Swamp Girl

I love this approach. I wish I'd been listening yesterday. I launched from the north shore of my pond and caught three bass in 15 minutes off that shore. I should have stayed and fished that area, but instead, I went with my plan, which was to paddle as far away as possible from the north shore and fish the south shore, which is generally loaded with bass. Of course, I caught nothing again until I returned to the north shore. The bass were talking, but I wasn't listening. I even fished a rocky flat for smallmouth on my excursion, a place where I've caught smallies, but that whole paddle was a bust. #let'slistentothebass!

I have never understood why more women don't fish. It's challenging, exciting, and peaceful at the same time. You don't need a man's strength to succeed and there are so many cool things that come with it, like the frog, osprey, owl, and loon song I heard yesterday. Then there's this: You see the pickerel rush in the second photo? There were hundreds of thousands of bees feeding on its nectar that day. I can die happily having heard that.

Russ, your white bass are thick! For a few years, I focused on white bass because they're so much fun. I have long believed that they're as strong as brown bass, but smallies have a better marketing department. #ifyoulikeafightfishforwhites

The water was cold yesterday. I didn't get a temp, but I kept testing it with my fingers and my feet were numb again from the cold coming through the canoe's hull. I could also tell it was cold because I had several bass hit my lure short. I'd feel a hit and set the hook and then retrieve my underspin with the Zako half pulled off the hook. And I was using a short Zako! So, they were too cold I think to fully engulf the lure, even though I was slow rolling it. Anyway, good luck in NH and Vermont. Will you be catching smb or lmb? I think you'll do great. The second week of May was when the bass really activated for me in 2025, but you'll be fishing inland, where it warms sooner than the coastal North Atlantic. Inland New England gets their sixty and seventy-degree days before us. On the plus side, we can go an entire summer without one ninety-degree day and we have more mild fall days. Ah, sorry about the lengthy explanation. I see you're a New Englander, so you already know everything I wrote.

That's so cool and impressive for you and your buddy, IYAOYAS.

Agree. I take good care of the landowners who let me cross their land. I bought one a $150 net, as well as cashews, beef jerky, and chocolates.

Ha! I don't know if I ever told you that I caught this bass on a Deps Sakamata Shad, the lure that YOU suggested. She was a BIG bass for Maine and me: Maine bass love the Sakamata Shad, which is why I own a small box of Sakamata Shads now. They're expensive and delicate, so I don't use them every trip, but I'll be using them in the big bass bogs. They're so soft that big bass bite hard on them.

They were my first @Siebert Outdoors spinnerbait bass! Agree! I like 'em dark. I forgot to share that I heard loons, owls, and ospreys. The frogs were also singing...LOUDLY.

I finally caught some bass. Seven in all. I tried a worm, bladed jig, and fluke, but caught none. I caught five on an underspin and two on a spinnerbait. I caught my first three where I launched. Here's the first, a beautifully marked bass and my first 2025 bass: Then I caught a bucket mouth: Then this well-shaped bass: Then I had the dim idea to paddle the length of the pond, trolling a bladed jig. I caught nothing trolling, nothing at the far end, and nothing on the way back. I fished a point, a flat, two river mouths, deep water, and shoreline. This took about two hours with no fish. So, I returned to where I started and caught four more, starting with these two footballs: I finished the evening with a couple smaller bass: For the next two weeks or so, now that I know the water is finally warm enough to catch bass, I'm going to focus on big bass bogs. I don't expect to catch many fish, but fingers crossed I can catch a big girl or three. I estimate a 15-pound bag, a good start to the season!

It's fun to fish, for sure. One retrieve last fall, I saw a bass charging it from the right and another from the left. Now, that's a search bait!

I'm going to agree with @thediscochef on a walking bait. I can cast my 13 Fishing Dual Pitch Pencil a long ways. When I'm searching for bass, distance is paramount. Plus, it's so noisy that it draws bass from a distance. My other favorite search bait is an underspin. I like it because it lands more softly than a spinnerbait, which matters in shallow water, and it can be used throughout the water column. It's also nearly weedless and a great trolling bait when I'm paddling from spot to spot.

Solid husband and father.

Quite a spring you're having, @N Florida Mike.

I lived in Wisconsin for thirty years and preferred big water: the Mississippi, Chequamegon Bay, and Green Bay. I fished from a 14' Lund with a 10 HP motor.

@Jar11591: Gorgeous bass! Gorgeous lake too. I launch again tomorrow and have a Siebert Outdoors bladed jig tied onto one pole and a worm with a small hook on another. Alex suggested the first and Pat Brown the second.

Busy boat!

I'm happy to sleep under that brand new roof! I'll feed bass by day and feel the Tennessee breeze by night.

I'm going to shiver under a shed at Bob's church and hope he takes me home to his paradise too. You should too, Alex!

Nearly all my lmb rods are MH. I came to lmb fishing from open water smb fishing, where a M rod is just fine for five-pound smb and 100-smb days, but I was overwhelmed right away by lmb using M rods. My lone exception is a M fiberglass rod that I prefer for surface lures. It keeps them pinned and it's 7' 2" length gives me the leverage to boat big girls.

And we have a speck of a second to decide and the bass is fighting the entire time, changing the circumstances nanosecond by nanosecond. You're spot on when you wrote that "you gotta decide if you're still fighting the fish or if you're landing the fish." Plus, if you're in a light boat like my 32-pound canoe, you're not even fighting from a stable surface. The bass is constantly moving the canoe and oftentimes spinning it, so that the bass is suddenly behind me. Then there are the weeds. All this leads me to wonder: "How do we land any big ones?"

Three invaluable perspectives above. My perspective: Solo netting is tricky. I fish with big, long-handled nets to extend my reach, but when I see a big bass, the question is, "When do I reach for the net?" Reaching for the net means I'm no longer fully focused on playing the fish.* Plus, reaching for the net takes some of the tension out of my line.* And if I reach too early and the bass is still green and takes out some line, then I have to drop the net and work the bass back to my canoe.* And you can miss with the net and hook your lure and now the bass is on the outside of the net, but hooked to it.* * means I've lost big bass in all these situations. A rod in one hand and a net in the other is NO guarantee I'm about to land a big girl. My point is that SO MUCH can go wrong when you reach for a net. As Pat wrote, landing big bass is a challenge that we all fail sometimes, even the biggest sticks at Bass Resource. On the other hand, when you do lose a bass, we are all primed to commiserate with you because we've all lost big bass. That said,

Yum! Rest assured, I eat like a princess:

Carly Simon was singing about @Dwight Hottle:

It ain't just @Glenn's mustache that's trustworthy.

Yep, fishing is my happy place.