Swamp Girl

PHAT phish!!!

What a story. And it was a pocket-sized Moby Dick!

I know what you mean! The bass I catch in April are so cold that it almost hurts to touch them. I cast into my pond two days ago from the shore and was skunked, so you're one ahead of me for mid-November.

So, I went to Jacob Housman's Instagram page and there isn't a single critical comment, but hundreds of comments praising him and on one post, he said he caught 157 smallmouth in a day. I want to be happy for him, but he can't be trusted.

Everything that Jacob Housman has ever claimed is now suspect. The stench will linger a long, long time because the Internet never forgets.

Interesting. Makes sense.

I walked down to my pond yesterday afternoon and cast about 15 times from the one spot where I can stand. I used a paddletail on an underspin, but skunked. I think the water's just too cold for them to react. Still, I had a good time being in the woods and my pooch sure wanted to bite my lure. I had some gravel in my trailer from erecting my fence, so I towed that to the pond and spread it around the turnaround area for my car. Gosh, I'm getting old. That gravel was so heavy and I had to take several breaks.

Yeah, we acclimate pretty quickly to where we live. I was in a motel in Florida once and stepped outside at duck and the heat was so thick I felt like I was walking through syrup, but to Floridians, it probably felt comfy.

Bullseye, GP.

As I've shared many times, a canoe is a wet boat. When I shift the paddle from one side to the other, water drips along the way. So, I'm wet, my gear is wet, and the canoe is wet. If I were fishing a dry boat, I'd linger longer, but anything under 40 degrees is too cold for me.

Cool to crack the code! You catch four-pounders so easily. I'm happy for you, but I'm also green with envy.

Put ten bassnuts in a room and you'll have twelve opinions.

Fishing eight days in a row??? Forget about being like Mike. Be like Russ!!!

It has to be stable to take a 10 HP outboard. It's a cool boat. If I ever get a proper dock, I might keep one on my pond. I used to write a column for Canoe & Kayak magazine about different canoes and kayaks and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't know about Gheenoes before today.

Heck, yeah! So many of us fish in beautiful places and I love seeing that beauty. I also like to share where I cast so that others might see something similar and give it a try. Like this:

At first, I thought you were being funny by misspelling canoe as "gheenoe." Then I googled it and learned a little about your amazing boat. Which model is yours?

That's a fat smallmouth, Russ, so the "one that dwarfed it" haunts me too! I love seeing floatplanes. They're a big part of bush country fishing in northwestern Ontario. I hired half a dozen to keep my dad in his beloved wilderness through his seventies.

I've never used an A-rig, so I'm assuming that bass sometimes strike the dummy baits and I wonder if you can feel those hits.

I wanna be like Mike!

Thanks, Al. My perspective is that of a professional storyteller. Because I've profiled hundreds and hundreds (maybe thousands) of people, sometimes someone has approached me with a person they think belongs in a magazine. They say things like, "He's just such an interesting character." But that doesn't merit an article. Every storyteller knows that without struggle, there is no story worth telling. So, if you present as an angler who always catches bass, there's no struggle and you also present as an unreliable witness, for eventually, we all struggle. My struggle at the end of the 2025 season was my fear...of tipping and dying. So, the thing that I do best, which is to find bass by ranging, was largely taken from me. And I quit long before you, Al, and as you fish on, you've kept catching and catching and catching and I'm your fangirl! So, for me, my new struggle is accepting my limitations (weak swimmer and cold water), but also finding ways to fish longer in the coming years, such as buying a new, bigger, more stable boat, which I just did, and doing yoga this winter to boost my balance. I'm also thinking about getting a YMCA membership to do laps. There are some serious struggles at Bass Resource, such as guys limited to fishing from shore, anglers who only have access to public, pounded ponds, men contending with cancer and other health challenges, wind that makes fishing difficult and even dangerous, and on and on. There are widely-ranging degrees of heroism in all of the above. So, maybe I am holding out for heroes, if heroes are the men who persist in their bass passion whatever their struggles. Thanks, Dwight. The counterpoint is important.

GP, I love your lake pic. I especially love looking at all that undeveloped shoreline.

If I know people (and I've known a few), we'll always have some unhappy readers/viewers. As was sung, ya can't please everyone, so you might as well please yourself. However, your reports please me!

Al(exander) the Great, again and again. So happy for you, my friend.

I forgot to say, PDX, that you are clever with language.

Me too! I own a couple, but I've been too fraidy to throw one. No wind to a bare breeze sounds amazing for the Columbia River gorge, which, as you know, can howl. Gorgeous bass. You are right about how thick and healthy they are.