Swamp Girl

I'd love to hear your stories.

Good luck!

If I were a dishonest tournament angler, I'd buy underwater drones, each the size of a 10-lb. bass, and park them off points and by humps, after programming them to ascend and descend and move a little to the left and a little to the right every half minute or so. I'd call my strategy the rope-a-scope.

You do understand.

I didn't know what you shared, @gimruis. Thanks.

I love your post, @Fishing_Rod, because you stated so clearly how most of us want the very best from bass fishing, today and tomorrow, and we just have to figure the way to keeping bass big, abundant, and healthy.

I'm glad you did. It was glorious, wasn't it? I love the way he popped up and immediately knew he'd soared. He could feel that extra, extraordinary foot he'd flown. It's not "superior intellect." It's simply memory. I watched it happen on the TV. Lastly, I want to rub Pat's head too.

Mark Twain is one of my favorite Americans, up there with Lincoln, Ike, and FDR, so your comparing me to him made me laugh, but I do appreciate it. Like Twain, I am both a writer and did comedy, so we have that in common, but I'm 0.00001 Twain. I'll shoot you some photos of my home in messaging. I live in one of Maine's prettiest towns, but right on edge, because I need a little greenery round me (Five acres of trees!).

If that works, then I'm glad. I just read an In-Fisherman study that concluded that lots of the A+++ bass die. There are also anecdotal accounts at BR of big bass bloated and floating following tournaments. Like @A-Jay, I'm just grateful that most of my fishing life predates FFS. I do understand the thrill of casting to a bass that your FFS has marked because I've cast to surface-feeding bass. When you know a bass is where you're casting, it's thrilling. I don't know the thrill of watching a bass rise to my bait on the FFS screen. In short, I understand the attraction. I just worry about the long-term cost. Maybe there won't be a long-term cost. Maybe future bass caught will remain as big as the BIG bass being caught today.

Yeah, we both made a leap, didn't we. But to be fair, yours was bigger. I know you enjoy sports analogies, so you were Michael Jordan. No, you were Bob Beamon! I was a cricket, a pretty good leaper, for sure, but no from-the-foul-line, 29 ft 2+1⁄4 inch-leaper like you.* We should support each other. Bass Resource lets us witness each other's struggles. I read the skunk reports. I read the accounts of anglers being blown off the lake and being too cold to cast. And I shared my sad story of tipping last year. But we all keep sallying forth and hoping that today will be our day, so when you string the days that you did, Alex, you should all be slow-clapping you. Here is the BR crew: *I am awarding three Happy Cricket Chirps to all who remember Bob Beamon. His one glorious jump was the perhaps the greatest moment in sports. Via a message, Pat shared a pic of the public pond he fishes. There is NOTHING easy about it. I'd struggle to catch a 12" bass from it. Lots of good stuff in your post, Pat. As a former teacher, I can say with confidence that you're a good teacher.

Thank you, Thomas. Yours is a thoughtful and thought-provoking post. FFS is emptying the oceans. There's nowhere for fish to hide. I fear the same for today's freshwater fisheries, especially when the giant female tournament bass with their A+++ genes are crammed into live walls, lugged ashore, hefted for the crowd, and then released...to die, as many do. I watched a YouTube video where two tournament anglers were removing dead bass from their livewell and dropping them overboard, lest points be deducted at the weigh-in. I'm pretty sure that all bass anglers love bass. I just worry that some tournament anglers love big bass to death. Protecting the big bass genes should be paramount. I'd love to see all tourneys go the way of kayak bass anglers, i.e. photographing bass on bump boards and quick releasing them. I'd live with FFS a lot easier then.

Hi, BucksBasser. I admire your range, from a kayak to a 17-footer and from trout streams to Erie to bass lakes. I also admire this: Great goal!

Because our water is still hard, I've been spending the last couple days reading old posts. For a while, I was going back in time a decade or more, but yesterday, I was reading posts in this thread from a year ago and I was stunned by the upswing in @AlabamaSpothunter's catches. Alex's recent streak of going out again and again and catching a seven-pounder, a couple five-pounders, and half a dozen or more four-pounders has been so long that it's seemed like forever, but what makes it even more impressive is that he was fishing the same lake in the winter of 2022/2023 and whereas he had some great days a year ago, he had some ordinary ones too. Alex (and PhishLI) has always urged me to focus on one lake to really learn and OMG, Alex is the proof of the payoff of that approach. He's cracked the code of his lake. I know he has really, really, really wanted to boat a DD from that lake, but as I said earlier, his streak is the best I've ever witnessed at Bass Resource and it's happened at a fully developed lake with mansions lining the shoreline.

After prolonged deliberation, here's what I'll be doing with the property: 1. In 2025, I'll pay a guy I know to clear a driveway and lay some gravel. He's the really good guy who built my leach field and he has decency, know-how, and all the big toys. 2. That same summer, with the driveway in, I'll build a frame and pour some cement to make a pad for a shed. I'll then assemble a metal shed on that pad and screw it in place. I've worked with cement a few times in my life, but have never drilled into it, so that part worries me a little. I figure I'll watch some YouTube videos and be fine. 3. In 2026, with the driveway providing access, I'll pay a company to build a boardwalk atop the 25' of wetland between the shoreline and open water. IF I had the money, I'd do all of this now, but I don't. In the meantime, I can simply walk through the woods and hop through the swamp to launch my canoe. I decided against building a home there because: A. No more money. B. I've rehabbed two homes in the last 11 years and I don't want to do a third. Too tuckered. C. The pond is only five minutes away and keeping a shoreline green is always a good thing. D. I LOVE my current home. Several master tradesmen worked nine months on it and I worked side-by-side with them, doing all the idiot tasks.

I will. Thanks, Pat.

@thediscochef, I'm so happy for you! Thanks for the info, Alex.

@bp_fowler: Atta, Buckeye!

They might be small, but being smallies, they all have BIG hearts. Below are all the photos of berserk, wolf-packing bass I failed to catch on consecutive days in 2023:

You posted the video at the perfect time. I've been sifting through my lures, wondering what to take on my first trip.

Last summer, I saw more eagles and ospreys catching bass than humans. One time, an osprey caught a bass so big that it struggled to regain altitude and another time, I parked under a dead tree to watch an eagle eat its bass there.

Yes, please. I always loved those pools. Wonderful teaching tools. Heck, yeah! Several of the lures are wood with chipped paint from bass caught 55 years ago. I'll go chip them some more! What's weird is how I struggle to remember the makers of the modern lures I use, but not the old ones. I remember their makers and names after more than a half century. I didn't think about ^this^ possibility. Great idea! I'll do it.

Me too, buddy. I quit fishing too early last fall and regret it. Next fall, I'm going to fish into November. And in 2023, I didn't start fishing until mid-April. We hit fifty degrees today and will reach fifty again one other day in the next two weeks. Plus, tonight's low is only 38 and there will several other nights above freezing. So, we might have wet ponds and bogs by the end of March. It would be great to begin again in early April. I LOVED fishing last April before the weeds grew. This evening, I was replacing hooks on my childhood fishing lures: A South Bend Bass-O-Reno, a Creek Chub Plunker, a South Bend Spin-I-Diddee, a Heddon River Runt, a Heddon Pumpkinseed, and others. I wanted to do a vintage lure trip last year, but never did. I'm going to do it this year. The lures I listed above are collectively worth hundreds of dollars to collectors and I know I reduced their value by replacing the hooks, but it'll be worth it to fish like I'm 12 again. I have an old Zebco Cardinal too and I'm thinking of using that too. Alex, congrats again on your incredible winter. So. many. six-and-seven pounders and I'm guessing you lost count of the four and five-pounders! I'd pity the pros who had to fish against you in a tournament. One more thing: If Bass Resource ever held a convention with seminars and Pat and Alex each taught one, I'd climb over attendees to sign up and I'd be sitting in the front row with an apple each for these bass whisperers.

Wow, Alex. Just wow. You and Pat achieve the same feat, which is catching big bass in the middle of bustle and buildings. Whatever compliments you pay to Pat apply to you too, Alex. And vice-versa. I'm so excited to go strolling this spring.

Happy birthday, Pat. Whadda birthday gift! Way to fish, Jake! Your daddy's a sledge hammer, but you're still a 16 oz. hammer.