Swamp Girl

I use Rapala's long reach pliers:

If you can't catch 'em, Pat, they can't be caught...at least, right now.

Scott, how wonderful that you have a lake right beside your home. What lures do you use? Do you also use live bait? Are you in a wheelchair or do you have a prosthetic leg?

Me too, Cap'n. I roared when I was young, but I'm a sputtering jalopy now.

This thread's summary: Nothing and everything works.

^Hunchbass of Notre Dame.^

Ha! However, I suggest climbing into one of those barrels they used to ride over Niagara Falls.

Another aspect of the Canadian Shield, Imagine yourself doing this portage:

I've had many 100-bass days fishing the Canadian Shield and a couple days with over 250 bass. Yeah, the Canadian Shield is big too, stretching about 2,000 miles by 2,500 miles and has so many lakes that thousands of them are unnamed. I'm guessing that thousands of its lakes have never been fished. I once interviewed a couple who explores Ungava, which is most of Labrador and northern Quebec. Hudson Bay is its western border. Anyway, they took a couple world-class canoeists on an expedition with them and on the second day, the two world-class paddlers activated their Personal Locator Beacon for a premature extraction. They weren't hurt. They simply didn't want to die. So, whereas the Everglades has its perils and challenges, as I told @Zcoker once, there are far wilder, more challenging places. I interviewed another couple guys who paddled Ungava and they had a polar bear stick its head in their tent. "Was that the scariest moment?" I asked. "Not even close," they immediately replied. However, it's breathtaking in the best ways too. The Everglades has great fishing, but go far enough north and you'll find more great fishing. I'd like to fish it one day, but it's so gosh-darn far away and in the wrong direction. I'm a north woods angler. No moose, no Crick.

That sounds horrible.

@BluegillsTightlines: I wear a glove on my left hand with rubberized fingers, leaving my right hand free for knot tying and other fine motor tasks.

Three PBs in one day!

@ABrugs: Two over five beating your PB twice in one trip. Whoa!

I fished this morning with a pal and didn't count the fish or take pics, but we caught at least 40 and he had a great time. Lots of 2.5 to 3.5-pounders at my pond. I take pride in putting a pal in the bow and putting him on bass. He caught the majority because I focused on positioning the canoe, but I caught the two biggest, both just shy of 18 inches. We're going again on Thursday morning. I'll get some pics then.

How did a wolf spider bite you eight times?

If you wouldn't want to paddle/travel/fish/hang with @TnRiver46, there's something wrong with you.

That's a four-to-five-pounder every three minutes with no fish lost and every fish unhooked in seconds. Do you ever wonder if you're the world's best bass angler? I catch a lot of fish, but never eight-pounders back-to-back-to-back like you've shared you do. If you start filming your catches, you could monetize your fishing since, to my knowledge, no other angler alive catches what you do.

In my teenage years, I hated sleeping in my suburban bedroom so much that I slept in a tent in our backyard. Most people love walls, but not all.

I'll take a tent, sleeping pad, and sleeping bag. I'll be comfy. In aggregate, I've spent years of my life sleeping in tents. They're my home.

I'm excited to see them, @TnRiver46! With the new puppy, it's pretty hard to go fishing. I used to fish three to four times a week. Now, I try to fish once a week. He is, of course, worth it.

Fat, North Country bass! And look at that meal. YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just Googled it. 800 miles of shoreline. More than 67 square miles. Yeah, no place for a canoe.

@rangerjockey: You could buy so many canoes for the price of one used Ranger. I'm pretty sure that the user name, "canoejockey," is not taken.

I've heard that pennies-being-thrown-into-the-water-sound in the ocean when seals are chasing baitfish and an entire school of baitfish arc out of the water in flight. It sounds exactly like tossed pennies. I've just never heard it in freshwater ponds. I have seen and heard plenty of leaping shad, but in freshwater, they tend to leap one or two at a time and not in tight schools.

@ButchA: I'm so glad you heeded @gimruis's advice.