Swamp Girl

I've never seen a single spawning bed here in Maine. I think this is because I'm sitting. It could be my old eyes. However, if I saw a bass guarding a bed, I wouldn't cast to it because that bass is protecting the future's fishing. Yes, I'm sure I've yanked some guardians off beds, but not intentionally. Oh, yeah, that's wrong. They should rebrand themselves as The Feed the Bluegills Tour.

They are a hoot. I love their sound. When it comes to surface lures, I think the popper outfishes all the others...at least for me, but it's a lure that'll excel in a week or so. In Maine, it's still a little early for my small, pink poppers.

I bought a St. Croix Legend spinning rod because I felt I was losing too many bass on surface lures with my carbon fiber rods. The Legend solved this. It's a medium action rod and 7' 2" long. I only surface fish with it and because I catch about a thousand bass a year on the surface, it gets a lot of use. It's my longest-casting rod, which is important with surface lures, and it keeps bass buttoned. It isn't cheap at $275, but I'd buy one again in a New York nanosecond if I was in the market for a glass spinning rod for surface fishing.

FWIW, I've owned a dozen or so canoes in my life and have paddled for nearly 60 years. I bought my Old Town NEXT last year for $500 used. It lists for $1400 and I think it's silly to buy a new one since it's as close to an immortal boat as one can find, being made of three layer polyethylene. I hit a rock and check to make sure the rock is okay. This winter and all following winters, I'll leave it outside. Even then, covered with snow winter after winter, it'll outlive me. It's a bit of a hybrid, with a kayak seat and foot braces, as well as atypically low sides for a canoe. It's short for a canoe at only 13' and weighs a decent 59 pounds. It's stable and tracks pretty well. Its wooden cross braces allow me to attach YakAttack mounting plates and I have two YakAttack rod holders for trolling. It's longer and lighter than most fishing kayaks and just as comfy, so if you're in the market for a paddling platform and find a used NEXT for $500, buy it.

Heck, yeah, it is! I'm actually going fishing again this evening. I left my canoe at my pal's pond and the temp is dropping tomorrow with heavy rain on Saturday. So, I want to bring it home tonight and I'll fish when I fetch it. I'm thinking about fishing one or both of my big, jointed swimbaits, i.e. going ALL IN on big bass fishing. With the temp dropping, air pressure rising, and a storm coming, it's my hope that a big girl decides it's time to feast...on a big swimbait.

Yoo-hoo, @bp_fowler! I was surface fishing this morning too. I was using a walking bait, which I've come to prefer to a plopping bait because bass will strike a plopping bait (at least for me) within the first 10' of its retrieve, but with a walking bait, I can trigger a strike nearly all the way back to the canoe. The disadvantage with a walking bait is that the erratic retrieve means more missed strikes.

Except for the slab smallie, we had the same day! So true. I caught my big girls trolling up and down a shoreline where the water drops off, always wondering, "Too close? Too far?" This morning I was chasing bass busting on the surface and working the openings in a zombie reed field, aka fun stuff.

Way to fish, Papa! Your smallie is gorgeous.

I know where the big girls are*, but I wanted to surface fish this morning. *The big girls are in the deep water abutting where I was surface fishing. That's where I caught these two and others this week, but the big girls aren't hitting surface lures...yet:

Heckuva night. 19" smallies are rare in Maine. I've never caught one here and I watch Hank Parker's smallie videos, as he fishes Maine a lot, and I've never seen him land one in Maine. I'm guessing he has, but I just haven't seen it.

I decided if @Team9nine can busy boat it, I can too, so after two trips of targeting big girls, I targeted fun this morning. I fished 90% of the time with a walking bait, but caught four on a wacky worm when a bass missed the walking bait and I dropped the wacky worm on their heads. I caught smaller bass, but they fought as hard as the big girls. About half were smallmouth: The green bass were smacking the walking bait too: Pretty pic! 31 bass in all. I quit when I'd caught 30, but caught one more trolling back to the car.

I always appreciate when I see the word "northern" applied to the bass I catch. Other than Alaska and Minnesota's Northwest Angle, Maine is about as far north as one can fish in the United States. I'll launch in the next hour and it's 50 degrees here. Last Friday's high was 48. Last Tuesday's high was 51. We've reached 70 degrees once in 2025. 70 and no higher. Northern bass have far shorter growing seasons. Comparing @papajoe222's six-pounder to a Texas six-pounder is like comparing a Ferrari to a Toyota. They're both cars, sure, but the Toyota is far more common...and I'm hundreds of miles north of Papa Joe. So, whenever anyone applies "northern" like Jar to the bass I catch, I know they get it. They haven't forgotten the winter. And Papa Joe also hasn't forgotten the winter: Anyway, thanks for the respect, Jar! And thanks for the support and encouragement from the rest of you! Your northern bass buddy P. S. - And the bass below, which I caught on Monday, might be biggest bass I'll catch in 2025. I'll dance with thousands more bass and I might catch a couple more 21-inchers, but another with these shoulders? Not likely: Shape-wise and length-wise, she's the near twin of this girl that I caught in 2023 and the bass below weighed 6.51 pounds. The bass above is a little thinner in the shoulders, so I'm guessing she's just a tad over six pounds, the twin sister to Papa Joe's bass:

I've been big fish hunting for two of the last three days, but I'm missing my busy boat. Maybe I'll strike a balance tomorrow, half big girl hunting and half slinging to whatever will bite.

Same thing happened to me this morning.

In a week or two, the smallmouth will be launching vertically out of the water to eat dragonflies. They're very easy to catch when they do this.

Frisbee. My dog is a sweet, goofy-looking boy, a 22-pound miniature schnauzer, but he has a border collie's drive, smarts, and athletic talent. I play Frisbee with him everyday and everyday I see him do some leap and mid-air contortion that I've never seen before. My vet has seen him catch at the dog park and she thinks I should enter him into competitions. I probably won't, but he sure has the talent. He's also the fastest dog in the dog park.

I'm gonna see if you're right tomorrow morning. I'm going to put a bass on the bump board and photograph it with the mouth open and closed. We'll see!

Could be, which is why I led with "20ish." I've shared many times that I fish from a tippy canoe and that the water this far north remains cold a long time. Additionally, I had my first scale die from getting wet and I didn't trust my second scale, as it told me a 19-incher I caught weighed 6.75 pounds. Plus, every second I keep the bass out of the water is another second they're not breathing. So, between my situation and theirs, I like to hurry them back where they belong. Sometimes I wish I weighed them, but not enough to start doing it again. And it's not like I didn't quantify the bass. I photographed them on my bump board, so I do have a rough idea and I'm fine with an 18-19-pound estimate. However, going forward, I'm going to bump board them and add their lengths like kayak tournament anglers do. No more guessing then. Hard for me to say, as your hand covers most of their stomachs. Again, I'm taking the quickest possible photos. Sometimes they close their mouths and sometimes they don't. Anyway, I adjusted the title. No biggie.

I like the bronzeback photo the best. It's not as yummy as your trout photos, but it's still sweet. As far as you being "the oddball," yes. Me too. And furry-headed @T-Billy. And.... For me, it's a walking bait. Bass want to crush it.

I fish my pal's pond again tomorrow morning and I'm thinking of throwing a couple big, hard swimbaits into the mix. I also think the bass are a day or three away from really hitting surface lures. For the first time this year, I saw them busting shad on the surface in the middle of the pond. They are verrrrrrrry difficult to catch when they do this, but it tells me they're feeding up.

Wow, @T-Billy: One after another after another....

What fun!

@TnRiver46: Love your pics, Russ.

I thought about you many times this morning, Alex, thinking, "Alex will be happy that I'm fishing for bigger fish." So, I fished off-shore adjacent to spawning flats. I coached myself as my rod was sinking: "You'll only have one chance, so don't lunge."

I launched at 5:15 this morning. It was 51 degrees, foggy, and spitting rain here and there. By the time I quit at 9:30, I was pretty cold. I focused on catching big fish and succeeded. Here are the biggest five: I caught the bass with a @Siebert Outdoors spinnerbait as my main lure. It's a heckuva lure. It runs true, is sturdy, and I've yet to lose a bass with it. I both trolled it and cast it. I also caught bass with an underspin, walking bait, and Junebug wacky worm with a chartreuse tail. I caught 18 bass in all. I'm sacrificing quantity for quality. At one point, I hadn't caught an lmb for a spell, so to give myself a break, I fished a rock flat and caught some smallies. Here's one: I also caught some smaller lmb: And here's the pretty pic I promised @pdxfisher: My landing percentage is really high right now. Mike Siebert's spinnerbait helps! Last thing: I dropped a rod in the water. I watched it slowly sink and knew I'd have one chance to save it. I did...by the tip!