Swamp Girl

@Bankc: What you wrote makes total sense to me. I studied the brain and creativity in graduate school. Innovation doesn't come from nothing. It comes from what we already know being transferred to what we don't know. Did you see the movie, "A Brilliant Mind"? In it, the Russell Crowe character is able to borrow from a pretty girl with plain pals walking into a bar to develop a new theory. He borrows from what he sees to what he heretofore couldn't see. Robert Redford, who directed "A River Runs Through It," did something similar with Brad Pitt, who mastered metronome-based fly fishing to launch his own style. He bridged from the familiar to the novel.

Woody is right. I don't know the names of lures like most do at Bass Resource, but I can hit the pockets without making a racket. Some pockets are so small that it doesn't matter what lure you're using. Bass in tight quarters don't have time to study a lure. Their bite is a reaction. I've caught many fish where I felt I'd cast into their mouths. The lure hit the water and the bass was hooked. I fish best when I cast without thinking. If I think, "Gosh, that spot is tight," I might not hit it. Here's where I fish. I hit the opening or I don't, just as the bass hit my bait or they don't, as they've only a quarter second to do so: You'll see in many of my bass pics where my canoe is up against a shoreline. The bass pull me there and they're not pulling me from the middle of the pond/bog, as I'm nearly always close to shorelines. They're in cubbies, waiting to ambush. An ambush is a reflexive attack. If you can't hit the cubbies, you can't catch 45/55/65/75 bass in Maine many mornings.

I could not fish a Ned in most of my ponds and bogs. I'd catch only weeds. Clayton, of all the bass that are posted in this thread, I think yours look the most like mine. We both catch thick fish. If I put them on a bump board, they really bulge, but I've come to fear the bump board because they don't always stay put and once they start flopping on the floor on my canoe, they can flop all the way to the bow or stern and getting them is not easy.

I launched at a small, boggy pond this morning, the pond where I caught my PB last spring. I have gone there again and again looking to catch that girl again or her big sister, but other than a few four-pounders, I have failed to dance with a big mama. This morning appeared to be perfect conditions with calm and fog. I caught 26 total, but my first 16 were the size of this bass, which was my first: Finally, my 17th bass was bigger: I was working weed fields: My 19th bass was solid too: I also caught some that were short, but fat: And one more thick fish. The requisite pretty pic: I finished the morning like I started, with another cookie cutter, smallish bass:

@Bluebasser86: Hear, hear for hard-pulling bass and an afternoon with your sweetheart!

Thanks, buddy! I love how we encourage each other although we're separated by a continent. Thousands of miles away, we're bound by a love of angling.

I'm with Bankbeater, casting the tried and true 90% of the time, but when something new cracks my rotation, like spinnerbaits, I'm casting that new lure so often that it's soon part of the tried and true. I agree with Alex that Southern bass see the tried and true ad nauseum and so you have to innovate more than northern bassheads. I have yet to cast an A-Rig and when I do, I expect the bass in the ponds and bogs I fish will be seeing it for the first time. I do own a couple. I just fear that they'll be hard to cast and retrieve, a little like musky lures.

I'm with Alex, Pat, Al, and GRiver. I'll even hand you my rod if I only have one of the hot lure. If you're in my boat, I want you to succeed. Like Pat, I'll tell you where to cast too...if you want the help. If you don't catch fish in the bow of my canoe, I'll feel like I failed, regardless of what I catch.

I think the dents are too perfect to be an injury. I think they're a birth defect. I love that fat bass!

I fished my pond for two hours this afternoon. Less than ideal conditions, as it was sunny and mid-day, but I managed to catch nine bass and because I only caught nine, I'll show them all. The first was 18", caught on a Molix titanium spinnerbait. It looks great in the water, BUT it only caught five bass before breaking, which is worse than my less expensive stainless steel spinnerbaits. I own another four of the Molix spinnerbaits and I sure hope they outlast my first one. Speaking of first, here's that first bass, caught on my second cast. A chunky girl: The second Molix spinnerbait bass also came about five feet from the shoreline. Not as long as the first at 17 inches, but also thick: Then I caught three smaller bass, all on the Molix. Timeout for a pretty pic! I then caught a dink. YIKES! The next one was an upgrade. This bass was short, but thick and powerful. Again and again, she tried to reach the woody bushes on the shoreline. I finished strong. I wish they'd just hang when I lip and grip them, but they're nearly always twisting and flopping. They fight in the water, in the net, and in my hands. I caught three of the final four on an underspin with a chartreuse Crush City Mayor. By the final fish, I had bit off the head of the the Mayor and lost the spinner blade. I also caught one bass on a wacky worm. I lost a nice lmb who jumped and a rare (for my pond) smallie on its third jump. I wish I'd landed that smallie because all the uncommon smallies from my pond are fat. I'm fishing the fog tomorrow morning and I am super excited about that! Fingers crossed for a big girl.

I also struggle with summer cuts and infection. I've got three things nicking me: a needle-toothed puppy, fishing, and gardening. One cut heals and two more open. Sigh.

Well, hey, Pastor Walker! Great to have you here. There are some bank-savvy anglers at Bass Resource. Tap their wisdom and you'll be hauling some big gals up your banks.

Thanks, guys. I fished mostly Mepps bucktails when I hunted muskies.

Thanks for sharing your summer with us, Pat. Jake will change so much in the coming year, but he has a ways to go before he can outfish his pops, who has such a nose for bass.

I don't even know what "ripped dawgs" means. A little help?

I'm so glad you appreciate the beauty. There are times I stop fishing and just witness...and smile. Probably not. I wanted to ride the wave this morning, but the rain forecast was changed to thunderstorms. So, it'll be tomorrow morning in the fog...again, which is more than fine, for I love fog fishing. It lets me be even sneakier. I'll be casting a big swimbait. Fingers crossed for a big gal!

Hi, Sota. I was born in Tacoma, so I know Washington well, but I suggest that you become really, really good at casting, I mean crazy good, becoming a cross-continental caster, and then cast to Maine because we have a lot of bass here. Just an idea. You know how bass are flipped into boats? Well, you'll have to flip your fish back to Tacoma. Good luck!

My spouse gave me the green light to purchase five acres of waterfront, not because we're flush with cash, but because of what it means to me and there isn't a day I'm not grateful. I was born in a trailer and raised three to a bed. Waterfront was beyond my imagining for nearly all my life.

I had no idea.

Kent had something similar happen with a smallmouth that might have been the new world record. She just wouldn't budge from the bottom. I've never hooked anything close to a world record, but I have hooked bass that were sooooooo strong...and then I lost them, either because I couldn't stop them from reaching weeds or because their head shakes were so strong that the wrenched free.

Until someone at Bass Resource canoes up the Amazon, fighting off bandits and wrestling anacondas to catch 20-lb. peacock bass, @T-Billy is the most hardcore of us, working full-time by day and catching muskies at night. When I fished for muskies, I fished wilderness lakes from canoes, which feels like child's play compared to night fishing, often alone, for 45" freshwater barracudas. And his wife sometimes fishes with him, so he managed to find a woman as hardcore as he is. Long live the King!

@TnRiver46 really knows how to live.

@TnRiver46: That's beyond fishing. That's adventure!

I love when @WRB writes about the glory days.

Holy leaper, Batman, that's the greatest fish story I've ever heard!