Swamp Girl

I see all those books, you learned man!

It was 59 degrees when I launched at my pond this morning. Considering we've been in the low eighties and high seventies, it was quite a drop and I feared the cold front and clear skies might change the rules. It did. I started out fishing the edge of the wetlands, tucking my underspin under woody bushes. I caught a couple and lost a third. Here's the first I caught: The second one was quite nice, with a bulging back and belly: I picked up this smaller, glowing gal a little later: However, I was getting my normal number of hits, so I paddled here and there, trying a laydown, a couple river mouths, lily pads, a shaded shoreline, and a rocky flat. I picked up another two, but established no pattern. Because I'm meeting a pal for coffee, I started heading home by way of a drop-off. I trolled over the drop-off and caught a nice one: I cast back to where I'd hooked her and had another one hit my falling underspin: Then another, a well-shaped bass! They kept coming, really smacking my lure. I think I was casting into a school and they were racing to get my lure first: A terrible photo, but a fine fish: This might have been the biggest: A fat one to finish my morning: I finished with 15, but ten of those came from the drop-off school. It isn't often I get to catch open water bass with zero wood and weeds. I really enjoyed solving this morning's puzzle. I'll launch again at my pond tomorrow morning. It will be cloudy and the bass might return to the edge of the swamp...or they might be schooling at the drop-off...or they might be somewhere else. Finding them is the fun, huh? Say, I caught a dink this morning and whenever I do, I think of @IcatchDinks. I held it high and yelled, "I caught your dink, ICD!" He should return the favor with the next fat bass he catches, I.e. hold it high and yell, "I caught your bass, Swamp Girl!"

Yep. Last year, it was underspins for the first half of the year, followed by poppers. This year, it's underspins so far. I keep trying poppers, but they're not producing...yet. Of course, I keep trying a dozen other lures too and most of them catch a few fish, but for me, in my ponds and bogs, underspins rule. YMMV.

Bob, you're 6' 4", you were raised in a swamp, and you dig ponds and build houses. Anyway giving you grief will have to deal with a man with VISE-GRIP hands. Bob's hands: #SwampGirlhasBob'sbackhoweverhairy

You just ran out of time. How many days were you there?

I had to change the format and downsize it, but it was worth the work! It's a BIG, FAT bass. Plus, Bob didn't long arm it and the camera didn't even capture its full length:

That's a BIG river smallie, Bob. WOW! So proud of you. So happy for you.

If you want to travel the thousand-plus miles to Maine, Brian, I'll put you in the bow and put you on fish. You'll catch lots of three-to-four-pounders!

I reflect that when I take the kid fishing, he catches 20. When he goes fishing without me, he catches two. My point is that I think I'm pretty good at processing info and paddling to the best place to catch bass at that moment. I get a lot of hunches and I've learned to trust my hunches. I sometimes guess wrong, but when I do, I don't dawdle at a spot where there aren't bass and I don't repeat my mistake by fishing a similar spot that morning.

I use 12-pound mono for wacky worms and T-Rigged plastics. I use 30-lb. braid for everything else.

@Bazoo, these are the thing I like: I like to see the boy barefoot. I like the boy's t-shirt. I like to see the boy catching so many bass. And I LOVE to see you taking the boy fishing again and again.

A lot of the Bass Resource anglers have already mentioned accurate casting, but it's soooooo important. As @WRB-2.0* suggested, practice casting on land. When I try to hit a one foot wide notch in a shoreline and miss it, I have to paddle to where my lure is caught and spend a couple minutes freeing it, both ruining the spot and cutting into my fishing time. I fish places like this: What the photo doesn't show is how many weeds are in the water, which requires one to both read the water and hit the open slot in the weeds. Yeah, it's hard, but this is where the bass on my pond live. The number one best spot on my pond is under those woody bushes that grow on the edges of the wetland. So, that's where I'm casting. Last night, I tangled my line four times in wood. When my lure hits a limb, it immediately wraps around it. It's a pain and I could cast to open water and never tangle, but then I wouldn't get to dance with bass like this: Look behind the bass and see the bushes. See the wee shade beneath the bushes? That's where the bass lurk. Then, when they hit, they want to tangle you in the bushes too, but that's another story. *Tom (@WRB-2.0) has caught 17, 18, and 19-pound bass. He's the only one of us who has caught bass that big and likely the only one of us who ever will. So, when Tom talks, I listen. He also hooked the likely world record...twice. Yeah, listen...to Tom...and the water. So true. I believe I use underspins much more than most Bass Resource anglers and certainly more than the pros. I've tried hundreds of other lures, but the underspins work where I fish. The challenge for all of us is fishing the lures/approaches that work best with our local bass. One last thing: Read this thread more than once. There's gold in it. Mine it.

You've got our six, Mike, which makes us dang lucky!

I'd like to see a pic of your rod, please.

Agree. There's a lot happening on the water whenever I launch. Paying attention is half the equation. To answer Cael's question, I would add that catching a LOT of bass is the other half of the equation. I'm not being a smart Aleck here. I think detecting a hit is one of the hardest challenges for an angler. Sure, some hits are obvious, but hits are as different as the many breeds of dogs. You learn what's a hit by catching a LOT of bass.

Hi, Steve. Northwestern Ontario is my favorite place on Earth. I'm too old to bounce down logging roads and sleep on rock anymore, but when I could, that was paradise.

Agree. I've patronized five of the sponsors and am happy with all of them.

I caught 15 at my pond in 2.5 hours, using an underspin with a green pumpkin Mayor, a black Zoom worm with a white tip, and a wacky blue Senko with a chartreuse tip. I only lost two bass, so I'm happy about that, and I only caught one dink. Gosh, they fought hard. You can see that several of them were still fighting as I tried to photograph them: Third biggest: This was the biggest. It was one of the bass where I have to lean back to capture most of its length, but still can't photograph it all: This was the second biggest: Last bass! Such fun!

When I was a kid, I could clean my own reels, but they've become too complicated for me nowadays, so I turned to Mike at Delaware Valley Tackle, one of the Bass Resource sponsors, to repair and clean two of my reels. They just arrived and they work like new again. Thanks so much, Mike.

Thanks, Bob.

Don, thank you so much for posting this link. I'm out of reactions again, so I'm thanking you this way. I'm going fishing again this evening, but was going anyway.

I bet you were a cool guide.

This is why I decided against it.

I know how that goes, buddy. I get the jitters too if some thing hasn't tugged at my line recently.

And it's a true double, unlike most guys who post with "doubles" that were caught minutes or hours apart. I haven't caught a double yet this year. I caught three doubles in 2024 and two in 2023. Fingers crossed!