Swamp Girl

Agreed. However, I think all should try casting a Whopper Plopper where you'd normally only cast a frog. Nearly all weed patches have open water here and there and those are bass primed to ambush something skittering noisily across the surface. Maybe. Maybe not. I scouted a 630-acre lake yesterday. When they laid the road along the lake, they cut off the tip of the lake's tail, leaving a 1/3rd mile stretch of weedy shallows now separate from the rest of the lake, with guardrails on both sides of the road, meaning you can't park your car beside the water and launch your boat. A tricky launch that makes you work makes me smile. A mile or so down the road, there's a parking lot and a ramp, which didn't interest me at all. I was interested in the amputated 1/3rd mile of lake, so even though the road's shoulders were snow-covered, I scouted two places where I could park my car come spring and carry my canoe in the dark to launch it. I would think that most states would have opportunities like that, i.e. water less fished because it takes more work to reach it.

Whoa, that's a LOT of lost work lost, Bob. I'm sad with you. Sigh. I once had rabbits fell all my second-year raspberry canes. They just bit at the base and off they went, not even bothering to eat any of it and taking away all the raspberries those canes would have produced. And they ate all my tulips too. And even TWO fruit-producing apple trees. They dropped them like they were beavers. Thanks for the photos, Bob.

I think my Whopper Plopper-success has to do with my canoe. My canoe is long (15' 6"), light (32 pounds), and has high sides. It glides a long ways and I don't carry an anchor. So, unless it's dead calm, which it rarely is, I'm always moving. I do not pepper an area with casts. It's one and done. I am catching the most active fish. I watch YouTube videos when guys will cast and cast and CAST at a laydown. I'll cast twice, once on each side and then I'm off. I'm also super quiet with my canoe and try to land the Whopper Plopper as lightly on the water as possible, which isn't easy, as it's a big, heavy lure. The only time I stop moving is when it lands. I let it bob back to the surface before I retrieve it, so that it's churning the water with the first turn of my reel's handle. I also cast to open water. A lot. And I've caught a lot of bass with near no weeds nor water. And I also throw the Whopper Plopper where few others would cast, i.e. in a slight opening in a great weed patch. I might only have five feet of open water retrieve, but that's all I need to catch a fish. I'm also casting to Whopper Plopper-virgin bass. The water I fish rarely has another fisher on it. And I'm also fishing in low light conditions, so they get a lousy look at the thing chugging over their heads. I literally launch in the dark, which bass have taught me is the very best time to catch them on a Whopper Plopper. Last August, I caught a 19-incher and a 17-incher on the same cast. Here (You can see the Loon-colored Whopper Plopper in the first photo, followed by the 19-incher out of the net. The second photo is lousy because my camera couldn't get a bead on the bass in the dark.):

Mike, I don't know if you remember, but I lost three 19-inchers last summer in three consecutive casts. All three jumped. I had two right by my canoe. 19-inchers are big bass in long-winters Maine. They're rare. If I catch one on a trip, I feel lucky. It was an extraordinary event, so I remember exactly where I was and precisely where I cast. And I've studied the depth map more than once to wonder why three fish of that size were in that small area. I'll likely never have that happen again, but then again, who knows, which sends me back out there, again and again, to match wits with these wonderful fish, just as your lost bass will send you back out there, again and again, and in the end, being on the water is better than being anywhere else, bass or no bass. ^That^ sounds like a bowfin. A long, drag-squealing run is their style.

On the other hand, several times this year, I'd catch a bass on my Whopper Plopper on the first cast. If not the first cast, then within the first three to five casts. It doesn't take long. Of course, I'm casting at four or five in the morning, in the dark or near dark, i.e. the perfect noisy surface lure time.

PhishLi, I too found the Whopper Plopper to be hot and cold. I'd catch bass with it on one pond and a couple days later, nothing at the same pond. Then a week later, the bass at that very same pond would be walloping it again. I like wake baits too. The bass clearly like that bottom wake bait of yours. It looks like a musky lure!

I've been thinking I should try drop shotting and a Carolina rig. Reading this thread, I no longer have the desire to try either one.

Piggy-backing off of A-Jay's thread, which of your lures do you think will cast the most bass in 2023? Mine will be a Whopper Plopper. Maine bass love it and I love surface strikes, so I fish it a lot. Plus, it catches many of biggest fish, so it's not just a quantity lure.

@N Florida Mike Dang it, Mike. And losing a big one isn't one and done. I remember every big fish I lost last year and I don't have to ponder to recall them all. The lost ones are as fresh as if I lost them this evening. @AlabamaSpothunter Alex, I should try to photograph some eagles. I see them a lot. There's one bog that has the biggest eagle I've ever seen and I've seen hundreds. Maybe thousands. It's a DD eagle and in one rainstorm, it flew low over me. Dark skies. Thundering rain. And a DD eagle close enough for me to count its tail feathers. I remember that magnificent bird as clearly as I remember the lost bass. BTW, I'm seeing two, yellow, round tennis balls in that last image. That's what you're seeing, right? ?

Again, this is a great thread. The variety of our most reliable lures continues to amaze me. Thanks, A-Jay!

You catch so many FAT bass that might have already caught everyone's big one. Plus, you fish in the howling mist, which means you're allowed to double the weights of all your fish.

@TnRiver46 I love that sewer fishing video. Thanks for posting it! If I ran The Wide World of Fishing, my first law would be that anyone who catches a fish out of a sewer gets to multiply its weight by five.

i also thought it was bigger than six, but he is long arming it.

I hope. Our water didn't freeze until January, so I'm thinking the ice isn't real deep.

This is a cool thread. My guess is that I'll catch a prespawn lmb around six pounds on a big jerkbait in late April or early May. Unlike you guys, I can't remember the names and colors of my lures, but I'm guessing it will be gold-colored since nearly all water in my area has gold shiners and I bought a couple shiny, gold ones.

@scbassin I agree that the temp might be really slow to climb given that the highs are posted are usually only for an hour or two and the nighttime lows are in twenties and thirties for several hours. I think it's interesting that both you and @JHTR20 suggest a slowly retrieved flashy lure. I'll drop some of those in my early spring tackle box too, so thanks!

Thanks, @casts_by_fly. Like I wrote in my lede post, I have no experience catching largemouth in the spring, so I appreciate specific recommendations. I have some Damiki Axe Blades too that I'll be using. They're not red, but Alex has had great success with them in cold water this month.

I am so excited, Tim. I'm also equipped with neoprene boots and long-sleeved neoprene top. Still, I won't fish the bigger bodies of water until Mayish to stay safe. ^This^ made me laugh, casts_by_fly.^ Say, Tim, I just had a red crawfish-colored Rapala Rippin' Rap arrive today. Would you throw that? You do realize that you and I are about 600 fish and 30 big bass behind Alex. We should throw A-Rigs with fifty arms. There will be so much drag that we'll need winches to retrieve them.

16' is about as deep as I'll fish. I prefer the shallow ponds and bogs. Deeper water is more likely to have boat ramps, which means people. Some are only 6' deep, so maybe I'll first fish the shallowest of them in the evening of the warmest, sunniest March day or two. I would wait until April, but @Bluebasser86 and @Dwight Hottle and at @AlabamaSpothunter are driving me crazy. If I get skunked, so be it, but at least I will have scratched the itch. Good to know, Dwight.

I bought a raygun thingy that takes the temp, but someone at Bass Resource said that surface temps don't matter much. I've been figuring on using jerk baits, so thanks for confirming that choice. Thanks, Dwight and Tim. Dwight, given that a lot of the nights last March were in the 20s and 30s, I'm thinking April might be the better time, unless this coming March is warmer than last March.

My only experiences with early spring fishing for largemouth were when I was a kid and my brothers and I would go way too early and it would snow on us and we'd catch nothing. Well, I started fishing for largemouth again at the beginning of August in 2022 and I had so much fun that I'm aching to get back on the water. I just don't know when that should be. Here on are the highs for my town from March 6th to March 23rd last year. What day(s) do you think would be best to fish if I had a similar stretch of temps in March of 2023: 6: 48 7: 46 8: 45 9: 32 10: 47 11: 44 12: 43 13: 27 14: 41 15: 47 16: 40 17: 45 18: 63 19: 47 20: 48 21: 45 22: 40 23: 47 And what lures would you throw and where? The first pond I'm going to fish is small, only 11 acres, with a maximum depth of 16'. Or would you wait until April when the temps are mostly in the 50s?

I fished a gin-clear quarry pond in Ohio. You could see the bass cruise by. I'd cast and cast and cast without catching. Then, one day, I switched to four-pound test line and hooked a whole nightcrawler in the head, casting it without a weight, which was hard. The bass pounced on that.

You are funny, Mr. 46! Love that fat bass, Mr. 86.

My only single-purpose rod is my froggin' rod, aka a broomstick with guides.