Swamp Girl

I love the humility in ^this.^ We all grew up watching Al Lindner or Jimmy Houston explaining how to catch bass and we all dreamed of being those guys, i.e. being paid to fish, but cockiness is too common for wanna-be's. You see it in so many angling YouTubers, where they'll catch ONE, measly fish and then address the camera to explain how we too can catch a bass if we just do everything they do. And every thing they say, they say with such surety, as opposed to Musky Tim, who opined above with rare, shining humility. In case ya can't tell, I'm a fan of humility. My other point is that one bass doesn't make a pattern. Nor do two. Catch a dozen or thirty in the same way and then talk about a pattern. When I was young and could fish mornings and evenings in northwestern Ontario, from four in the morning until eleven and again from five in the afternoon until ten, I'd average a hundred bass every day using the same lures and fishing the same places. That's a pattern deserving a YouTube channel, but I have no interest in that nowadays. Too old. I just want to catch fish, not explain how to catch fish in a boat that bristles with as many cameras as fishing rods.

Ah, a primitive angler like me isn't familiar with such tech. Thanks for explaining.

I'm not exactly a night angler like Catt, Zcoker, or T-Billy, but you've all seen photos of my bass caught in jet blackness, so I do fish the beginnings and ends of night, but not the even spookier middle. @HOV02 noted that bad guys can prowl at night, but it's been my experience that they're more likely to be on the prowl around midnight, but by four a.m., they're long gone. Many critters, on the other hand, are up all night and it can get noisy at night with their movements and cries. However, the spookiness is mostly in our heads, arising from a lifetime of acclimating to light and being told that it's dangerous at night. Your best defense against rare danger is your ears. Move slowly and listen. Bad guys and dangerous critters are all noisy.

Dog + Bass = A Perfect Day What is that hanging from your neck?

@Pogues2300: Thanks!

I was trying to skip my underspin. Good suggestion about the wacky worm. I'll do that.

She must be a heckuva hunter, huh?

The flag my canoe would fly would be all white.

ICD, well done! Give Pat a fist bump from Ol' Crick.

I'd let her go. Fame, shmame. Heck, I've already been put to the test. I think I caught the Maine state record chain pickerel and I released her. She was freaky fat.

Your cukes are WAY ahead of mine. Impressive!

I bet you're right, Alex, but I have a lot of lures in reserve.

Having caught hundreds of bass at my pond, I'm pretty sure of the following: The bass are bigger than the ones I caught three years ago. The bass are healthy and well fed, so even bigger bass are ahead. I haven't caught the biggest bass in the pond yet. I wear a glove on my left hand. It is beautiful, isn't it? I wish you could smell the pines, hear the loons, and watch the gusts of swallows

Alex, I'll think my position is all settled and then you'll opine and muddle me. Your new lure is wild!

I think reeling fast is essential. So many of them charge the boat. Then they pull like bulls from the boat. It amazes me that a 3-pound bass can pull my 85-pound canoe. If a bass jumps once, I drop the rod to discourage a second jump.

Thank you. That's a fine compliment. And I agree that tackle only takes you so far. Now, three years ago, I didn't even know what an underspin is, but today, it's my main lure, paired with various soft plastic paddletails (mostly Crush City Mayors, but also Keitechs), which I also didn't know existed three years ago. But watch a Crush City on an underspin and dang, no wonder the bass hit them. They wiggle more than Marilyn Monroe, plus I can throw them into a soggy briar patch and bring them back. I think of them as compact spinnerbaits and I can cast them half of forever. What's not to love? I know what my local bass like and whereas other BR members, from time to time, kindly suggest new lures, I think I'm pretty set. I'm consistent and catch quality fish, so the Bait Monkey can ride others. One more thing: I stood this morning and saw a beguiling marsh beyond a hump. It had wood and lily pads and skinny water. Still, I chuckled my underspin into it. That's how confident I am in it. I didn't hook a bass, but if I had, it would have given me a chance to land it.

This is me grooving in my canoe. Yes, my canoe is quite stable:

Pat, in soft plastics, I find a color that works and I ride that horse until it no longer works. Right now, it's chartreuse and pearl in a Crush City Mayor, but a week ago, it was red crawdad in the same lure and the week before that, green pumpkin. Do you do that too? I placed an order last night for more chartreuse and pearl, hoping there was another garish, weird choice, but there wasn't.

I place a tackle order about every three weeks, but I no longer buy new rods, reels, or lures beyond replacing soft plastic lures lost to wear and tear. My purchases also include other terminal tackle that gets lost, like line, hooks, sinkers, and snaps. I just have all the lures and rods that I need, beyond replacing a favorite lost lure. I might buy another reel or two one day as my old ones stop working. Has anyone else reached a point of similar stasis, where they're going with the hand they have? Or will the monkey ride you hard into your sunset?

@BrianMDTX: Ha! I'll do that!

Me too! However, she didn't fight much, which is very, very weird. She was a brown version of my big, green girl who also didn't fight much. Pat, I had my 50th hooked at the takeout, but it jumped and threw the lure and I shrugged my shoulders and went home.

I actually buy all my bass at a fish market and pose them in my canoe.

Two fine things happened this morning. I had to wait a bit for both to happen. I launched this morning in perfect weather at 4:30 a.m., but struggled to consistently catch bass. I did cobble 15 fish in the first three hours, but couldn't dial in to a particular pattern, using five lures to catch those bass. Then, in the last two hours, I found a pattern, which was retrieving my underspin with a Crush City Mayor in pearl and chartreuse parallel to the shore and about two feet from it. Earlier this year, I could drop my lures on their heads and they'd immediately gobble, but today, if I landed a lure on them, they'd bolt. I think they wanted a little look at what I was offering before they bit. The other fine thing that happened is that I kicked my landing percentage up a couple notches. I'm using a 5/0 hook and I finally realized I have to set the hook as if I'm trying to yank the ravenous Kraken off some puppies. Then I have to keep the rod high and reel like a dervish to keep them buttoned. I finished with 49. I start with a couple pretty pics of the lake, which is the pond where I own a 5-acre lot (The listing said 4.5 acres, but the plat map says 5 acres.): Then a wonderfully fat smallie. She's only 17" and change, but a blimp! Then some chunky lmbs! I think this was the longest, a fine 18-incher: But plenty were solid, hard-fighting fish and you can see in these photos how I was tight to the shore for those parallel casts. The fourth one down is a fatty, but they were all-shaped and well-fed: For the first three hours, I was worried my 40-60 bass sessions were done, so it was peachy to have the bass awaken and keep me busy. You guys know I love a busy boat. One last pretty pic to finish this trip report and thanks for taking a ride in my canoe!

I bet it would be a heckuva fight, but it's a fight I'd lose given where I fish. Give me a ML rod and open water and I'd have a fighting chance, but not in a bog.