Swamp Girl

I'm a card-carrying member of @T-Billy's Straight Braid Brigade, so I don't think I'll be buying it. FWIW, I'm angling for my first stripe this year. I'm hoping to have pulled enough bass out of the weeds with braid to have earned it.

Go, SmokinAl, go! It's still too cold for me to launch, but if I had a bigger boat, I'd go too.

So far, it seems like a fluoro conditioner. I hate fluoro. Maybe I wouldn't hate it if I used a line conditioner. I assume it makes it limper, right?

I know nothing about line conditioner. Why do you use it? Are there any who used it and stop using it and if so, why? Does it work on braid? Which brand do you prefer?

I like the way you think. Sometimes the focus on DDs overlooks the likelihood that we Yankee bassers catch Southern DD-equivalent bass, when measured by rarity. I still can't drive all the way to my pond because of an ice barrier and even though the pond itself has finally melted this past week, I won't launch because the bass are still s-s-s-so c-c-c-cold. Come the end of October, the bass are back to being s-s-s-so c-c-c-cold. So, they can only grow so big. I also like the way you write, Jim.

I also love the color chartreuse. Ve have vays of making you talk, Mr. Bond.

Alex wrangles big bass AND words too, making him a samurai, a warrior/poet. However, not this samurai:

You achieved the impossible. You make Chuck Norris seem like a sissy.

Senkos. All the colors seem to work.

Yo, bro'!

Me too! That's my number one trick. I might bump my canoe once in four or five hours, but otherwise, I'm fishing on cat paws.

I like this approach, Catt. I get dizzy thinking about what lure I'm supposed to cast and when. I think I do better when I simply cast my confidence lures and focus on working them well. In short, I do better when I fish like you, Catt. Me too, Tom. I'm like a radar array, always turning and searching for bass blips. So, between casting my confidence lures and not missing strikes, I need to fish like a TomCatt. I set the hook so many times and don't even know why I set the hook. There was something ever so slightly different in my retrieve.

I've seen those videos too. Shameful. I love your entire post, Mr. NOW.

Another tip. Fish at night: And fish the fog: I catch more when they can't see me. FWIW, these two bass were caught on the same trip, a perfect trip: dark and foggy!

Thanks, PDX, but to be fair, fishing out of a canoe without electronics is my advantage, as it lets me launch where other boats can't. I will take credit for the tippy part. My Bell Kevlar canoe is not a beginner's boat like my two Old Town canoes. The only way you can keep the weight to 32 pounds at 15' 6" long is by making it skinny, which makes it unstable, like a shell that you'd row for a college team. I'm guessing most people would tip within the first five minutes. At the beginning of each year, when I step into it for the first time, until I adapt, I always think, "SERIOUSLY!?!?"

I've done something similar in Ontario. I'd slip my canoe into an Eddy below a waterfall and tie a jig below a bobber, which I'd then cast into the current. The current would yank the bobber this way and that until a smallie or walleye yanked the jig. Super fun fishing! So true!

@Lottabass: Holy Greenies, Al, those are big bass!!!

Me too. If it's going to rain, I'll rig loud lures. Same with fog. Thanks! Since I launch with six lures, I'm nearly always right, as one of the six nearly always works. If I lose the lure that's working, then I retie, of course, with the same lure. Changes in latitude, changes in bass attitudes. I fished a lot of live bait in northwestern Ontario, mostly leeches because they're tough, but nightcrawlers occasionally. Live bait does catch bass and it's fun too to feel that little tick-tick. I'd begin and end my days with lures and fish a lot of live bait when the Sun was high. Great reminder! Thanks, Andy.

You all know I like to have a busy boat. One thing that helps me achieve this is to have a lure in the water as much as possible. Whether I was launching a canoe in the wilderness of northwestern Ontario or launching a canoe at four in the morning on a Maine bog, I always cast before I launch. Ten yards out, I cast again. And I always rig my rods and reels the night before as I don't want to waste time in my canoe changing lures. I watch too many YouTubers rigging AFTER they arrive at water. When I'm paddling, I troll one rod and sometimes two. I catch hundreds of bass every year trolling. A canoe isn't like a motor, which keeps the speed steady. My trolled lures are forever speeding up and slowing down and going this way and that. In short, they look unpredictable, alive, and tasty. And when I'm retrieving a lure, I'm not watching the lure unless it's a wacky worm. Otherwise, I can feel what's happening. Instead, I'm looking for feeding bass while I retrieve. I multi-task to keep my boat busy and I keep fishing at all times to that same end. What is/are your trick(s) to catch more bass?

Now you tell me! I've been crop-dusting your neighborhood for decades with cottonwood seeds. I thought I was doing you a favor.

Go out and fish again, Mike. The bass in your photo directly above is bigger than the bass above it. At this rate, your next bass will be even bigger and the bass after that will be even....

I bought a couple old Goretex parkas on eBay for $20 each. Both are high quality and I sprayed both. Hope the spraying works.

I think you're right. I don't know why I think this, but I agree in my gut. Upon further reflection, here's my guess: If all the species of a fish spawn at the same time and the same place, then their survival is imperiled...by weather, predators, disease, etc. Evolution would work out ways for the individuals of a species to spawn at different times in different places, thus upgrading the species' chances of reproducing. EXACTLY! That's my approach. I don't try to guess where the bass are. I go looking for them and keep casting until I find them. I have some honey holes, but every time I launch, I make a point of fishing a new place in a new way...just in case. And sometimes I get skunked at my honey holes.

I never see a bed and target that bass because: A. I never see beds, partly because I'm low on the water, partly because I'm long casting, and partly because I have old eyes. B. I do well simply fishing shallow areas of 1-3' and adjacent areas of 3-5'. And I think I'm successful without targeting beds because I'm long casting to areas likely to hold beds. #Alexisrightaboutblindcasting

I'm going to add @pdxfisher to my list of anglers who overcome daunting conditions. He fishes through the winter from a small boat on big rivers. He also fishes through big wind from his small boat. And he has a major health challenge that keeps hims shore bound some days. Plus, his local smallmouth are shifty, always on the move, but PDX persists. Lastly, he even catches sturgeons from his kayak. Friggin' sturgeons!