Swamp Girl

I had five beavers slapping last night. #whosaidnatureisquiet???

Bob, I was thinking that it would be funny if they held a smallmouth kayak tournament in my area and everyone would tie for first since their best five would all be 16" each for a total of 80".

@Jar11591, 28 to 65 degrees, all those critters, and that whale tail make for a perfect morning. I'm struggling with quantity too. @Fat Ika, I like your Gilly on a Jackhammer. Did you get weight or length on your bass? It looks big.

@Bluebasser86 As always, I loved your trip report, but man, you've really raised the bar, for your trip report was actually three trip reports with the grand finale of catching bluegills with your son. I surrender all my bases to you. P. S. - Please tell your son that he's the best. Whadda fisherboy. Whadda smile! P. P. S. - Ouch!

Moose Lake is 2.5 hours away. It sounds like it's heavily fished. Not my kind of lake. Why did you ask?

I lived in western Wisconsin for thirty years. It's much colder there than the coast of Maine. However, inland Maine is close, climate-wise, to northern MN and northern WI, i.e. growing zone 3. @gimruis, I'm happy to catch bass of any size, but I'm especially happy to catch 19" bass. I'm excited for you to fish soon!

Maine puts the black in black bass! Thanks, Alex.

I returned to the bog that puzzles me, the bog with some nice bass, but few bass. Again, I only caught three bass. I also caught four pickerel. Alex said that the more I weigh bass, the better I'd get at estimating and I estimated the first bass, a 19-incher, at under four pounds because she wasn't as chunky as most 19-inchers. I was right: 3.74 pounds. I caught two 17-inchers too. All in 2.5 hours and I lost a nice bass too.

Thanks, @Team9nine. That's pretty much what I did. The floating worm looked amazing in the water. I think I was just fishing it too early. You are ahead of us, warmth-wise.

@Team9nine, the water you fish is so different than the water I fish, but I'd still love to fish where you do because I learned to fish on micro lakes and doing so again would be like going back to my childhood. I rigged a floating worm this spring, but didn't catch anything. What's your technique?

Well fished, Phish! Norcal, a squawfish is new to me and I've only read about spotted bass wolf packs, which sounds like a hoot and a half.

I love the color of your fish! The size too, of course.

Ha, Bob! All the smallmouth are fat up north. Unfortunately, they're also all 16 inches.

What I'm asking is: Will a pattern emerge as the weeds emerge? Or is this perhaps a bog with a few big gals and not much for numbers, meaning the fish are far apart?

I fished a Maine bog yesterday as I reported in Trip Reports. It's a quality bog, but not a quantity bog. Come summer, 85% of it will be lily pads, but right now, it looks like a lake, albeit a shallow lake with zombie weeds in the basement. I caught as big a bass as I've ever caught by a beaver dam and I caught a 5-lber yesterday near a shoreline. I also hooked another nice fish in the middle of a shallow flat, but the bites are rare and I discern no pattern. I've worked the old river channel, points, laydowns...all the usual suspects. I catch one here. I catch one there. I'm wondering when the weeds start to grow, will the bass perk up and maybe concentrate. If so, then where? Tim (T-Billy) mentioned that this might become aggressive when the weeds emerge. Have any of you guys witnessed something similar? Here's that beaver dam bass, so fat she's funny and below her, here's the bass I caught yesterday, a little longer, but half a pound lighter:

What I can't get over is the thickness of the lower jaw. I've never gripped anything like that and never will, but if I did, I'd squeal like a little girl unwrapping the coveted Pretty Pink Princess Pony on Christmas morn. You casually mention this and I know the London Bridge is in Arizona now, but I still went "Huh? What? You...?" Well, if you're so good at catching bass from London's bridges, I double dog dare ya to go catch a bass from London's Tower Bridge!

' Heck, yeah, Alex is a BR rock star!

@king fisher, if Bass Resource had an award for catch of the year, you'd get my vote. Yours might not be the biggest bass caught at BR in 2023, but I can't imagine anyone exercising more patience and wisdom than you did. You did a great job telling your tale too. Do you know anyone at Field and Stream or Outdoor Life? I think your story should be told and retold.

Way to go, Murph! @Dwight Hottle, upon reflection, I do think that the bass were nipping more than clobbering my Whopper Plopper, which might be why my hooking percentage dropped. You can see in a couple of my photos that the trees have yet to unfurl their leaves, which means the water's still a bit nip, which means the bass aren't as frisky as they'll soon be. Thanks for the encouraging words, Dwight. It means a lot coming from you. I like @Woody B's story. He's Dr. Doolittly!

Dwight's plan: "We'll catch big bass. Then more big bass. Then even bigger bass. By days end, our wrists will whimper at the prospect of holding up yet another beast. Got it?"

So. many. BIG. bass!

So, I fished the quality bog this morning and there was a problem: I am old. I only got four hours of sleep and I was just off my game this morning. When I was young, I could fish morning and evening, seven days a week. Now a morning preceded by an evening might be too much for me. For those who are still young, fish hard while you still can! I did catch three bass, but lost five and one of the five was big, in the four to five-pound range. I saw her thrash at the surface and she came unbuttoned right beside the boat. However, one of the three I caught was 20" and 4.89 lbs., so I'm happy about that, but those big, lost bass stick with me like my shadow. Here are the three fish I caught with the big girl photographed twice. P. S. - Look at the shape and the tail of the last bass. She's going to be big one day. P. P. S. - All bass, caught and lost, came on a loon-colored Whopper Plopper. My swimbait, wacky-rigged Senko, and Rage Swimmer didn't produce.

Alex, I admire your ability to catch fewer bass to target bigger bass. A-Jay, Dwight, Phish, and others do the same. I've decided to alternate this summer between a busy boat and a big-fish-focused boat. Quality one trip. Quantity the next. I do have a couple bogs that offer both, but this morning's bog, at its hottest, produced eight bass. Most mornings or evenings are one to three fish and ONE might be a big, ol' gal. Anyway, it's 4:28 a.m. and I'm off! I'm taking my Alex-suggested Shimano swimbait too, as well as my G2, which Phish loves.

I prefer spinning too, except for froggin' and swimbaits.

Thanks, @AlabamaSpothunter! It was fun to catch a few bass and especially on the surface again. It was 70 here today and will be 70 again tomorrow. I think that's rousing the bass and especially on the surface. I used the 6th Sense squarebill that you like, but that didn't catch a bass, even though it had caught bass on earlier 2023 trips. I like it a lot. I like that it runs shallow, which I need a lure to do. I'm going to use a couple swimbaits tomorrow, as well as my Whopper Plopper and Rage Swimmer. Do you plan ahead what lures you'll be using like I do?