Swamp Girl

If I had a chance to fish Lake Erie with Dwight for a possible six or even seven-pound smallmouth or return to Ontario, the province, not the lake, I'd pick Ontario because it's an adventure with stages. There's the logging roads: When the signs warn you, heed! Those logging trucks drive fast and they own the roads: There will be streams to cross and one stream I crossed was about 10' from a waterfall. Scary! And there are puddles too. I wear my Mucks and walk every puddle to determine if it's a trap. Then you reach the portage trail and sometimes there's not even a trail, so we walk it first and mark the route with orange tape that dissolves over time. Then you reach this! Sure, the smallies top out at five pounds, at least for me, but the total package is so exciting for me. So, if I had a 30-year old buck who never complained in the rain and could carry a canoe through a swamp while inhaling mosquitoes without complaint, I'd go with Ontario, but in a world where all my dreams come true, I'd fish Ontario and Erie!

I will fix this for you, Bob. Soon. You'll be in the bow and I'll aim you at the bass. I'll be your FFS: Fish Finding Sonar.

They're all fine fish, but the last one has the distended jaw and bulging eyes, which are features of big girls.

That's what happened to @Choporoz too. Like him, you also landed a big girl. You could fit your fist in the mouth of the bass on the bottom.

That surprises me because you're so consistently successful and in tournament after tournament, you win at the end. I agree. I think Joe does too, which is why he's looking for ways to stay upbeat when things aren't going his way. Another thing I do, Joe, is to launch with six rods. Sometimes seven. I figure that one of them will have the lure that bass want and weirdly, sometimes it is JUST one. I'll catch all my bass with one lure and the other six won't work. If your boat has room, rig and take ten rods and make sure you have lures for the entire column.

When you fish from the bank, you're standing on a guhzillion bluhblillion tons of soil and rock. So, even if you're Irish dancing in tap shoes, there's so much matter to absorb the energy of your footfalls. However, in a boat, there's thin sheet of aluminum, steel, fiberglass, or plastic between you and the water. You're also nested in the water, so if you bang the butt of a rod against your boat, your entire boat vibrates, sending sound in all directions and notifying the bass that you're there. My confidence increases when I haven't bumped my boat. My confidence further increases with long casts and as @scaleface observed, my lures alight in the water, not plop. I have caught so many bass at the very ends of my longest casts. Also, troll. You will move your boat at various times to fish another area, so troll along the way. Trolling not only catches bass, but it finds structure for those of us without electronics. I could take you fishing at my pond or my pal's pond and say, "This is a good spot. I don't know why, but there are bass here." Yep, I found my good spots by trolling. When you find a good spot, if you don't have electronics, triangulate with landmarks.

Great point and this is one reason why I troll when paddling to the next spot. I want a line in the water 99% of the time I'm on the water.

That's crazy cool, Choppy!

Oh, no, Craig!

If 20 of us respond, you'll be given 21 different approaches. @Lottabass scores big by working structure. @padlin really works an area. @Pat Brown applies his bass whispering wisdom to put his lures where the bass are most likely to be. And so on. Well, I'm a mover. See the wetlands below: A more patient angler than me might allocate a dozen or more casts to all the bassy possibilities above. I might cast half a dozen times at most, but more likely two or three casts. I'm looking for the most active bass. So, I paddle, cast a few times and repeat, repeat, repeat. And whereas I might often have a general idea of where bass are supposed to be, about every tenth cast is into a place that appears to offer no structure or cover...just to check. I'm so excited that you're buying a boat, Joe!

I quit musky fishing because of the wear and tear on my body. I remember just laying my rod on the gunnels and taking a break because it hurt to cast. So, no, I don't feel the pull. I did buy one bluegill swimbait that @PhishLI suggested and it's caught some bass, but it's small compared to what some of you throw.

Smart. You range. I have fished for decades with an anchor, so I'm familiar with the pluses and minuses, but being open to drifting and anchoring is the best approach.

I've never fished Quetico, but I've nibbled at its edges, fishing Crown Land lakes on its borders, so I know and love the Canadian Shield.

I have to walk through the woods with my gear to reach my boats. An anchor would be one more thing in an already crowded, small boat and it would be additional weight to paddle. When you describe not anchoring as "lazy," you don't account for different fishing styles and situations. Dropping an anchor and raising it in a small boat is oh-so different than your situation. If the water is cold and I'm fishing from my slender, tippy Kevlar boat, dropping and raising an anchor is dangerous. In my more stable boats, it's still awkward. For example, at my pond, to reach open water, I have to squeeze my canoe through a narrow inlet in the dark with woody bushes on both sides trying to snag every loose item. An anchoring system running atop the gunnels would be one more thing for the bushes to snag. An anchor on the kayak at my pal's pond would be 15 more pounds to drag into and out of the water.

I lug my gear through the woods in the dark and paddle miles every time I fish.

You are thorough. I skitter.

I always drift. I don't even carry an anchor. It takes time to drop it and raise it and it would be one more thing I'd have to carry and paddle.

Hardcore.

Okay, I just want you to know that I'll be the founder of the New England branch of the Geo G Fan Club.

She sure looks pre-spawn to me. Again, she's a river fish and not just any river, but the Columbia.

Big tides, COLD and deep water, ocean winds, and quite wide. I made the mistake of crossing a big lake in northern MN in October. I did it to save time, but halfway across, the wind kicked up and it was horrible. When I finally reached shore, the waves were crashing, so I stumbled out of the boat in the surf, was knocked to my knees, and literally crawled ashore.

For those who are interested in how you assemble an article, you have a chat with your subject, but nearly all subjects ramble, as people do in conversations. So, if I were to quote them exactly, it would be a wandering and challenging read. You can't change what they said, but I can move what they said to make it easier to read. So, as a writer, I have to determine what needs to be moved and where and then write some short segues to connect the parts. I've had more than one person whom I profiled respond: "It's me, only better!" So, an article is actually nearly all of them, but just shifted and I drop the parts that went nowhere or were repetitive.

Your bigger ones are bigger than any smallies I've caught in Maine. I know the Dalles well as I had family in Sandy and Gresham. That's a heckuva day for river bass, which can't pack on the weight like lake brownies and especially lake brownies eating gobies. You'd win a lot of kayak tourneys with those numbers. I have had days like that. I've also had days when I land 90% of what I hook. I think such variance is due more to the fish than the fisher.

Cool photos with this one: https://www.mensjournal.com/travel/rides-anders-thygesens-aleut-style-iqyax

I didn't have a single Dobyns break in 2025.