Swamp Girl

@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.

Your bottom fish doesn't look like a little guy. It's got a sweet belly.

One of my beloved bogs becomes harder and harder to fish. It's about five feet deep, so where you don't see weeds on the surface, they're just under the surface and the bass use those weeds to shuck my lures and those weeds keep rising leaving me with less and less straight water to play the bass. I did manage to catch 32 and here are few, but lawdy, lawdy, I lost a couple big ones. I'll lead with a pretty pic of the bog: I fish them slow, fast, and even hop them on lily pads like one would a frog. There are days when it is THE LURE and days when its incredible action doesn't appeal to them. Be aware that some bass like to swallow it and carry it parallel to your boat, so if you see your line suddenly having a mind of its own and going off on a walk, set. the. hook! Earlier this year, I caught 49 bass one day and it was with the paddletail with an under spin. I was chucking it into the smallest, shallowest openings and bass clobbered it, again and again. Last year, @T-Billy told me to chuck it into reeds and I did just that and landed a 4-pounder and lost another. In short, it's versitle.

Okay, if a bass will hit a beaver lure, then a bass would love to hit a live beaver and Maine has plenty of beavers. I'm thinking a 30/0 hook and a beach ball for a bobber.

I could be wrong about the dinos, but on lakes where they patrol, it seems like surface lures don't work as well. On one of these lakes, I parked beneath a barkless sugar maple tree and watched an eagle chow through what appeared to be a 14" bass. And I've seen both eagles and ospreys crash into the water to seize bass near the surface.

^This^ is one of my favorite lures. It can cut through all kinds of slop.

Go, go, PhishLI bro!!! You can. You will! And when you do, don't use any of your visual tricks to make it appear to be a dink, like putting 100 yards between you and the camera.

I see your PB is 9-10 lbs., so you know what a big bass feels like and you have the address of your next PB. Ex-ci-ting!

I have an F13 Rapala that a musky hit. I didn't catch the musky. There's a steel wire in an F13 Rapala. I know this because the musky ripped it out of the lure's body, splintering the balsa. It also deformed the hooks and this all happened in about two seconds of thrashing, splashing fury. Then it loaded my rod with so much energy that when the beast spat the lure, it whizzed past my head. I love that lure. Treasure yours too.

@thediscochef and @IcatchDinks, now that's been established that @IcatchDinks folds bass to make them appear smaller, I wonder what other visual tricks he's using to shrink his fish so that his screen name fits. Just as some of us thrust our bass at the camera to make them appear larger, @IcatchDinks is working the other way.

Your smallmouth looks dipped in the middle. I don't think I'm wrong. I know you're trying to be 100% honest, but honestly, I think you're cheating yourself out of half an inch and maybe more.