I launched at 5:15 this morning. It was 51 degrees, foggy, and spitting rain here and there. By the time I quit at 9:30, I was pretty cold. I focused on catching big fish and succeeded. Here are the biggest five:

 

 

I caught the bass with a @Siebert Outdoors spinnerbait as my main lure. It's a heckuva lure. It runs true, is sturdy, and I've yet to lose a bass with it. I both trolled it and cast it. I also caught bass with an underspin, walking bait, and Junebug wacky worm with a chartreuse tail. I caught 18 bass in all. I'm sacrificing quantity for quality. 

 

At one point, I hadn't caught an lmb for a spell, so to give myself a break, I fished a rock flat and caught some smallies. Here's one:

 

 

I also caught some smaller lmb:

 

 

And here's the pretty pic I promised @pdxfisher:

 

 

My landing percentage is really high right now. Mike Siebert's spinnerbait helps!

 

Last thing: I dropped a rod in the water. I watched it slowly sink and knew I'd have one chance to save it. I did...by the tip!

Awesome trip and report Katie!   That's a really nice stringer of fish to be sure!  

 

Great news that you were able to save the rod and reel.   

 

 

3 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Awesome trip and report Katie!   That's a really nice stringer of fish to be sure!  

 

Great news that you were able to save the rod and reel.   

 

 

 

I thought about you many times this morning, Alex, thinking, "Alex will be happy that I'm fishing for bigger fish." So, I fished off-shore adjacent to spawning flats.

 

I coached myself as my rod was sinking: "You'll only have one chance, so don't lunge."

Those are some broad shouldered northern beauties - awesome the spinnerbait is doing so well this spring for you!  It's one of the funnest bites for sure!

 

Glad to see you're O fish ally back on em.  🙂

I fish my pal's pond again tomorrow morning and I'm thinking of throwing a couple big, hard swimbaits into the mix. I also think the bass are a day or three away from really hitting surface lures. For the first time this year, I saw them busting shad on the surface in the middle of the pond. They are verrrrrrrry difficult to catch when they do this, but it tells me they're feeding up.

Great looking fish.  I especially like it when their belly hangs over the edge of the bump board.  
 

I absolutely love a good Spinnerbait bite.  It is hands down my favorite lure to fish.  The strikes are just so violent. Also it tends to catch bigger fish for me too.

I’m the oddball, I like the bronze one the best! There, I said it 

24 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I’m the oddball, I like the bronze one the best! There, I said it 

 

I like the bronzeback photo the best. It's not as yummy as your trout photos, but it's still sweet.

 

As far as you being "the oddball," yes. Me too. And furry-headed @T-Billy. And....

 

29 minutes ago, bp_fowler said:

The strikes are just so violent.

 

For me, it's a walking bait. Bass want to crush it.

Heck of a bag, but I'd really be curious to see official weights on those. I'm not one to usually chime in and give my $.02 on fish weight unless someone asks but since you did, I'd eyeball this bag between 18-19 lbs. My gut says those fish are under relative-weight, but it's impossible to tell without a scale. I'm pretty confident the lengths for relative weight are calculated with a closed mouth, too. So gotta figure that each of those fish is 1/2" or so shorter on the relative weight chart than they appear on your board.

 

It did make me curious enough to scroll back through some pictures from my kayak days with the exact same board to find some similar length fish that I actually weighed. Granted the angle plays a big role, but most of these fish seems to have thicker stomachs and hang over the board more. 

 

18.25 that went 3-9

 

The fattest 18" I've ever caught that went 3-14

 

 

 

20" from a bed that went 4-7. Much fatter than the pic shows but it was my PB at the time and was worried she was gonna jump off the board. 

1 hour ago, Swamp Girl said:

As far as you being "the oddball," yes. Me too. And furry-headed @T-Billy. And....

Just marching to the beat of our own drums. 😉

 

11 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

Just marching to the beat of our own drums. 😉

 

Drums….. the fish that eat my hooks 

59 minutes ago, JHoss said:

I'd eyeball this bag between 18-19 lbs.

 

Could be, which is why I led with "20ish."

 

I've shared many times that I fish from a tippy canoe and that the water this far north remains cold a long time. Additionally, I had my first scale die from getting wet and I didn't trust my second scale, as it told me a 19-incher I caught weighed 6.75 pounds.

 

Plus, every second I keep the bass out of the water is another second they're not breathing. So, between my situation and theirs, I like to hurry them back where they belong.

 

Sometimes I wish I weighed them, but not enough to start doing it again. And it's not like I didn't quantify the bass. I photographed them on my bump board, so I do have a rough idea and I'm fine with an 18-19-pound estimate. 

 

However, going forward, I'm going to bump board them and add their lengths like kayak tournament anglers do. No more guessing then.

 

59 minutes ago, JHoss said:

Granted the angle plays a big role, but most of these fish seems to have thicker stomachs and hang over the board more. 

 

Hard for me to say, as your hand covers most of their stomachs.

 

59 minutes ago, JHoss said:

I'm pretty confident the lengths for relative weight are calculated with a closed mouth, too. So gotta figure that each of those fish is 1/2" or so shorter on the relative weight chart than they appear on your board.

 

Again, I'm taking the quickest possible photos. Sometimes they close their mouths and sometimes they don't.

 

Anyway, I adjusted the title. No biggie.

44 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Drums….. the fish that eat my hooks 

Posting pics of 'em just isn't as fun if they don't ruffle @roadwarrior's feathers is it? 😂

1 hour ago, JHoss said:

So gotta figure that each of those fish is 1/2" or so shorter on the relative weight chart than they appear on your board.

 

I'm gonna see if you're right tomorrow morning. I'm going to put a bass on the bump board and photograph it with the mouth open and closed. We'll see!

You did have a plethora of choir boys and girls SG.

FM

 

p.s. That was a very fine Smallmouth! My favorite too.

2 minutes ago, Fishingmickey said:

You did have a plethora of choir boys and girls SG.

FM

 

p.s. That was a very fine Smallmouth! My favorite too.

 

In a week or two, the smallmouth will be launching vertically out of the water to eat dragonflies. They're very easy to catch when they do this. 

Congratulations on a great trip! I should have gone to ME!  I’ve fished in VT/NH since last Friday, less two days ‘boss lady’ came up, and have very little to show for it other than a broken prop and a few empty gas tanks.  I’ll put the full story on the Eastern MA thread this weekend when I get home.

 

7 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

I caught 18 bass in all.

 

Yeah, I gotta move to Maine …. I haven’t caught 19 bass this year, and I’m retired.

Another great report! Loved the fish pics, of course, but really love the scenery shot. I can almost feel your canoe being jerked around by those fat fish

Memorable day for sure. The memories of those days will get you through next winter.

Had one today myself. Went fishless for two hours, then tied into my first 6lb. LM in almost two years. My last was from the same lake....Hog Lake. Appropriately named.  Ended up with seven for the day. I took some selfies with her and I'll attempt to post one tomorrow.  I'm too friggin' tired to do anything that requires more than the use of five brain cells now.

Beautiful fish, Katie!! Congrats! 

Wonderful!

Awesome northern bag

1 hour ago, Jar11591 said:

Awesome northern bag

 

I always appreciate when I see the word "northern" applied to the bass I catch. Other than Alaska and Minnesota's Northwest Angle, Maine is about as far north as one can fish in the United States. I'll launch in the next hour and it's 50 degrees here. Last Friday's high was 48. Last Tuesday's high was 51. We've reached 70 degrees once in 2025. 70 and no higher. Northern bass have far shorter growing seasons. Comparing @papajoe222's six-pounder to a Texas six-pounder is like comparing a Ferrari to a Toyota. They're both cars, sure, but the Toyota is far more common...and I'm hundreds of miles north of Papa Joe. So, whenever anyone applies "northern" like Jar to the bass I catch, I know they get it. They haven't forgotten the winter.

 

And Papa Joe also hasn't forgotten the winter:

 

5 hours ago, papajoe222 said:

Memorable day for sure. The memories of those days will get you through next winter.

 

Anyway, thanks for the respect, Jar! And thanks for the support and encouragement from the rest of you!

 

Your northern bass buddy

 

P. S. - And the bass below, which I caught on Monday, might be biggest bass I'll catch in 2025. I'll dance with thousands more bass and I might catch a couple more 21-inchers, but another with these shoulders? Not likely:

 

 

Shape-wise and length-wise, she's the near twin of this girl that I caught in 2023 and the bass below weighed 6.51 pounds. The bass above is a little thinner in the shoulders, so I'm guessing she's just a tad over six pounds, the twin sister to Papa Joe's bass:

 

Saving a rod from the void and slaying the bass all in the same trip?? What a legend. Also a 19 incher thats 6.75 sounds about right I wouldn't question the scale, sounds like a good one to keep😅

17 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

Plus, every second I keep the bass out of the water is another second they're not breathing. So, between my situation and theirs, I like to hurry them back where they belong.

 

Sometimes I wish I weighed them, but not enough to start doing it again. And it's not like I didn't quantify the bass. I photographed them on my bump board, so I do have a rough idea and I'm fine with an 18-19-pound estimate. 

 

However, going forward, I'm going to bump board them and add their lengths like kayak tournament anglers do. No more guessing then.

In your situation, fishing relatively private small waters from what I understand, I would be curious of relative weight purely from the standpoint of the health of the fishery. Maybe you'd see a trend of fish below relative weight that could benefit from some harvest. Maybe you'd find a perfectly healthy fishery. I'm just down here drooling over the opportunities you have up there and thinking about how I might try to "manage" it. 

 

17 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

Hard for me to say, as your hand covers most of their stomachs.

Not just covering but squeezing in most of those. I lost a few fish over the side of the kayak before I could photograph them for a tournament, so I had a bad habit of holding them a bit too firm after that.

 

17 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

Anyway, I adjusted the title. No biggie.

Please don't adjust the title based on my guesswork. And regardless if it was 18 or 20, that's a great bag either way. I certainly haven't put a bag of that caliber in the boat yet this year.