Swamp Girl

You guys are making this way more complicated than it is. Want to catch a DD? It can be done in three easy steps with a rope and a boat: 1. Tie a rope to the bow of your boat. 2. Tie the other end of the rope to the stern of Tom's (@WRB's) boat. 3. When Tom's boat stops, do EXACTLY what he does. You are welcome.

You caught the Hunchback of Notre Dame! Note the Cro-Magnon brow ridge too. Is my curse catching just one bass? If so, I agree. #fourorfivetimesin2023Icouldn'tcatchmorethanonebass

Nah. You'd do just fine. You're an all-weather fisherman, Woody, which means you're a scrapper and flexible. You might tip once, just like I did, but you'd adapt, like you adapt to your all-weather fishing challenges. Regarding stealth, one thing that I enjoy almost as much as catching bass is nudging bass. Sometimes the bass don't even know I'm paddling over their pads until my canoe's bow is looming over them and they swirl and scoot. UNLIKE ME!

I love them so much that I'm fishing topwater 80% of the time. I will happily catch fewer fish to catch them up top. I was catching them topwater when the water was still cold. And I catch them topwater some mornings when the Sun is blazing. This morning, the Sun killed the topwater bite, but it often doesn't. #Ithrilltokaspoosh! Heck, yeah!

Good point. Then there are Mexico and California reservoirs with their brown banks and the Everglades maze and the mighty St. Lawrence and the great Great Lakes and muddy streams and mountain rivers and farm ponds and on and on. Bass adapt.

They felt heavy when I laid into them, but I'm thinking that the full worm wasn't even in their mouths and I was only feeling their weight because they'd clamped on the tail end of the worm for a sec or two. I hope so. How long do you wait? It did well. I caught two on a frog, two on a Whopper Plopper, and 18 on the popper.

I had a pretty good morning, but I couldn't get the GOAT to work. It was sub-surface until it was close to my canoe and then it finally surfaced. The main lure was a popper. A T-rigged floating worm garnered some hits, but I set the hook to early to avoid gut-hooking them. Here are few of the 22 bass and the best performing lure:

This morning was strange. I rose at 3:00 a.m. and launched too early. I caught a couple bass in the dark. Then, when it was light enough to see the weeds, they largely weren't there because we had three inches of rain two days ago. Yep, the bog had risen over the weeds. I caught 20 bass before 7:30 and then two bass in the next 1.5 hours. It was a good morning for birds, with owls, eagles, and herons. The pics start with the bog and end with the main lure I used, which had a feathered tail at the start of the morning. Hey, I also caught a couple bass on a frog! I also used a T-rigged six-inch Senko and a T-rigged Rage Tail and had hits on both, but caught nothing because I set the hook so soon so that I don't gut hook them. Here are the pics:

Take a number!

Nice mixed bag. You hooked him. Well played. Beauty, @Dominat0r.

@keagbassr: You are a big fish machine!

I'll try the spoon next time, Tom. I've got seven rods already rigged for tomorrow morning, all with suggested lures. I do have a silver spoon or three, but I'll have to go digging for them.

I agree with the guys who observed that where you fish matters as much as the size and number of fish you catch. I doubt that I'll ever hook a DD, but an 8-pounder would feel like a DD to me.

I mostly catch largies and they're just as rude. Bass are bass, I guess.

You live on the West Coast and I live on the East Coast, but ^our story^ is the same.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm fishing in Jurassic Park and I don't see the ospreys, herons, eagles eating bait fish, but bass. And those mornings sunny mornings with dinos crashing into bass, it seems like the bass are deeper. Thank you, but I can only wish it were that easy. I truly do fail a lot.

I also know that dead zone. So, not weird. Funny! You're a good man. I think so too. Four jumps will tucker a big gal. So worthy. Life is short, so please holler. Sound your barbaric yawp over the rooftops, man!

Will do! Two tasks await me: 1. Hooking them. 2. WRASSLIN' 'EM OUT OF THE WEEDS!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to fish the GOAT and a couple others the next time I return to the bog, which might be tomorrow morning. I'm watching the wind forecast. If the surface is too rippled, I can't see where the openings are. Plus, the part of the swamp I want to fish is the most exposed to a westerly/northwesterly wind. If not tomorrow, then soon.

This is actually comforts me. I lose soooo many big bass in the bogs, but to hear that Pat the Conquerer sometimes loses a tussle reminds me that bass are tough to boat. You should have heard me gasp and yelp when I scrolled to this beast! And now my eyes are shining! I'm so proud of you and just as happy for you too. Now, will you please, please, please give the details of the battle? PLEASE! Thanks for qualifying. Some of my bogs have no deep water.

@IcatchDinks gave him a lesson.

I've never used a tube, but I do own some. Thanks for the suggestion. And thanks to the rest of you too! So much to try, but since it's 'Maine bog fishing, so many places try your suggestions. I'll let you know how it goes.

You guys know I love bog/swamp fishing. Well, yesterday, I fished an area I'd always avoided in the past. It's about 3' deep and from a distance, looks like it would only permit frog fishing, but when I paddled into it, I saw it has open pockets and a few casts revealed that those open pockets held fish. Beneath the open water are THICK weeds. There's perhaps 18" of open water. The bass, when hooked, immediately sound. I can almost hear their klaxons and the cry, "Dive, dive, dive." So, I'm looking for something that floats and something with a HIGH HOOKUP ratio, i.e. not a frog. Suggestions?

15-20 seconds is quite a fight. Sorry you lost her. I hate that feeling when they shuck the lure.

Gorgeous bass with Drax the Destroyer shoulders, but let me warn you: Johnny Law is comin' for ya! Your bass is even more impressive because you caught her from the shore.