Swamp Girl

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.

I've watched it on YouTube a couple times. I need to watch it again and give it a try. Punching a hook through me a second time to cut below the barb hurts!

Al, I need to learn that line trick. A hook in the thumb especially hurts: so many nerve endings!

And I'm happy too when you're out there catching bass!

I catch hundreds every year by trolling. Because I don't know where bass will be, I move, move, and move. When I'm traveling from one prospective spot to another, I troll. I sometimes hook two at once. It's rare, but it happens every year.

I do something similar. I stop, drop my rod, and say, "Thank you." I couldn't do it now, but I could when I was young and could fish for most of the day. We camped on an island on my favorite lake and that lake had a saddle off one end. I'd climb out of the tent before my partner and walk to the saddle. It was good for five to seven bass before my partner even emerged from the tent. That's a five-to-seven bass head start on a 100-bass day before my partner made his first cast. With fishing that good (and days that long), 100-bass days are doable. Heck, I had a 75 and 70-bass morning here in Maine, but after those mornings, I was spent. Ha! So true. So, my lack of knowledge is a good thing? Cool! That's it. We want to perceive order in chaos. My best fall pattern was eel grass beds, but was so herky-jerky as to be nearly worthless. If you had gone fishing with me, it might have gone like this: "I caught them on the edge of eel grass beds yesterday. You'll catch 'em too today." And then we'd proceed to catch no bass on the edge of eel grass. The next day, I'd say, "Let's try the eel grass again." "Waste of time," you'd reply, "they're not there." But then they would be. The third day, you'd say, "Let's get back to that eel grass!" And they wouldn't be there. This is why I try to fish the whole pond and through the water column when I launch.

Here's another photo from my 2025 season:

Russ, your photos are top notch. They really put us in the boat with you, letting us see what you saw.

I don't know the age. I assume it was stored outside. I plan to leave it outside year-round. Thanks for the tip about the cracks. Stable is good. It can be heavy, as I'll keep it by the water and drag it to launch it.

And you succeeded with your 17, 18, and 19-pound bass. FWIW, I can also catch 17, 18, or 19 pounds of bass. You just have to let me weigh five bass at once.

I'm going to look at a 13' Predator kayak tomorrow. The owner is asking $650, but I'm going to offer $500 if it looks okay. If she accepts, is that a good price? I asked my pal if I could leave it permanently at his pond. Being plastic, it would be way sturdier than my Kevlar canoe and more stable too.

Yee-haw, @BigAngus752!

I'm thinking @Lottabass talks to the bass like Dr. Doolittle.

Yeah, that's what I do. I call it "my hunches." I hunch like this guy:

Al, those two are huge!!! I've said it before and I say it again: You are one of the top anglers at Bass Resource.

Bear boarding the boat or copperheads in the water with ya or this: "I was wet wading once, just shoes and shorts; stepped on the tail of a Cottonmouth and it climbed up my leg, nearly to my shorts." Which one is worse? I declare a three-way tie!

Instinct is powerful beyond our understanding and evolution has had 23,000,000 years to fine-tune the instincts of bass. My claim about the powerful of instinct can be understood thusly: Imagine you suddenly grew wings. Now imagine using those wings to fly through a forest, contorting your body and wings to avoid any collisions. Impossible, right? Not for birds who do it the first day they fly. So, I suggest we don't give bass enough credit.

I know three such places that consistently hold bigger bass at the two ponds I fish. However, I still get blanked at all three spots half the time. Too late! Me:

But I do KNOW my two lakes...perhaps better than anyone has ever known them...and I'm still guessing, which is one reason I don't use an anchor; I'm always looking. Hey, you're fishing like me!

Thanks, @Peacedivision. I thought it might be something like that.

Yeah, that's my starting point when I launch too.

That's a brutal shift, like shifting a semi from first gear straight to 18th gear and expecting it to go. Whew! This summer, I'd catch them in pondweed. Then not the next day. Then they'd be in eel grass. Then not. Then again. Then not. They are shifty and I don't know why. Amen, Dwight. Say, since you caught your third seven-pounder, you're now so cool that when someone asks your name, you should answer, "Hottle. Dwight Hottle. 307 for short."

What's a "rat weekend"?