Swamp Girl

I want to take the temp, but I've already gone through two thermometers. A canoe is such a wet boat that they don't last. Sigh. Yesterday they really thumped them. I'd cast one and my line would twitch within two seconds. It is a FUN way to fish. I love the way they hit. A couple times, they gobbled and ran with it. Amen, BigAngus! I've got a south wind tomorrow evening and will launch again, this time at a pal's pond.

I estimate in a week that I'll be boating 45 bass in a morning. When Maine's bass are finally warm enough to eat, they are soooo hungry after our long winter. I think of you as the BR Bass Wizard, so when you agree with me, I smile!

I also catch small smallies and in the YouTube videos of guys fishing for smallies in Maine, they're small too. However, we do have a LOT of them.

I had no idea there was even such a thing as a free rig sinker. So, thanks, Glenn!

Deal! Henceforth, we are known as the Five C's: Curmudgeons, Coots, Codgers, and Crones Club. Our annual meeting shall commence, but only after we take a nap. Or two.

You're mighty fit to be in the CCCC, but you've circled the Sun enough times to qualify. Your call. Dwight, if I were a rose, my bloom is long gone. When a rose loses its petals, you're left with thorns. Alas.

I regret buying most of the lures I purchased in the last three years. I can catch the vast majority of my bass on an underspin the first half of the fishing year and a popper in the second half. When I die, someone will have to do something with the thousand unused lures in my basement.

@JayMac89: Where do you live? It looks cool in your photo, but the shoreline looks green. Yesterday, I noticed an uptick in aggression. I live in Maine. Before yesterday, my hits were mushy. Yesterday, they thumped some of the time. Even the ticks of less aggressive bites were sharper. We're pre-spawn, but until yesterday, I think the water was too cold for the cold-blooded bass to feel perky and wallop my lures.

Whoa, @TOXIC! You're right; It's too soon for you to be issued a CCCC card.

I've even trolled with Mepps.

I sadly welcome you to the Club. We don't begin our meetings with "All, rise," but rather, "Keep it parked, ya old farts." Your majesty!

Clever, @Pat Brown!

Are you in the Coots, Codgers, and Crones Club (CCCC)? If so, prove it. I fished yesterday morning for three hours, launching at 48 degrees and leaving at 54 degrees. I'm fishing from a small boat, so I set the bass in the net on my lap to work on them, and between the mist and the bass, my britches got wet. After three hours of simply sitting, my cooled, wet legs barely worked when I had to climb out of the canoe and ascend the steep slope to reach the path through the woods, making me a card-carrying CCCC member.

Sounds like Heaven. Cool and cloudy here too, Al, but we're supposed to reach the mid-sixties next Saturday and it's my hope that the bass will start hitting surface lures. I've only caught two bass on the surface so far in 2025, but not for lack of trying!

I can't verify that the wacky works in Florida, but it sure works in Maine. I caught the majority of yesterday's bass on a wacky worm and I didn't feel half my hits, but rather saw them when the line twitched because the worm was falling when the bass took it. I'm too fraidy to cast treble hooks into cover, but I have good success with them in open water when I fast retrieve and them let them float up. It's up and down, up and down, like a roller coaster. So true. I salute your tenacity. I own property on a 169-acre lake and fish it often. Fishing the same water again and again and again means I've come to know it. I could point to a spot and say "Cast there." and then even tell you when the bass was about to hit your lure. On my lake, there are dozens of laydowns and I could fish 20 of them and catch nothing. Why? I don't know. However, there is one laydown on my lake that holds bass. Lots of bass. It looks like all the others, so I don't know why the bass prefer it, but they do. Fishing is finding that one laydown, that one point, that one flat that the bass prefer...on that day. You have the tenacity to do this.

This is one of three things I like in your trip report. They are: 1. Your fine bass 2. Sharing how many you lose. I lose bass too. It's comforting to know I'm not alone. 3. Your shoreline shot. It also helps me to see where my fellow bassheads are catching bass. Those are big white bass. I bet they stretched your line.

I know, huh? Every year, I catch a couple like that. I call 'em Kansas bass or Clayton (@Bluebasser86) bass. Thanks! I love to include a pic or two of where I'm catching bass. It's my hope that those pics will be helpful, that a fellow angler will see something similar and give that a try. For example, see these woody bushes on the shoreline? That's where I mine gold, err, green. The bass are literally under those bushes...and when I hook them, they go back to those bushes, sometimes to comedic effect. For example, there was a little island (perhaps 10' by 15') with those bushes. I wanted to cast beyond the island's point and retrieve my lure past it. Well, I missed and cast over the island and as luck would have it, a bass hit. The bass ran from the island and pulled me into it. Now I'm caught in the woody bushes on my side. Now the bass reverses course and plunges into the woody bushes on her side. So, we're both caught in the woody bushes, but on different sides of the little island. I had to laugh and I surprised myself when I freed myself, paddled around the island, and freed her. Say, is there anyone else still fishing shorelines as brown as Maine's? There is some green in the photo above, but those are white pines in the distance.

I think it'll happen in the next seven days. The bass were different this morning. I saw several feeding on the surface and the hits were stronger and surer. They're finally shaking off their winter blues. I also started catching them in more places, which tells me that more are interested in feeding.

Do those of us who haven't caught a five-pounder in the last two days have to leave Bass Resource forever? Seriously, congrats to all the members of the Fivers Club.

It's too bad we live so far apart. It would be fun to fish together.

Been there. Been undone by ^that^ again and again and again.

Here's a shot of the shoreline where I caught a lot of the bass: And here's a wacky worm bass off that shoreline:

My length to weight chart says that you caught yet ANOTHER five-pounder: https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/recreational/catchrelease/bass_length_weight.phtml

It was 48 degrees when I launched at my pond this morning at 6:00 a.m. and 54 degrees when I finished fishing at 9:40 a.m. However, it felt different than it's felt all spring and I attribute that to the south wind. I finished with 25, the most I've caught this year. The bass were just more active and I saw some surface feeding for the first time in 2025. I had good luck at two stream mouths, a particular laydown, and along the edge of a wetland. For a change, I caught a lot of my bass on a wacky worm. It was Junebug-colored with a chartreuse tip. I caught my first 2025 Whopper Plopper bass and some nice fish on my underspin with a chartreuse and white Zako. I also dropped my net into the water, HOWEVER I managed to hook it with my underspin. Whew! It was about eight feet down, but I hooked it on my first attempt. This fish made me laugh, for she was short and chubby. (That's the only laydown behind her that produces bass on my pond. I caught six on it this morning and lost two.): Here are couple thick ones: Most of the bass looked like these (The first bass is small, but I include it so that you can see how deep the marshland is that borders the pond. You can't see it, but there is a warren of water in there, i.e. inlets and tiny ponds.): Here's one of the stream mouths were I caught some: I saw beavers, ospreys, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds, and swallows. Thanks again, Alex, for the suggestion to use a wacky worm. It was my best producer. I went through a whole pack and then was down to a third of a worm and even caught a bass with that. When I did, I thought, "I'm fishing like Russ," for I can imagine him catching fish with next to nothing.