Swamp Girl

If I were shore bound too, I'd be catching the same.

We're hoping with ya, Mickey! ^This^ makes sense. Thank you, sensei. Yeah, that'll be fine. I used to take my 14' Lund with a 10 HP engine on Lakes Michigan and Superior. Colder than Maine this morning. I think it was mid-fifties when I launched.

I think I caught 17. Some thick ones.

@ol'crickety catches 19-inchers and she's thrilled. @Fried Lemons catches 19-inchers and he says, "...just not the size I was after."

You should do great, Mickey. Here's what Inland Fisheries and Wildlife says about Cobboseecontee: "Cobbossee Lake is noted for its outstanding smallmouth and largemouth bass fishing. Many of the state's largest bass have come from this lake and it is considered one of the best bass lakes in the Northeast." It's a big lake, so you'll have a big enough boat, right? I'd love to fish it, but a lake that big would take my lunch money and stuff me in a locker. Davy Jones's Locker! My only chance in my lightweight canoe would be a bay inside a bay inside a bay. Anyway, I'm glad you're coming north! It's cool up here.

It is a glass rod. I like it a lot. I use it with my surface lures. I think it keeps the bass buttoned a bit better than a carbon rod. I'll have to check and see if it's an SC Legend Tournament 7 mm rod.

Alex. Alex. Alex. Alex. Alex. Alex. I am a fan of ^this^ man.

He hypothesized why fishing is harder in August because it's peak shad time, meaning there's an all-you-can-eat buffet in the water, but I don't recall him explaining why they're shallow, just that his experience has taught him that some of them are in skinny water. Twiggy skinny!

@whitwolf: Always glad to read about the fishing life of another swamp rat. There are a number of us at BR.

I've been wondering why my catching rate dropped this month. I looked at my 2023 trip reports and saw the same thing happened last August. So, I assumed that that's the deal for August, but still, I wondered if there was something I could/should differently, so I watched a Mike Iaconelli video about fishing late August and he basically confirmed my fishing style: long casts, being quiet, fishing on the surface, and fishing shallow. In his video, he fished a walk the dog bait. I own some, but have never caught anything on them. So, I tried one again this morning and caught my first bass on this style lure. Here are two of them: You can see the bait in both their mouths. Here's a close-up: See the giant fluke with the missing head? Well, I cast that and caught a 17" smallie on my first cast, but it shredded the head, so I bit it off. On my next cast, I caught a 17" lmb, but the lure was shot at that point and that was the only one I had. Anyway, back to Mike Iaconelli. In his video, he emphasized fishing shallow, so that's what I did. And I caught this bass in a foot of water. Then I caught this girl in six inches of water. Pity she was squirming, but she was a fat 19"+ girl. Yep, I saw her coming in that shallow water and that was so exciting. A couple four-pounderish fish in wading water! Now some pond shots. First, the fog. Now some reeds and shoreline. Lastly, open water. Sick of pretty pics? Okay, here's a wacky worm bass, long and skinny. Some of the skinny bass I catch are the hardest fighters and this one sure was. I also caught bass on an underspin, a loon-colored Whopper Plopper, and a spinnerbait. I caught 25 in all and here was my last bass. Thanks, Mike, for reminding me to walk the dog and encouraging me to fish in crazy shallow water! Thanks, BR anglers, for going fishing with me yet again. The weirdest thing about fishing shallow water was netting my two biggest bass. I had to scoop the net under the bass and there was nearly no water under them.

I sure scored this morning in shallow water, catching my two biggest in six inches of water and twelve inches of water.

I'd sell folding chairs at the launch point and distract refs...for a price. Okay, I'm going fishing. Just in case, I'm going in my loader, like Ripley used in Aliens.

I'm guessing that drones with sonar are what comes next. An angler would launch a squadron of drones, which would drop transducers into the water across a body of water, and then AI would sort in a nanosecond which bass to target first, second, and so on. This technology already exists. It would be simply a matter of marrying a transducer to a drone, presided by A.I. Fishing, sound-wise, would be like sticking your head into a hornets' nest, with the angry whine of drones drowning out all the sounds of nature. The 300 hp engines would be the percussion for this heavy metal band. To make it truly competitive, anglers should also launch fighter drones, to seek and destroy competitors' drones. Boats could be equipped with electromagnetic pulse cannons to disable competitors' boats. Game on! At this point, I might actually watch a tourney.

I fish with telephone poles, which explains why they don't break. 😉

Yeah, I catch a few. I've always had a knack for catching bass. It helps to have a sneaky canoe. I get so close to them.

I'd rather see FFS brought to baseball, albeit radar than sonar (FFR) and radar so powerful that it would read how the pitchers are holding the ball.

And my 32-pound canoe is starting to feel like a 60-pound canoe!

It's been a good summer, but really a tale of two summers. June and the first half of July produced a lot of 40 to 75-bass mornings and evenings. Then the numbers steadily dropped and now I'm averaging 15 to 25-bass mornings and evenings. Size-wise, it wasn't as good as last summer with the six-plus pounders, but I did catch a lot of four-pounders this summer, more than I cared to count. In-Fisherman says that a four-pounder in Maine is equivalent to a 6.25-pounder in the South, so if that's true, I caught a LOT of six-pounders this year! Heh. My mechanics have improved. I hook more bass and land more bass. And I'm much more confident in weeds than I was last summer or the summer of 2022. I also learned a lot about the pond where I bought property. I can take someone fishing and tell them where to cast to catch bass and that's fun, putting pals on fish. I also caught my PB in the spring, but that's another season.

Google says that the average annual income for a national bass angler is $35,000. If that's true, Mr. Wendlandt is a little below average. I do find his position, as articulated in his letter, convincing. When Bonds, Sosa, and others juiced to hit baseballs farther, I, like many other fans, stepped away from the game. Same with Lance Armstrong. Sure, they broke records, but only because they were enhanced. Sure, today's pros are landing unprecedented catches, but only because they're electronically enhanced. The difference, of course, is that Bonds and Armstrong cheated and the bass pros are playing by the rules, but they're still similar in that they're breaking records using electronic technology whereas the athletes used chemical technology.

It will be interesting to see how the young tech-savvy cats fare.

Sounds like a plan!

Clark said he almost won the tournament with FFS. Therefore, he knows how to use it. "Belief without evidence is a sign of irrationality"-Sam Harris Where is your evidence that he doesn't know how to use it?

I believe you. If you ever figure a way to turn back time, let @Bazoo and the others know how to do it too. Sing it, Cher.

I would love to set aside woods and water for such people. It would be theirs to use exclusively. No responsible people would ever arrive to oversee it or clean it. And they wouldn't have access to any pristine woods or water. They'd be restricted to their de facto dumps.

Thank you, @BrianMDTX and @Bankc. I really enjoyed reading your memories.