Swamp Girl

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.

Just imagine how far they could have cast if they'd cast with the wind!

I do systematically target tougher pieces of cover. You've see photos of the bogs I fish. Lacking electronics, I don't tackle lake structure systematically, but I do regularly fish open water and have a good memory for where I've caught bass and return to those spots. I also cast big lures, so I am hoping for Nadine and her sisters, but happy to catch their little cousins in the meantime. So, we're similar, as long as you're willing to ignore that I don't catch DDs like you do! 😉

That counts! I think. Maybe.

Thanks for being so interested in not helping invasives spread. I know a guy who's always worried about my canoe. I tell him again and again that it's usually two or three days between my fishing trips and that my canoe always sits in the Sun during that time. It's a lake and bake deal.

Yeah, he is. He's the John Wick of Bass Resource.

Unlike me, as I am fishing for every bass in the pond!

I'm hoping enough of the big ones survived to really gorge without the competition of the normal bass biomass.

I pert near always finish last in this thread (I only manage to beat @gim and his fellow Minnies because of their late starting date: However, I'm ready to cheer for you guys who live in the Land of Soft Water.

I would be so very happy for you if you caught a DD, Alex.

I'm so proud of you, Tim. I had the musky bug for a few years, so I know how hard they are to catch. FWIW, I never caught more than 90 in a year. Nowhere close.

I tried and tried and tried Spooks and failed and failed and failed. Then they suddenly worked at the end of the summer. I don't think they're an everyday lure like a T-Rigged worm or a jig, but I do think they should be cast everyday...a few times...to determine if it's a Spook day. When I twitch my Spook, I've found that creating a little slack in my line before each twitch (I do this by moving the rod tip a little closer to the lure.) gives the lure more pop and that the bass like that. It's a lure for aggressive bass, so fishing it aggressively works for me. I think you had a fine year, Mr. Shad. Your big bass is a beast. Look at the muscle in front of its tail. So thick. And I love that you fished with other BR anglers!

This makes sense, Pat. It also makes sense to not be too certain about what other animals experience. When you think about how many billions of hours have been dedicated to understanding human bodies and how much remains a mystery in our bodies, well, a minute fraction of the time dedicated to cracking our bodies has been spent on bass and there are likely factors within factors within factors that determine how bass see and react. I just know that on the water I fish, chartreuse and white are fire and I whereas it might be nice to know why, I don't need to know. I just want to have a basic sense of what the fish that I target prefer. It gives me a starting point and whereas I'm absolutely uncertain about why bass do what they do, I'm 100% that because chartreuse and white worked for me a few times doesn't mean that they'll work for me every time...and I'm okay with the mystery.

I hadn't considered that. Fingers crossed. I'll have a pretty idea which way the scales tipped come May. Toes crossed too.

I just found this in an old thread: @WRB is one of the all-time greats.

She sure looks like it!

You might remember my landing lots of thick bass at the end of 2024 in a bog that drained down to a river: I had a 70-bass day too: I was falsely told that the dam leaked, but later learned that they opened the dam and released the bog water to inspect the dam. The water is steadily returning since they closed the dam and come the spring of 2025, the bog should be back. When the water was low, I wasn't the only one catching bass. There were raptors and I assume many mammals feasting too, as the mud of the drained bog had thousands of tracks in it. I'm not exaggerating the number of tracks. There were tracks atop tracks atop tracks. Anyway, here's my thinking: In 2025, there will be fewer bass in the bog because birds and beasts ate hundreds/thousands of them. The bass that survived the predators are all fatter entering 2025 because they too feasted when the biomass was squeezed into the river and going forward, they'll continue to feast with less competition. So, I'm thinking 2025 could be a banner year for quality, not quantity, and 2026 and 2027 even better. Do you agree? I have caught bass between six and seven pounds in this bog and I'm hoping in the coming years that I can catch seven and eight-pounders given that there are fewer bass competing for the baitfish. The caveat is that this is a boggy, bogly bog with weeds everywhere and hooking a Kraken is a long ways from landing it.

Happy b-day, Papa Joe!

@TnRiver46: Me too!

I fear that with you fuzzing your shoreline, you'll be all secret agent man-ny when it comes to your fishing holes, but where did you catch your smallmouth?

Agreed.

I have nothing to contribute to this thread because I've never caught a DD and likely never will, but I still like seeing 'em. So, let's see em!

Oh, I believe you. It's just that my empirical data disagree with the laboratory data. It's a mystery to me and I'm okay with that as long as I can determine which dang color to cast.