Swamp Girl

Those big bass come close enough to us to get a good look at our astonished faces. Then they have graphite replicas of our faces made.

No carp in that pond, but there are white suckers. With alewives running and maybe white suckers shallow, no wonder it felt like an outdoor aviary and maybe that's the reason I couldn't catch bigger bass. The old, wise gals might have hunkered in the deep waiting for the dinosaurs to leave. I did see one raptor dive and arise with a fish in its talons. Here are a couple of the boys. All were caught tight to emerging weeds. Sorry about the photo quality. It was raining off and on and the lens was wet:

Congrats, @CastingClinic! Pat, I'm glad you fished with Jeremy. I fished this morning and expected to boat a nice bass or two, but mostly whiffed. I just couldn't find the girls and had to settle for nine boys. I got to see two cool things though on this rainy, cool morning. The alewives were running, so eagles and ospreys had gathered to gorge. I bet I saw 20 birds of prey. I also saw, at both the inlet and outlet of the pond, some kind of fish in the shallows thrashing at the surface. I don't think they were bass. They sure made a ruckus. I paddled about seven miles and am feeling it, but it was a good, albeit wet morning. I'll load a couple pics in a bit.

I have a lot of those. For quite a stretch, I was buying pert near every bait that you guys were using to boat bass...in triplicate. Thanks for the "pop" tip. I'll do that. And the slack line suggestion too.

Way to go, Murph (@Jmurphy87)! Plenty of bass and your third one is especially nice. I caught a cold over the weekend and didn't fish on Monday, as I'd planned, but am launching at 5:00 tomorrow morning and will be fishing one of my best bogs. It'll be my first time to fish that bog in 2024. Yes, Tim (@T-Billy), I will have a T-Rig in the canoe. Any suggestions on what soft plastic I should use? I'm also going to stroll, use a fluke, and, of course, use my Keitech. At some point, I'll try a Whopper Plopper, but it hasn't been warm enough yet for a surface lure to work.

I like your freewheeling, playful creativity.

I would live in such a thread. I hook bass who seemingly have the parentage of a largie for a father and a locomotive for a mother. My reel's drag is the fat lady: She sings and it's over.

I admire the humility that underlies this statement. However, I think you're being too humble, as I'm guessing that you have three to five tricks up your sleeve, like I do.

Big plus: It's a proven DD lake. A couple minuses. Make the long drive while the fishing is still worth it. Fingers crossed the rumor is true. Fingers crossed for you too, Tex!

Dang it, King. Dumb, old lodge. Good luck at the other lake.

Mostly lmbs now, but in the past, I've fished for all the usual suspects, from brookies to 'bows, from yellow perch to their big brothers, the walleyes, from bluegills to muskies, and on and on.

Going forward, Tim, I will. ^This^ sounds spot on, Tim. Thanks!

The lonesome hero rides off into the sunset. Why? Because bass hit big time at sunset. Damsels, rescue yourselves 'cause bass are biting!

Me too. I do study depth maps, but whereas I have Bass Resource's worst memory for the names of my fishing equipment, my memory for where I caught bass is world class. You know how you can place pins on Garmin maps? Well, my brain automatically does that. So, if you were to go fishing with me on one of my favorite ponds/bogs, I could tell you everywhere I've caught bass. So, I find bass by trial and error, but I never forget where I caught them.

You guys amaze me. I caught my PB about ten days ago and I don't know what rod and reel I used. It was a spinning reel with a MH rod. Probably 30 lb. braid.

Agreed! We should rotate baits, even though I'm guilty of not doing that this spring, as my Keitech Fat Swing Impacts are what the bass have been hitting. I'm going to cast some T-rigged soft plastics this week to show them something different, although they haven't sniffed at my wacky worms, and do some more strolling. Maybe flukes too.

24K. More gold. I do think there are regional differences in bass behavior. I live on the coast of Maine, where the wind never stops blowing in the Spring and the air and water warm ever so slowly. Contrast this with interior states, where you can have temperature swings of thirty or forty degrees in a day. Then there's the South, where it's pretty much never cold, even though it feels cold to heat-acclimated Southerners (I see you guys wearing your coats on 55-degree days!). My point is that bass are living in sharply different environments and what works for bass at X won't necessarily work at Y. Since coming to Bass Resource, I have bought so many lures because other BR anglers touted them. Some worked. Some didn't. Going forward, I'm going to stick with the lures that I've found to work where I fish.

My prediction is that I already caught my two biggest bass, largie and smallie (I don't target smallies and the ones I catch are NOT @A-Jayish), for 2024. Maybe not. I think I'll hook bigger largemouth this year, but whether I can wrangle them out of weeds is the key.

Here in Maine, I don't feel dialed in at all. I have managed to catch bass, but there's no pattern. Here are where I found them on my last four fishing trips, all within the last ten days: 1. 80' -100' parallel to the shoreline in about 8' of water. 2. Tucked under shrubs along the bank of a narrow river. I literally had to place my lure under the shrubs, so accurate casting was the key. 3. In the middle of a shallow pond, here and there. 4. Super tight to a rocky shoreline, in about one foot of water. I have varied my retrieves and I've caught them with a slow, medium, and stop-and-go retrieve. I love to use different lures, but one lure caught 98% of them: a gray and white 4.3" Keitech Fat Swing Impact on an Owner underspin with a chrome willow blade. I think the hook size is 3/0. Maybe 5/0. The last time I fished, the water temp was 47.5 degrees, but I've seen it as high as 54 degrees. I think the incessant wind and yo-yooing temps are muddling the typical pattern. However, when the weird wind and weather door opens, it opens wide, as shown by @A-Jay's incredible day. I also caught the biggest bass of my life in this patternless spring. I caught her trolling my underspin, which is an uncommon way to catch a largemouth, but it was simply too windy for me to cast, as I'd cast and be blown away from the area I wanted to fish. I think you're doing the right thing, @Bandersnatch, by kitchen sinking it. What success I've mustered is by going off-script, by not casting to where the bass are supposed to be.

Murph, you don't seriously think I can comment on that bass given it's right next to your bare naked chin, do ya? Nice one, Woody! Those 18-inchers are hard fighters.

I'm going to try a different underspin, one with a more exposed hook. I love my Owner underspins, but they do keep the hook point tight to the body of the Keitech, which I love for its near weedlessness, but it reduces my hook-setting percentage.

So much fun awaits you. And so many thrills!

More great storytelling, @PhishLI, and a beautiful bass. I've fished Burr Oak, @bp_fowler. Beautiful photo.

@A-Jay: I did weigh yesterday's two 4.25-pounders. Surely I get some credit for that! Maybe I should go back to bump board photos. They don't load the wrong way. When that mud was sucking at my legs, I thought, "How many 68-year olds work this hard to catch bass?" However, you know and I know it's worth it. Now I'm off to fetch some pallets to create a poor woman's boardwalk to launch my canoe.

Alex, I thought of you when I caught my two smallies. I thought, "Alex would enjoy catching a mixed bag too." No lie. As far as my FFS, it was mostly paying attention. I hooked my first bass along an underwater hump. I could see the rock a couple feet under my canoe. Then, when I caught my second bass near a hump, I thought, "They're shallow." So, I started casting within inches of the shoreline and that's where they were, which confused me, as I thought that was a summertime pattern. Unfortunately, I had to meet some friends for brunch, so I left sooner than I would have liked.