Swamp Girl

I took some terrible photos in northwestern Ontario. I thought I had a perfect plan, which was to photo the fish on tape on the bottom of my boat. You see, I'm perspective impaired, so when a fisher poses with arms extended, I can't really tell how big the bass is. However, my two cameras just didn't want to take focused photos 100% of the time. I quit trying after three days and tried again the final three days with no more success, but here are some representative fish, both clear and blurry. More bass. More bass.

A-Jay, I like how you change your angles when you pose with your pigs. Wisconsin Heat, your fish look so healthy!

Dwight, I know why you liked my post. You want to know where I caught my smallmouth so you can catch some to use for bait to catch your smallmouth!

The first fish was so much fun. It hit a surface lure at the end of a long cast. I was reeling the lure as fast as I could to follow up with a Senko when it hit again. Then it hit a third time as I was pulling the lure out of the water and hooked itself. I love the shape of the second fish. For photos, I do my best to crank my arm back to get the fish in line with my body to best assess its size. Both fish were caught years ago as I haven't fished in six years, but that all changes next month when I'll fish for 23 straight days in northwestern Ontario. Both fish were caught from a Bell Kevlar canoe with Fish Eagle rods and Shimano spinning reels.

Will do! Thanks for the tip.

Will do! Thanks for the tip.

Water.

I didn't know about them, but I do now. Thanks for the suggestion!

Oh, yeah, I'll catch lake trout. I mentioned them a couple times in my opening post.

20+ species in a day? Makes me wanna move to Florida! Nah, I don't know enough for that. I'll simply be fishing pristine water, rising at four in the morning, and fishing until ten in the evening for 21 days. Putting that much time on the water should produce.

I have located two lakes with aurora trout. Both also contain brook trout, so that worries me since they're both brookies. I know aurora have a brighter belly, but I worry that I might catch a dull-bellied aurora and think it's a brookie or a bright-bellied brookie and think it's an aurora. Well, I will be taking photos, so other fishers can help me.

To eat, it's walleye. For furious fun, it's white bass on the surface. For achievement, it's musky. For nostalgia, it's bluegill. For the thrill, it's 20-pound pike on six-pound line while fishing for smallmouth.

What a fish!

After watching and loving the youtube series, 39 HOURS, in which teams to compete for both size and number of species, I decided to add some spice to a coming solo, wilderness canoe and fishing trip. I'll be fishing Ontario for 21 days next June and whereas I'll be focused on smallmouth as my favorite fish, I'm giving myself other goals, such as at least two 100-fish days, catching at least two 40-inch pike, and catching at least ten smallmouth over 19.5 inches. These three goals should be doable as I'll be fishing lakes that might get one visitor a year, are loaded with cisco, perch, and white suckers to fatten pike and bass, and I'll be there in the prime time. However, my biggest goal will be catching at least 14 species. Here's what in the 14 or so lakes I'll be fishing: brook trout, rainbow, aurora trout, perch, musky, splake, sauger, black crappie, pumpkinseed, burbot, bluegill, rock bass, whitefish, lake trout, white suckers, smallmouth, largemouth, and walleye. Aurora trout will be pert near impossible to catch, but I'm gonna try. Ironically, some of the lesser species, size and fight-wise, worry me, like white sucker and pumpkinseed. I just won't tender that much time to then and I'm not equipped to catch them. Pike will be impossible to not catch. I'm also pretty confident about muskies. Splake and sauger worry me. My one splake lake will be a drive-by and sauger are also found in only one of my lakes. I won't off-load the canoe to fish for splake, so I'll be making a few casts from shore. Burbot baffle me. I'll have to do some research to have a shot at them. Whitefish also worries me simply because I've fished for decades in lakes with whitefish and only caught two while targeting other species. These should be easy: largemouth, smallmouth, walleye, lake trout, rock bass, musky, bluegill, and black crappie. I'll be content with 12 species, but I'm shooting for 14! I will take photos of one representative of each species and post them upon my return. I'm already laughing at my likely getting more excited about landing my first pumpkinseed than my fourth musky.

The markings on those bass are breathtaking. I keep looking at the photo!

As I wrote in another thread, you're a heckuva fisher and you have a good sense of humor too, so winner, winner, fish dinner!* *As long as it's not a big bass, natch.

You're a heckuva fisher!

Beautiful coloration.

Hey, measure the length of the fish. Then measure the length of the catcher's torso. They're the same. It's an 80-pounder at least.

Considering it's bigger than the guy's torso and its head is as big as the guy's head, I'm estimating 80 pounds at least.

I bought a half-finished house in Maine that took my time and money to finish. Then my old SUV quit on me and you need an SUV or truck to go where I'm going. Sure, there are many smallmouth in Maine and some right down the road, but I'm so spoiled by fishing wild lakes that teem with fish.

I haven't caught a smallmouth for four years. Come next June, it will be five. However, that will change in a big way as I'll be in Canada for 23 days. I'll be fishing solo from a Kevlar canoe and I just bought a Nissan Xterra Pro4X, which has skid plates, off-road shocks, a locking rear differential, hill assist, and off-road tires. I'll be going down forest service/logging roads and will be fishing lakes where it's unlikely I'll ever see anyone. In my excitement, I keep opening Google Earth to imagine myself casting here and there. I'm going to try to reach one lake that perhaps no one has ever fished. It's too small for a float plane and I'll have to cross swamps and portages that don't even exist to reach it. I doubt it will have smallmouth, but it's likely to have pike and they're fun too. I'll be fishing 12 lakes in total and one river. On the way home, I'm going to try and catch an aurora trout too.

Rapala F13, Rapala Skitterpop, undressed brass Mepps, Senko, and pearl fluke.

I've caught thousands on a Rapala F13 in orange. I know that might seem too big a bait for smallmouth, but I like the casting distance. However, I've also lost scores of the F13s to pike.

F13 Rapala.