Swamp Girl

^This is why I decided against a swimbait.^ The dead bass would bug me too. In Maine, it would have fed an eagle. I was fishing a river mouth in Canada and I hooked a little smallie. There was an eagle there watching. It was there every morning. For some reason, the smallie was hurt. I didn't hook it badly or keep it out of the water for long, but when I released it, it was on its side, flopping. Five minutes later, it was in that eagle.

The Chicago River and the Illinois River connect Lake Michigan and the Mississippi.

^I love these.^

This is the third time I've looked at the photos that lead this thread! I also love the song, which is perfect for the trip.

A Canadian Shield lake in northwestern Ontario.

You bet your sweet bippie, Baron! I don't just agree with what you wrote. I agree with pom-poms.

You were the thunder and lightning!

The rods are ready and in the car. The canoe's atop the car. Now I just have to manage some sleep, which is hard for me when there's a new pond waiting for me come morning.

Heck, yeah! I like that balance too, of plumbing a pond deeply, and casting in utter ignorance. Blue, if I lived in northern Maine all my life, I still don't think I'd fish all that water. There are that many places to cast.

I imagined it would be like that. I kayaked the Mississippi a couple times, from northern MN and again from Cincinnati, one time to New Orleans and the other to Baton Rogue, and I'd cross the wakes of the tow boats, some longer than aircraft carriers, just for fun. You'd climb the wet hill and then descend it, and then do another and another and another....

I like your photos Bob because: A. Nice fish. B. You look so darn happy to have landed nice fish, as you SHOULD BE! C. ?

Way to go, Bob!

Nice setup, Standard. I once drove an Xterra too. Someone else will have to field this question, as I don't fish water with motorboats.

More great advice. I plan to have my own pincushion soon!

^I did not know this!^ I'm going to go try to do this right now. Thanks soooo much! I did it. It was easy-peasy. There are way more weeds that I would have guessed, which makes me even more excited!

That sounds super exciting. I was fishing below a waterfall in northwestern Ontario once. The water was going every which way. I cast a leech under a slip bobber into it and let the current carry it away from me. The bobber would be yanked to the left and right by the current, but then it would slowly disappear. That was a walleye.

I fished 14 ponds/bogs this year. I didn't start fishing until July, so I would have fished more if I'd fished the spring and early summer too. I'll be fishing my 15th pond Tuesday morning. The state of Maine has depth maps of most ponds, but not this one. It abuts the last pond I fished and that pond was deep, so I expect this one to be deep too. I study it on Google Earth and have noted some promising places. I won't have electronics, so my fishing will be visual. I plan to work the backs of some bays and points too. The Google Earth image was shot at a cold time, so I can't see any weeds, so when I arrive, I'll be weed hunting. I get so excited about fishing new water and especially this pond. It has zero cabins/homes and is a quarter mile across and nearly a mile long. It does have some boulders here and there, but no islands. We've had a ton of rainfall, so the inlet will have strong current. I'll focus there too. I LOVE this part of fishing, the planning and the imagining. It's like being a kid and studying your Christmas gifts under the tree and shaking them and chirping about what might lie under that wrapping paper. It's the planning that'll get me through the winter. I've also already lined up 15 other ponds I'll fish next year.

I should have written in the initial post, "the drawbacks of my canoe," which is a slender, Kevlar canoe. I would quibble that a boat so wide that it has oarlocks isn't a canoe, even though they market it as such.

Great tip. Thanks!

I've never fished through the night, Phish, but I sometimes begin the day shift so early that it's still night. I find it thrilling to hear my Whopper Plopper churning and then there's the splash and it's game on! I pray and pray for this fishing boat one day.

That fishing circus sounds awful. I like quiet fishing. No, I love quiet fishing. Gluttons trampling gluttons sounds awful.

Its head is so big that it could eat itself, if it started at its tail.

Huge crappie, Phish! You're a heckuva fisher.* *Sorry 'bout the cussin'. The crappie made me do it.

I would love the mystery of not knowing what's at the end of your line. I catch 80% largemouth, 15% smallmouth, and 5% pumpkinseed/yellow perch/chain pickerel.