Swamp Girl

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.

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.