Swamp Girl

Me too, BP!

I do have a good time, Alex. Look at the two pretty pics above. That's what I see as I fish. There are eagles overhead and loon song in the air. I also enjoy the challenge of finding bass. Twice this morning, I thought "This spot looks fishy." and about two seconds later, both times I'd hooked a bass. I caught a couple trolling too and they hit so hard that they turned my canoe. Thinking about all of this, I don't have a good time: I have a great time...and I wish you were with me. Plus, the size of this morning's bass was exceptional. I only caught two small bass out of 17 and about a dozen were 17 inches or more. I'm launching again tomorrow morning and then the wind starts to blow and I won't fish again until this weekend.

It could be fleeting. I caught the vast majority of my bass for the first month with a spinnerbait. Then it was an underspin. Then a crawdad. Now it's the spinnerbait again. So, where I fish, what they want changes, much like I like a lot of pizza and then I crave hamburgers and then....

I would LOVE to be able to stand some while fishing. I'd love to do this too, but wetlands are soooooo protected. I'd end up in big trouble if the state discovered that I widened my canal. If I do buy a little motorboat, I'll need some help launching it at the beginning of the season and yanking it out come fall.

I caught 17 this morning at my pond, giving me 1,365 for the year. I'll need 135 more if I'm to reach my 1,500 goal, but unless I muster the energy to fish a bog on a busy boat day, I won't make it. This morning, I focused on fishing shaded shallows. I launched in the dark, so everything was shady, and I paddled to one shallow area after another. When the Sun rose, I stuck to the eastern shore and fished in the shade of the trees. I caught everything on a white spinnerbait with a Keitech and an underspin. The size was good and the thick bass fought so hard. I regret only one fish. My wrist buckled when I set the hook, as it sometimes does, but before I could try again, the bass bolted into lily pads, turning my attention to turning the bass and then there was more peril and more peril and the bass finally came unbuttoned. I'd like to have another chance at that fish, but I landed lots of other beauties. There were shorter, deep fish like this: Bass built like bulldogs: Bass with the perfect blend of muscle and sleekness: Here's a bass with a background that shows where I was catching them: Isn't this black one beautiful? A shoreline beauty: Another short, thick one: Here's a pretty shot: Now for some nighttime bass. The pics are terrible, but you can still see that the bass were fine. The third one down was long: This was my first bass. For some reason, the flash worked. Just a perfectly shaped fish, huh?: One more pretty pic and one more pretty bass, perhaps the biggest, to say good-bye:

Wow, were you ever outgunned! I came to lmb fishing from smallie fishing and my medium rods, which had landed thousands of smallies up to 5.5 pounds, just couldn't land lmb in weeds. I caught this perfect girl this morning at my pond:

I wouldn't care about scratching a boat. I just don't have a shoreline. Well, I do, but then there's wetlands which consist of a floating soil. It's like walking on a waterbed. So, I had the boys cut some trees girdled by beavers lengthwise. Then the laid the two halves side by side and screwed pallets to them. Lastly, they milled some oak and screwed the oak on top. All that sits atop the floating soil.

That's it!!! You're a good father, F3. I like when LEOs cite people. I wish more tickets were written.

Well, you're good then. Enjoy! I'll continue standing on windblown shores and thinking, "If only...."

Spot Lock is the tech I crave. It would let me fish on windy days. I'll likely never own it, but I can dream.

I was chatting with a kayaker yesterday morning and I noticed she wasn't wearing a PFD. I sighed and said, "I'm not going to dwell on this, but you should really be wearing a PFD." She took it well and said she normally does and we went back to chatting about other things. Have you ever applied a little peer pressure to keep someone safe on the water?

This boat would be perfect for my pond IF I had a dock that wasn't made of pallets and beaver-felled trees: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/647670908372474?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3Adbb13d64-9a01-4c0b-923a-2f04dc92c7a1 If I had a metal dock with a winch and ramp, I'd buy this boat.

Fascinating, Tom. I love your post. I feel my physical waning more than my mental waning. The arthritis in my thumbs stiffens them, but the far greater impediment is my waning energy. My beloved bogs are just down the road, but I don't have the energy to reach them anymore. You have to carry a canoe in the dark through the woods, requiring strength, fortitude, and energy. I'll be 70 next summer and strength, fortitude, and energy are all fading. Thank goodness I have two ponds where I can keep canoes and I just acquired a third pond a couple days ago where there's a canoe waiting for me and it's only eight minutes away. I've yet to fish it, but soon. This morning I'm returning to my pond. After fishing my pal's pond for three mornings and catching three 19-inchers, I miss my pond even though the bass top out at 18-inches. The bass might be smaller, but the shoreline is undeveloped and that matters to me.

We have ^this^ in common. I've hooked some smallies that seemed to bounce off the surface of the water, as if it were a trampoline. They spent so much time in the air that I didn't have a chance. It's nearly impossible to see the hook on a fish that's doing aerobatics. My fish-catching rate is steadily slowing. I caught 2,044 last year and it was only ten years ago that I could launch every morning at four a.m. and fish every evening too until dark. 100-bass days were common when I could fish that long, but I no longer can. it's not just that my energy is fading. My arthritic thumbs become clunkier and clunkier. All of me does. I used to be so smooth in my canoe, managing all my gear. Now I've become a stumblebum and untangling gear is a larger and larger part of each morning. I rarely fish the bogs anymore that hold the biggest bass because I'm just too weak to reach them. Bog bass like this are becoming a memory, as are 70-bass bog mornings: Time is tapping my brakes.

Al sure does the above. He is soooo consistent. Many, many times. I've told stories of fishing big bodies of water where other anglers literally trolled around me or anchored around me, which is why I now avoid fishing water with lots of other anglers. I don't mind helping other anglers. Yesterday, I gave a white spinnerbait to an angler who was struggling because that was the lure I was using to catch bass and I explained how I counted to three when the spinnerbait landed and used a slow retrieve. I also shared where I was finding them. I just don't want other anglers parking next to me. I like the quiet. Few times, but if I'm being outfished, it's the first day of school and I'm sitting in the front row and raising my hand. I continue to be amazed at how the fish are changing the rules nearly everyday. One day a spinnerbait is the hot bait. The next day it fizzles and a crawdad catches them. And on and on and on. Every night before launching, I rig six or seven rods with the lures I'm guessing might work and I use those six or seven lures each morning. Usually one or more work, but then I also have to find where they work and that keeps changing too.

I might have as I've fished some of those waybackintheboonies ponds.

Where exactly is this pond? I'm worried I won't meet my goal. I can't keep catching ten-ish fish per morning and make it.

BTL, you catch fine bass. Even more impressive that you're fishing from the shore. Way to stick with it!

Heck, I do this in my canoe. I steer wide of recreational kayakers and other anglers. Good point. Thankfully, the waters I fish are protected by Mother Nature from bass boats. There are enough bass boat-gutting rocks to keep any aquatic Speed Racers from launching.

Yeah! I once read that a 19-inch lmb in Maine can be 20 years old. Imagine surviving 20 winters under the ice and 20 summers of eagles, ospreys, and herons. Speaking of 19-inchers, here's one I caught this morning on a white spinnerbait with shad-colored Keitech, one of 12 bass landed on a cool morning with nearly no wind: I'm at 1,348 for the year and hoping to catch 1,500 total before my canoe goes on the sawhorses in my garage for the winter. Kirtley, I only caught one six-pounder this year, but I caught dozens of four-pounders and In Fisherman says that a northern four-pounder is equivalent to a southern six-pounder, so....

12 more this morning, giving me 1,348 for the year. 152 more to reach my goal of 1,500 bass in 2025. My effort would be greatly helped by getting hot one morning or evening. They all hit a white spinnerbait with a Keitech trailer, which is how I caught so many of my biggest bass in the spring. This was the biggest, a 19-incher: As I fished, I thought about Brian's lost giant. I've never met Brian and I likely never will, but angler to angler, I still smart with him. His great bass jumped once. She jumped again. And then...she jumped a third time and broke free. I wasn't there, but I can see it. Three of my bass were smallmouth. I photographed this one for Russ: And a few others were solid lmb: This was long and thick, but the photograph is terrible. I bought a new camera for 2025, but the flash is malfunctioning: I photographed this smallie because it jumped into my canoe: I'll be fishing my pond tomorrow morning, hoping to catch the ten or so bass I've been averaging each trip.

So many of you own such beautiful tackle. Much of my tackle is old, but it's like an old Timex watch that takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin':

I could be wrong, but I think bass can use a great surge in pressure to gain the leverage to free themselves, so I try to make my rod as spongy as possible when fighting fish. By spongy, I mean when the bass surges, my arm works like a shock absorber, giving way to the bass. When the fish goes down hard, my drag gives, but my arm gives way too. It helps to only hold the rod with one hand when the bass runs. I'll also extend my arm to expand the reach of my shock absorbing.

https://www.berleypro.com/product/bumper-bro-kayak-keel-guard/?attribute_pa_kayak-brand=native-watercraft&attribute_pa_kayak-model=slayer-propel-10&attribute_pa_select=bow&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23066277774&gbraid=0AAAAA-sNN8pa4zmsJvxzkMIGPYNcq5dxc&gclid=CjwKCAjwi4PHBhA-EiwAnjTHuZMpOZnCQ9zqnZH7ze1XNijdzPpzxi4a5Md9-TFibOr-uIBCK3yjhxoCE3oQAvD_BwE

My underspins are 5/0 and I lose fish simply because my arthritic old lady hands can't set those big hooks. However, I keep using them because I like to use the Crush City Mayors.