Swamp Girl

I turn 68 at the end of August. I walk more slowly through the woods to prevent falling. My Kevlar canoe is a constant balance challenge. I hope I can fish until I'm 80, but I won't know until I'm there. When I fish my Royalex Old Town canoe, it's so stable that it feels like the deck of an aircraft carrier and I sometimes stand in it.

It was 84 degrees when I launched, which is hot for Maine and hot for me. I fished four hours, from 4:15 to 8:15. I caught two fish in the first hour. Others hit my lures, which were a red crawfish-colored Mayor and a T-rigged green pumpkin crawfish, but I wasn't hooking them for more than a second or two. Here's where I was fishing at first. The pace picked up in the second hour, from 5:15 to 6:15, as I caught nine bass, mostly in open water and up against barely shaded shorelines. Here are some of the bass caught in the first two hours. Then I reached my favorite shoreline. The bass are bigger here. I caught nine bass in the third hour and 14 in the final hour, thus the 2-9-9-14 of the trip report's title. Yep, I started catching bigger bass on my favorite shoreline. Then the most exciting moment of the evening happened. I worked up a narrow channel that holds bigger girls. I cast my loon-colored Whopper Plopper three times, but couldn't trigger a bite. So, I then cast my red crawfish Mayor and a bass crushed it. She was barely 18", but she fought like a ten-pounder. Actually, she fought like a 20-pound pike. She ran off line and then went on another, longer run. She ricocheted from one side of the channel to the other and then seemed to plow the bottom under the boat. She wasn't thick, but she was the strongest bass of my life. She was bonkers and such a thrill. I worked the area just outside the channel and caught a couple nice ones. Then I caught the biggest bass of the evening. In 2022 and 2023, I caught only two 18-inchers total. This evening, I caught a couple. This one was thicker than the wild gal in the channel, but not nearly as strong. Another nice one. A sweet sunset. And my final bass. I exited the pond with a little light remaining so I wouldn't have to walk the woods back to my car in full darkness. I came home so happy. 34 bass in all. My happiness was due to being on my pond and catching a good number of bass, but mostly due to the fight of that somewhat slender gal in the channel. We measure the length and weight of our bass, but have no way to measure their fighting spirit and that's a shame. My lifetime PB, caught earlier this spring, was a dud fightwise. She was 22.25 inches and oh-so-thick, but she had no spark. This evening's old warrior was all fire and fury. I didn't catch as many as I'd caught earlier in June, but better than my last two trips, when I caught 10 and 19, which I attributed to the weather extremes we've had, from the mid-nineties to the mid-fifties and lots of lightning. The other possibility is that Dr. Evil stole my mojo and I'm slowly mustering more.

A SUP! Impressive. Impressive bass too.

@BluegillsTightlines: Its great to have you posting in this thread. Keep it up! I love your story about your reel. @Bazoo is back! Missed ya, buddy.

Exactly!

@The Baron: I just fiddle with the numbers until I get the file between 40 and 100 kb.

No lie. I have them too. Weird, huh?

I kid you not: I had a mile of paddling north and the wind and rain were in my face. Then I had half of mile of paddling west and the wind and rain shifted to still be in my face. I saw a bass. ICD caught a bass. He scored!

Sounds like my last fishing trip. I sat for an hour on the shore waiting for the lightning to pass. When the lightning started, the bass stopped. @gimruis better live a good life or when it's over, he'll find himself with a tacklebox full of Whopper Ploppers at a lake full of only rock bass.

@PhishLI I've been wanting to toss a fluke all year. 'Cause of you, I'm rigging one for this afternoon's fishing trip. FWIW, I know the gif looks like a Muppet, but it's not. That's actually me celebrating your catch. Was your brother with you? That's sure a pretty pond.

What would you put on your swim jig? It would HAVE to be a 1/8th ounce swim jig. Anything heavier and I'd be dredging the weeds that are under the water. I know this from tossing 3/16th ounce underspins. A buzzbait does appeal to me. I've caught muskies with them, but never a bass. I once had two muskies racing to my buzzbait. I wish I could have caught both, but I caught the winner, the first one to reach my lure.

I fish every two or three days and every time I launch, my challenge is to find them. However, if I can find them, I can catch them. I'm launching tomorrow under a high, hot Sun, so I'll try the deepest part of the pond first (10'), fishing mid-depth and on the bottom with a soft plastic crawfish, but who knows where they'll be. Not me.

Never had it happen, West Coast buddy, but since smallmouth fight like hula girls on crack, I'm not surprised.

Sounds like a good time!

@Scott F: Your yard is bee-you-tuh-FULL!!!

Smallmouth are so good at doing that. It's hard to keep them pinned with they're auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. This is the story of my fishing life. The guys josh me just like ^this^ when I only catch ten or 19 bass. 19 bass, btw, is exactly what I caught yesterday, so I was with ya, bass for bass! I likely would have caught a few more, but lightning pinned me to the shore until it was dark. I can't say that most Mainers hate bass, but some do and the trout-loving Inland Fisheries' folks sure do.

Me too. I try to have fun whatever the results, which isn't hard because being on water is my happy place. As far as being jealous, just remember that come December, I'm looking at snow and ice. I'm going fishing for a couple hours tomorrow afternoon, hoping I can pick up the pace a bit.

Because I live on the coast, I don't see temperature drops as extreme as the one you experienced, but inland, they sure do. Yeah, I know I'm lucky, but when I watch videos of other anglers in Maine, they don't catch what I catch, neither the numbers nor the consistent quality. I think canoeing is key. A kayak like yours would also work, but any light boat that can reach lesser fished water is, I think, why I catch what I do. The challenge is then to land a strong bass in a canoe that's spun and pulled in the fight. Sometimes, before I even cast, I form a quick plan for how I'll fight a bass if it hits, with reeds to the left, grass to the right, and lily pads behind me.

@TnRiver46, plus that boat ride gives you a plastic surgery Joker's smile!

I miss multi-species outings. When I fished the Mississippi, I'd have seven species days. Sometime nine species days!

That all makes sense, Tim. You know my approach, Tim: Catch as many as possible and I'll catch some nice ones along the way. And, along the way,... ...fish happy!

Upon reflection, I think all the soft water months are good. Last year, I measured, weighed, and counted four-pounders and up. This year, I just take a quick pic and release them, but I've caught a bunch in May and June of this year and I expect I'll catch a bunch in July, August, September, and October too. April and November are more challenging, but bass can still be caught in these cooler months too. ^This^ reminds me that my reality isn't everyone's reality.

WOW! That'll do it. Three, likely issues: 1. All blueberry bushes need another variety to cross-fertilize. 2. It might be a low bush blueberry. They come in three heights. 3. It might be unhappy where it is. Blueberries need LOTS of sun. Buy another bush and she'll have blueberries beyond counting. @volzfan59: I've done some writing in the automotive sector, enough to have GM invite me to meet their drivers and watch the Daytona 500 in the pits. I passed because it's not my thing, but it was kind of them to offer.

Thanks, Bird, for taking the time to free the fish.

I too like the longer days, but I don't know if June is the best, year after year. I think I'd have to log all the bass I catch and compare the data after ten years or so to know. @jamesfishing, who lives in the Northeast, wrote: I also live in the Northeast and while I fish docks, I can't remember catching a single bass off of one. Not one. I cast to them because everyone casts to them and I'll keep casting to them and likely keep failing.