos last summer, taught me to use a jighead wacky-hooked with a Senko and I used that to hammer bass a couple mornings. @Glenn also taught me to fish beaver lodges and I've caught bass up to 5.5 pounds doing just that. @Dwight Hottle suggested I troll a Whopper Plopper. That struck me as crazy, but Dwight's a heckuva angler and I've had great fun trolling Whopper Ploppers. I've caught several doubles and one morning in the dark, hooked a 19-incher and a 17-incher at the same. Reeds are so tough that I always avoided them, but @T-Billy told me to cast my underspin into them. Sure enough, there are bass in them and whereas I can't always wrassle them out, I sure can hook them in the reeds. @Pat Brown taught me that color doesn't matter until it does and he's right. Most days, color doesn't matter, but some days, it does.

I fished my pond for 2.5 hours this morning. It was 43 degrees and foggy when I launched. I caught 10 total: 2 on a trolled underspin with an orange Zako, 4 on a cast underspin with an orange craw, and 4 on a black Whopper Plopper. I heard cows and owls and saw two turtles mating. I had to avoid nesting geese lest I agitate them. My pond is down to its last two Buffleheads. This past week, I saw up to two dozen a day. I didn't catch anything big. This was the smallest: This was the biggest: The other eight were this size, more or less: This was the shoreline where I caught most of them: And this was my gray pond: It was a fun, but chilly morning. I won't fish for a few days now. It'll just be too cold! 55 bass for 2026 2 at least 19"

Gosh, I wish @Catt and @WRB-2.0 could read this thread.

Wow, Al! Lotta wind for Lottabass and everyone else.

I do think there's value to be gleaned from a fellow angler's perspective, even if they're fishing water a thousand miles away. For example, @Lottabass fishes about 1,500 from me, but he fishes from a small boat on water that's often swampy and always smallish. So, I have more in common with Al than an angler fishing Maine's biggest lake from a bass boat. Al recently caught some BIG bass in two feet of water, which sounds like the water I fish. Here's a corner of my pond and the water in the photo is only about a foot deep. Look to port off my bow. See the log in the water? That's the bottom. If you fish water that looks like this, please advise me how to fish, even if you live a guhzillion miles from me!:

Thanks, Brian. I caught 23 bass yesterday, my most this year, but when I reflect on yesterday, I keep returning to the sleeping goose that didn't know I was there. That was my morning's highlight by far.

What did a Bass Resource member teach you that's been a difference maker? I've got two: @Glenn taught me to cover lots of water in the fall. It's made a difference for me because I don't feel like I'm failing when I can't find them right away in the fall. I just keep moving and keep casting, keeping my cool, and eventually I find them. I don't remember who taught me this, but he linked me to a video where the YouTuber explained that you if your rod is pointing left when you hook a bass, you don't point it right and then left and then right, adjusting to where to what the bass is doing. This has made a big difference for me. I remember sessions where I'd lose half the bass I hooked. Now I frequently land 90% of the bass I hook, a success percentage that I once thought impossible.

I want to do this too this year. @gim: Did you catch what I wrote ^here?^ A year or two ago, a Bass Resource angler argued with me at length about how an underspin is inferior to the lures that pros use. He suggested I fish like the pros, using an array of lures that he believed to be situationally superior to underspins. Well, style-wise, I have so little in common with the pros. I'm fishing small water. They're fishing big water. I'm fishing from a canoe. They're fishing from bass boats. I'm using my ears, eyes, and hunches. They're watching screens. So, an underspin works for me, but I don't believe for a sec that it's the best choice for Bass Anglers X, Y, and Z. Heck, a bass boat can't even float in many places that I fish. A canoe drafts 3 to 6 inches of water. A bass boat drafts 12 to 24 inches of water. I sometimes fish water that's 12 to 24 inches deep. My point is that I'm fishing in different places and I've found lures that work for me where I fish. I don't mind, Gim. They mean well and they might just suggest a breakthrough lure. FWIW, I did catch two bass on a Whopper Plopper yesterday. Yesterday and the day before that, I had a couple bass jump. I figured it they're feeling frisky enough to exit the water, they'd be willing to hit a surface lure.

Woo-hoo, Jig Man!

I will straight up trade any of my canoes for your boat and I'll bake you two dozen chocolate chip pecan cookies too.

They're just starting to stir, my friend. And I'm going to be your Net Girl!

In my four fishing trips this week before this morning's trip, I caught a total of 22 (7, 0, 4, 11). Well, this morning, fishing from 7:00 to 10:00,, even though it was cool (45 degrees) and rainy, I caught 23. Prior to this morning, I caught bass here and there, but this morning, they had moved up to the edge of the bog, so since I found them, I landed 23. I forgot to bring my waterproof camera and had to use my Google Pixel 8, which I hate because it's too big for me to operate with one hand and that hand was my surgery hand, plus by morning's end, my hand was too cold to do much of anything. I saw a couple dozen Buffleheads and was within a few feet of a sleeping goose on her nest, which tells you how quietly I fish. I never awoke her. I know our water is too cold for most anglers to use a surface lures, but it's been my experience that bass will hit a surface lure earlier than commonly believed, so I caught two on a Whopper Plopper, but most of my bass were caught on my trusty VMC heavy duty underspin with an orange Crush City Cleanup Craw. I caught my first brown bass for 2026. She just would not be still for a photo, so that's why I took the weird photo I did. I've launched three days in a row, so even though it's going to be warmer tomorrow, I won't fish...probably...maybe. Some of the bass taken with my TOO BIG cell phone: My teeth were chattering when I came off the lake and my right hand was so cold that it barely worked. Still, I had fun! 45 bass caught in 2026. Two bass over 19 inches.

I had good luck this morning with a VMC heavy duty underspin 5/0 with a Crush City Cleanup Craw in orange. I catch more bass with an underspin than any other lure, which is NOT to suggest that you should fish it too. However, if you fish like I do, I.e. stealth fishing in close-quartered bogs, it's an excellent lure because it lands much more lightly than a spinnerbaits, can be chucked into woods and weeds, and also casts a long ways.