Swamp Girl

@T-Billy: I'm glad you understand, Tim. I have learned so much about wrangling LMBs from swamps in the last 2.5 years, so a part of me is learning-exhausted. Time and again, when I don't know what to do, I apply something that one of you said and it generally gets me back to bass catching instead of just bass fishing. I don't know if you remember telling me this a couple years ago, but you told me to pitch my underspins into reeds. I NEVER would have attempted that, given how thick and fibrous reeds are, but the very next time I fished after that, I caught a four-pounder in the reeds and have caught hundreds more bass since then in the reeds. Hooking them is the easy part: Wrenching them out is where the work begins! Again, you advised me to get their heads up and keep them atop the water...and that works. You only have a fraction of second to do that, but if you do, you can yank them out of the jungle. When I fish the jungle, I apply my strength, which is accurate casting to hit the wee open spots. They're in those open spots! I'm sure they're in the weeds too, but time and again, I'm catching those bass deep in the weeds too. How do I know? Because I see the V's coming out of the weeds to where my lure is twitched in an opening. You know I own a heavy casting rod with 50 or 60 lb. braid, all spooled and ready to pitch. I expect I'll use it someday, but I'm also a little afraid. That fraction of a section I'll have to get them to the surface will be cut in half, I'm guessing. We'll see.

Tim, I am always torn between wanting to learn something new and wanting to continue catching bass in the ways that work for me. I read this recently: Well, my 3.5-hour total yesterday morning was 92 inches and that was me doing pert near everything wrong: Canoes are antiquated. Spinning gear isn't used for big surface lures. My canoe is just an empty hull: no electronics or camera rigs or motor. And I don't have twenty different rods for twenty different kinds of lures. I'll tie 20 different kinds of lures onto each of my rods. And some of my reels are 40 years old. So, a big part of me shrugs at fishing with different equipment and different lures, thinking, "Why bother? I probably won't catch more." And another part of me wants to continue learning.

I hear ya, Mike. When I couldn't see the line, I had to be super alert for any changes in line tension.

If you read my trip reports, you know I was a Whopper Plopper angler who became an underspin/Crush City Mayor angler. I now use these two lures less than 5% of the time because I've read your accounts of bass learning not to hit certain lures. Because the Whopper Plopper is so fun and the underspin is so versatile, I don't want the bass I catch to learn these lures, thus I've been fishing flukes, Mepps spinners, T-rigged worms, walking baits, poppers, spinnerbaits, wacky Senkos, etc. recently. Do you ever put lures on sabbatical for the same reason?

I wish I could share a favorite color, but light or dark, sparkly or matte, they all seem to work equally well.

That's the key, isn't it? I was fishing a Senko two days ago at high noon and the Sun made it very difficult to see my line.

@T-Billy: Tim, I just watched a video about pitching from a seated position and I think I can learn it. My question is this: Below those surface weeds are weeds all the way to the bottom and the bottom is only two to four feet down. Will my lure immediately tangle in weeds and if so, why would a bass still hit it? I caught my fish yesterday hitting the little breaks in the weeds with a surface lure and then getting their heads up and skating them across the top of the water like you taught me. Caveat: I did catch my biggest girl in the old river channel, for I was fishing a dammed river, and the old river channel, while weedy, isn't choked with weeds like the adjoining water.

@12poundbass: I'm sure you won't be the only one my name change will confuse, but Swamp Girl fits me better. I don't even know what Ol' Crickety meant! I can catch bass in open water, of course, but it feels like playing golf on a course without trees, rough, sand traps, and water.

@Team9nine: Hey, you're fishing like me!

Ha! No worry. I just checked The Book and you've got decades ahead of you.

I don't remember you filming me, @gimruis, but thanks for getting my good side!

I'm always alert for big fish hangouts, but where I fish, the bigger bass and smaller bass share territory.

I just sent you the name of the lake, Bob. Find it on Google Earth and we can chat about it. @swamppeoplesticktogether!

@king fisher: That was a good story, king. Thanks!

Thanks, @Rockhopper! I'm guessing that some will wonder where Ol' Crickety went.

Me too! I wonder if I can change it. Paging, @TnRiver46. I am glowing after reading your praise, Tom. I've fished Lake of the Woods too, Tom, as well as dozens of other lakes in that region. It makes me sad that I might never smell that air again. Thanks, @Mobasser!

As a free guide, I always put my "client" in the bow of my canoe and most of my time is spent positioning the canoe to make their casting easier, netting their fish, coaching, and scanning the water in case bass are rising. Like some of the professional guides who posted in this thread, I will cast different lures to determine what the bass want and if I catch a bass on a new lure, I immediately hand it to my "client." Considering I charge nothing, a professional guide should do everything I do and more. I'd hire @king fisher in a New York nanosecond.

Ah, I see. I know how that goes. It's why I can't fish Ontario anymore. Sigh. I was going to give you the name and location of a lake where I actually caught more than 250 bass per day for two straight days. I think I could have done it a third straight day, but I was too tired to try. I fished barbless and didn't even remove them from the water to expedite releasing them.

No need to just dream. PM me and I'll give you some 100-bass-per-person-per-day lakes in northern Ontario, east of Kenora, which you can reach with a four-wheel drive vehicle. You would have to sleep in a tent. Frankly, Maine is Ontario lite. Me too! This morning's bog gets fished on the weekends, but launch in the dark on a weekday and it's all yours.

If @Blue Raider Bob is a swamp boy, raised in the swamp with mud in his veins, then I've become a swamp girl by dint of all the time I spend in swamps and my love of them. Here's where I fished this morning: Here's the biggest girl I caught: These two were almost as long: I caught them respectively on a spinnerbait, a popper, and a Googan Revolver. I have become skilled at extricating bass from weeds. Here's where the third bass lives: I cast the Googan Revolver in a narrow opening in the weeds and surfed the bass to the canoe. Keep their head up and reel like crazy, @T-Billy said. I caught mid-sized bass too. Here are a couple: I pulled this little bass out of wood: And for old time's sake, I lipped and gripped this one too. Actually, I just wanted an excuse to photograph the island behind it: 35 in all. Numbers-wise, the best morning I've had in a while. Hopefully this pace will continue! I also caught bass on a fluke. I missed bass on a frog. If @Pat Brown is a 10 at frog fishing, I'm a 0. A pretty pic to close my report. That's the river channel in the foreground. Thanks for climbing into my canoe and fishing a morning in Maine with a swamp girl: P.S. - I have never fished alongside so many dinosaurs. There were Great blue herons, Bald Eagles, hawks, ospreys, kingfishers, and cormorants. There were geese and ducks too. It was wonderful. P.P.S. - As I fished this morning, I was acutely aware of how no bass boat will ever fish that water. No FFS will ever pinpoint its bass. Even my canoe bumped into two rocks and a prop would be fouled in seconds before its lower unit was sheared free. I like that there are places only paddlers can go.

I have no problem with catching and eating fish. I just wish I liked to eat bass. I invite people to fish my pond and keep some fish, albeit the smaller ones.

Yeah, that happens and there's nothing you can do about it when it does. Thanks for being open to a delayed hooksetting.

I used only Owners for months, but they just couldn't survive the beatings of casting them into wild rice and reeds and wrenching out four and five-pounders. So, as I wrote earlier, I went with VMC. I know it looks the same, but it'll catch a hundred bass before losing the spinner: https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/VMC_Heavy_Duty_Weighted_Willow_Swimbait_Hook_2pk/descpage-VMCHDW.html With just about every other topic, I think the BR members know a lot more than me, but when it comes to underspins, I've fished them through thickets and caught hundreds and hundreds of bass with them just this year and last year too. So, again I urge you to wait a sec before setting the hook.I don't have bass swallow the bait when I wait, but I sure land a higher percentage.

Spankey, I pretty much do just ^this^ with my trip reports, which, come winter, I'll reread and wonder, "What if...?" For sure.

Another reason to count is that every story worth telling is one of struggle. If you're skunked or catch one or two or even ten small ones, that sets up the big one. The meager counts showcase your tenacity and lay the way for your creativity and adaptability.