Swamp Girl

I'd also be happy to own an Old Town Sportsman. It has a different hull than my NEXT. It's flatter, shorter, turns quicker, and more stable. However, my NEXT is pretty stable and it's faster than a Sportsman. The NEXT also tracks better and I use every inch of its extra length. I interviewed a lot of aeronautical engineers (Lockheed, Boeing, Cessna, etc.) and I realized that planes are a lot like boats. There's no plane that does everything well. Same with boats. You just have to decide what you value most. If you're deciding between a Sportsman and a NEXT and you're going to paddle MILES every trip, buy the NEXT. If you're going to do some river fishing or need a more stable boat, buy the Sportsman.

@Lottabass: My hands are pretty chewed too, Al. We're finally synced!

Way to fish, @Bazoo! Cool trip, @herder!

Congrats on retiring, Brian. That's big news!

I hate to disagree with you guys, but my Bell Rockstar canoe is by far my lightest boat at 32 pounds and it's 15' 6" long. Plus, my Old Town Predator kayak is by far my most stable boat. I stand on it and I'm nearly 70 years old. This is a good point. My Bell Rockstar canoe is a thin, FAST boat. My Old Town Predator is a barge. However, I do love its stability and its elevated seat. Consider a hybrid like my Old Town NEXT, with a kayak seat in a canoe hull with low sides. I love this boat. It's not as stable as my Old Town Predator kayak and not as fast as my Bell Rockstar canoe, but it's a comfortable compromise. Buy a NEXT and launch where the trailered boats can't. I paid $500 for mine USED. Being used doesn't matter. It's so sturdy that time and use don't really affect it. If you want something lighter and IF you can find it, the Bell Magic is a dream boat for many backwoods paddlers. It's light and fast, but it will buck you like a bronco. So will my Rockstar. Both boats have something called secondary stability, which means they're hard to tip AND sink, but they will chuck just you into the water. CAVEAT: The Bell Rockstar and Bell Magic haven't been made for years, but a used one should be just fine, albeit a couple decades old because they're like Packards to canoeists. If you own one, you're gentle with it.

I've been missing you guys!

Whoa!!! Another hippo!

Gosh, I missed Bass Resource. I tried a Maine bass fishing Facebook group for a few days, where I’d post pics of my catches, but some of the members only wanted to know where I fish. I’d be asked again and again to name my spots with nearly no interest in how I catch bass. They just wanted to fish my spots as if that would guarantee them good catches, which it won’t. I’ve seen other anglers struggle to catch bass at the two ponds I fish and speaking of struggling to catch bass, many of the members of that Facebook group also struggle to catch bass. I remember when Andy said that the thing he learned at Bass Resource is that an “average bassnut” can catch a lot of bass in the right place, but there sure are a lot of seemingly average bassnuts in Maine who can only catch a little bass or two. Anyway, because of my age, I’ve fished just two ponds in 2026, my pond and my pal’s pond, as I have a boat at each pond. There are bigger bass in the public access water I fished in 2023 and 2024, but I’m happy with smaller bass at my pond and my pal’s pond. I’ve caught some 19-inchers at my pond this year, but this 18.5-incher is my favorite: I had my best fishing outing at my pal’s pond a few days ago. Last year, I enjoyed fast fishing on a shoreline of low, bushy trees. I caught eight 15 to 16-inchers in eight casts, the most consecutive bass of my life.. I assumed that males liked to park under the trees prior to the spawn to ambush prey. So I tried the same stretch of shoreline again, but this year, there were big females under the trees in about three feet of water abutting a shallow flat and I caught my biggest 2026 bass so far. I caught her in a very cool way. I was casting a fat, white Whopper Plopper, but not casting tight to the cover because if my lure landed in a tree, I’d kill the fishing in that area while retrieving it. Well, one time only, my lure landed on a limb, so I jiggled it to free it. Every time I jiggled it, it seemed like the water beneath it stirred. Sure enough, when the lure jiggled free and landed on the water, the water erupted and I caught this girl. She was so long that I photographed her with the camera positioned over her head to capture her full length: I caught other thick girls the same way and enjoyed a 26-bass outing with only one bass at 16.5 inches, with all the rest being bigger. Here are some of those bigger ones, adding up to a 20-lb. plus bag: I also caught some off-shore, including a 19.5-incher and an 18.5-incher. My best ten could have won me first place and second place in some tournaments. I returned three days later and the big girls were gone, but I still caught 29 here and there, including another four-pounder. Bass are complex, so often on the move and I don’t know why, but I am determined to find them and I’ve caught many this year by fishing locations on my two ponds that I haven’t historically fished. Overall, my most productive lure has been a T-rigged, blue craw, both Keitech and Yamamoto, fished with a 3/16th oz. tungsten bullet weight. I’m at 327 bass for the year, but because of the wind, I’m having a hard time launching as much as I’d like and I don’t fish as long as I recently did due to being older. Plus, a couple weeks back, I had a couple mornings where my canoe was frosted and its painter/rope was frozen.

Man, you sure can catch 'em!

Hooray for Glenn! Here he is:

T was a ninja for a few years. I know this because I had to hire him twice. I told him, "No one else will do the job I need done. I expect you'll say "no" too." T said, "Yes." I replied, "Don't you want to...." "Nope." And then he ninjaed away like a gust of wind. The next day, the job was done with the dark wizard cast into a chasm, the dragon tamed, and the princess rescued.

There are a lot of nerves in fingertips. Four tries sounds brutal.

@Lottabass sent my fishing buddy, the Kid, a whole box of lures! I love your Vietnam story, Al.

It made me smile to read this.

First off, I like your post, FFF. You explain a tricky task well. Yesterday, most of the bass that hit my T-rigged craw were swimming toward me. My craw's kicking claws create a thumping that I can feel in my rod. When I no longer felt that thumping, I'd wonder if I had a hit. It felt like I was retrieving nothing. So, it takes a couple seconds to regain contract with my lure and the bass and then I needed to react lest they swallow it deep. I'm not talking about a grab and swim, which is pretty common and gives me a good chance of hooking one. I'm talking about a snatch and bolt where your line is immediately tight, your rod bowed, and they often only have half your lure in their mouth. I lose most of those bass. There just isn't time to feed them line.

I think T-rig fishing is one of the hardest ways to fish. I can land three in a row and then lose three in a row. Now, if I were willing to let a bass run with my bait, I'd land nearly every bass, but I'd kill some of those bass too because the longer I let them run, the deeper the lure goes down their gullets. Yesterday, I had so many bass hit where I felt nothing. I only knew they were there by watching the line. However, when they are super aggressive, hooking them might be even harder as I have no time to think and then react.

I caught 23 yesterday morning, but it felt different to me. I only fished three hours, so I averaged nearly eight an hour. It feels like the fishing is heating up as the water is a little warmer. Still, it was 38 degrees when I launched and the real problem for me right now isn't water too cold to catch bass, but the wind. It. Just. Won't. Stop. Blowing. If the chain blocking the access road is down, I'm going to my pal's pond today to add the accessories I bought for my new, but used Old Town Predator kayak. I'm going to leave that kayak there for ease of fishing, so now I'll have two boats at my pond and one at my pal's pond. I'll be attaching a trolling rod holder, a three-pole rod holder, and a net or paddle holder. I look forward to fishing from that big (13'), steady boat. Here are three bass from yesterday morning:

I fish electronically blind all of the time, but I have a good memory for where I caught bass and when I do catch bass, I "pin" the place in my brain, assuming there's structure there. Without electronics, I'll never know, but I don't think I need to know because once I know that a place holds bass, it's as good as knowing the shape of the structure.

I caught 23 this morning in three hours at my pond, so the fishing is heating up as the water warms. They bit soooooooo lightly. I felt nothing with about half my bites. I simply saw the line doing something strange. All but one (wacky worm) on my T-rigged blue craw. I launched hoping to catch bass on the surface, but couldn't even coax a single bite. I did get one hit in the air when my craw landed in a bitsy bush and a bass leapt out of the water to yank its claws off. I photographed a smaller one so that you can see the up and comers are eating well too: I've caught 169 bass in 2026, but my pace might slow for a bit as the wind speed is increasing. Sadly, I lost a big bass when it broke my line. I saw it and then snap!

Yee-haw! Smallest at 2.5 and largest at 5.0 is great average size.

Here's one of 15 I caught this afternoon in the wind: I'm going to try surface lures tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed they're active enough to feed upwards.

I netted an old can off the bottom of my pond and found a water bottle in the bog of my pond the last couple days. I like removing trash as much as I like catching bass.

I like the net because it's so big and long. Sure, it gets in the way in the canoe because of its size, but it's great for bringing bass into the boat.

I launched at 2:15 p.m. and fished for three hours. It was double digit windy and sunny at first, but I'm developing the confidence to fish both sunny days and the tactics to fish windy days. The challenge is that my canoe is always moving, not just in a straight line, but slowly spinning. And right now, the bass are tight to cover and if I don't drop my T-Rigged craw within six inches of cover, I likely won't get a hit. As you can see in this photo, clouds arrived and it was a gray day when I quit, but I love fishing northern lakes on gray days: I only caught 15 bass, giving me 146 for 2026, but gosh, they were meaty. I photographed a couple on the bump board to showcase their thickness. They were all thick. My pond produces healthy bass. The first one was nearly 19 inches at 18.75 inches, but as thick and muscular as a seal. The second one wasn't as thick, but lengthwise was pretty typical of the bass I caught today: Here are some more and you can see a few footballs in the bunch: I loved the brooding gray as much as the bass. I'm going to fish my pond again tomorrow morning for three hours. I'm trying on some surface lures, hoping the water is finally warm enough for bass to smack my surface lures. I've caught 146 bass in 2026.

WHAT A BASS!!!