Swamp Girl

A honkin' huge yes. Heaps more yeses. I have caught so many bass at the very end of my farthest cast. As quiet as I am, laying it beyond yonder is a bass catcher.

@TnRiver46: I triple dog dare ya to do the catfish trick again.

Do you ever think about buying one of those Bass Pro Shop pond boats and stashing it there?

Noooooooooooo! Hey, wait, your losing a biggun makes us kin. Cool. Hey, brother!

^This is my approach." China Lake is right down the road, but I've never fished it and never will fish it because it's such a popular lake. Anglers come to Maine to fish China Lake. I fish the puddles that they whiz past on their way to China Lake. As always, I'd do EXACTLY what @WRB said. Tom has one of the greatest lmb cvs of all time. When I look at the 17, 18, and 19-pounders that Tom has caught, I remember that fish weights look like a pyramid. I assume that there are even more 14, 15, and 16-pounders that Tom has caught. IF I caught one 10-pounder, I'd be giddy. So, listen to Tom.

Great day, @OmegaDPW! A farm pond or something bigger? I love mixed bags.

I'm guessing that those are a lot of FFS bass caught at the lakes that produce DDs. @AlabamaSpothunter has been on the same quest. If I were you, I'd scrimp and save and fly to that lake in Mexico that produces so many big fish. Or OH Ivie. @Captain Phil gave great advice too.

My welder's gloves work pretty well. They're not as bulky as kitchen gloves, they're form-fitting, and they're economical. Beautiful bass!

@keagbassr: Dark beauties! Wow! So far ahead of Maine.

I have about 15 Erie Dearies I'll never use again. They're spinners with a single hook aimed upward. They're free if you want to try them.

Yep. Show 'em something they haven't seen.

Hardcore.

I've caught a lot of bass with that PopMax, Kent. Just not in 2024...yet. In 2023, I spent some evenings and mornings fishing nothing but the PopMax. Great lure. And the Spook Jr. is in my lineup for 2024. I enjoyed your video, Mr. 46. The number of your fishing pals says a lot about you.

I keep trying and failing at topwater, Pat. I tossed a Whopper Plopper yesterday evening and worked a big swimabait as a wakebait, but nothing. Still a bit chilly for Yankee bass to be looking up. I love your smile!

Some of those backwoods streams are pretty wild, for sure. Hey, Kent! The BR gang sure is catching some fine fish. I'd love to have tangled with that fat musky or those wipers.

@AlabamaSpothunter: I don't know if any other BR anglers have fished the wilderness for smallmouth, Alex, but that's been the great thrill of my life. My criteria for wilderness is a little tighter than most: no cabins, no fly-ins, no other people, etc. Just you, the lakes, and the bass, walleye, pike, and muskies. It would be a long drive for you to reach the wilderness of northwestern Ontario from Alabama and likely a steep learning curve. My first few trips doled out considerable miseries, like swarms of black flies and mosquitoes. You can't set up camp at the pretty places, like under a canopy of cathedral pines. You pitch on exposed points aimed at the prevailing winds. Even then, with a canoe over your head, you'll be sucking bugs on portages, but when you enjoy 100-bass-per-angler days, you'll have earned them. Maine is a cozy facsimile of the wilderness. It's all this old woman can manage. I could still sleep on rock, no problem, and fall asleep to wolf song with a smile on my face, but the physical demands of reaching the wilderness surpass me now. But not you, Alex. Not you.

Woo-hoo, Michael! Fat pike too. And what a musky and wipers. Good day for the BR crew.

Alex, there's a couple miles of swamp beyond that bass. There's a river that winds through the swamp and that river leads to another pond. I've yet to paddle that river, but someday. Like you, I feel the pull of the unknown. For Canoe & Kayak magazine and a couple other mags, I interviewed a guy who'd paddled a canoe from Washington to Alaska. He then portaged over the Chilkoot Pass, down the Yukon, portaged across tundra, and paddled down the Bering Sea. He nearly died many times, but he still said that he'd be driving over a bridge, look down a river, and want to launch, to see what was around the bend. You feel that same pull, my friend. Currents of the unknown tug at you too.

47 degrees, foggy, and raining when I launched in the late afternoon and raining for much of my fishing, as you can see in the photos. Yet again, I found bass in a different place, this time in a 2' to 5' deep bay. The only constant this spring is catching them with my Keitech and Owner underspin. They were hitting when I left, shortly after sunset, but at that point, being cold and having to move the canoe through the woods and across a field, I quit. I had scores of swallows swirling around me and blackbirds following me, moving from dead tree to dead tree to watch me fish. The peepers were so loud they hurt my ears. The bigger bass are below, as well as a pic of the pond.

Cool anecdote, @Choporoz.

I didn't catch a five-pounder until adulthood. It's a great catch.

After seeing @bp_fowler's trout, I fixed myself a snack of smoked salmon on crackers. It was delish. Thanks, bp!

Sounds a lot like my day, Tim. Boys, boys, boys. However, you did get to dance with one fine gal.

Yeah, they spin me too. Even the small ones do. My canoe is 15' 6" long and 32 lbs., which means it has little draft. Even a 16" bass can move my boat.

What's weird, Pat, is that a big bass might weigh 5% of our individual weights. And they don't have all our technology. And even then, they win. So often. Too often.