Swamp Girl

You guys are nailing the photos...and the fish! I go fishing again on Friday morning. The wind right now is 18 mph and tomorrow morning's temps will be in the mid-thirties. C'mon, Summer!

Thanks, @Alex from GA! Great photo, @Bluebasser86. The colors are so vivid. It reminds me of the photography in Gray's Sporting Journal.

I have caught two fish at once, but never two like ^this^ pair. My two biggest LMBs on one lure, caught on a Whopper Plopper in the barest light, were 19" and 17". My two biggest SMBs at once were both 18-inchers, caught below a waterfall in Ontario. This is a great thread. Thanks, @Darth-Baiter! My favorite technique is surface lures. My cardiologist, who wants to upgrade his yacht. prefers me to use frogs.

I admire you the way you fish, Murph. You're a scrapper. You don't have a $100,000 bass boat. You don't have Livescope. Heck, you don't even have a canoe or the freedom like I do to rise early and fish for four, straight hours, but you're still out there, catching fish, and having a blast. Go, Murph, go!

Way to go, Murph. I'm thinking a good thought for your wife. Scott and keagbasser caught some beauties too!

Gorgeous photos.

Thanks, Phish. I need a lure that runs at 1' to 2'.

I think they're eating golden shiners and pumpkinseeds. I was casting sub-surface lures at least half the time and I too was amazed that they were only looking up this morning. Yeah, I think the numbers will increase, Alex. I've already decided that I'm fishing a quantity pond next. So true. Did you notice the landscape in kingfisher's amazing bass photos. It's a desert. So, he's catching bass in a desert and I'm catching bass in north woods swamps and Alex, you're catching bass on water ringed with mansions, and Phish is catching bass wading in ponds at night on New York City's de facto lawn. Their range is stunning. Thanks for this word, Alex: crepuscular, I did not know it. Man, I want to see ^this!^ I've seen gulls do that with white bass and saltwater striped bass and it's a blast!

I was fishing one to eight feet of water, Alex. I hooked a nice one in about 18" of water, but there was a thicket of zombie wild rice reeds just below the surface that bass used the weeds to gain a second of slack and free itself. I'm not carrying my thermometer, but I'm guessing that the water is in the low fifties. I'm not seeing any baitfish, but clearly the Maine bass are eating well. I only caught one bass this spring that wasn't fat and even that bass, a 19" fish, wan't exactly skinny.

Way to go, Alex from GA! You look so happy and that makes me happy! I fished this morning and caught nine fish, but five were pickerel and two of the bass were bitsy. I did catch a 17.5" and 17.75 bass, one just under three pounds and the other just over. I keep thinking I'm going to enjoy a 35 bass outing, but it hasn't happened yet in 2023. However, I am so spoiled. As a kid, I never once caught fish equal to either of the bass I caught this morning. I caught eight fish on a Whopper Plopper and one on a wakebait. I also used a Rage Swimmer, Senko, chatterbait jig, lipless crankbait, and swimbait, but couldn't buy a bite below the surface.

Whew! Anyway, congrats on the night bite, Alex! Topwater, Norcal! I'm off to fish this morning and you better believe I have a Whopper Plopper on one of my outfits! I've also used a couple walk-the-dog lure this year, but haven't even triggered a strike, much less caught a bass with one.

It's knowing that it's going to end soon. I turn 67 this summer and with luck, I have perhaps another ten years of carrying my canoe, launching in the dark, and floating atop cool water that's indifferent to my death by hypothermia. Sure, in my 80s, I could hire a guide, but to me, that's half an eternity from commanding my own boat, being alone on some lonesome bog, and casting into the unknowable.

If a fisher doesn't enjoy panfish, he should see a shrink. If I ever fished for DD bluegills, I'd first strap water skis to my feet to enjoy the ride if I actually hooked one.

@AlabamaSpothunter, I have to reach for the brass ring while I can still stretch. I figure in ten years, I'll be bolting a Lazy Susan to a stand up paddle board and then bolting a Lazy Boy to the Lazy Susan and fishing from that. Great trip reports and photos, my fine fellow fishers!

I hope that Glenn isn't thinking of shutting down Bass Resource now that @king fisher has caught the ultimate bag. I fear that Glenn is thinking, "Well, there's nowhere to go but down from here."

After your latest bag, I feel like the title of this thread should be changed.

I would love ^this.^ I would hate ^this.^ Hey, we have ^something^ in common! To summarize your day, I quote Carly Simon: "That's the stuff that dreams of made of!"

When I talked about incredible fishing north of MN, I was talking about Ontario. Here's an article explaining how to reach wilderness lakes teeming with bass, walleye, musky, and pike: https://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/pristine-paddling-between-the-parks-crown-land-offers-royal-adventure-via-logging-roads-by-katie-mcky

Living in Minnesota, you sit right under tens of millions of acres of wilderness water brimming with virgin bass, both lmb and smb, and pike and musky. When I fished a couple dozen of those lakes (There are so many that hundreds or maybe thousands are unnamed.), the Whopper Plopper didn't exist. I'm sure you'd have peerless fishing up there with your loathed lure.

i have the same thought: I'll see some birds and think, "Jurassic Park!"

Welcome aboard, Matey!

It's not confusing. I'll explain: Do cast a Whopper Plopper in Maine. So smart. Don't cast a Whopper Plopper in Minnesota. So dumb.

Whopper Plopper bass this year. There will be hundreds more in 2023.

Thanks for the trip report!

Way to go, Murph! I'm glad your Scumbag-O-Meter was working, Woody. Beauty, Cbump. @gimruis, you haven't yet achieved critical mas-s-s-s-s with Whopper Ploppers-s-s-s-s. You need to buy at leas-s-s-s-st ten before they work. Maybe twenty. Trus-s-s-s-s-t me! S-s-s-s-s-sincerely,