Swamp Girl

I agree with Mr. Boy. I use all my rods with all my lures. My favorite line for my MH rods is 30 lb. braid. G. Loomis rods are special. Enjoy it!

Is a fireplace cover or structure? @Glenn, do you know?

I'm a primitive angler with no Buck Rodgers satellite-using gadgetry or water-sweeping sonars on my boats. At Bass Resource, we come in all shapes and sizes, so all are welcome.

Welcome to my world! I either live in North Florida or you live in South Maine.

I hated it the first time I bought it. I hated it the second time I bought it. I hated it the third time I bought it. Three strikes. I'm out.

Those are good lures, for sure. They were my mainstay for my first few months of lmb fishing. @Dwight Hottle: Other than crankbaits, you and I are tossing pretty much the same lures. I do use some crankbaits and would love to throw more crankbaits, but I'd need fewer weeds to use them all summer. I should use them more this spring before the weeds rise.

@T-Billy, gaze upon this image to help you with your ten-pound goal: Thanks, @Lottabass! HHTTHOWD is a beautiful holiday!

Lucky kids! And you're a good man, Charlie Brown.

Cold is relative. I lived in Wisconsin for 30 years and we could have a week of double digit below zero nighttime lows. Then one day it would reach 20 degrees and feel balmy. However, if it hit 20 degrees in early November, it felt frigid. Florida's so hot that 62 degrees could feel chilly. We've been chilly long enough in Maine that I've adapted. Whereas a month ago, I would don a coat to take the pup outside, now I no longer bother and come early March, it might still be cold, but I and many other Mainers will be coatless on our errands. You'll even see some shorts in Maine on 30 degree days. Thanks, @GRiver! @Pat Brown: I continue to be surprised by your ice and cold air. @T-Billy: In your photo, you look like you're half man, half mountain. Nah, you got the fishin' fever just as bad as the rest of us. Here are the reasons that @Bluebasser86 and @T-Billy fish the winter: BB86 wrasslers bad guys for a living. Father Winter is just another bad guy. T-Billy had one of those genealogy tests done and discovered that his great-grandmother on his mother's side was a griz. He wears his hat to honor his griz blood.

That wind and that temp are a big no-go for everyone other than @T-Billy and @Bluebasser86.

@North Florida Mike: I bet that was soooo fun. I haven't caught bluegills since I was twenty-something, but I'd love to catch them again before I'm too old to fish for them.

I think of December, January, and February as the heart of winter, so January 15th is Happy Halfway-Through-the-Heart-of-Winter Day for icebound Yankees. Hooray for us. It's downhill from here. Be sure to wish someone you love, like, or barely tolerate up north a Happy Halfway-Through-the-Heart-of-Winter Day!

@Choporoz, catching bass in those conditions means you get to add a pound to each, so you caught a cold-adjusted 5.8 and 4.5.

I observe that since Clayton posted his cat, none of us have bothered to post anything. I don't know about the rest of you, but I waved a white flag in the general direction of Kansas and threw all my gear into a dumpster.

@Catt, yeah, I think you could catch bass anywhere. Bathtub? No problem. Swimming pool? You betcha! Cup of tea? Naturally.

@Catt: You write "by whatever means necessary," but are you willing to struggle down to the water when I'm wrapped around one of your ankles, begging, "Take me with you!!! Take me with you!!!"

Me too. @MediumMouthBass did a great job of explaining the pros and cons. I love bank fishing. That's how I started fishing and our past always pulls at us, at least my past tugs at me. So, before I step into my canoe, I always cast a few times from the bank and if I hook a fish, I LOVE it because I'm not in a tippy canoe that's bullied by bass.

I do fish some rivers that are 12' wide...and less.

True story. I was fishing below a narrow stretch of swift, shallow water in Ontario. If I cast into the shallows, I caught pike. At the drop-off and along the edges, I caught smallies. Where the current plowed into still water lay walleyes. I'd caught a few, but guessed that there were uncaught fish, so I cast a crankbait into the dying current with no luck. On a whim, I backed off and set up a trolling run through the weakening current. Fish on. I did a 180 and caught another. I caught 17 walleyes in 17 passes, all by trolling and exactly where I'd failed by casting. I think trolling gave them the speed and depth they wanted.

@gim: Most everything you wrote is true. What isn't? I catch a LOT of bass trolling open, featureless water because my lure is constantly in the water and a long ways from me, thus maximum stealth.

Heck, yeah. It's silly to waste travel time by not trolling. Of course, some of you have 250 HP engines, so trolling isn't an option.

I love crankbaits and own scores of them, but I struggle to use them without fouling them with weeds. Ten feet deep is about the deepest water I fish, but even then, it's not a full ten feet as five feet of it will be weeds. I look over the side of my canoe and I can see them and I also see them on my crankbaits' hooks.

Heck, yeah! I have caught many four-pound lmb trolling a loon-colored Whopper Plopper in the dark and I owe them all to Dwight. Before Dwight suggested it, I had never considered the possibility, much less the effectiveness of trolling a surface lure. I troll when I'm paddling to wherever I'm going. That way, I'm fishing all the time. And it is so exciting when a big girl smacks my Whopper Plopper and my rod bends so much with the weight of the bass and the forward motion of the canoe that I think it's going to break. No hook-setting needed! In the day, I troll spinnerbaits and underspins when I'm on the move. Once, I caught two on two rods at the same time. You can troll spinnerbaits at night too. Here's a bass caught this way:

@Blue Raider Bob: Clayton's Moby Cat could eat your muskrats! @Bluebasser86: Clayton, please go catch the kitty again and mail it to Bob. He really needs it.

That must be cool, but I wouldn't know because I never stick long enough to have it happen to me.