Swamp Girl

@Wilk816: We love looking at bass at Bass Resource, so thanks for the photo! She was a beauty.

I'll give it a try. Thanks!

My experience with walking baits is that they clobber them, but I've never worked one slowly. Did your six-pounder clobber your walking bait?

Fingers crossed that you land a six, seven, or eight-pounder! And toes crossed that I catch any bass!!!

I passed too. I downloaded it and went through the steps and then went, "Naaah." I can't imagine it helping me catch a lot more bass. I know my ponds and bogs better than a computer program.

So true. I caught some of my first bass last year on the surface in c-c-c-cold water about a foot deep.

It looks great. Fish with well-earned pride!

Nearly all of you are catching bass, from coast (@pdxfisher) to coast (@Dwight Hottle). Here's my front yard minutes ago. However, fingers crossed that I can finally launch next Tuesday, when it might reach 51 degrees:

I think good thoughts about you finding a kidney every few days. I also think a lot about living a long life. There is longevity in my family, so I witness what happens as we age. There are healthy nonagenarians, but there are a lot more who are greatly reduced by living that long. From what I've seen, I don't want to live that long. If I could choose, I would choose quality over quantity, so it's great to see the quality of your life, my friend.

16 lb 11 oz is a HECKUVA smallie river bag. Gorgeous fish too. And steelhead are one of the world's greatest fish. What a spring it's been for you and other BR anglers!

@Harold H: When I fished in Canada, I'd position my elbow just like you did in your first photo so that the fish would be right beside my face to give a viewer a good idea of relative size. Doing so means that my big smallies look small compared to long-armed smallies, even though I caught some smallies between five and six pounds according to the length to weight charts and they were footballs, like the one below:

@Blue Raider Bob: You're welcome anytime, Bob. I'd love to put you on 50 fighting North Country bass one morning and another 50 that evening. The kid caught the top bass at my pond and his PB (bottom bass) at his pond. His pond's bass are bigger than mine, but mine are bigger year by year, so I'm hopeful. Of course, he's long-arming his PB, so the two bass aren't that far apart, size-wise:

That bass sure is black. That's my favorite hue in lmb. Anyway, it's a fine, sturdy bass, Alex, and I always love seeing your catches!

Ha! I do try to lessen maintenance. For example, look at the outside of the boxwood beds on both sides of my path. They have edgers designed to run mower wheels over them. And the boxwood beds are coated with mulch. Still, there is some work, but I'm happy working in the dirt. Thank you. Here's part of another garden I made. What you can't see is the Secret Garden, the Tea Garden, the patio, and the orchard. You had me at "fishing."

You're so funny, Bob, but you've looked at my pond on Google Earth and you know that it's literally called a pond, as are all bodies of water its size in New England.

Here's a photo of my fieldstone path, lined with boxwoods. If you've never laid one, consider not doing so as it takes a lot of time to solve the puzzle of getting all those rocks to fit. The tree on the left that looks like it's in fall colors is a Flamethrower Redbud. It's the greatest tree I've ever planted, as it's either red, yellow, and orange or red and green. Yeah, it give you fall colors six months a year.

My property came with a pretty big yard and ever since I bought it, I have been eliminating grass. My garden is a winter garden. I built it to be beautiful in the winter, which I achieved with a LOT of evergreens, punctuated by red-barked, yellow-barked, and exfoliating-barded bushes and trees. It has a lot of boulders too because they're abundant in Maine. I built three flowerbeds abutting the house, all lined with granite cobbles. I also built three, freestanding mounded beds. One has a mass of red twig dogwoods and another has a mass of yellow twig dogwoods. Both give me winter color. I'm building a fire pit right now and hope to finish my Japanese garden this spring. My Japanese garden is my yard's best feature. My first garden won Best of Show in my city. My second was featured in a magazine. My Japanese garden is the culmination of all I learned building the first two gardens. I'm close to finishing. I need to build a red slate patio and add a few more plants, but the skeleton is already there and it's good. I also have seven, high raised beds and just planted asparagus in one. Two have red raspberries. One has black raspberries. One has low bush blueberries. And two have tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet peppers. Paperbark maples line my driveway and I have a double line of Green Giant thujas lining the road. I'm also in the process of planting a line of high bush blueberries. Their leaves will be orange and red in the fall and backdropped by the green thujas, that color combination will really pop. In the end, I want just enough grass to rest the eye, but grass for a gardener is a dead zone that doesn't support life. A garden buzzes with bees and birds. A lawn is silent. I sometimes look out the window and see 80 Goldfinches, as well as Robins, Bluebirds, Chickadees, Mourning doves, Hairy and Downy woodpeckers, turkeys, crows, gray squirrels, ground squirrels, red squirrels, etc. It's busy out there because my garden supports them. Finally, I have a dozen Japanese maples, which might seem like overkill, but my last property had 82. I also have an abundance of blue evergreens, like tree form junipers and various spruces, both tree and bush form. They thrive in my garden's climate, so I keep buying more.

@dickenscpa: I'm going to defer, advise-wise, to the anglers who paddle from kayaks, other than this: I don't fish with any anchor and do fine. Perhaps you could eliminate your anchor pole.

I'm thinking of finally launching next Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. The weekend will be mid-thirties to mid-forties and M-W will reach highs of 54, 51, and 50,* with nighttime lows of 40, 40, and 36. Would you launch on M, T, or W? The wind speeds will be 10-11 mph each day. I'm leaning towards T or W since M's high of 54 will add water warmth to the 51 and 50-degree temps of T and W. I don't expect to catch much, but I think I can find a few. *These are all warm temps compared to what we've had recently. For example, today's high will be 39.

@TnRiver46: Those are good-looking raised beds. I made the mistake of making mine four boards high, as it will be easier to garden without stooping, but lawdy, it took half of forever to fill them...and there are seven of them. So. Much. Dirt. However, they're full now and when I'm 80 in eleven years, I might be glad I made them high.

I wouldn't call six miles from the coast inland. I once read that within 15 miles of the coast, you'll get that moderating maritime effect. I share your frustration with having to wait and wait and wait to fish.

The sad thing is that bass live in there. I can chuck a lure into the reeds and hook one. I've learned to no longer do that.

Here's an example of a reed field too mature for me to extricate bass. I can still cast them on the edge as long as I can stop them from bolting into the reeds:

Heck, yeah, he is! Green or brown, Dwight don't care. He pursues them all, A fishin' bear!

JB, I had a bass hit a 2-poundish bass last fall. I never saw the beast, but I sure saw a lot of white, frothy water.