Swamp Girl

I did not know this, Brian. Wouldn't our overwhelming air power have made mincemeat of the Panzers? I suppose that would have been weather dependent. If you've never read "Citizen Soldiers," I encourage you to do so.

No doubt, Woody. Every place has its positives and minuses.

It is pretty, Brian. We're 90% trees, more than any other state. We also have more coastline than California. It's the only place in the U.S. where the middle class can afford oceanfront property. The best thing is that the Maine strains of LMB AND SMB love Whopper Ploppers.

Weirdly, we don't have a lot of muskies. Nor pike. the St. John River on the Canadian border is good musky fishing. Mostly, we're smallmouth, largemouth, striped bass, white perch, yellow perch, brook trout, lake trout, and Atlantic salmon. Regarding Whopper Ploppers, if you read the very, very fine print on a Whopper Plopper box, you'll see, "Guaranteed to work only in Maine!" Great Aunt Fish sounds like a great ol' gal and I assert this as a pretty good ol' gal. Murph, that's a new PB!

Ditto. However, I can't imagine you driving all the way to Maine to catch smaller bass, unless you'd want a shot at a 100-bass day. However, we do have lobster, scallops, and shrimp and waves thundering into cliffs.

I call the Mepps Aglia my "Secret Weapon". When all else fails it will get bit. Me too! I was thinking the other day of the five lures I would choose if I could only fish with five and the Mepps made the cut. @Pat Brown: If I were going to hire a guide, I don't think I'd hire a guide pulling an $80,000, shiny bass boat with an $80,000, shiny truck. I'd hire Pat Brown if he were willing and we'd go out in his humble jon boat. And I'd do everything he told me to do! This thread is a heckuva rebuttal to the bass fishing is getting harder thread. You guys and gal are catching!

@Blue Raider Bob, there is one thing that should scare all of us, which is being shrunken and weakened by time and saying, "If only I had...." We all have to get out there to our places of joy, for as long as we can.

@Jmurphy87: Another photo of where you cast and thanks for that! 2

As much as I love looking at pics of bass, photos of where you guys cast are just as great, if not better, for they're instructive. So, thanks, Tim.

@BigAngus752, that's a GOOD-lookin' fish! I like your humility too. @thediscochef, the coloration on your first bass and second to last bass is stunning.

I wish I could help, Glenn. I sit in a canoe, so there's no load on my feet. I simply wear my tennis shoes or Keen sandals.

Thanks, Tim!

I love these stories! I once fishing for eater yellow perch on a hump in Lake Michigan and my hooked perch suddenly stopped. I thought maybe it had hooked the bottom of the boat, so I looked over the side and into the eyes of a monster pike. Yikes! He pike released my catch and sank back into the black.

Am I the only nerd here? I was thinking that someone, i.e. a fellow nerd, would catch the Tony Stark-3,000 reference. Truly, A Lonesome Nerd

That fish made me shake my head and blink rapidly. So round!

Ontario has world-class fishing. It's my favorite place to fish. Sure, I love Maine, but Ontario is Maine times 3,000.

Phish, I'm not going to fish for four or five days because it'll be cold and windy here (again), but when I return to the canoe, I'm going to fish a quality/NO quantity bog. I'll likely catch three bass, but one of them might be a Phish-sized-fish. And If I manage to rise at two in the morning, I'll cast our shell-cracking friend.

You mentioned Belgrade Stream last year and I added it to my list of water to fish, after doing some research. It looks great! The best pike water I ever fished in northern Ontario was a 50-acre pond right beside a major logging road. All day, everyday, fishermen drove past it on their way to lodges and it was loaded with 10-20 lb. pike simply because no one considered giving it a chance. Where is your cabin? I might be able to suggest some water to fish.

Since you own ^this,^ you're all set. I look for these three things: 1. No ramp. 2. LMB are present according to Maine Fish and Wildlife (They do surveys and create depth maps.). 3. Less than 400 acres or so. Abundant water plants are a welcome bonus. Several of the bogs and ponds I fish are right beside a road. Cars zoom past terrific fishing.

I don't know what the water temp. It's going to thunderstorm shortly and then the temp will plummet. I've had really good luck in the past right before a cold front clobbers their appetites. I wish you could have seen the smallmouth across the lake launching themselves at the flying insects. A flyfisher would have caught them until his/her wrists ached. Even with my massive Whopper Plopper, I caught about 25 smallies, but must have had three times that many hits. If you live in Mass, you're not that far from Maine.

I caught 59 fish this morning. 58 bass and one thick, powerful pickerel. About half the bass were smallmouth. The biggest LMB was 18.5" and there were a few nice 17-inch-class fish too. The smallmouth were bonkers. When I left the lake, they were still launching themselves from the water, trying to grab bugs out of the air. I did lose two 19"ish, 4-lb. LMB right beside my canoe. I was in a difficult situation with both, with lily pads between the first bass and me and shallow water with the second. I caught 58 of the fish with my Whopper Plopper. I was so successful with my Rage Swimmer yesterday that I thought it would be the winning ticket again this morning, but it wasn't. I only caught one bass with it. Yesterday, at a different pond, the bass hit and hit and hit it. Today's pond had lots of cabins. Yesterday had a wild shoreline. I launched my canoe at 4 a.m. and I understand why some of you love to fish at night. There was so much surface activity. I'm thinking about launching at 3 a.m. to tap some of that. I saw a bald eagle/osprey dog fight. The eagle was trying to kill the osprey and nearly did several times. Finally, the eagle tired. I was surprised how aerobatic the eagle was. It's going to be in the fifties by day and forties come night for several days now, so I won't be fishing for four or five days.

I think about these things too. In the last two years, I've become very aware of strength lost to aging. Once upon a time, I could power through so many situations. Not anymore. I agree with @gimruis that muck could be a death sentence.

@PhishLI, I stopped wearing the wetsuit a couple weeks ago, but I was wearing a fast-dying shirt. I wasn't cold and was happy to get back to casting. Thanks, Murph! @T-Billy, you're so funny! You're also in the canoe whenever I'm casting. I'll look at a snarl of zombie weeds, emerging weeds, and wood that's more solid than liquid and think, "Even there, Tim, even there?" And then I hear your voice: "Cast away, lassie, cast away!" I'm super-excited about tomorrow morning. It will be unseasonably hot through the night and into mid-day. Then the wind turns, the temp drops, and rain comes, but my experience with smallmouth is that they can feel the pressure growing and feed big time before the high pressure clamps their mouths. I'm hoping the largemouth do the same. I just rigged some paddletails and I'm going to go from emerging weeds to emerging weeds, reeling slowly.

Heck, yeah, ^this^ is what I should do.

Okay, Bob, ^this^ made me laugh and put a lingering smile on my face too.