Swamp Girl

Three eight-pounders!!! If you offered a class in bassin', Pat, I'd gladly pony up the tuition. And Alex caught an 8.5 and a 6.1??? I hope Professor Alex and Professor Pat don't offer their bassin' classes at the same time. I truly couldn't decide.

So sweet!

Fun morning, @TnRiver46. I wish I'd been there.

As Gollum might say, "The fishies be tricksy!"

Way to go, Buddy! Feel good about cracking the code.

Woody!!! Woody, you also did a good job describing the fight. Like @The Baron said, it's all we northern anglers have right now. I considered fishing today, but when the water's cold, I often sit on the floor of my canoe to increase my stability and when you do that, there are mere millimeters of Kevlar between you and a winter's worth of accumulated cold. So, I thought about fishing, shivered, and said, "Not today, Jose." We'd all like to see that picture, Woody! 😉

Agreed. I'd still be fishing them if: 1. The lures didn't hurt to cast. 2. I could catch ten a day everyday. I do like a busy boat. Pics of kids with fish are the best photos posted at Bass Resource.

Agreed. I also thought it was a four-pounder, but just didn't understand the numbers.

Heck, yeah! The new dog, Jake, is teaching the old dogs a new trick.

Beauty, Jake, beauty! @Pat Brown, I smile every time Jake catches bass. I've never thought of putting a Fluke Jr. on an underspin. Clever!

I didn't see it (but I'll try to find it and watch it). I do know that anyone who produces as much content as Randy is going to strike out sometimes, just as Ted Williams did. Anyway, back to live bait.

I think of orange smallmouth with black stripes as freshwater tigers. They fight like tigers too!

If I caught a gargantuan bass that was orange with purple polka dots, I'd appreciate it too.

My first (and only) 2024 bass was little. He was so cold that it almost hurt to handle him. Say, if anyone knows why I can't load my bass vertically anymore, please let me know. I used to rotate them before I loaded them and they stayed that way. Now they no longer do. They're vertical on my computer, but horizontal at BR.

Alex, I love to see you smiling with a bass.

Randy Blaukat isn't a nutball. He's a opinionated fellow angler. I've never heard or seen him lob ad homs in his posts. He simply makes his case. Yes, he produces a lot of content, but given the direction of fishing, I think he's opining in a hurricane of electronic change.

I like the reach of lures. You can't cast bait as far as you can a plug. However, when I fished northwestern Ontario for smallmouth, a leech under the canoe was irresistible and you didn't have to wait long, so it wasn't a bit boring. I'd use both when smallie fishing. I'd glide into an area, fan cast it with lures and then drop a leech over the side. This two-pronged approach produced a lot of 100-bass days.

Now I trust your scale. I looked at your bass and thought, "That's a four-pound bass."

Your post made me laugh, Alex. Thanks! Yep, it's the lake with my property and the first pic is the woods I bought. It does have some big trees on it, which don't show in the photo. I think I unintentionally damaged a beaver trap. I gave some local guys permission to trap beavers and when I launched, there were logs in the narrow waterway. I tried to squeeze past them and one came loose, so I yanked it and chucked it. Coming back, I yanked another one and was yanking a third when I realized it was attached to some wire. Any beaver trappers here? I think that was the trap. I called the uncle of one of the trappers to explain my blunder.

Three pics of today's trip. In order, walking through the woods with my first glimpse of water, on the pond, and my one bass:

@Bazoo, that bass looks too deep to be just 3.14 lbs. Do check your scale. Nice one, @bp_fowler! Well, I fished for the first time this year. Lawdy, that water was c-c-cold! I hooked three and landed one. I didn't get any hits on a shaky head, a small jerkbait, or a Mepps spinner. All three hits came on a black & silver Keitech on an Owner underspin. I retrieved very slowly, bouncing on the bottom. Two of the hits were soft: the lure just grew a little heavier. The third one was a couple ticks, not much different than bouncing off rocks. I usually love to handle bass, but this one felt like a Bomb Pop! I saw two loons, an osprey, and some ducks. It was good to be on the water, but it sure tuckered me.

@Bluebasser86: I'll uncross my fingers then. It's hard to get work done with them crossed.

@LrgmouthShad: Your top bass and your bottom bass are so different that I laughed! Your bottom bass is gorgeous. @Bluebasser86 is fishing in his big tournament today. Fingers crossed! Actually, I pity the fools who have to fish against him.

I didn't know that they grow pale from lying on the bottom. So, thanks for the education! The black bass I caught above came out of stained water and was pulled from a forest of lily pads, so I expect she turned black to blend into the shadows. It's cool to consider that in different conditions, your bass would look like mine and mine would look like yours.

I emphasize bite detection a lot as being a difference maker. The bass are knockin' at our front doors a lot more than we think. Figuratively speaking, we have the stereo cranked and there's a Transformer movie on the TV too and so we can't hear them knocking. This might be why I like to fish on lonely lakes, so I can concentrate. When I do share water, I am often dismayed by the amount of clatter and chatter one other boat can produce.