Swamp Girl

That's fury and flurry fishing.

Wow! 25-30 pounds in 30-45 minutes...and I thought I had great fishing.

@PhishLI: I didn't know you moved to Brazil! I'm assuming you were fishing backwaters of the Amazon.

TOM!!!!

Amen.

Pat and I are fast fishers. If we ever fish together, we'll need someone to shout as we launch, "And they're off!" I thought about what I wrote and I think bass boat anglers with Pratt & Whitney jet engines would chuckle at a guy fishing from shore with his kid and an old woman in a canoe considering themselves to be fast anglers.

For @Catt, the swamp boy: Conway: Well, the ol' boy he came from deep in the swamp. Loretta: Didn't dare look at the girl, she was sure to womp Conway: So, he sent her a redfish and crawfish for stew. Loretta: But in his swampy heart, he knew she was more than he could chew. Chorus: Oh, a swamp girl bites worse than any old snapper And when she grows old, she becomes quite a yapper But a swamp boy can't help it, she's his one true love When he looks at her, all he sees is a gentle, sweet dove.

You're a swamp boy and I'm a swamp girl.

I'm looking around for bass. There are clues. In the process of looking for bass, I see the birds and am happy. I did just ^this^ yesterday with a spinnerbait and jig. They preferred the spinnerbait, so now it's one of my confidence lures. I expect the same thing will happen with a jig one day, when the bass don't want something as flashy as a spinnerbait. Not always true. The pattern I'm seeing right now is bass feeding on shad at a certain location. They come in 15-30 minute intervals and it's totally dead in between. I'm bank fishing and watch boats pass the spot all the time, casting a couple times at the bank as they pass through. I think you're both right, depending upon the moment. Sometimes it's best to scoot. Other times it's best to change your approach/angle/lure. How do we know? We don't, but guessing sure is fun. ^This^ is my approach. Paddling is my best bass fishing skill because good paddling gives me good distance and positions the boat. Casting accuracy is my other top notch skill. I hit the slots and spots and have a good sense as to what the slots and spots are. No lie: There are times when I cast to a spot and because it looks soooooooo similar to other spots where I've caught fish, I ready myself for the coming hit...and I'm usually right. As unpredictable as bass can be, some spots are prime, whatever the weather or time.

I used to do that with white bass. It was so exciting. It comforts me that there's a place where electronics don't work, just as I'm comforted by bass boats being unable to be launched at the places I fish.

So true. In Maine, nothing stays the same from day-to-day. Those bass are always moving. For example, yesterday morning, the bass wanted noisy/flashy lures, but to realize this, I had to cycle through quieter/duller lures. This song should be the anthem for bass anglers: Do these two baits let you probe the entire water column? I've found that sometimes bass are looking up and sometimes bass are looking down and sometimes bass are looking straight ahead.

I admire this. That's the ticket. When I net a bass, I keep it in the net until everything in my canoe is ready to unhook it, take a photo, and release it, so I position the pliers and even open them and turn on the camera. If I'm going to measure the fish, I have the bump board ready too. I bet I do 30 seconds or less too.

Skill is using both live bait and artificial lures. Let me explain: I used to fish for white bass on the Mississippi. I'd drift with two rods and minnows. Both rods would go down, I'd set the hooks, and then I'd immediately cast a jig and set that hook. Where's the skill? Well, it isn't easy to land three bass on three rods and especially when they're zig-zagging white bass.

August, I would never spend an hour fishing one way in one spot to not catch a bass. I skitter. My canoe is always loaded with six to seven rods, each with a different lure, and I rotate through all of them until I crack the code. Usually the answer is in using one of the seven rods at the right place on the pond/bog. Of course, as @Zcoker wrote, it's important to enjoy the ride. That's why, in nearly every trip report I write, I share a photo or three of the glories I saw and I also often share what animals I was lucky enough to see.

I know many anglers use FFS to locate bass, but our senses can also find them. An example: Last night, I only had an hour and fifteen minutes to fish, so I tried these places: A stretch of fertile water that is often loaded with bass. My count? 1 bass A reef with both muddy and rocky bottom, so it attracts both SMBs and LMBs. My count? 1 hit The dropoff from the reef. My count? 1 fine SMB that jumped and threw the lure. A grouping of lily pads in 5' to 6' of water. My count? Skunked. So, in four, prime places, I'd caught one bass and the clock was ticking because I don't like walking through the woods alone at night. I decided to burn about five minutes paddling across the pond to a marshy shoreline. I knew that bass liked to hunt parallel to that shoreline in wolf packs at dusk, but when I reached it, I saw no feeding bass. So, I simply paddled quietly along the marshy shoreline and watched. Up ahead, I saw a wave of slight ripples coming out of an opening in the marsh. I hadn't heard a fish feeding, but I figured the waves were made by a feeding bass, so I positioned my canoe for a cast, lobbed my underspin into the opening, and it was fish on. Repeating that pattern, I caught another six bass in eight casts and picked up my ninth bass on the paddle back. Here's one of the indentations and that first bass: I'm wondering when one of your senses clued you to the location of bass, something you saw or heard that broke the code for you.

The Mayor shakes her tail like this gal:

@IcatchDinks: Fishing with the Mayor is Crick fishing. Now, if you were fishing in a creek, you were Crick-crick fishing.

I heard one angler encourage other anglers to hold their breaths as soon as they remove a bass from the water as a reminder that the bass isn't breathing.

I feel badly about your one inch deduction. They were too fussy. Bass are ornery, strong-willed creatures. They do what they want to do. Deducting a full inch for something that might have given you 0.03 millimeter advantage doesn't serve the spirit of the law and certainly doesn't protect bass. Do they want you to wait another minute for the bass to be so oxygen-deprived that it's more pliable and submits? As far as pounding the cypresses, I would have done the same thing. I've watched videos of guys fishing those trees and have dreamed of doing it because they...look...so...bassy. Anyway, congrats on the biggest bass. As far as I'm concerned, you tied for biggest bass. An inch? Sheesh. Here's an example of being pro-bass. When I snapped the photo below, the bass was thrashing, as they often are. I looked at the pic immediately after taking it, saw that I didn't capture her full length, but shrugged and let her go because she was drowning in air. The rules should take into account that bass aren't putty and not push anglers to deprive them of even more oxygen:

@bp_fowler: How sweet it is!

Six days ago, I had an iron infusion because of severe anemia. Well, today, I felt like my old self. I fished this morning from four in the morning until nearly ten, shoveled some pea gravel, visited some friends, worked on a couple articles, and then I WENT FISHING AGAIN, for just a little more than an hour and for the first half, I fretted because I always have to find the bass and I didn't know if an hour was enough time. So, I tried the two most likely spots and they weren't there. I only caught one. However, the third spot I tried was where they were and I caught another eight, all on an underspin with a white and chartreuse Rapala Crush City Mayor. Here are some of them, starting with a pic of where they were, i.e. the edge of the marsh. The second bass had a big head, but it wasn't as thin as it looks in the photo. It was gyrating.

You left Heaven!!!

@ATA: The color of that water is wild! @AndrewJ: Nice to have you in this thread, nice fish, and nice boat.

The Mississippi was such a roulette wheel. I loved not knowing what was tugging. I remember one day in particular: smb, lmb, walleye, sauger, white crappie, white bass, sheepshead, mooneye, and carp.

My takeaway from this thread is that Maine has much less diverse fisheries than other places.