Swamp Girl

I was thinking at least four pounds too. Those heavy fish like to hug the bottom...and have the muscle to do so.

Are you shooting for 100 again, Tim?

Any guesses as to who can't catch bass without FFS?

Any sense of the size of the one that broke your line?

@AverageAngler: I cast a Duo Realis Pencil. It's 110 mm long, but being slender, it might be closer to matching the current baitfish. It also has two steel balls in it and when they rattle, they sound like a frog. I saw small frogs near the bank when I returned to shore.

Jay, have you ever insulted an old gypsy woman?

I caught 29 bass on a walking bait this morning, my first big 2025 score with a topwater. Here are four of them and I caught some 17" smallies too: It's too big for my slender canoe. Have you fished it other years and if so, how did you do?

Look at my photos and you'll see how far I was from the shore. I don't use sonar, so I don't know what the bottom looks like where I was fishing, but I do know that there's some structure that draws bass because I've caught bass there. Lacking GPS too, I'm lucky that I have a pretty good sense of where that structure is as I triangulate using landmarks like anglers once did. However, if you were in my canoe and I paddled you to this area and suggested you cast a surface lure at seemingly nothing, you might think, "You crazy ol' Swampy."

I created a fire pit this summer. That's a ginkgo in the foreground with two American chestnuts behind it: I'm making steady progress on my Japanese garden. I'll buy the final plants to finish it this fall. I built a raised bed for asparagus and I'll cut my first spears next spring. I remulched my three raised beds and the three beds abutting the house.

@T-Billy is a heckuva musky hunter. Heckuva husband too.

What do you think will happen?

Thanks again for the suggestions, guys. I launched with every suggested lure, but they wanted to feed up. I caught two on a popper, 27 on a Duo Realis Pencil walking bait, and only one on a spinnerbait. I did have one hooked briefly on a fluke.

Well, I'm never alone in the boat. You're always there, in my head, reminding me to do this or that and I thank you for that.

I prefer these kinds of articles.

So exciting, but what a tough situation. Sorry you lost it. Still, 28 bass is a busy boat and the bass in your pics are beautiful.

I launched this morning at my pal's pond with seven rods rigged, all with lures suggested by the Bass Resource brain trust. Sadly, only one of the seven lures produced a single fish. Happily, I did catch 30 bass, my highest total for a stretch, giving me 1,094 bass for 2025. @Dwight Hottle will be proud of me, for I was fishing a weedy shoreline and caught a couple 15" lmb on a popper and I LEFT that spot, thinking that the big girls hadn't moved shallow yet, but were likely close. So, I moved out into open water and tied on a Duo Realis Pencil walking bait. The kid had scored some bass with a fat Duo Realis and @Glenn taught me to downsize, so I went with the thinner Pencil. It is 4 and 1/3rd inches, which might be a little big for fall bass, given the size of the shad, but being long let me make long casts and I'm a big believer in keeping my lure in the water for as long as possible. Well, I guessed right. I caught some beautiful bass. Here are two bucketmouths that were over 19 inches: I caught some smallies longer than I typically catch. It's been a good summer for brown bass: I caught some other fine lmb too: Glenn also taught me that were there's bait, there might be bass. So, I saw at the far end of a bay some shad jumping. I didn't see bass chasing them, but I figured if bait was there, bass would be there too. So, I worked my Duo Realis Pencil through that area and caught about half a dozen bass. I did lose one nice one when I went to net it and I hooked my lure to the outside of the net. I kept trying to flip my net to capture the bass, but that didn't work, so I reached for it and it flipped free. Oh, well, I caught the others! I expect going forward to be catching more and more bass with surface lures. That's what they wanted this morning. My only subsurface bass was on a spinnerbait. A few more, including the world's toughest bass at the end:

@TnRiver46: That is such a Russ post: different boats, different buddies, different species, and and the wife too!

Could be. Hope not!

I'm looking for the weedless spoons that I already own. I can't remember where I put them.

It might have been published in "Musky Hunter." It made the rounds. She was pretty well known. @AlgonquinFan and @The Baron: Oh, Canada, GO, Canada! Great photos, @AlgonquinFan, and I love city fishing.

There's a member of the Bass Resource community called @Pat Brown. He also fishes urban ponds and lands BIG bass. He'll probably advise you shortly. Listen to him.

I've been digging through my lures and so far have found a couple small spinnerbaits, little flukes, a Rage Bug, and swimming worms. I'm still looking for some weedless spoons. I know I own some. I also found a skinny popper that I've never cast and I'm thinking that it might fit @Glenn's advice to throw smaller baits. I also found a small, shallow-running crankbait. Fingers crossed! No more suggestions, please! I have enough lures to try, but thanks for the all the suggestions so far.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'll follow them and let you know. I'll be thrilled if I can catch 20, but anything over ten will feel like a win. There were four other anglers fishing my pond last night and this was their total catch: 0

Exactly. @Glenn and the mods keep fools from ruining Bass Resource. BTW, my recently deceased father was the great and imperial King of Tonga and he left $52,000,000.000 USDdollars in gold to me and I.... @MN Fisher: Your bass is impressive. I scratch my head and wonder, "How did he hook that?"

I'm always changing where I fish and the sequence. Wind speed and direction decide where I fish, as well as the season and where I think bass might be. I also consider where I caught them a year ago at this time. Based upon how many bass can be found per acre of water, my pond should have about 17,000 bass. My pal's pond should have about 35,000 bass. I don't think I'll ever catch them all, even though I give it my best try! Do I pitch it into weeds and do I use a trailer, Tom? I haven't tried one of those in a while. I'll rig one of those too for tomorrow morning. I've been trying a spinnerbait here and there, but not for ten days or so. So, I'll launch with one of those too. Yes, but poorly and I have no fly fishing rod of my own.