Swamp Girl

Wise.

I'm stiffer, weaker, and have less energy each year, Alex. Balance also worries me. Mine is still pretty good, but I'm always on uneven ground, lugging gear and a canoe in the woods, often in the dark and always alone, stepping on slippery rocks and roots. On the water, I'm always in tippy canoes. I look at the photos of some of the BR guys standing on perfectly flat and stable bass boats and sigh. You understand Alex that you're extraordinary. You're still kayak fishing in your eighties. Most octogenarians couldn't situate their selves in a kayak seat, much less rise from it after hours of fishing. Most octogenarians don't fish alone. Heck, most octogenarians don't fish. I can't imagine canoe fishing in my eighties, but I'm hoping...and stretching...and walking. On one of my last fishing trips this year, the one where I caught 56 bass and two jumbo yellow perch, I paddled a couple miles into the wind and landed my canoe on a slick, sloped bank. I put my hands on the gunnels and transferred by weight to the slanted mud and rock. I tried to stand and plopped on my bum. So then I really focused on standing and wobbled up. You get stiff sitting in a canoe all morning. However, here are three of the bass I caught and such fish don't stop tugging at you once you're unhooked and released them and the humiliation of landing on my bum into mud is a small price to pay to dance with such gals:

They are big and they are mean and you are teaching them to respect the furry hat.

Are you at peak bassing? If so, why? If not, when were you? I am at peak bassing. I don't have youth's vigor and strength, but I do have decades of experience and that savvy matters more than vigor and strength. Of course, I miss being able to launch at four in the morning and fish until eleven and launch again at five and fish until ten for a total of 12 hours a day, day-after-day, but I'd bet against my younger, peppier self besting my older, tattered, cagier self. Caveat: I do think I'll be past peak in a few, short years, as you do need a modicum of energy, strength, and agility to consistently catch bass.

I believe Pat's assertion that bass can be caught under any conditions, but I still pick my spots because I'm mostly retired and because I want to cast more than I paddle, which a windy day won't allow me to do. When I fished from bigger boats with motors and anchors, I've had some incredible fishing on windy days. I miss fishing the wind, but I'm too old to carry anything heavier than my 32-pound canoe. I have had recent success catching bass on sunny mid-days, but whereas I might average a bass every five or six minutes at dawn, I'm more likely to average a bass every fifteen minutes when the Sun is high.

I believe everything you wrote if you are skilled.

A Zebco 33 would be fine for 14" bass in open water with good line, but I couldn't catch anything above 2.5 pounds when I used Zebcos.

I agree with Catt and @Tennessee Boy. I also agree with @Columbia Craw about getting more bites makes bites easier to detect. However, you all know I get a LOT of bites and there are still times I'm left wondering. Whereas a lure ticking weeds might fool a newcomer and no longer fools me, when it feels like my lure is no longer being retrieved through water, but something of slightly higher viscosity, that can leave me wondering and sometimes I'm slow to sweep set. Then there are the times when the angle of your line relative to where you cast and your rod tip isn't right. There's no thump, no tick, no increase in pressure, but your lure is off just a little, location-wise. Those are two examples of times I suspect a hit, but I'm nearly certain that we all get hits we miss. I learned that lesson early when I was retrieving a lure in a farm pond parallel to the shore and a bass bolted out of the weeds, inhaled my lure, ejected my lure, and I felt nothing. I'm assuming that something similar has happened thousands of times since.

Where I fish, when the Sun is up and the sky is clear, I look down and see the bottom. Conversely, I look up and see eagles and ospreys. The raptors see even better than me, so they can see the bottom and the bass too. I've seen the raptors dive on bass and I've seen bass in their talons. I once parked beneath a tree to watch an eagle eat its bass. Anything that lowers the light, like clouds, relaxes the bass and gives them the confidence to be predator rather than prey. So, my three best fishing partners are night, clouds, and rain.

I'm so glad! Other than being sneaky in a swamp, I don't think I've much to teach. I still don't know most of the lures that the other BR anglers use. Thanks again, but I'm 68. The only thing Snow Whitey about me is my hair.

Throttle back on your birthdays. Too many birthdays each year and you'll be living in Geezertown lickety-split!

Russ, your biggest bass sure looks healthy. Thanks for showing us where you caught them too!

I love your dad.

@Pumpkinseed Lizard: I love that you and your boy caught them from the same rock.

Yep, buckle up. Maine is brimming with bass. Purty too.

I judge fishing by size, numbers, the animals I saw that morning*, how well I paddled, the joy of walking through the woods, how the rising Sun slowly lighted the young day, being in a quiet place away from the hurly-burly of people, and how well I cast. *Canada geese, beavers, ducks, deer, and a snapping turtle yesterday morning with owls, woodpeckers, and ospreys heard

Then you haven't lost the wonder, my friend. Ah, we had the same childhood! I sure smiled when I read this sentence. I pity kids who spend their childhoods inside walls. When I was 15, my dad took my brother and me to a wilderness island at the end of the most northern road in Ontario and left me there for five weeks. When he came for the boat, he brought my bike and I rode home with my brother. That's the way kids should be raised, feral and free.

That's a bass-catching sky, Russ.

I fished with my brothers by tying our pistol-gripped fiberglass rods and Zebco reels to our bikes and fishing Ohio farm ponds We mostly waded, casting Creek Chub Plunkers, a wooden popping lure, and rubber worms with a couple pre-rigged hooks. We nearly always caught some bass. Once I caught 21, a record for me. I always wanted to catch a 17-incher like my brothers caught. I hooked and lost a few because I knew nothing about setting the drag and the drag on my Zebco 606 was junk. I was 17 or 18 when I caught my first 17-inchers. I enjoy much better fishing nowadays, but I have nothing but fond memories of those first years. How about you?

I always wear a PFD and I appreciate the times when you've urged other BR members to wear theirs. I once got some great overhead shots of a kayaker surfing waves, but my editor said he couldn't use them because the guy wasn't wearing a PFD. I admired his position.

Amen, brother.

All true, Kirtley. Plus, on shore, you can walk here and there and stretch. In a canoe, I get so stiff.

Fine write-up and what a video, Andy!

Hmm, this is all new to me. I am VERY wind sensitive because my canoe is wide and long, making the wind my bully, but I have never noticed that a wind from the east affects my catching. I don't like north winds, but love south winds.

I'd like a workbench with great lighting where I could fiddle with my tackle. That's it.