Swamp Girl

@RipzLipz: Yeah, but...bass...big bass...biiiigggg basssssss!

Well done, @gimruis! You and @Bluebasser86 make the rest of us look like slackers. That's you on the left telling the rest of us to get up to speed and win some awards:

Like motocross and music!

There are many times when I cast to a spot for the first time in my life and I automatically go to DEFCON 1 because there's something about that spot and that moment that subconsciously reminds me of other spots and moments when I caught bass. I'm not always right, but I am at least half the time and it's great to be at maximum readiness. One time last summer I had a kid in the canoe and my Spidey Sense/intuition/subconscious started tingling. So, I said to the kid: "Watch this. The bass will hit at 3, 2, 1." and the bass did. It was my Babe Ruth pointing to center field mini-moment. You did a good job explaining intuition, Bankc. This utterly agrees with what @Team9nine posted at the start of the thread.

I tried. I failed.

OMG.

Where does @Fried Lemons live exactly? I want to head south, buy a Tiny Klash alone the way, throw my canoe on his car, hide in the back seat with some Snickers bars, and wait.* *Here's hoping he doesn't notice the canoe.

I would really like to catch @Pat Brown's half-tail, honkin' big gal for my first time before Pat catches her a third time!

Thanks, Alex. I'm out of responses. I like what @jbmaine wrote. There is a world famous fisher who lives five miles down the road. I'm not going to name him, but he's fished from the Arctic to Argentina to New Zealand to Newfoundland, again and again and again. And his favorite place to fish is a little stream that I drive over a few times each week. It's not loaded with five-pound brookies, 30-pound pike, or Arctic char that'll make your reel scream, but it's got that understated excellence that anglers like you and him can see.

Well done, @Pat Brown and @AlabamaSpothunter. You guys are going to get me through the winter. @TnRiver46, your boat has become Big Smallie City.

You misspelled KISS. It's spelled CISS, abbreviating Canoe Independently Slinging Surface (Lures).

^This^ reminds me again of @Team9nine's quote. Einstein said something similar, about how he always had his best ideas when he was reaching for an apple. I have a friend who's an MD + a PhD and he too believes in the potency of the unconscious. So did Rollo May in his book, "The Courage to Create." I know that there are way more memories in my mind that I can recall. Every so often, something bubbles up, something as obscure as a dream I had 20 years ago. I think, and some others agree, that the unconscious has easier access to those memories that we can't retrieve and perhaps that's intuition.

Amen.

Agreed. This is an element of the passage that @Team9nine quoted. Sometimes I don't know why I set the hook, but when I do, there's a fish there.

I KNOW the Maine version of ^this.^ The depth of a couple of my bogs is five feet pretty much everywhere with tons of vegetation. And I'd love to fish your #5. I'm not surprised you catch them when others can't. You're a creative, adaptive angler.

I like this.

Perfect, @Team9nine!

In the "What have you learned?" thread, A-Jay wrote: "Putting an average basshead on an above average body of water, can produce surprising results." I've thought a lot about A-Jay's assertion and I also recall what @PhishLI said to me, that some anglers simply don't have what might be summarized as the right stuff, bass-wise, so no matter where they're fishing, they'll catch less than is possible. I admittedly lack the ability to tell you what hook I used, whereas so many of you can easily recall that you used an Owner EWG X88922333TC size 02, as well as the brand and color names of all soft plastics. And I freely fan cast questions because I want to hook and net as much information as I can. For me, the right stuff might be best indicated not by your biggest fish, for you might never fish water that holds 10-pound bass and a kid with a Snoopy rod can luck into a 10-pound bass, but this: Can you replicate? The best example is @WRB. Look at his five biggest bass. That's not luck when you do it again and again and again and if he were to list his hundred biggest bass, the numbers would be even more jaw-dropping. Can you all-weather fish? Can you catch them in fog, the rain, the wind, the dark, and the mid-day heat? The best test might be cold front bass. When the water's whitecapping and your teeth are chattering, can you still catch them? Can you catch them everywhere? This is my wheelhouse, for I've caught thousands of bass in the Mississippi. I've also caught countless bass in farm ponds. Big lakes? Yep, I love Lakes Michigan and Superior. Wilderness lakes? Oh, yeah, they're my home away from home. Whitewater? Yep. Bogs? You betcha, although they were challenging when I first started fishing swamps and they're still challenging. Streams? For sure. Small to mid-sized lakes? Uh-huh. Can you catch them from the shore? From a boat? Wading? Wading might be my favorite way to fish, for being in the water is literal and figurative immersion. Can you keep fishing when you're stumped and puzzle through the skunk? In short, are you tenacious and adaptive? Please feel free to add to my little list of what constitutes the right stuff for bassheads.

How many bodies of water do you fish, how big are they, and why do you fish them? I'm not asking you to name them, but if wanna, feel free. I don't wanna name mine. I fish seven, a mix of ponds and bogs/swamps, all local except for one and all 400 acres or less. Body 1 is a big fish, but few fish swamp. I can only fish it in April and early May and then it's choked with weeds. It threatens me with skunks every time I go there, but it harbors big bass. Body 2 is a many fish, but no big fish pond. The fish average 16" to 18" and it's just for fun. I love this pond for the action and the fights. Two to three-pound bass acquit themselves well and it has nearly no small fish. Yeah, it's a weird, wonderful pond. Body 3 is the only one that isn't local. It's an hour away. I make the drive because it's typically good for a couple four to six-plus-pounders. I've hooked and lost even bigger bass there. I fish it because it's beautiful and for the thrill of bigger fish Body 4 is a bog/swamp with a short river flowing into it. The river is full of bass and the bog holds some big bass. I caught three of my six-pounders there in 2023. This is my main pond. I love that I can fish a stream, a small river, a bog, and clear water all in the same trip. Body 5 is right beside the highway, but it holds big fish too. I caught another three six-plus-pounders there in 2023. It's easy to launch there. Body 6 is the smallest at 50 acres, but I caught back-to-back four pounders there one morning and three others later that morning. It has a long river that flows into it and abuts miles of impenetrable swamp. This is rapidly becoming my favorite pond. I look forward to catching a five or six-plus pounder there. The four-to-five-pounders are well fed, so there have to be bigger bass there. Body 7 is a pond with houses on two shores. I'm rarely alone there, but it's still good fishing, with the chance of a four-pounder pretty high every trip. I like it because it has far fewer weeds than the others, which makes landing bass MUCH easier. It's also a quantity pond with smallmouth too.

I bought a H rod yesterday. I'll be buying 50 lb. braid too. If that's just a good day, I'd love to be in the boat with you on a great day!

@A-Jay shared a lot of valuable advice. I love night fishing because that's when big ones bite. The only drawback are the photos. Mine are lousy. Like A-Jay, I avoid as much light as possible and I fish in some darkness as much as possible too, launching as early as 3:00 a.m.

So true. Even truer. I'm guessing your 13 lb.+ beshemoth came from paying attention. Yes, they are. I ask a lot of them and I'm guessing one or two of you think I'm the village idiot for asking a basic question more than once, but I ask questions for a living. I've found it effective in my profession to double back and triple back, asking the same question more than once. You can glean a nugget that way.

^I like this one.^ You not only answered the question, but you did so specifically and at length. Your list are good reminders for me, so thanks!

@Fried Lemons, I saw your three beauties and thought, "I should get a Tiny Klash too! That lure catches everything!" And then I googled it. Gulp.