Swamp Girl

In other threads, I've been extolling the virtues of a canoe, like gliding over lily pads, snaking through reeds, carrying more gear than a kayak, and being sneaky. Here are the drawbacks: 1. You can't stand. This is a big deal because it's harder to set the hook lower in the water and there are times I really want to stand and look over the reeds to see what's beyond. 2. They are tippy, some more than others. My canoe is especially tippy. When I first step into it, it feels like I'm on a fence rail. My canoe has what is called poor primary stability and good secondary stability, meaning that it feels tippier than it is. 3. The high sides, as opposed to a kayak, means I get blown about by wind. This is also a big deal when you're fighting a fish and and it means a lot of positioning corrections by paddle. 4. It's Kevlar, so it's delicate and has to be babied.

Heck, yeah! I even like when they splash me.

I love when we appreciate fish for more than just their size.

Beautiful fish, Steve.

Your PB is DD. You grow ginor-giganti-gargantu-uge bass! If your Florida-strain bass were magically moved to Maine, the Maine bass would yell "YIKES!" and your bass would say, "Yummy."

I feel the same way about spotted bass. One day, I will make a trip down south....

I'm going to try it, but I do have, as the medical community would say, a mild to moderate case of fraidy cat.

This is top-class storytelling. You really put me in the boat and each time, I suffered with you! The fish that jumped reminded me of a largie that jumped on me.Twice. Both times I could see her glory.

This should be my tagline: "At this point with all the fish I've caught in my life, it just seems strange that I would miss as many as I do sometimes." As I shared in another post, one reason I miss fish is because I get a lot of my hits at the very end of a long cast with stretchy mono. Another is that I'm in a light canoe and the wind is always moving my canoe, meaning there are times when I'm trying to set the hook over my shoulder. Yet another reason is that I'm sitting in a canoe, with nowhere near the leverage to set the hook that you get when you can plant your feet. I'm also old with a little arthritis in my hands. Still, there are moments when the stars align, like yesterday with a 19" bass that had a single hook of my six hooks just barely in her lip. I could see that this was the case as she started thrashing by the boat, but I managed to get her in the net. As someone posted here, sometimes we're the windshield and sometimes we're the bug.

I think A-Jay's massive smallies are orange.

Tennessee is having quite a year.

Mike, I miss fish nearly every time I fish. An average day for me is missing as many fish as I catch. By miss, I mean a fish will hit a surface lure and I won't hook it or I will hook it for a second or two or I have it hooked for a nearly full fight and have it beside the boat and it comes unpinned. I had one morning this year where I caught nearly every fish, but they were inhaling my wake bait that morning. They weren't flirting.

Thanks, Blue. I had misassumed that you worked a swimbait with your rod like you do most lures. I LOVED musky fishing, but it was the size of the lures that led me to quit. Is it hard on your body to throw the big swimbaits?

I'm thrilled for you. Those are gorgeous fish.

Congrats on your 8.1 lb. bass. I don't know if you know this, but a bass caught from a city pond, which gets pounded, counts double.

Alex, I had a tradesman at my house yesterday and we started talking fishing. That conversation went for about an hour. He showed me fish pics. I showed him fish pics. He was stunned at the number of bass I catch, but then he showed me a photo of his boat. Gorgeous boat. Big outboard. And I said, "That's your handicap." The outlet for this morning's pond, with a waterfall at the end, would not permit a big boat. Too many big rocks just under the surface. Too many weeds. The inlet was the same, for when the weeds weren't on the surface, they were just under it. "But my boat is so comfy," he said. And he's right. And a canoe isn't comfy, relatively. To be frank, I'm a former writer for Canoe & Kayak magazine, so I'm happy in a canoe, but I'm even happier that they let me cast to bass that the guys with big boats can't reach. However, there were times this morning when I felt like the pond was designed by a miniature golf designer. They only trap that wasn't present was a little windmill. At one point, my line arced over a tree branch and when the lure hit the water, a bass hit it. There were even floating beaver logs.

I fished a new lake this morning. Deep enough for trout, but considering I was chucking a Whopper Plopper and wacky worm, I caught no trout. See the first pic of the cliff. Now imagine that slope extending into the water. My map showed it was 40 feet deep about ten yards from shore. I caught fish in three places: the inlet, the outlet, and a point. I only caught 17 fish, but some of them were big for me, in the 17" to 19" range. See the bass with the big belly, the sixth photo down? I photographed her twice because she was so nice, so the seventh pic is the same fish on the board. I also included two short fish at the bottom so you could see that they were chunky too. No fishing for at least three days due to cold nights. I don't like being in a canoe in my shorts when it's in the thirties.

I am both thrilled and intimidated by the prospect of hooking one of these powerhouses in a bitty boat.

Given their power, do they tow you in your canoe? Did you ever feel that you, like in Jaws, needed a bigger boat?

So, for my first swimbait, should I buy the Trace or the BD Shad? I love that evening light in Alabama. Are you able to bass fish even in January?

Next spring, Alex, I'd like you to coach me on fishing it. I'm assuming it works in the spring. Does it? Like you, I appreciate details. The devil isn't in the details. Angels are! If you glanced at me in my canoe, you'd think that I was a sad sack, but my boat is Kevlar and my paddle is carbon and my rods are G. Loomis and my reels are Stellas. However, next to a metallic flake bass boat with video game electronics rolling off of a twin-axled, chromed trailer, I would look sad with my scratched canoe and plain, dark rods with zero bling. Same with you, Alex. I've seen photos of your aluminum V-hull with the trolling motor, but you're throwing $35 swimbaits and you're throwing them from a platform that's as stealthy as a canoe and puts you close to the water, like a canoe, so you can watch and learn. You put your money and your body where it matters, where you can entice big bass and then land 'em. Say, I've learned so much from you guys that I'd like to share one of the few things that I've learned on the water and that's this: Long casts catch bass. I'm guessing I catch 85% of my fish within a few feet of the farthest reach of my long casts. It's the same in Canada, where the bass have never heard people sounds and bolt when they do. In Canada, I cast as long as possible, work my lure for a few seconds, and often retrieve it at full speed to cast again. So far in Maine, I work my lure most of the way to the canoe, but here and farther north, the farther I cast, the more fish I catch. Of course, it's harder to hook a fish when it hits way yonder and especially on my beloved surface lures, but in the end, I know I catch more fish with long casts. New pond tomorrow! It's deep, deep enough to hold trout, so I'm a little nervous about the depth, and there's going to be wind too, but I do love to fish new water and I'll hug those shorelines to be safe.

That Trace bait is beautiful. I love the packaging too. It reminds me of the way lures used to come in cardboard boxes with beautiful graphics. I just checked. Cabela's carries the lure. I'm going to buy one.

The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the world's saltwater. This means we're seeing more and more striped bass in our Maine rivers. I'm thinking about fishing for them in canoe. I've caught a couple in the ocean with saltwater gear and they are powerhouses. Do you think it's feasible in a canoe?

Fascinating. Thanks! Do you have a brand favorite?

It is so gratifying to master a new task. Congrats on that new PB! I can't imagine the pressure of tournament fishing. Alex, how do you do ^this^?