Swamp Girl

Sounds fun. I used to have six and seven day species on the Mississippi and I loved them. I'd catch half a dozen of these: walleye, Sauger, white bass, smallmouth, largemouth, pike, mooneye, crappie, bluegill, mirror carp, perch, and drum. However, I never kept changing my setup. It's cool that you do!

Twice in my life, I landed 25-pound smallmouth bags. The winters are so long in northwestern Ontario and the smallmouth grow slowly. Catching a hundred bass in a day isn't rare, but catching five averaging five pounds each is rare...for me. I've only done it twice. One evening we launched late because of heavy rain. It was still raining, but not pounding. There were two little islands at the base of a series of cataracts. There were weeds between and behind the islands, so the spot was perfect: cover, structure, and current. Even today, I remember their lengths: 19.5", 20", 20.25", 20.5", and 21". They were all big-shouldered footballs and the length to weight chart says that's nearly 25 pounds. The other time was when I was on a wilderness lake by myself and I fished a strait between a long island and the shore. When the light was overhead, I would see the bottom, which was a mix of boulders and bowling-ball-sized rocks. It was perfect structure and I managed to land another five big gals with two reaching 21 inches and the other three between 19" and 20.5".

It sounds great. I wish it weren't a bluhgillion miles from me.

@FloridaFishinFool: Yours is a generous post. Good to see a Bass Resourcer sharing the wealth.

You didn't have "good results." You had great results! Three four-pounders, a 4.5, and a 5.2 in a week is fantastic.

About 20 years ago, I bought two Shimano Stella spinning reels at half price. I've enjoyed using them, but don't consider them to be superior to my Stradics. I also bought a Shimano Vanford a couple years ago to replace a Shimano reel that finally died and the Vanford is a fine reel, but again, it's not an upgrade. They all perform. I buy quality equipment and hope to use it for decades. I would love to own a high-end G. Loomis rod because I own a G. Loomis Bronzeback rod, love it, and am curious if the more expensive Loomis rods are better.

You were.

That would be a beast for me too! Under the Swampy Fair Handicapping System, add a pound for small boat fishing and four ounces for January fishing at your latitude, giving you a fair weight of 5lb 11oz! My first bass of 2025 were caught at one end of my pond. I then paddled clear to the other end and caught nothing. Only when I returned to where I caught my first bass did I recommence catching bass. It wasn't winter, but the water was c-c-cold.

7.6????????????

I'd be your opposite. I'm an accurate at-cover caster, but off-shore, with no electronics, I'd be lost. I do catch fine fish at where I estimate the shallow, 5' areas drop to 8' to 10', but beyond that, I wouldn't know where to cast nor how to use electronics to find structure.

I think this depends upon where you fish. @N Florida Mike has consistently caught big bass through this winter and he's largely fishing from shore...and he's catching the less aggressive Florida bass. Of course, Mike is also a big stick.

Agree! I also love Facebook for short, fun videos: dogs, dancing, etc.

That's a bold, exciting goal. They're in the shallow thick cover. Last summer, I paddled back into a bog and couldn't squeeze my canoe any deeper into the bog, so I cast on the far side of a floating clump of soil with short bushes atop it. I couldn't see the hit, but I heard it. So exciting! Yeah, I managed to land that one, but with so much wood and weeds to free themselves, about half escape. They don't snap the line. They use the cover to throw the hook.

@casts_by_fly, thanks for your post.

One advantage of social media is you get to know your fellow posters over time. For example, I know where @Pat Brown and @Lottabass fish. Pat has sent me overhead photos of one of his fishing holes and I've seen dozens of photos of where Al fishes. So, when I view their many big fish, they're in context, so that when they opine, their opinions are weightier. Specifically, Pat fishes pounded, public water, often from the bank, so when he catches an eight, nine, or ten-pounder, that bass doesn't compare to a DD caught with FFS at O.H. Ivie from a tricked-out bass boat. Al fishes from a dinky boat, which he launches at the end of a pasture road, but he has a track record of landing beautiful fish trip after trip after trip, in hot weather and cold. Contrast this with a guy who posts at Instagram with zero context. Anyone with deep pockets can throw money at a guide to put them on big bass. Anyone with deep pockets can buy the electronics that work as shortcuts to finding bass. Not everyone can consistently catch big bass in city ponds or from dinky boats. Knowing the back stories of Bass Resource anglers tells me who catches bass the old-fashioned way, who have eeeaaarned them. And this is a big advantage of social media. As a retired journalist, I don't think that most people understand what journalists do. In short, we listen. We find a source, listen, record, and report. If it's an important story, we confirm that source. P. S. - A website like Bass Resource also tells us the latitude of where bass are caught and that's vital information. A six-pounder I catch only equals a six-pounder caught in Florida on the scale, but not in rarity, which is why In-Fisherman gives its Master Angler awards to 6.5-pound largemouth caught in the north, but to win the same award, you have to catch a 10-pounder in Florida. You guys know I live in Maine, so weigh my fish accordingly.

My story is so sad: Russ's Threadfin shad not only beats my first 2026 fish, but it will continue topping my first fish for many months.

I enjoyed this article and will read it again. Staying flexible is the key to my consistency. I launch with a plan, but I'm not married to it.

Your point about arguing with bots or paid-to-sow-chaos people in other countries hit home. I think there's a lot of that. Way too much of that. I also miss fishing magazines and magazines in general. I've written for scores of them, but they're nearly all gone. I used to be the travel writer for Canoe & Kayak magazine and I had two columns with them, one where readers would tell me why they loved a particular boat and another about paddling with a pooch. I also did features like this one, which was nominated for an award: https://www.mensjournal.com/travel/wrong-canoe-right-stuff Because Canoe & Kayak no longer exists, the story was transferred to Men's Journal, but my byline wasn't. Anyway, I agree that gentility has been broadly lost and I attribute much of this to the fall of the gatekeepers. There have always been angry people, but editors used to only publish readers' reactions that were civil. Now, everyone gets to publish their words, even bots and dedicated agitators. Bass Resource works because of the mods and it also works because of Glenn's gentle guidance.

Great goal!

If you suddenly flipped how you catch fish, how do you think you'd do? By "flip fishing," I mean suddenly fish the opposite of how you currently catch bass. So, if you focus on lmb, it might be fishing for smb. It might be a Southerner suddenly fishing for northern bass. It might mean a daytime exclusive angler suddenly fishing at night. It might be from fishing water with ramps to back country wilderness water, which you reach by portage, running wild rivers, or floatplane. Whatever you pick, make sure you don't pick something you've already done successfully at length. For example, because I fish ponds today, I couldn't flip to the world's largest lakes in this exercise because I've already fished them successfully. Or I couldn't flip from the little rivers I sometimes fish to a great river because I've already landed fish beyond counting on the Mississippi. I'll do two flips, one where I think I'd fail and another where I think I'd succeed: My first flip would be changing from a canoe angler to fishing out of a bass boat bristling with electronics. I have nearly no experience with electronics and I think I'd largely fail because even my cell phone can confound me and I think I'd be frustrated by staring at a screen when one of the pluses of fishing for me is looking around. I think I'd quit it pretty quickly and go back to fishing with my head up and turning. If I flipped from fishing northern bogs to the Everglades, I think I'd do okay. I watch Old Lady Angler of YouTube fish the Everglades and it looks pretty similar to how I fish northern bogs. Even by night, I think I'd be alright because a northern night is as dark as a southern night. Yeah, the gators might spook me at first, but I've fished around bears and moose and kept my cool.

BP, I'm glad you're sticking with your backwoods ponds. One day you won't be able to reach them anymore, so keep fishing them while you can.

Floating Rapalas have caught me thousands of smallmouth and in one two-day stretch, I caught over 500 smallmouth with a Mepps brass-bladed spinner with a plain hook. I still catch lmb with my Mepps and I really need to use my floating Rapalas again. I have solid success with poppers nowadays. Sure, they have different names and colors than the Creek Chub Plunkers as I used as a kid, but they're the same lure.

I'm with Jitterbug. Less maintenance means more time to do other things. F'r instance, I just threw the ball a hundred times for my pooch and now we're going to walk a couple miles. Could I be polishing my canoes instead? Well, yeah, but nope 'cause I won't catch anymore bass if I do. '

Were you air crew or ground crew?

You are so consistent at catching bass that you just need water. I expect you'd catch some beauties at these "lakes": Getting used to cold (or heat) is the key. Today is a warmer day in Maine, nearly 40 degrees, and after our cold winter (single digits by night and teens by day), 40 degrees feels balmy, but I'm pretty sure I'd wilt in Florida or Alabama heat. Where you at an ICBM base in Montana?