Swamp Girl

On the 1-10 Angling Tech Scale (ATS), where do you rank and why? I consider a bank angler with a rod or two and a few lures in a pocket to be a 1. Someone with a tricked out bass boat with the latest FFS would be a 10. I'm a 3. I fish out of a plain hull, I.e. a Bell Rockstar canoe with no accessories and electronics. However, it is a Kevlar boat, which is advanced technology, and my paddle is carbon, which is more technology. I choose to be a 3 because it's all I can carry, but being a 3 allows me to fish water others can't reach, so at this point, even if were younger and stronger, I think I'd still fish at level 3. As far as why you fish at your ATS level, it might be your finances or a love of tech or anything else.

I wore the brace last night. It's helping. @A-Jay: I applied your advice, Andy, and didn't cinch it.

There is so much compassion and goodness in this post. You're a heckuva man, Tom.

Back in the saddle, cowboy aka @OmegaDPW. Thanks for those photos, @Mbirdsley. This might surprise you, but I don't encounter freighters in Maine bogs. @Susky River Rat: Is a blue marsh a freshwater marsh? @BrianMDTX: Congrats on the new pond. @Jmurphy87: I barely recognized you on a boat and wearing a shirt! @IcatchDinks: Ouch! Did you remove it yourself and if so, how? @BassSteve: Beauty! @throttleplate: I like how you often fish differently than the rest of us. @Bazoo: What a good dad.

I've had good luck this Spring fishing places where bass boats festooned with electronics couldn't go, i.e. shallow ponds, bogs, and swamps at the ends of meandering dirt paths or streams. Accurate casting is key. The land and water approaches deny bigger boats and often the water is too shallow for bigger boats once you're there. I'm casting in a foot of water to slim slots. If you miss the slot, you ruined that chance. I might cast into a bush once per fishing session. My point is that there are places where FFS is useless and I fish those places. There are a lot of bass in such places, but you have to be soooooo quiet and accurate. Most sessions, I bump into a bass with the bow of my canoe because they don't know I'm there. There are places where there isn't even room to turn my canoe around and I have to back paddle out. Come summer, I'll be fishing bogs where there might be two feet of water, even though the bottom is six to ten feet down.

The bigger the bass, the faster I return it to the water.

I love when cheaters are caught. The cost to David Moore goes far beyond the citations as the Internet never forgets.

@WRB: Thanks, Tom, for telling that story. My asking you reminds me of these lines from the song, "Lost," by Annie Lennox: Tell me the story 'bout when you were young I want to hear it again Even the parts where the hero gets stung This is how bass gut hook us. We hook them in the lip, but a rare and magnificent bass hooks us far deeper when she overwhelms our gear. She breaks free, but never stops tugging at us.

If you're talking about a particular fish, Tom, how big do you think it was? I trust you more than anyone when it comes to estimating the size of a giant.

What a difference in build between those two bass. I like your hypothesis.

It's a great question. I have hooked half a dozen bass in the last year that simply took line and then peeled free. I have also lost bass that jumped beside my canoe, inches from me, or were millimeters from the net. It's the ones I never saw that haunt me.

You have a great attitude, Pat.

Agreed.

I've tried the "five fillet" method, but don't like it. Too much meat is wasted. I simply fillet them the normal way and eat carefully so I don't swallow the Y-bones.

Pike are delicious. Many angling wilderness paddlers prefer them to walleye.

I drive a crossover (Honda CRV). It has big tires and all wheel drive, so I'm comfortable driving it down dirt roads and into the woods to launch my canoe. My 7' 3" rods fit, but they do extend through the front two seats. It's been a good vehicle for me and averages about 31.5 mph, which doesn't deter me from fishing when fuel is more expensive.

@IcatchDinks: Thanks, ICD! It was a lotta fun! Sight fishing, where you see the bass, is my favorite kind of fishing. If you look carefully just to the right of the sixth bass, you'll see a ring in the water. Those rings were my targets. Sometimes there'd just be a ring and sometimes I'd see the back of a bass as it porpoised to take a bug. I had about three seconds to drop my lure within a foot of that ring. At times, I'd see three bass rise at once. Other times, I'd wait half a minute for a bass to rise. I kept my head on a swivel, as the action was all around me. I'd seen them feeding like this on Tuesday, which is why I'd gone through my tackle and tied on a transparent popper with a pink tint. The popper has a flickering foil inside of it, called Flash Boost, which I thought would look like the fluttering wings of an insect. Here's the lure: For the final three fish, I switched to the Whopper Plopper because it was dark then and I wanted something noisier. My Loon-colored Whopper Plopper is also black, making it easier for them to see. It was fun using a lizard too as I'd never used one before yesterday. I think if I used a thicker one, I would have caught bigger fish.

Yep and yep. As you might know, I fish from a canoe. I'm the engine. So, when I travel, I paddle and I often paddle miles in a trip, but I'm ALWAYS fishing. I caught my PB earlier this spring while traveling and trolling. Last year, I bet I caught a dozen bass over four pounds while traveling and trolling. One of the reasons that I catch a lot of bass is that I'm constantly fishing. Travel time is trolling time. Me too. I was looking at a 17 lb. canoe yesterday evening. With a single rod and a knapsack holding my gear, I could reach the most remote ponds with that boat. I'd be casting to unfished fish.

Agree with you. If would have to have a bottom like a ski slope to be that deep. The slope of the shoreline tends to indicate the slope of the bottom and the shorelines aren't steep. Giving the wife a bowl was a good idea. Find other ways to express your continuing gratitude. I fish one pond that has TWO big signs that say "Absolutely no pond access!" Pretty intimidating, right? And I drive past both those signs to fish it, but not before stopping, chatting, and leaving cashews or just-baked cookies. At another pond, I offer to help open their camp, also come with cookies, and take their grandson fishing with me. I put him in the bow, which is the best seat, and put him on bass. I even bring elk jerky for their dog. As far as catching the biggest bass, I used a lizard yesterday evening for the first time. I caught 24 bass with it before quitting it because the bass were smaller than many I've caught at that pond. I switched to a Rapala Crush City with a bigger profile and immediately caught bigger bass. Then I switched to a popper and caught even bigger ones. So, as others suggested, experiment. Different lures catch different sized fish.

Last year, I took seven rods. This year, I take two most of the time and three at the most. I enjoy having to carry and manage fewer rods and I'm actually catching more bass with less outfits. Hear, hear for simplifying!

@Skunkmaster-k: At my age, I'm this kind of machine:

I caught 45 total. I launched minutes after a thunderstorm and used a T-rigged blue lizard for the first time in my life and caught 24 with that, but they were small. The first bass is a sample of those small ones. So, I switched to my Rapala Crush City on an underspin and the size picked up. I caught four, but then bass started slurping bugs off the surface and I was ready for them. I pitched a Shimano popper that was clear. I'd picked it to imitate a bug, as I saw bass bug-slurping a couple evenings ago. The popper worked well and it was a blast just sitting and waiting for a bass to slurp and then dropping my lure atop it. They were the best bass of the evening and most of the bass pictured below. At the very end, I switched to my black Whopper Plopper and caught a two-fer and ended with a single, the last bass in the line. Catching lmbs with a popper was one of the ways I used to catch smallies in Canada, waiting for them to show themselves and then laying a surface lure atop them. I like the photo of the foggy shoreline. FWIW, I'll be fishing two big bass waters next week, one a bog and the other a pond.

I want to keep some, I truly do, because I know it's good for the ponds and bogs. I just don't enjoy eating bass. Maybe I'll give bass another try this year. I might enjoy a Maine bass coming from clear water more than an Ohio farm pond bass.

Beauty, Bazoo, and so light in color! No one can out smile you since your mustache extends your smile, beyond your cheeks.