Swamp Girl

We don't enjoy the cold, but we're grateful for the snow. It's water in the bank. Thanks for loving that good dog.

Zero degrees this morning on the coast of Maine and 14 below with wind chill. Everything is white and frosty, but the days are getting longer. Timber is a good-looking guy.

It happens to the best of anglers...because the best anglers simply hook more big bass. With that huge whatever you also hooked, you had an exciting session, Pat.

Our experience is identical. I was fishing with my brother and I only had one clear lure. I caught and caught and caught bass and he kept changing lures and failing. However, it was hard for me to hook those bass because their mouths were full. However, since they hit it three to eight times on most casts, I had plenty of chances to hook one.

I have caught many smallmouth twitching F13 Rapalas on the surface. Those bass were color sensitive. One color one day and another the next. In Maine, they hit all my largemouth lures, but if I'm fishing for them, i.e. I look in the water and see nothing but rocks beneath me, I'll cast a brass-bladed Mepps.

Thanks, @Team9nine. What you wrote is right. Whoa, @Catt, that's big fish water.

@Logan S: That makes your 20-lb. bags and big fish even more impressive. You're a good angler.

Sadly, that makes sense. I've never tournament fished, but I've read BR accounts of dead big fish floating at the release area the day following a tournament. I wish the bass boat anglers would follow the lead of the kayak anglers and take a quick photo on a bump board and release them immediately. Then show those photos at the big "measure-in" at the end of the tournament. It would still be suspenseful and exciting and it wouldn't remove the top genes from the lakes and rivers. I even cringe when an angler catches a nice bass and holds it up to the camera while delivering a monologue about to catch big ones. @Team9nine, I'm surprised that the guys in Mass are catching as many five pounders as four pounders. I catch about 5 four-pounders for every five-pounder.

Logs? Logs are just like laydowns, right, being wood and laying down? And bass love laydowns! And this is one reason why you deserve to wear the fur hat. Another reason is musky fishing when the wind blows cold and hard.

your humility + your huge fish make you a Bass Resource...

What you wrote makes a lot of sense, gimruis, but it's not my experience. I've fished through some massive mayfly hatches, catching smallmouth and white bass, and both species had bunches of mayflies sticking out of their mouths, but they still hit my lures. I had to match the hatch with the smallmouth and the only lure they'd hit was a transparent Heddon torpedo.

Thanks, Logan. Your club did a good job displaying that information and I'm glad you shared it. Congrats on landing your club's biggest tourney bass in 2023 and those two winning 20+ bags!

^Great story!^ One June day in 2023, smallmouth were launching themselves like Trident missiles from submarines at hovering dragonflies. If only I had a drone with me that day. I could have put hooks on it, tied my line to it, and had my own, great story to tell!

27 is BIG!

That surprises me. That's not much.

Trout fishers are forever trying to match the hatch. You do too, Pat, and I think more bass fishers should be hatch aware and I'm one of them who should tender more time to figuring what they eating from moment to moment. I do buy a lot of alewife and golden shiner patterns because that's what Maine bass eat.

Vantage has cool lures. Sigh. This means I'll be ordering some.

Please don't draw too much attention to @thediscochef's crimson storm of a beard. He is an undercover Viking warrior scoping places to plunder and pillage. @Crow Horse: Love the video, Crow. When I was a kid, I bicycled thousands of miles and backpacked thousands of miles too. Then I discovered paddling and I said good-bye to roads and mountains. A detail I love about paddling are the vortices created by a paddle. I also love those increasingly rare moments where I muster the energy to lift my bow out of the water, when I am the engine and I bend that boat like Beckham.

@AlabamaSpothunter: Six days: Jan. 3rd:: 23.5lb bag anchored by a 6.2 fish. Jan. 4th: Fished about 6 hrs., caught 21. Best 5 went about 20.5lbs with a big fish of 5.9 and 4.13 got weighed, 4+ on the 110, and a nice 3lb Spot were the highlights. Jan. 5th: A true 50 fish day, right on the nail, it's like the Bass Gods gave me the 50 and then said now go home. 27lb+ bag.....7.6 and 6.4 weighed fish, with 3 easily in the 4-5lb range. Jan. 6th: Caught 32 + 2 big Crappie.......22lb+ bag, big fish was a 6.8, and a 5.15 got weighed as well. Another close to 5, along with numerous 3+ fish rounded out today's bag. Jan. 7th: Caught 36 fish, with the best 5 going 22.5lbs. A 5.5 was big fish (red Vault), 4.8 (mid strolled Drift Fry), and a 4.7 (Bucca Burrito) were weighed, and then another pair of 4lb+ fish rounded out the bag. Jan. 8th: Had a great day, caught 55 fish which is the most I can remember catching in a single day since I was a kid fishing a golf course pond for sub 12" Bass. Big fish was a 5.4. Alex's six days = Ol' Crick's entire 2023, more or less I caught more four-pounders over many months than Alex did in six days, but I didn't catch a 7.6.

Way to fish, Jake and Pat!

One day, even @Dwight Hottle will be gone from Bass Resource and people will say, "What happened to Mighty Dwight? He always had some great fishing tips and some humorous insight." And I'll say, "I heard he attacked and ate a bear. A griz. And he wanted more, so headed up into those high, ghosty hills lookin' for more. Some say he's up there still." And then I'll provide GIF proof of my assertion:

Four and five-inch rainfalls events aren't uncommon in Maine, but I have never seen muddy water here. We're just too rocky, I think. Typical shoreline:

Me too. I can't always find trash, but when I do, it goes home with me. Gosh, I hope not. With all the BR anglers who state, "I do me," I hope they'd recognize the importance of individuality and let you do you without judgment. Like you, I try to live in gratitude. Oh, yeah. And the wildlife are watching us as we watch them.

If there were bass down there in the darkness with laser beams attached to their foreheaads, expect this guy to want to go fishing with you:

That's a pointed comment.