Swamp Girl

When it comes to fishing gear, I side with Hunter S. Thompson: “LIfe's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting “Holy-moly, what a ride!”

It's good to see you in the canoe again, BP. Catching bass too is frosting on the cake.

It's cool that you know all this and now I'll appreciate my Stellas more. That's my plan: Buy quality and grind it into the ground.

Understood, JB. The offer doesn't expire.

You are confident, but have you done side-by-side comparison tests or anything equivalent? There are features that certain lures have that give me confidence, but beyond those features, I don't care who manufactured them. For example, having used several soft plastic crawdads, I like the ones where the pinchers have "feet," like the ones made by Rapala, Yamamoto, and Rage Tail. I see that those feet give the pinchers better action and so I look for the "feet" when replacing my crawdads, which I do a LOT because they catch a lot of bass. If a cheaper lure has those "feet," I'll buy it. As far as gear, when I see a Ford Bronco or Jeep Rubicon in a parking lot and it doesn't have a single dent or scratch, I think, "What a waste," because a vehicle built to go off-road has never been off-road. It's like leaving Secretariat in a stall. I've shared how I'm using reels that are 30 and even 40 years old. They are scratched and scuffed, like my canoes. They've been carried through swamps, gone down whitewater rivers, and bounced in the back of floatplanes. I'm not proud of my gear, but I love where it has taken me and will continue to take me. I'll add my carbon fiber paddle to my list of worth-it-gear. I paddle miles every time I launch and a featherweight paddle means less wear and tear on me. Plus, it doesn't splinter like my wood paddles do.

Eric, I own several St. Croix rods too paired with Stradics, so we're using the same setup. Cool!

What a great list, @FishTank. I suggest you expand upon why each of your items is worth the cost in an article for Bass Resource.

It is scary and made even scarier by the fact that many boaters are drunk.

Thanks for the suggestion, Bazoo, but going forward, I will focus on the lures I already own. I have entire classes of lures that I bought and have barely used, like jigs and chatterbaits. I know that these two classes of lures are two of the most popular and I'll get to them someday. Maybe.

Fishing all day is quite a feat.

Dang it, JB. If you want, scoot up the coast and I'll take you fishing on my pond. You'd have to fish from my canoe.

Thanks for providing your insider's insight and confirming my field experience with Stradics versus Stellas. Do you have any experience with G. Loomis rods? My gut tells me that the rod makers are all working with the same or similar blanks, but my G. Loomis seems more sensitive, but with backbone too.

I bought two Shimano Stella reels at half price ($350.00ish each) many years ago. They're okay, but not worth the $850.00 each they'd cost today and they're no better than my Stradics. I also bought my Kevlar car-topping canoe at half price ($2,000.00ish) when Bell Canoes folded. It's worth the price simply because I can lift it, but any Kevlar canoe would work. The one, high-end item that I feel is truly worth the price is my one G. Loomis rod. It's M action, but I can land heavy, northern bass from weeds with it. I also bought it for half price from a website that sold used rods, but it was nearly new and a real deal because it's my best rod, not by name, but by performance. Do you have a high end item that you feel is worth the cost?

Bird, I would fish a Ned if I could and I might be able to cast a Ned once or twice, but then I'm finding weeds. The fish I caught yesterday were on the fall. I was casting to floppy grass and the bass were hitting my crawdad before I hit bottom, but seeing as how the floppy grass was the dominant weed in those areas, even when I hit bottom, I could retrieve weed free most casts.

That's a loooonnnnnggggg pickerel, herder. Russ, I caught a bass yesterday that I didn't photograph. Perhaps two pounds. I thought I had a five-pounder. Yeah, I caught a Rocky Balboa bass.

CC, I was kayaking the Ohio River when a pleasure boat was bearing down on me. I don't know if they didn't see me or were trying to scare me. I kept waving my kayak paddle, but they kept coming. Then a commercial jonboat roared up next to me and the pleasure boat veered. The old man in the jonboat chuckled and said, "I figured they wouldn't want to mess with me."

I whiffed with a spinnerbait today, Bazoo. I also whiffed with a walking bait. They only wanted falling crawdads and they were only on the edges of grass beds.

I hope not. I want to share the water with eagles and ospreys, not noisy boys.

I might not fish for the next five days as I'll be dog-sitting. The dog is a wild girl and my dog is a wild boy and I might have my hands full. So, I Iaunched at my pond this afternoon and caught 15. I only caught one trolling. I caught the other 14 in a specific way, along the edges of floppy grass beds with a Rapala crawdad that I plopped and waited, as if I were fishing live bait. The hits were oh-so-subtle. I saw half of them when my line twitched. My teeth were chattering coming off the water. I saw loons, geese, and an eagle, osprey, and heron. Here's a deep 17-incher: Here's a 17.75-incher in the air and and on the bump board. You can see the grass behind her in the first photo and on her in the second photo: And here's an 18-incher: I'm at 1,274 for the year.

My takeaway from this thread is that Bass Resource is a gang of outlaws, doing all kinds of tomfooleery that we're not supposed to do. Yee-haw!

I agree, Scaleface. I love surface fishing, but fishing soft plastic and detecting those tiny taps is an exhilarating challenge.

How about FrauleinFour-Pounder since I catch a lot of those?

Way to go, ICD!

I use ancient mono too.

The color and stripes of your second bass are perfect. Thanks for the report and I'm glad you enjoyed your day.