Swamp Girl

I bought a whole box of surface lures with props fore and aft. They're modern versions of Spin-I-Didees that I used successfully as a kid. I figured they'd be fire for smallmouth and boggy largemouth. They aren't. I think I caught one bass with them. I'm guessing that someone somewhere catches bass with them. #theycaughtafisherwomannotfish

A 19.5" bass would have to be reeeeaaaal skinny to be under four pounds. I think it's pretty safe to change your PB to 4-5 lbs.

Way. to. go! So proud of you, pdx. You call it 3-15. I call it a four-pounder. Heck, I call all my bass near four pounds "four-pounders." 4-5? Four pounder! 3-15? Four-pounder! Heck, And to excel in those conditions after getting skunked for 3.5 hours? In January? With wind and whitecaps? You're the man. M-A-N! I expect this is where you'll be fishing next. If so, don't be like this guy. Hang onto your paddle!

@pdxfisher: Way to go, western buddy! Big one!!!

^This^ is the Pat Brown rule I break again and again and again. However, if a tandem canoe tips and both anglers are in the water, the other isn't going to be much help and it's unlikely for one angler only to go into the water.

You and me, my friend. We hear the clock ticking when the great bass are in our boats and for us, it's not a ticking, but a thundering. FWIW, I lost data once and a specialist company retrieved it. It cost me about a grand, but I felt it was money well spent. I'm happy we're helping. I'm even happier you landed a bass that was a tiny perch away from a DD. If you were to ask me about any of my bigger bass from the past two years, I could take you to exact spot where I caught them. I could tell you the weather and share the details of the fight. Big bass memories are indelible.

9-12? 9-12?? 9-12??? 9-12!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Take comfort in this, Alex: Whether you can recover the images or not, the images inside your head are intact. You saw her. You touched her. YOU BOATED HER, my friend. So. Proud. Of. You.

No doubt, you have it down Pat (as in @Pat Brown-grade calm and cool), but it's hard to be smooth when I'm whoozy, drooling, wheezing, and trembling. I actually have made progress with four-pounders. I keep my cool when I net them. Same with five-pounders. But the six-pounders and up turn me into this: Good luck to you too, my fishing brother! #swampslayerisawickedcoolhandle

You and Alex (@AlabamaSpothunter) are fish of a fin, i.e. you both take nothing for granted to give big bass everything that they deserve, which is all due appreciation. I don't land bass as big as yours and Alex's, but my cool, slick, practiced processing (netting, unhooking, measuring, and photographing) implodes when I catch a six-plus-pounder because they're so rare up here. Put some Florida Strain in Lake Menderchuck and you'd hear a lot of chattering bass teeth.

I've seen it and no film can convey the violence of a storm, not unless the movie theater heaved and pitched and you and the other patrons we're all vomiting and wondering if the movie theater would survive the storm. You're a good storyteller. Please tell the story of the storming Gulf.

Great story. Thanks for telling it.

Fishing on a foggy ocean sounds like playing poker with wolverines and ticking time bombs up your sleeves. You're right about fog being best for bogs, as no one can motor through a bog anyway. Rather they could, but only for about three feet.

I LOVE fog fishing. It's like playing poker with aces up your sleeves.

Been there. Yeah, even in my pokey canoe, there are times when night and fog keeps me from reading the water. Exactly. Spend enough time on water and Mother Nature will bushwhack you.

Got it. Well, it might be at full pool already. It's been raining and snowing steadily and it doesn't take a lot of water to fill a shallow bog. I wish I could do a drive-by, but I can't see the bog from the road. I have to paddle a river to it.

The bog goes up and down for sure, but I found high water made fishing easier in 2023 when a couple feet of water atop the lily pads and other weeds made it possible for me to cast right over them with no interference. I could cover so much more territory.

I don't understand what you mean by full pool, Pat. A little help?

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've seen that happen to trees too, with their great trunks twisted off. Tales like Billy's and Susky's have me extending grace to the two bass boaters and their dog. In aggregate, I've spent literal years on water and it's my experience that sooner or later, if you're out there long enough, that Mother Nature will pounce on you when you've nowhere to hide. Heck, I once paddled the Mississippi source to sea through the fall and into the winter and when you start that far north that late into the paddling season, you will be weighed, measured, and hopefully not found wanting. Heck, one rainy night, on Thanksgiving, I was called upon to save a runaway boat with my measly kayak. Stuff happens.

You might remember that I'm pretty sure I caught Maine's state record chain pickerel last summer. As a former musky angler and someone who's also caught quite a few 40"+ pike, I'm pretty good at estimating esox weights and when I returned home from releasing that pickerel, I looked up the record and saw it was a mere 6 lbs. 13 ounces, but I still don't regret releasing it because "honestly - what is a state record?" I think Maine's state record largemouth bass of 11 pounds, 10 ounces was a unicorn and will likely never be broken, unless climate change raises our temps ten degrees and someone stocks gobies.

Wow, @T-Billy! You were soooo close to it.

Do tell. Eh, we all make mistakes. Yeah, Mother Nature can turn from sweet to sour in the blink of an eye.

Two anchors off the bow in case one broke free.

Wow! What a story. I assume that many of us have had to weather storms, either on the water or just off the water like @wdp. I was camped on the Mississippi River when a tornado hit. It threw all the boats on the shore and crumpled a new, expensive aluminum dock. I had double anchored my boat about 50' out and waded to shore and my boat was the only one still floating the next morning. @softwateronly's point about how quickly a storm can be on you is a good one. It was quiet before that nighttime tornado hit. I know because I was awake. Another time on the Mississippi, a violent squall line hit when I was on the water. Blue skies. Pleasant day. And here comes a thundering squall line, frothing the water. Spend some decades on the water and you'll get walloped unless you're real lucky.

I'm actually excited to get back out there and see how many survived. If the biomass is considerably shrunk, I'll enjoy the challenge of fishing for the wily bass that survived.