Swamp Girl

Thank you, Tim. You see me.

You get it. A galoomp in the dark is a sweet sound.

Yeah, ^this^ sounds right. I rose at three in the morning many times and launched alone in the cool, foggy dark...and when I heard a big bass splash, I was joyful!

I read it in an old post, but I do agree that a 3-pounder at 44.4 degrees North is a fine, solid bass, which is why I photograph and share pics of them. I remember you doing that! I wish I'd done what @Dwight Hottle suggested!

I went through every one of my trip reports and added all the bass I caught this year. My 2024 total is 2,044. Now, I know a few BR members might sniff at my total, as I caught a LOT of 2.5 to 3.0-pounders (I also caught my PB and several 20-pound bags.) One of the BR gang once posted that he'd rather catch no bass than three-pounders, but I don't feel that way and here's why: There's a TV show called "The Good Place," which is Heaven, and when the main characters finally reach Heaven, they find it's filled with bored people and desperate angels, for the angels have run out of ideas to amuse Heaven's inhabitants because Heaven's inhabitants have seen, done, and tasted everything again and again and again. No three-pound bass will amuse them. Nor forty-pound bass. Nor 4,000-pound bass. They've been there and done that ad nauseam. I'm not there, probably because I know I'll die and I only get to dance with bass for a few more years. So, I'm grateful for all of them. As an old fishing pal once said, "They're all good." Here are the per trip totals, with a few dates here and there: 1, 3, 2, 11, 3 (including my PB on April 17th!), 14, 6, 13, 15, 11, 18, 23, 37 (May 13th), 75, 42, 47, 39, 40, 45, 26, 28, 31, 37, 52 (June 2nd), 28, 56, 38, 55, 45, 10, 19, 34, 39, 36, 36, 49 (July 5th), 27, 24, 49, 9, 21, 40, 26, 57, 15, 8, 9, 25, 17, 9, 17, 26, 18 (Aug. 18th), 25, 14, 9, 26, 9, 11, 20, 20, 22, 5, 9, 9, 4, 25, 20, 6, 35, 4, 70, 24, 8, 9, 25, 20 (Oct. 3rd), 22, 19, 52, 15, 27, 20, 19, 58, 5, 12 (Nov. 1st) A lot of my single-digit totals later in the year were me scooting down to fish my pond for an hour or an hour and a half in the evening. My best day for quantity with quality was my 58-bass day, in bold font, three trips from the end. That day might have been my first 25-pound bag. Here are three of them from that morning. Clearly, I thrill to catching bigger bass too: Yeah, it's the good life and I'm grateful.

@DaubsNU1: New Lund, new PB, and huge head on that pike! Whadda year! I love Lund boats.

It was a wilderness lake in northwestern Ontario, but there are days in Maine when, IF I STILL HAD THE STAMINA, I could catch 100+ bass.

No typo. The bass were bonkers for two, straight days and we fished from can until can't, i.e. from four in the morning until nearly ten in the evening. I pinched the barbs of my Mepps for quick releases and released most of them in the water to shorten the release time. The Mepps was the key. That's what they wanted. Sadly, we only had one Mepps and I offered it to my partner more than once, but he declined. He said he was afraid he'd lose it to a pike. So, while I caught more than 250 each day, he caught around 50 each day.

I love Mepps too and catch a few every year on Mepps. My only two 250+ smallmouth days were with a Mepps, the only one I had on that trip. I sure got my money's worth out of it. Me too!

Yes and heck, yes! My home lake also has smaller bass than other lakes, but I still love it. Congrats on the cabin!

Tim, I don't often miss musky fishing, but seeing you with your two torpedoes makes me miss 'em.

That's impressive. You really range. Which do you prefer: lake, bayou, or river?

There are times I apply pressure and times I let the bass out pull me. I think an angler can pull hooks out of bass with too much pressure at the wrong time. I try to keep the pressure consistent, whether I'm applying it or the bass is. However, if the bass is deep in weeds, I apply all the pressure I can.

Coming from decades of fishing rocky lakes for smallmouth, 2024 was the year I fully flipped to fishing weeds for largemouth. Like this: And this: I'm so conditioned to hauling bass out of weeds that nowadays, if I'm in the veggie section of the supermarket, I want to run to my car and fetch a rod. For the first half of 2024, I fished an underspin with a Crush City Mayor, a great lure for throwing into weeds and wood. And I became much better at keeping them off-balance, I.e. applying so much pressure that they can't dig deep into the weeds and shuck my lure. I understand that this is Bassing 101 Weeds and Wood, a class all of you took decades ago, but you gotta start somewhere. I'm still waiting for my grade. I hope it's an A! Here's what I caught on the final exam: I did catch my PB early in the year and also likely caught the Maine state record chain pickerel.

Me too. I rarely park. I fish on the fly. I'm looking for active bass and I want a line in the water at all times, so if I'm paddling from one spot to another, I'm trolling, which is one way I'm different than most bass anglers.

Do tell.

And a canoe too. As I have shared many times, my canoe is Kevlar, 32 pounds, and 15' 6". The only way you can make a canoe that long that light is to make it skinny and being skinny, it's very tippy. So, there's no standing and there's no moving forward or aft, for the canoe tapers, making it even tippier away from center. I tried to cross their eyes and failed. You might remember me reporting my pathetic landing percentage in early 2024. Other BR anglers reported landing 90% of their bass* and I had a couple mornings where I landed 50% of mine.** Over the course of 2024, I developed a way to land 80% to 90% of the fish, which wasn't crossing their eyes, as I tried that and just didn't have the footing under me to do it well. A canoe is the opposite of a bass boat weighing thousands of pounds, where you're standing on a casting deck. A long, 32-pound canoe is slippery. It slides over the water. Newton's physics are at play. For every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Crossing their eyes means my canoe is yanked toward the bass, substantially negating my hook set. So, I de-emphasized hook-setting and focused on playing the bass well, which meant not giving them a milli-second of slack and keeping them underwater and off-balance as much as possible. Keeping my line taut sets the hook in the course of the fight, I'm guessing, for by the time they reach my canoe, it's solidly in them. Maine bass pull hard. One of my favorite YouTubers, Old Lady Angler, fishes both Florida and Maine and all the states in-between and she noted in an early 2024 Maine video how hard Maine bass pull. They'll set the hook if you can stay connected to them. I am not suggesting this for everyone. If you're standing on casting deck or on shore, whale away, but if you're on the aquatic equivalent of a skateboard, a canoe, focus on your mechanics. *One or two even reported landing 100% of their bass. **To cut myself a little slack, I was fishing reeds, which are as fibrous as an oak tree and as dense as a jungle. When I hooked them, they were surrounded by dozens of reeds and each one could free them. P. S. - I started watching the Ken Smith video embedded above. At one point, he's struggling to land a 14" bass in weeds. And when he does land it, he says, "Well, that was a fiasco for a 14" fish." He also mentioned missing some bigger fish due to "funky" hook setting angles. I've been there, Ken. Even when it's utterly calm and you've coasted to a complete stop, just retrieving my lure will rotate my canoe, producing funky hook setting angles. P. P. S. - At the end, Ken says, "If you can catch them in a kayak, you can catch them in a bass boat. If you can catch them in a bass boat, maybe you can catch them in a kayak."

I should post in this forum in 2025. It's the closest thing to a Maine forum. It's good to see some fellow paddlers.

Wow! Whadda deal.

@Koz: I'm glad you've got those good memories! Did you fish for bass when you lived here?

@gimruis: Good looking boat, truck, lawn, house, and dog. I don't think I've seen a photo of your wife, but I can't imagine her looking like this:

Yeah, sure, that's the ticket.

I just bought myself a new PFD. I've been wearing the same one for 40 years. I also just bought @TOXIC's Gerber tether, so thanks for the suggestion. It'll go on my new PFD.

Setting Sun a few nights ago.