Swamp Girl

Thanks for remembering Catt.

One thing that a few YouTubers do that I like is why they fast forward through each cast between fish caught. That tells me how hot or cold their fishing was.

Spot on. I sometimes catch none or one and I do report those thin days. There's no shame in struggling. Rather, one should be proud of persisting through struggle. I also like to share what lures did work and what lures didn't work.

You know the Bonnie Tyler song, "Holding out for a Hero"? Well, that's not me. When it comes to trip reports, I want to read the good, the bad, and the ugly. I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So, if you skunk, I wanna read about it. There's a lot to learn from such trip reports. If you catch one small bass, I want to read about that too. How about you? Do you only want to read hero trip reports and do you want to read about the whole journey to catching bass?

You had a great year. Washington grows biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig bass and you know how to catch them!

Thanks, Tom!

...is why Al catches so many bass. This sounds so sweet that I want to be able to write something similar. This is the best I can do: Every DD bass I have never caught has been....

It already has one and I plan to use it. This is why I'm waiting until mid-May to stand! 😉

I am excited to stand on it, but not till mid-Mayish when a mistake won't hurt so much. Standing will help build back my balance!

Me too. I always process bass on the port side of my canoe, so if I hook them off starboard, I have to lift the bass in the net up and over to the port side. My straining tells me how thick the fish is.

My fingers are crossed for you too! Last fall, I had an amazing morning like yours with 58 fish and ten or so were big. I'll never forget it.

WOW! What a morning.

I've was really struck by a recent photo by Al @Lottabass. Here: If I were to describe this photo thusly, Al is holding a bass and all we can see is the lower jaw and belly, the photo wouldn't sound like much, but it's a great photo because it really conveys the girth of the big bass. I think it's my favorite photo for 2025. I can also see Al straining and that adds to my awe. I also like this photo of mine: Most of my photos are lip and grips or on-the-bump board, but the photo above is different because it was hard to hold two bass at once. The reason I love it is because the angle really conveys how broad and big-headed the bass on the left was. I think the smaller bass on the right also helps. Photographically chopping off the tail on my photo and Al's photo doesn't detract from the photos' impact at all. When I net a bass and I look into the net, I sometimes half gasp at the slab of bass lying there. I like photos that convey that hunkiness.

If I saw baitfish, I'm not going to bolt after four or five casts. I'd cast 20 or 25 times...and I'm a runner and gunner, but baitfish make me tap my brakes. I was working the shallow end of a bay this fall and I was spooking baitfish with my walking bait. When it landed near them, they jumped. This happened about half a dozen times when suddenly the whole area erupted with jumping baitfish. Then the bass crushed my lure and because the water was shallow, I saw the line of its attack and it came in HOT. The baitfish all jumped at once because of the charging bass, I think, but I think their jumping before that attracted the bass as much as my lure.

You're a glass half-full guy. I'm a glass half-empty gal, for here's how I see it: I caught 593 fewer bass than I did in 2024. If I keep dropping at this rate, I might as well paint a white stripe down my back. However, I fear I'd attract unwanted attention:

I didn't think about that, Alex. I think the seat has two positions: lower and higher. If there was a 32-pound kayak that was 15' 6" long like my Kevlar canoe, you might be right.

It'll be about 15'. Even weak, old me can do that. Ha!

She's a big, heavy boat and so I expect her to be stable. My balance isn't what it once was, so I need a stable boat!

91 is a heckuva year even if you don't catch one more, but if I were a betting woman, I'd bet that you're going reach 100.

It is. A couple local guys were here yesterday and they'd both fished it back in its glory days, when it produced a couple 8-pounders. I think it's on the rebound since I caught my first three 19-inchers there this fall. Next year will tell. C'mon, winter, whoosh on by!!!

I bought the Predator 13-footer and paid the asking price of $650. It lists for $1700 new and looks good. So, I'll be kayak angler and a canoe angler and a hybrid angler next year. The Predator is going on my pal's pond, which is the biggest water I fish, and I watched a YouTube video where the guy showed how stable it is. FWIW, I now own four boats: a tandem canoe, a solo, Kevlar canoe, a fishing kayak, and a canoe/kayak hybrid (Old Town NEXT). The Kevlar canoe will be my bog boat and the other three will be based at my pond and my pal's pond.

Alabamas is an Alabama Christmas, I think.

Glenn has shared that he will park on a laydown, but he's also taught me to skitter-fish in the fall, so Glenn doesn't just fish one way. He's fished with the best anglers too, so he knows all the approaches. F3, you and I, I suspect, are fidgety folk and so moving to find bass suits us. I bet the very best bass anglers really range in fishing styles, from parking on a spot to running and gunning.

That's a healthy, beautiful bass, Alex. Just look at the bend in its belly. It's feeding well!

Yeah, they're mysterious. So true. I enjoyed Easter Egg hunts as a kid. I enjoy bass hunting still. I have long emphasized that I'm a paddler and an angler and that paddling is the foundation of my fishing success, for I move, move, move quietly. As the bass roam, I roam too. I know that there are successful anglers like Glenn who will work a laydown for half an hour from various angles. That's not me, unless I'm catching half a dozen bass from a laydown, which I sometimes do. Otherwise, it's two to four casts and I keep roaming. Me too. We fish alike. I hate when I'm fishing on the edge of wetlands and I hear a big GALOOMP of a big, feeding bass, but can't see the ripples and have no idea where it is. However, it does tell me that I need to fish deeper into the wetlands, if not for the bass that I just heard, then for others who are also feeding back there. Oh, I know the fever, Tim. I quit bass fishing for a few years and only fished for muskies. I might still be hot for them if I hadn't grown too old to cast musky lures and portage to wilderness musky lakes. They're magnificent. Well, I know many places where they like to hang. And I don't get hung up on fishing one place that held them yesterday if I'm not catching them there today. Remember the story of my sister's visit, when I took her for a paddle on my pond? She's not an angler, so I didn't want our trip to be a fishing trip, but I did take one rod, hoping to show her a bass or two. Well, I cast five times at four different places and caught four bass and she has since told the story of how I'm the world's greatest angler, but, of course, I cast at four really likely places, and I told her that my success rate was at least as much luck as knowledge because bass move and I don't know when or why. They just happened to be at home that day.