Swamp Girl

It's a good article. Even though I own property on a small lake, I'd still love to own a small pond.

I appreciate your trip report, Dwight. You're such a big stick and your report shows that you can be fishing with decades of experience and despite all your wisdom, still be skunked. I expect to be skunked too a time or two come April, just like last year. @thediscochef: Great fish, but I'm curious about the different background. You usually have mowed grass behind you.

I'm glad that there's a stick that scares you, Clayton, because fishing against you would scare me. So, you're my Frankenstein and Damian is your Godzilla. Now, IF I had a chance to fish with you and not against you, Clayton, I might not even fish because I'd pepper you with so many questions that you'd feel like you were pepper steak!

One cool thing about Damian's 18.75-pounder is this: If he caught one that big, is there one even bigger swimming somewhere? More than one? A 21-pounder? A new world record? It's thrilling to contemplate even though I'll never catch such fish.

Such great advice.

I'm good at estimating weight. I watch those YouTube videos of guys catching bass and can guess within a couple ounces of a bass's weight, but those are three to eight-pound bass. Damian's bass is in a class that's beyond my experience. I have seen plenty of ten, eleven, and twelve-pound bass, but his bass is far beyond those. I'm also guessing it's a Tom-sized bass, a 17, 18, or 19-pounder. I posted the text above before reading the latest posts in this thread. So, 18.75 pounds is the actual weight. WOW!

They remind me of fairies in fairy tales.

@Pat Brown: Some mapmakers used to write "Here be dragons" at the edges of their maps. Well, looking at that bass, I think "Here be dragons" is appropriate for California.

GP, I can always count on you for a pretty pic.

Considering Arctic terns migrate 25,000 to 50,000 miles each year, if you were on their route, you'd have to pack them a BIG lunch. Another three birds that visit my feeder: turkeys, Canada jays, and seagulls aka the enemies.

If they do, you'll have more peanuts planted than Jimmy Carter once did.

Wow! I used to put out peanuts, but the squirrels would take them and bury them in my flowerbeds. Me too!

That explains their presence. I wish I had some out my window. I like them, but I do get to enjoy them when I go fishing.

Do you live near water? I associate Redwing blackbirds with the ponds and bogs I fish. They're curious birds and will often follow me as I fish a shoreline. Same with Great blue herons. Oh, I have a mouse problem. I killed 23 this winter in my garage in three days. I should set the traps again. One of my favorite birds, but I've yet to see one in Maine. Wow. They look like dinosaurs to me. I've never been that close to one. I hear owls many mornings and evenings, but I don't see them. I had to Google this bird. They're a little south of us.

@casts_by_fly: You have Northern flickers and Pileated woodpeckers? LUCKY DUCK! Two of my favorite moments with birds are when my 125 Goldfinches spook and rise upward, a rush of gold and when they're nesting in the woods adjoining my house and I step outside to their singing.

It's not just bass pics from southern anglers that get me through the winter. My bird feeders also help. I have about 125 goldfinches that come multiple times each day and they're starting to molt, so the males will soon be bright yellow and females a dull yellow. These birds also visit everyday: nuthatches, chickadees, mourning doves, crows (I love crows.), hairy and downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, juncos, bluejays, titmice, and bluebirds. I have two hanging feeders, but most of the birds prefer to feed at a platform and on the ground. I also have a suet cage, which the woodpeckers love, but they also eat the sunflower hearts on the platform. Last week a sharp-shinned hawk visited and my feeding station was empty for about two hours. Anyone else feed birds and if so, what species do you see?

That's a good bag any time of the year. That would win a lot of kayak tournaments. You are such a good storyteller and you had a such a good story to tell, perhaps the best story one can tell, one of a man who simply wouldn't quit. Over the years, we've had many threads about favorite colors for soft plastics and whether color even matters, but like a few others at Bass Resource, I believe color doesn't matter...until it does...and pdxfisher had such a moment.

Hey, at least you were swinging for the fences.

Gosh, that's tough, TOUGH fishing conditions. Still, you outfished the live bait anglers and that's impressive. Getting your boat ready sounds soooooooo expensive, really beyond my ken. Here's what I do to get my boats ready for fishing: I flip them because I keep them upside down by the shore through the winter. Of course, if I'd fished at Headwaters when you did, my boats would have been sunk or blown ashore.

I'm guessing that there are bass everywhere. Why spend time and gas to fish miles away?

Mike's back at it! I like how you had to work hard to catch your shiners and how the shiner kept swimming back to you to escape your BIG bass. I just scouted a pond in southern Maine that looks fantastic. To reach it, you have to launch by a bridge and then paddle your boat about a mile down a winding river. My kind of pond! I'll probably rent a motel room for one night because it's a ways away and fish the evening and then the next morning. Clayton, I consider you the quantity competition, but it's not fair when you're fishing in January and February. I beg ya, wait until late April. You've got a 3.5-month head start! j/k Fish away, my angling buddy.

Ha! Me too! Al, you catch big bass. You should list your location as Schmiowa so that people don't know where you fish. Going forward, I'm a Schmainer. Take that, you Gollums! You'll never catch our bass now!

Word would spread quickly and then wherever you went, you'd have a line of Gollums skulking after you, all claiming that the big girl was their precious, their birthday present: I'm only half kidding.

I'd post it on BR, but since I weigh so few fish, I'd merely have a big bass pic to share and not a confirmed state record.