Swamp Girl

When Tom talks, I listen. Cool! I'll visit that thread. Speaking of wood and strike detection, yesterday, when the wind was gusting, I hooked a "bass." When you hook a bass in a light boat in a howling wind, your rod really bends and this "bass" really bent my rod and then it surfaced. Yeah, tree branch.

Thanks, my cyber-friend.

I fully expect you come screeching into my driveway, lights flashing and siren sounding, and say through your megaphone, "This is the fashion police. Come out of the house with your hands in the air." Wanna know who else don't change their clothes? Artists. I used to hang with artists in Boston and everyday, they'd report to the studio and don the same paint-splattered clothes that they'd been wearing for months.

There are three things I suspect I'm doing wrong: Laydowns/Wood: Because the shorelines of the water I fish are less developed, they have a lot of laydowns and because I read again and again and again at BR how laydowns are Bass City, I cast and cast at them with various lures. I've caught a few, including a 6+-pounder and a few four-pounders in 2023 from wood, but they are nowhere near as productive as weeds for me. I cast into the thick of the fallen tree, bouncing my lure off the wood, and cast from multiple angles with various lures, but still largely fail. Spinner baits: Again, I catch bass on them, but not enough for them to be my first, second, or even third choice. I've caught hundreds of pike and about a dozen muskies with spinner baits, so I know they work, but not on bass with me. Jigs: I've used jigs a lot for walleyes and white bass and have caught thousands of these species on jigs, so it's not like I'm not versed in using them, but with bass, jigs are like spinnerbaits: I just don't get enough of a return with them to keep using them regularly. So, if any of you are confident in fishing wood, spinnerbaits, and jigs ever fish with me, that's all we're going to fish and I'm going to watch you more than the water.

@hokiehunter373: Holy big bass, Batman, those are beauties! Anytime I catch a couple four-pounders on a fishing trip, I'm happy for days.

^So true!^ I've gone "fishing" some windy days for three hours, but with the wind, I only actually fished for 1.5 hours and paddled for 1.5 hours. However, I love paddling. Anyway, thanks for the generous and encouraging response!

One day, you'll have a boat and you'll lose far fewer lures. I snagged wood or rock several times yesterday and paddling atop the snag freed me every time, as it nearly always does.

I hear ya, but I wish it were otherwise. I will always miss fishing that great, great river and I was hoping you could take my place. In Lake Pepin, I caught 20-lb.-plus pike, three-pound crappies, two and three white bass at once, seven-pound walleyes, and on and on.

Are you allowed to fish for other species? I used to fish Lake Pepin on the Mississippi and it's thick with fish. The backwaters of the Mississippi are great for bluegills too.

I kid you not. I wear the same clothes for months. They're Permethrin-treated, so even though the applicator says I can wash them, I'm sure it decreases their potency. I'd rather be dirty than have Lyme's. This is probably why I don't have to share water with others. Well done, @thediscochef. Plus, your beard looks even more spectacular.

I was in Canada with my father. I'd hired a float plane to drop us on a musky lake I'd first reached by paddle and portage. Our canoe was loaded with all our gear as it was our pickup time and we were fishing at the pickup point. I'd just hooked and lost a musky and was wondering where to cast next when I noticed the musky, nearly vertical in the water, locked on my lure, and pining for round two. So, I pressed the button on my reel, the lure dropped to it, and it was on like Kong. Anyone who's hooked a musky with only a couple feet of line between you and it knows the fury of the next few seconds, but I landed it and it was my 19th of the week. My dad had caught 21, which he never lets me forget.

The most challenging hit for me to detect is wacky worm on the fall. I've had a few hit where I felt absolutely nothing. My line simply started to move laterally. It's a strike I'd miss on a windy day where the canoe and water were also moving.

Wow, Pat, wow! Given bass can exhale a lure as quickly as they inhale a lure, I think your ability to intuit when you've a bass aboard might be one of the top reasons you're such a successful fisherman. I have long observed that less gifted anglers than you miss hits. I've hosted such fisherfolk in my boat. They'll have a bass aboard their line and won't have a clue, even though I can see it in their line and rod.

Hardcore. This reminds me of my youth in the wilderness of northwestern Ontario where we'd bushwhack through the woods and snap tree limbs to find our way out. Then we graduated to tying strips of orange ribbon to trees. Sometimes we'd assemble a cairn if rocks were available.

Thanks for confirming, @gimruis. I'm pretty good at description; It's my profession, but if you asked me to describe why I set the hook, I couldn't do it because there was no tug nor twitch. The best I could do in a court of law would be this: "It just didn't feel quite the same."

I'm sure the rest of you fish soft plastic swimbaits/Keitechs/Strike King Rage Swimmers. I set the hook one time and I couldn't describe why. I just felt something was ever-so-slightly different. Sure enough, a bass was there. I think they sometimes inhale it and just swim along with it at the pace of my retrieve.

It was whitecapping at times.

Fat bass, Murph! 30 bass, @scaleface, is a busy day.

High 80s? Man, oh, man, that's hot. We won't see that until July and maybe not even then. I love the lake too, Alex. I kind of feel like it's mine because I rarely see another boat on it, just twice in two years. I do think the bass are getting bigger. The third fish from the bottom has some weight and length. I sure thought of you when fishing that strolling minnow. I hooked another bass on it, but it pulled free.

I fished three hours this afternoon. It was windy and gray and I had my best luck working a Keitech with an Owner underspin about 80' from the wind-pounded shore. It was tough when I hooked a bass because the wind would push me into the shoreline and I'd have to boat it before striking rock. So, I couldn't measure or weigh anything because I just didn't have the time before grinding into rocks and trees. I fished the pond where I bought property. It's a pond I've fished for two years and I'm pretty sure the bass are growing bigger. I had a wisdom tooth yanked this morning, so between that and the wind and bringing my canoe out of the woods, for I'm going to fish a different pond this Thursday, I'm wiped. Still, prior to today, my best catch was three bass and today, I caught 11 with three fatter, longer ones. I also caught my first bass strolling. Sadly, I caught nothing my last 1.5 hours.

There are some fine men at BR and @Bluebasser86 is one of them. Nuff said.

"Never give up, never surrender" sure describes you. Thanks for taking us on another fine trip! I like the title of your trip reports, but "Rockin' and Reelin'" would also work.

Atta, Z.

I applaud anything that protects fish. When I catch my biggest bass, I often err on the side of quick, lousy photos and no weighing to get them back into the water ASAP. I'm much smoother with smaller fish. I do think A-Jay's idea is something we should all consider.

Way to fish, Brian. You kept trying until you connected.