Swamp Girl

I will NEVER share a photo of my fishing gear storage. I don't want to give @A-Jay a heart attack.

I can't believe you so-there'd us! You must have forgotten that our Kung fu is strong.

Luck, luck, LUCK! However, all that ice makes me wonder if your wife didn't sedate you and move you and Jake to Maine. Or Michigan. Or Minnesota. OR CANADA! @A-Jay, @gim, and @The Baron, have you seen Pat over your way? I'll keep an eye out for him. I'm suspecting he's now a Yankee or Canuck and doesn't yet know it.

Nah. You bass whisper. Beauty, @TnRiver46!

Dang, you sure can fish. 25.5 pounds in two hours!

Gosh, I hope Tom (@WRB) doesn't lose sleep over his two world records. Instead, I hope he sleeps deeply and peacefully and dreams of his 16, 17, 18, and 19-pounders. FWIW, if I ever say, "I think I lost the world record," do not believe me. I think four-pounders are big. I could lose a nine-pounder and think it was the world record. Tom, given the unfathomable strength of a 22 or 23-pound bass (at least I can't fathom it, but you felt it), and given that you only have split seconds to react while adrenaline fills your body, losing such a fish seems more likely than landing it.

That's a mistake I make pretty much constantly. If I suspect I'm going to be catching bigger bass, I might retire, but otherwise, I just keep casting.

I think I own a Sammy or two. That name is familiar. I know I failed to catch bass on several of my various walking baits until I stuck with the Dual Pitch. Maybe I just stumbled on a cadence that works with this lure.

Some of my new lures arrived. Since it looks like this lure is being discontinued, I bought a bunch, a lifetime supply. It really works for me. I went from catching NO FISH IN MY ENTIRE LIFE on a walking bait to many four to six-pounders with this lure. I love the black one on the far right. You can't see it, but it has a fluorescent smudge above its eyeballs so that I can see it more easily in the dark and fog. Watch out bass, I'll be a walkin' your way!:

I'd fail with 8 lb. test too and I've landed 20 lb. pike on 4 and 6 lb. test while fishing for smallies, but they were open water pike. I use 30 lb. test when bog fishing.

Understood, Tom. You're in a different class than the rest of us and losing a world record TWICE is beyond my ken. Tom, if you had a chance to land both those bass again, is there anything you could have/should have done differently? As experienced as you are in catching HUGE bass, I can't imagine you making a mistake. Wisdom. In a few years, we'll all be pushing up daisies. Staying happy, grateful, and present lets us suck the marrow out of life.

I've never hooked a DD, much less lost one right at the bank, but if I did, this would be me:

So true. So much trolling on the Internet and so much of it is boring, i.e. a troll repeating something a million other trolls have already written. If you're going to troll, be original! Back when I had boats with motors and was happy to fish windy days, I loved drift fishing.

I fished for lmb in Ohio farm ponds, but then smallmouth and muskies had me hooked for about four decades. When I took up lmb fishing again about 2.25 years ago, I was fishing heavy weeds for the first time in my life. I'd lose big bass to the weeds and I'd think again and again about how it happened and wonder what I'd done wrong. However, I've caught so many big northern bass since that I no longer dwell on lost big bass. By big, I mean bass over four pounds, which are fine fish for someone nearly halfway between the Equator and North Pole. I boat most of my four-plus pounders now, but don't dwell on the ones that I do lose. I'm wondering if it works this way for you or are you like I was two years ago, perpetually pining for lost bass. Caveat: The only thing that bugs me still is when I hook a big bass and it surges, taking line, and then breaks free, but I never see it. I wonder about how big those bass were, but not for long. It's more curiosity than sadness.

@TnRiver46: If I were governor of Maine, I'd issue a soggy canoe license plate.

Good point...and you do catch big northern bass. For your sake, I'm going to mount a billboard "Bass are poopy!" campaign in Minnesota.

So true. I've encountered many Minnesota anglers who look down their long Nordic noses at smallies. Full disclosure: I too have a long, Nordic nose.

I'm guessing this year it'll be a $130,000 bass boat. You guys have to wait tooooooo long, for sure. I like your idea of C&R instead of NO FISHING.

If @TnRiver46 ever decides to teach Living well 101, I'm taking the course, sitting in the first row, and taking notes. P. S. - And I won't be giving "teach" an apple. I'll be plopping a bushel of apples on his desk!

I literally have had ten or so boats troll around my boat when they saw me catching fish after fish after fish.

Even A-Jay's lures are prettier than mine. My main 2024 popper lost its feathery tail after one morning and its body looks like I scrubbed it with sandpaper. And here's my favorite Whopper Plopper: I'm a slob. However, I can live with my slacking as long as Andy and Alex make their way to Mexico and have extremely taut lines.

Hooray for Alex!

Gosh, I wish I could take you to a waterfall in northwestern Ontario, with current swirling this way and that turning the canoe too, and your line with a leech on the end swinging back and forth, and all that thundering and mist in the air, and you're watching your line for something, anything that's not quite right, and you guess that maybe something's awry and you set the hook and sure enough, bass on. Or walleye on. And now you have to fight a fish that lives in swift current with everything moving in perpetually shifting directions: fish, water, air, and boat. Trust me, it's thrilling. And sure, you could work a jig in that current, but you'll catch one for every five or ten that I'll catch with a leech.

Yep. I suggest one of these, since gravity is on our side:

I like boat shows too. Enjoy, my Gim friend!