Swamp Girl

Exactly. My canoe is 15' 6" long and weighing only 32 pounds, the wind pushes it and me around the lake. To the wind, I look like the nerdy kid with a pocketful of lunch money. It's bad on Maine's coast too. It's blowing steadily at 19 mph today and gusting to 30. So, I have to take what less windy slots occur, however imperfect. For example, there's a break in the wind tomorrow morning, so I'll launch, but it'll be cold (39 degrees) and sunny, and I don't like the cold and I don't like the sunshine. Still, the wind will only be 3 mph to 7 mph, so I'll actually be able to fish. Whether I'll catch something on a bright, cold morning is the question.

I love the wind. It's given me some wonderful fishing trips. I've used it to blow me over feeding bass as there's no stealthier boat than a windblown boat. The wind will also stack smallies and walleyes against wing dams and stack the same in a strait between the shore and an island or between two islands. It'll stack muskies in a strait too. And I'd rather fish a windblown shore than a protected shore. And I've hated the wind a long, long time. Do you hate the wind more than you love it? Or vice-versa? I hate it more than I love it simply because it's kept me from launching my canoe countless times. If I had Spot-Lock, I might love it more than I hate it, but Spot-Lock is for sophisticated anglers with trailers and ramps. I'm a primitive angler.

@Pat Brown: Those are the ones you didn't lose??? How big were the ones you did lose?

I once caught over 500 smallies in two days on a brass Mepps spinner. I have no idea why they loved that lure so much. My fishing partner caught perhaps 50 over the same two days fishing various lures from the bow of my canoe. So, yes, a Mepps can be THE lure.

I agree with Andy. I fish shallow, clear water bodies of water and I prefer to launch at four in the morning when it's foggy or raining. The problem for you and me right now is that it can be cold at four in the morning. At the very least, fish cloudy days if you can. As Andy noted, fishing in the wind can help, but if you're a paddler, you'll have to work for your bass. Here's a bass caught in the wind yesterday, caught on an underspin with a paddletail trailer. If you had watched me catch it, you would have laughed, for the shorelines, as you can see, are lined with woody bushes and it's always a race to boat the bass before the shoreline hooks me:

They look healthy, but eating some sounds like a good plan.

I was closer to this guy... ...than this guy:

I have never fished Lake Mooney. I am a clear water, stealth angler and I have caught many bass many times. Stumps wouldn't worry me as much as weeds. The water I fish now has weeds inches away most days, so I need heavier line to turn the bass before they burrow into the weeds. I'd try six-pound test and see if that works. I use spinning rods because I can cast them farther. I have caught many big bass at the very ends of my longest casts.

I Googled you and found this:

You are kind, @Kirtley Howe, but I have nothing to do with the resurrection of the bigger bass in this pond. A guy who lives on the water said that the pond used to produce five-pounders, but then that inexplicably ended. For whatever reasons having nothing to do with me, the bigger fish are returning. It might be one of those cycles/up and down phases that @WRB and @Dwight Hottle have observed. There is another five-acre lakefront parcel in the area on the market for $1.5 million. It's on a lake with jet skis and water-skiers. No thank you. I forgot to mention the lures that didn't work: spinnerbait, pink Wacky-rigged Senko, and a shallow-running crankbait. And I also didn't share how I caught some thick girls on the flat. I used a technique I developed when fishing for white bass on Lake Pepin. The wind was howling and there was no way to avoid it, so I set up drifts over a deeper flat abutting shallow water that I suspected the bass used to spawn. Then I cast two underspins behind the canoe and they slow rolled over that flat, bump-bump-bumping on the bottom. I was trolling using the wind. The first drift, I caught two at once. I put one in the net and played the other, adding it to the net. The second pass, I hooked two at once, but one escaped. Those were my biggest bass and I didn't measure them because the wind at that point was blowing me into the woody shore and I had to skeedaddle before I hit the bushes and hooked two or three of my rods on them. The third pass, I caught one last one and then the wind started to die, killing the furious bite and my ability to wind troll. I did add another two casting that flat over the next 30 minutes. The only part I played was checking Zillow every morning and acting without hesitation to purchase the property, plus seeing the potential in the property.

A. I'd fish that lake again and again. B. You saw them, so they saw you. Use the lightest possible line that the weeds permit and make the longest possible casts. Don't make noise. Bumping your kayak is the worst.

Thanks, Alex. I'm just relieved to finally land some thick fish. So many of the Bass Resource gang have caught big fish in 2025 and the few fish I'd caught weren't pulling their weight. As far as taking care of the pond, I've already netted some trash from the bottom this year. You might remember that my pond has thick smallmouth too. I focused on a couple rocky areas trying to catch one or two, but failed. I was amazed at how many bass were in that laydown. I caught six from it, but lost four or five others.

Maine has unfortunately led the nation the last couple years in rich people buying large lakefront lots, driving up prices. Nevertheless, last spring, a five-acre waterfront property went on the market at a price I could afford. I made an offer four hours after it was listed, giving me access to a 170-acre pond just five minutes from my home. I had fished it for the prior two years and the first summer, I caught a lot of 15 to 16.5 inchers. The following summer, I started seeing an occasional 17+-incher. Last summer, I had some outings where I caught a couple 18-inchers. Well, this evening, I caught the biggest bass I've ever caught from "my" pond. I caught them three ways: Some big females schooled on a flat abutting shallows. I caught six this way. Some smaller bass clustered around a laydown on a windy point. I caught another six this way. A windblown shore. I caught four this way. 16 bass in all, plus one thick pick(erel). The conditions were tough for the first half of my three-hour session. The wind was blowing steadily at 14 mph and gusted to 20 mph. Even when it lessened, I kept getting blown into the laydown and windblown shore. Still, I managed to catch some fine fish. This was the only one I measured, an 18-incher that took out drag: Here are some other thick bass I caught: I feel so lucky to own land on a pond like this. It has no public access and its extensive wetlands mean it'll never have more than the nine homes that already exist on it, all at least 250 feet from the shore. I didn't measure any bass beyond the top one, but you can see they're long, thick fish and I'm guessing it was close to a 20-pound bag. @PhishLI and @AlabamaSpothunter both encouraged me to focus on my pond, to crack its code. And Alex also believed, having seen many photos of my pond and read my reports, that there was real potential in it. Alex was soooo right. Look at the bodies on the bass above. They're eating well, huh? It's a healthy ecosystem. I wish you could have heard the thundering frogs this evening, one of nature's surest indicators of a thriving pond. And seen the ospreys and Canada geese. And smiled at the tail-slapping beavers too. I could have fished late, into the dark as I so often do, but I was just so happy that I quit when the Sun reached the horizon. Happy and tired, for at one point, the pond was white capping and I'd worked hard to control my NEXT canoe. Happy, tired, and lucky. P. S. - I caught every bass on an underspin with a chartreuse and white Zako. I did get one hit on a chrome popper, but didn't hook it.

Sounds like Maine. I've been grinding too. I'm launching in an hour though and because it's been our warmest day so far this spring (70 degrees and sunny!), I'm hopeful that I'll catch more than seven bass, which is my best trip to date. Agreed. It's a penguin bass! @Bluebasser86: Boy, oh, boy, your boys are growing!

A pound to five pounds is a 400% increase. If he'd stayed another day and maintained that growth rate, he would have caught a 25-pounder by the end of the second day and a 125-pounder by the end of the third. The 625-pounder he would have hooked at the end of the fourth day would have sadly eaten him, so it's best he left when he did.

Popper Plopper Spook

When I started fishing for NE lmb about three years ago, I used a lot of silver and white soft plastics. Now I prefer Chartreuse and white. The bass seem to prefer the latter, so I prefer it too. With hard lures, I go with white, black, and gold.

I hope you're right. I have my lures planned, as well as the route I'll paddle.

I'm launching tomorrow afternoon. It rained hard yesterday, with temps in the low fifties, and it's drizzling today, with temps in the forties, but tomorrow, we're supposed to hit 70 degrees for the first time in 2025. I'll let the water warm all day and launch in the evening. Fingers crossed the warm days heats up the fishing!

@LrgmouthShad: An 18 and a 20! Well angled, my cyber-buddy.

@Cuivre: Wow, that looks like a spacecraft: I have to step away from Bass Resource for a couple hours. I just read a thread where I realized I know so very little about rods and reels. And now I see your boat and I remember how proud I was that I managed to attach two rod holders to my Old Town NEXT hybrid canoe/kayak, my first and only modification to any of the many canoes and kayaks I've owned. Yeah, I suck.

You guys know soooooooooooo much about reels. I just keep using my mostly Shimano spinning reels and I've been using some of them for 40 years.

This made me laugh out loud! You are soooo right. Living in current will make a holy terror out of a bass. In two years of living on the Wisconsin River, I saw two five-pounders. That was me rising hundreds of mornings at first light. ^This^ is why I wish fight could be quantified. If we could measure it and mark it with a number, then weight would hold a little less weight. I've said it before and I'll likely say it again: The hardest fighting lmb of my life was a slender 18 inches. I hooked her in a narrow river and she ran down that river, ricocheting from shore to shore. Then she ran back at me. Even then, she burrowed under my canoe. She felt like a 20-pound musky. I was expecting a PB, but she looked like hundreds of other bass I've caught...and lighter than scores of other bass I've boated. Anyway, Kirtley, I'm glad you appreciate fight too.

Ken, I just happened upon this thread. I am heavy with sadness. It sounds like you're having the frank conversations that are good and proper. I once read an essay by an oncologist who had treated a woman with cancer and he kept wanting her to consider that the cancer might end her life, but she kept denying it. Then, two days from her death, she was desperate for the next trial treatment and when he told her that there was nothing left to try, she despaired, for she was out of time to accept her death. I'm glad too that you've identified a profound purpose for the time that remains. And finally I'm glad that your first chemo treatment didn't nauseate you. I'm thinking good thoughts for you, Ken. Sad ones too.

For me too. Now, put me on a wilderness lake in northwestern Ontario and I'll launch in the morning or evening with an outside chance at landing five or more four-plus pounders, but those are lake smallies. They don't fight current all day. Simply put, weight doesn't always equate. A northern 5-pound lmb doesn't equal a southern 5-pound lmb. The northern bass is rarer and the farther north you go, the rarer it is. Just ask @The Baron. Heck, ask me. I have to catch hundreds of bass before I'm likely to see a five-pounder. And a 4-pound river smallie doesn't equal a 4-pound lake smallie. I also tender extra credit to shore anglers who land big bass. They're disadvantaged. And I subtract credit from FFS anglers, who have an electronic edge. I don't dismiss FFS bass, but a DD lmb located by FFS isn't the same as a DD lmb found by an old school angler. I know many disagree. This is just me.