Swamp Girl

@Catt, yeah, I think you could catch bass anywhere. Bathtub? No problem. Swimming pool? You betcha! Cup of tea? Naturally.

Catt, you remind me of @WRB, with your rich history of fishing.

@Catt: You write "by whatever means necessary," but are you willing to struggle down to the water when I'm wrapped around one of your ankles, begging, "Take me with you!!! Take me with you!!!"

Me too. @MediumMouthBass did a great job of explaining the pros and cons. I love bank fishing. That's how I started fishing and our past always pulls at us, at least my past tugs at me. So, before I step into my canoe, I always cast a few times from the bank and if I hook a fish, I LOVE it because I'm not in a tippy canoe that's bullied by bass.

No lie: My dad and I also built my first kayak from a kit. It was Phoenix. 14' 9" long. Red!

I do fish some rivers that are 12' wide...and less.

True story. I was fishing below a narrow stretch of swift, shallow water in Ontario. If I cast into the shallows, I caught pike. At the drop-off and along the edges, I caught smallies. Where the current plowed into still water lay walleyes. I'd caught a few, but guessed that there were uncaught fish, so I cast a crankbait into the dying current with no luck. On a whim, I backed off and set up a trolling run through the weakening current. Fish on. I did a 180 and caught another. I caught 17 walleyes in 17 passes, all by trolling and exactly where I'd failed by casting. I think trolling gave them the speed and depth they wanted.

@gim: Most everything you wrote is true. What isn't? I catch a LOT of bass trolling open, featureless water because my lure is constantly in the water and a long ways from me, thus maximum stealth.

Heck, yeah. It's silly to waste travel time by not trolling. Of course, some of you have 250 HP engines, so trolling isn't an option.

I love crankbaits and own scores of them, but I struggle to use them without fouling them with weeds. Ten feet deep is about the deepest water I fish, but even then, it's not a full ten feet as five feet of it will be weeds. I look over the side of my canoe and I can see them and I also see them on my crankbaits' hooks.

Heck, yeah! I have caught many four-pound lmb trolling a loon-colored Whopper Plopper in the dark and I owe them all to Dwight. Before Dwight suggested it, I had never considered the possibility, much less the effectiveness of trolling a surface lure. I troll when I'm paddling to wherever I'm going. That way, I'm fishing all the time. And it is so exciting when a big girl smacks my Whopper Plopper and my rod bends so much with the weight of the bass and the forward motion of the canoe that I think it's going to break. No hook-setting needed! In the day, I troll spinnerbaits and underspins when I'm on the move. Once, I caught two on two rods at the same time. You can troll spinnerbaits at night too. Here's a bass caught this way:

Heck, yeah! I once owned a 14' Lund with a casting deck, a trolling motor, and a 10 hp Johnson and about five other aluminum V-hulls, but I too enjoy my current, simple boats. No one will ever have to keep up with me. Rather, if they wanted to follow in my footsteps through the woods, they'd have to simplify, simplify, simplify. The only reason I'd want a bigger, motorized boat on my pond is to be free to fish on windy days. If I didn't have to wait for the wind to die I might finally be able to catch a few bass!!!! P. S. - I like @DaubsNU1 reno boat! P. P. S. - Thanks to @LuckyLittleFisher for starting this cool thread!

Ours was car-topped too. We actually had two Sears boats, one with a Sears 3 HP and the other with a Sears 7.5 HP. We had the flasher too, but rarely used it. Hey, I'm living your childhood!

@Blue Raider Bob: Clayton's Moby Cat could eat your muskrats! @Bluebasser86: Clayton, please go catch the kitty again and mail it to Bob. He really needs it.

That must be cool, but I wouldn't know because I never stick long enough to have it happen to me.

Interesting. I've always skittered for both smallies and largies, but I'm thinking you might have the superior approach.

Right now Clayton is fishing for Great Whites off the coast of South Africa. He's fishing with a Snoopy rod and water wings and said, "I'm afraid that this setup might be overkill."

Me too, Pat.

A Rolling Stone!

I know, huh? Clayton isn't content landing the fattest bass on Bass Resource and winning tournament after tournament. He has to catch these too: He didn't just catch the Kraken. He caught the Kraken in the snow. While standing in freezing water. And he played it from a boat not much bigger than the beast. He's the Chuck Norris of Bass Resource.

Mepps are underrated. The only two days I caught more than 250 bass per day, I caught 95% of them with a Mepps. You can troll and cast them and fish them everywhere but on the surface and in the thickest weeds.

I hear a voice too. It's quite helpful, except when it keeps repeating, "REDRUM, REDRUM."* *@DogBone_384: Now do I have to explain what "The Shining" is too?

Yeah, that's the ticket. Thinking in terms of underwater terrain makes a lot of sense. Lacking electronics, this is harder for me to do, but not impossible as there are days when the light and water are just right and I can see the bottom. It's not impossible for me to remember what I've seen.

I wish I could play that game too, but when the wind rises, I go home, but I know how wind can rouse fish. I once hooked lake trout on nearly every cast in a howler and caught five muskies (and lost a sixth) in a different howling hour. @Tennessee Boy: Cool song!

@Bluebasser86: