Swamp Girl

That separates the men from the boys.

There are great ones, guys. Thanks! @Catt: "Plan B" made me laugh out loud. It's a heckuva superpower. @Jar11591: One skunk in eight years? Whoa! @Reel and @bassmedic46: It's keen that you guys see so keenly.

What's your bass fishing superpower? It might be reading an FFS screen or casting or skipping or boat control or record keeping or having good hunches or anything else. Only share one: Mine is paddling. I fish some pretty tight quarters where I have to squishedy-squeeze my canoe through the slots and there are rocks and trees that I cannot bump or I'll spook the bass, so I have to paddle like a creeping cat. Plus, I often have to paddle several miles, which requires straight line paddling and efficient strokes. The pics below aren't to share bass I've caught, but where I catch them. For me, good paddling lets me fish places like this:

Happy for you. So sad for me. Another four inches this morning and another foot is forecast for this week.

Oh, I could catch one. There's an ice fishing tourney at my pond this weekend. It's just that standing over a hole in the ice is as much fun as this: Reference the image above your comment.

They don't winterkill. At least not yet. We won't see open water until March. Here's my pond a couple days ago. The white beyond the weeds is the pond:

You might think I'm joshing you, but I don't fish a single body of water that's 15' deep. 10' deep is the deepest.

Do tell. Where do you cast them and how do you work them?

When it comes to organized tackle,

Funny!

Alex, as you know, I love those 20 lb. bags. They take consistency and they're so. much. fun. Just like 2024, you are streaking! No, not like this: Like this: You are Winter Thor:

@jbmaine: You have a beautiful boat!

@T-Billy wrote this months ago in a different thread. I like it so much that I'm reposting it:

@crypt and @Fishlegs: Witty! Thanks for the laughs. Say, does anyone know if TW sells 6,000 lb. jigs? That just might work.

Those BIG Southern bass are keeping us warm. Congrats, @Team9nine, on your Megasaurus! FWIW, 12" to 22" of snow is forecast for next week, but everyday is longer and it won't last.

Ha!

To me, pulling a bass straight out of the lake and recording that catch then and there is much more exciting than pulling a bass out of a bag. When I lift a bass to photograph it, it's generally flopping and when I release it, it often splashes me because it's fresh from its home. Those limp bass that they pull from bags are stale, made so by hours in a livewell and many minutes in a bag. Filming the catches of still-fighting, fresh fish and then playing that footage at the stage gets my vote.

This thread reveals how MUCH I MISS FISHING. I really did drive down to the pond yesterday...in the snow. I miss it that much. In the bottom pic, where the marsh ends and there's nothing but white beyond the plants, that's the pond. You can see it in the second pic too. Meanwhile, I just snowblew the backyard for the second time in two days so that my pup can do his business. I don't clear it entirely. I just clear paths for him. I make a maze that he loves to explore!

I haven't caught one over five...yet. I think I had one that size hit based upon the amount of water it moved, but who knows...not me. So far, they're nearly all 15.5 to 18.5 inches and chunky. Exactly. I had a bear cut across my path once in northwestern Ontario, one of many bears I've seen, and it was so big and glossy that I smiled, happy to see a thriving animal.

@txchaser: Here are a couple bass from my pond.

Alex, your winter fishing makes this one of the best seasons at Bass Resource. I pity the fools who live on your lake and don't fish it in the winter!

Nice to see you posting again, Mr. Bazoo!

I finally went fishing, returning to the pond where I own property. I liked the drive because there was no traffic. I don't know why that was so, but I enjoyed having the road to myself: I arrived at the driveway to the pond. I was so excited to see the water. I couldn't quite see it yet, but soon. A walk through the woods took me to the wetlands between the water and me. Open water! At last!!! I walked the boardwalk to my canoe. She was ready and I was too: I dragged her out to open water and trolled a deep diving crankbait, thinking the bass might be deep since I was fishing a wee early. However, the crankbait malfunctioned and would not dive. It worked like a surface lure and a mighty lousy surface lure. Not surprisingly, I was skunked. Rapala will be getting a strongly worded letter from me!

Please don't poke the @gim Bear. We northern bears are hibernating and when someone pokes us mid-winter, we don't wake up sweetly.