Swamp Girl

My dad caught 21 one week and that same week, I caught 19. We were fishing from a canoe in northwestern Ontario. The next summer, I caught 15 and he caught five and the two newcomers we'd brought caught zero. One evening, my dad retired to the tent and I was fishing solo in the canoe when a nice musky hit and took me for a ride. "Help, Dad!" I foolishly yelled. "What can I do?" he rightly responded.

Golly, I LOVE that smile. And then there's the drama of the big bass and the dark sky. Great photo. Blow it up and frame it.

You have a good eye for bass, Pat. She was more impressive than the longer one. However, I hate the quality of night photos!

I launched in the dark and fished a short, winding river that leads to one of my favorite bogs. I have never fished this river in the past because there are heavy weeds about a foot down. I figured there wasn't enough water for bass to hunker and hunt. However, last night, looking at a Maine Game & Wildlife depth map, I saw the river was 7' deep, so I guessed that there might be enough water here and there to hold bass. Well, I was right as my first bass was 20.25" and shortly afterward, I caught a 19.25-incher. I caught 20 bass in that little river before reaching the bog, where I caught another ten. My lures were a River2Sea bone-colored popper, a 12" ribbon tail worm that was T-rigged, a pink Senko that was wacky rigged, a wakebait, and a surface lure with spinners. Paddling back to the car, I decided to fish upriver a little ways and I caught another 15, all on a small, chrome Whopper Plopper and all on the south shore wherever there were trees throwing shade. I think I caught 14 of the 15 in shade. The next time I go, I'll explore that river upriver some more. What a fun morning! For whatever reason, my landing percentage was really high and that's as gratifying as catching 45 bass, which was my total. FWIW, I stuck myself. Again. Sigh. And this time the hook went into the middle finger of my left hand. The other times I was hooked in the thigh. There are a lot more nerves in a finger than a thigh, so it hurt, but what are you gonna do. You just grimace and bear it.

I will be so happy if your son catches a DD, @Pat Brown!

I loved ^these^ two books and read them many times!

Yeah, I feel it too. Even when it's still hot (high seventies to low eighties in Maine), it's not summer still. Beautiful fish, Phish. Ouch, Mbirdsley.

Hey, Paul, I'm a paddler too. I looked carefully at your photo to spot your paddle because some kayak anglers are now propelled by motors and whereas they are former kin, I no longer consider them family. Okay, maybe 12th cousins, 32 times removed.

You've caught lots of big bass!

Considering this is only my second summer of fishing for LMB, other than the years I waded farm ponds with my brothers for LMB when we were kids, I'm an LMB rookie. And 2022 was only a half summer, so, yeah, total rookie. I read the fishing articles, watch the videos, and ask you guys questions, but it's so much data that I can't hold it all in my head. Because I don't have electronics, I study depth maps too. I reach tomorrow morning's bog down a river, which I've never fished, but I saw this evening that it's seven feet deep, so I'm going to give it a try tomorrow morning and I tied some T-rigged soft plastics to my outfits, hoping I can hook a bass. I know I'm going to hook some weeds because that river's a jungle. I share this story because it encapsulates my approach, which is to ask, listen, and study and then chuck and hope.

Those 20 lb. pike are special, for sure, with their alligatory heads.

I have never thought about ^this^ repeating pattern, but it makes so much sense. ^This^ cannot be overemphasized. Heck, yeah, they do! I've spent entire mornings in one strait because it was stacked with smallies, walleyes, and pike. There were so many fish that there was no reason to move.

Where did you fish in Maine? As someone noted upthread, smallies are aggressive. I regularly catch them on 130 Whopper Ploppers. I don't fish for them, but lawdy, they love hitting a 130 Whopper Plopper dragged behind my canoe in the middle of nowhere.

Kites, one place you'll find both LMB and SMB is where the water enters a lake and where the water exits. However, I much prefer where the water enters as the bass seem to much prefer that too. Another good place for both species is a strait and especially near an outlet or inlet, where the water is pinched and current is accelerated. I focused on SMB for about 40 years and switched to LMB in just the last two years. What I've learned is that there is NO COVER TOO THICK for LMB. They're shade and ambush lovers and Heaven help you when you hook them in the thickest cover because they know how to leverage it to defeat you. When I fished SMB in northwestern Ontario and on Lakes Michigan and Superior, I looked for a particular size of rock. Flat bedrock, pebbles, and golf ball-sized rock wasn't it. However, a boulder in the middle of bedrock would often hold bass and sometimes dozens of them. However, my favorite was rock bowling ball-sized to ottoman-sized rocks. Like you, I have no electronics, but ^these bass markers^ are all things you can see, either on the surface or by looking down into the water. As far as night fishing, if you've seen my posts, you've seen that I catch bass in the dark. My experience is that LMB feed with abandon in the dark and if you don't know where to fish, fish everywhere. Drag a noisy lure like a Whopper Plopper behind you and when you catch, park your kayak, and work that area. It is so exciting to hear the big splash behind you and see your rod bend like a palm in a hurricane. ^This^ kind of fishing is like walleye fishing. You troll until you catch one and then you stop and work that area.

Thanks for the reminder, @Pat Brown.

Beautiful mount. You hired a master to do that, @TnRiver46.

Another big one? Mike's on fire!

Good luck, @Pat Brown, but your skill trumps luck.

18-inchers are a ton of fun. And your two are Yankee footballs! You and I have had wonderful bassin' this summer, huh? My next fishing is Monday morning. Sunday will be unseasonably warm and Monday will be calm and cloudy. I'm returning to my big bass bog where I lose much more than I win, but it only takes one win. Fingers crossed!

That would be cool if you were right, Mike. That would make her my first 7 lb. bass! Still, I'll never know because I didn't weigh her. A couple times, I've held my breath when I removed a bass from the water to remind me to return them to their home ASAP. So, I weigh them sparingly because doing so is more time out of the water. When I net a bass, I keep the net in the water while I start my camera and position the bump board. Then when I lay them on the bump board, my camera is ready. A lip and grip photo is even faster. Then back they go! Those Mexico bass are amazing, @A-Jay! I wish I could afford the flights and resort, but I still love, love, LOVE being alone on lonely bogs, guessing where the bass hunker.

I've observed that a bass can add weight by going long (length), going wide (bellies), or going up. I've caught some Neanderthal bass that weighed more than expected, given their lengths. Here's one, which might reach 21.5" with a pinched tail, but still weighed 6.54 lbs. The weight doesn't come down below (belly), but up top: Then there's this girl, who bulges up and down. I didn't weight her and PLEASE don't feel like there's any need to guess. She's big and that's enough for me:

It's a Quantum Leap. I've PBed it the old-fashioned way, a half inch at a time. I call it the Quantum Creep. @Pat Brown: I don't want to catch linebackers. I want to catch offensive linemen, with the big, bulging bellies. ? Seriously, I agree that the northern bass are footballier (<It's a word, I promise ya!). @gimruis's MN bass look like my bass: short, but stocky. They're Gimli bass! Here's the head of a typical Maine bass:

Whoa! Double WHOA! Yum. Whadda woman!

My guess is that it weighs big.

A 24"-bass, which is far longer than any bass I've ever caught, would weigh, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife, 8.52 pounds. So, I goggled "8.5-pound bass" and found this video, which gives you lots of looks at an eight and a half pound bass. Focus on her belly and her head compared to the young man's hand and note her depth too. Like your bass, she's not bulging with recent feeds, but she sure is deep, which is another way to add weight: Gimruis, your Minnesota bass look like Maine bass: footbally, but not long. I expect it's because we're both catching bass halfway between the equator and North Pole.