Swamp Girl

Thanks, Blue. I had misassumed that you worked a swimbait with your rod like you do most lures. I LOVED musky fishing, but it was the size of the lures that led me to quit. Is it hard on your body to throw the big swimbaits?

I'm thrilled for you. Those are gorgeous fish.

Congrats on your 8.1 lb. bass. I don't know if you know this, but a bass caught from a city pond, which gets pounded, counts double.

Alex, I had a tradesman at my house yesterday and we started talking fishing. That conversation went for about an hour. He showed me fish pics. I showed him fish pics. He was stunned at the number of bass I catch, but then he showed me a photo of his boat. Gorgeous boat. Big outboard. And I said, "That's your handicap." The outlet for this morning's pond, with a waterfall at the end, would not permit a big boat. Too many big rocks just under the surface. Too many weeds. The inlet was the same, for when the weeds weren't on the surface, they were just under it. "But my boat is so comfy," he said. And he's right. And a canoe isn't comfy, relatively. To be frank, I'm a former writer for Canoe & Kayak magazine, so I'm happy in a canoe, but I'm even happier that they let me cast to bass that the guys with big boats can't reach. However, there were times this morning when I felt like the pond was designed by a miniature golf designer. They only trap that wasn't present was a little windmill. At one point, my line arced over a tree branch and when the lure hit the water, a bass hit it. There were even floating beaver logs.

I fished a new lake this morning. Deep enough for trout, but considering I was chucking a Whopper Plopper and wacky worm, I caught no trout. See the first pic of the cliff. Now imagine that slope extending into the water. My map showed it was 40 feet deep about ten yards from shore. I caught fish in three places: the inlet, the outlet, and a point. I only caught 17 fish, but some of them were big for me, in the 17" to 19" range. See the bass with the big belly, the sixth photo down? I photographed her twice because she was so nice, so the seventh pic is the same fish on the board. I also included two short fish at the bottom so you could see that they were chunky too. No fishing for at least three days due to cold nights. I don't like being in a canoe in my shorts when it's in the thirties.

I am both thrilled and intimidated by the prospect of hooking one of these powerhouses in a bitty boat.

Given their power, do they tow you in your canoe? Did you ever feel that you, like in Jaws, needed a bigger boat?

So, for my first swimbait, should I buy the Trace or the BD Shad? I love that evening light in Alabama. Are you able to bass fish even in January?

Next spring, Alex, I'd like you to coach me on fishing it. I'm assuming it works in the spring. Does it? Like you, I appreciate details. The devil isn't in the details. Angels are! If you glanced at me in my canoe, you'd think that I was a sad sack, but my boat is Kevlar and my paddle is carbon and my rods are G. Loomis and my reels are Stellas. However, next to a metallic flake bass boat with video game electronics rolling off of a twin-axled, chromed trailer, I would look sad with my scratched canoe and plain, dark rods with zero bling. Same with you, Alex. I've seen photos of your aluminum V-hull with the trolling motor, but you're throwing $35 swimbaits and you're throwing them from a platform that's as stealthy as a canoe and puts you close to the water, like a canoe, so you can watch and learn. You put your money and your body where it matters, where you can entice big bass and then land 'em. Say, I've learned so much from you guys that I'd like to share one of the few things that I've learned on the water and that's this: Long casts catch bass. I'm guessing I catch 85% of my fish within a few feet of the farthest reach of my long casts. It's the same in Canada, where the bass have never heard people sounds and bolt when they do. In Canada, I cast as long as possible, work my lure for a few seconds, and often retrieve it at full speed to cast again. So far in Maine, I work my lure most of the way to the canoe, but here and farther north, the farther I cast, the more fish I catch. Of course, it's harder to hook a fish when it hits way yonder and especially on my beloved surface lures, but in the end, I know I catch more fish with long casts. New pond tomorrow! It's deep, deep enough to hold trout, so I'm a little nervous about the depth, and there's going to be wind too, but I do love to fish new water and I'll hug those shorelines to be safe.

That Trace bait is beautiful. I love the packaging too. It reminds me of the way lures used to come in cardboard boxes with beautiful graphics. I just checked. Cabela's carries the lure. I'm going to buy one.

The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the world's saltwater. This means we're seeing more and more striped bass in our Maine rivers. I'm thinking about fishing for them in canoe. I've caught a couple in the ocean with saltwater gear and they are powerhouses. Do you think it's feasible in a canoe?

Fascinating. Thanks! Do you have a brand favorite?

It is so gratifying to master a new task. Congrats on that new PB! I can't imagine the pressure of tournament fishing. Alex, how do you do ^this^?

Lean and light!

You guys are always so supportive. I do like using new lures and adding to my options. One of my proudest achievements this summer was landing a 19" bass on a frog and one morning, catching seven on a frog. I also caught largemouth bass on a jerkbait, soft plastic swimbait, lipless crankbait, spinnerbait, fluke, and wakebait this summer, all for the first time. I still need to work on my technique with the soft plastic swimbait and frog, as I miss most of my hits, but I love how I can cast both of them into cover. I'll never be able to carry as many lures as the rest of you because I'm literally carrying my 15' 6" boat and the approach to the water is rarely flat and it's often dark. My tacklebox is the size of a purse, so I can wear it on my shoulder while carrying the rods, paddles, and fish measuring trough. My one luxury is five rods and I do use all five. Sometimes I'll make two casts with one rod, another two with another, and all the way down the line. I often catch a fish with one lure and change immediately to another. I'm a curious fisher. I don't commit to one lure/rod until I'm pretty certain that there's a pattern. I made that mistake one morning, casting and casting and CASTING the Whopper Plopper because that's what they'd wanted many mornings. When I finally switched to the wakebait, I caught 48 that morning. That one morning, they L-O-V-E-D the wakebait. Another morning, they wanted a jointed, shad-colored Rapala with a rattle, but that was a one and done event. Sure, I caught bass on those same lures other mornings, but never like those two mornings. Another change I made my last two outings was barbless hooks on my lipless crankbaits and jerkbaits. I am pleased with their performance and am thinking of swapping more hooks on other lures to barbless. The barbless hooks remind me to maintain tension and I can always use reminders on technique. Yesterday, in the first ten fish, only one came on a Whopper Plopper. Four came on the wakebait. Yet, it was the Whopper Plopper they eventually wanted. I love how their mood is always shifting. Sometimes I think I know why, but I'm probably just deluding myself. They are mysterious and I love that about them. I am so excited to do more froggin' next summer. That is the most exciting way to catch a bass that I've ever experienced. They often hit within a couple feet of my canoe and frequently hit the frog twice or even thrice in a single retrieve and I can't imagine a better boat for froggin' than my canoe, which is so long and light that I float over the lily pads and don't incur much drag. Here's that 19-inch froggin' bass. She came out of a break in the wild rice that was merely five feet across. See how convex she is, like a contact lens. She hit like a tsunami. You know how a tsunami will suck the water away from the shore before it clobbers the shoreline? I think I saw something like that, like she drew the water down a millimeter or two a nanosecond before she hit. I've seen big smallmouth bulge the water under a surface lure a sliver of a second before they hit it and I wonder if she did something similar. There wasn't much water in her hole, which increases the odds of her moving it. See the crawlers too? I eventually quit on them. They simply didn't catch many fish and they're not nearly as fun as lures. Thanks again for all the encouragement! Any women who complain about men not welcoming them into fishing have never been to bassresource.com.

I like when you guys talk tackle. I am so far behind all of you in tackle knowledge. I am shopping hard swimbaits this evening. Phish's fish persuaded me.

You are correct. I was fishing a lake today. I only catch largemouth in the bogs. And the lake I fished today, as you could see from the photos, has both largemouth and smallmouth. Whenever I'm over rocks, that's where I catch the smallmouth.

Thanks for the suggestion, Phish. Alex, I always want to think the best of people. However, if something befell me and I became homeless, dozens of people would open their homes to me. That no one will welcome those people in the cars into their homes tells me about their lives of bad decisions. You're right about the homeless having little to lose. I just hope they mosey, but I fear they'll set up one of those tent encampments and take the lake. However, I can't imagine a gun in a canoe. A canoe is so wet. Every time you switch sides, you're dropping water in the boat. Then there's the weight: I'm already ground to a nub by what I'm carrying to simply catch fish. Then, when the canoe is over my head, I'd be pretty helpless. However, I'll think about it. I do love catching healthy fish. Say, Alex, I'm thinking of fishing a smallie only lake on Friday morning, a lake I've not yet fished, but I have scouted it.

On Sunday, I wrote that the "Early bird gets the bass." That was not true at all today. I drove to a pond I love, which is really a river with a dam that turned it into a bog. Unfortunately, there were two cars there with homeless people in them. Considering it was dark and they were parked in a gully and I was alone, I left. If T-Billy or Alex or Eric or any of you had my six, I would have stayed and launched, but none of you were there. Sigh. So, I went to another pond and launched in the dark. I caught a fish on my fifth cast with a Whopper Plopper, but over the next 2.5 hours, I could only catch nine more with no pattern whatsoever. There was a gob of lures in the bottom of my canoe that I tried without much success, which was weird, for the conditions were perfect: 56 degrees at 6:00 a.m., no wind, foggy, and occasional drizzle. Then it all changed. It's like someone dropped a goofy roofie into the water, for the bass were suddenly giddy. Slap happy. Not trying to eat my Whopper Plopper, but beat my Whopper Plopper. I caught 17 of them in the next 1.5 hours, but lost at least that many. They put on some air shows too and pulled like terriers. It was like a Bruce Ward Batman episode: Wam! Blam! KaPow! The photos start with a couple of the pond. Then the first fish in the dark. Then some of the 27 I caught. Again, there were no dinks, like Sunday. Weird, huh? Don't the little ones have to fatten up too for the winter? If Maine bass were a candy bar, they wouldn't be the Snickers. They'd be the Chunky, short and thick. Phish, I don't own a single jointed swimbait, but seeing the fish you catch with them, I'm going to have one next spring, for sure. Beautiful bass, Alex. I've never fished with an Alabama rig, but I wanna. I think I would catch two or three bass at once with one up here.

A fellow canoeist! You are my brother! Sisterly yours, Katie P. S. - Of course, I love, love, LOVE the color of that bass.

Go get 'em, Tim!

You're sensible, Tim. In my way, I am too. I often get wet launching my canoe with no docks or ramps. Sandals and bare legs dry quickly and my wool socks are still warm when wet. Plus, my canoe is Kevlar,, which means it's delicate. I need enough water to float it or I'll shred the hull. Anyway, any man who wears that hat need never apologize for his clothing choices. You are stylin'! That is a gorgeous fish, Phish!

^Gorgeous photo!^

Bob, your bass made me laugh. What a belly! She looks like she's got biscuits in the oven way too early. That's great fishing, Mr. 86. I'm going to buy a Clutch Glide. I've never fished a lure like that. The fish sure love it, huh? I'm going fishing again tomorrow morning. Conditions will be perfect. It's raining all day today and tonight. It'll stop early tomorrow morning, be foggy, and warm (56 degrees) at 6:00 a.m. I'm going to hug the shoreline to stay safe.. I appreciate the suggestion, but I can't imagine carrying a canoe with outriggers through the woods. The canoe is hard enough. Still, I'd like to see the photos. I was a writer for Canoe & Kayak magazine, so everything about canoes turns my head.

I'm ordering a wetsuit top, bottom, and boots, Tim. In the meantime, I'm going to limit my fishing to two ponds with solid shorelines, as the swamps would mean misery atop misery if I tipped, as there are reeds on the shorelines and mud beyond that. Both of the ponds I'll be fishing have a few houses too. Thanks for encouraging safety, Tim.