Swamp Girl

This is a beauty pageant. What was your most beautiful bass of 2022? The beauty criteria are yours to set. It might be the bass's coloration or shape. It might be the circumstances of the catch and your personal circumstances when you caught that particular bass. Here's mine and I picked her because most of the big bass I caught this summer were the offspring of a Cro-Magnon female and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The dame below was as lightly colored as a yearling and as symmetrical as a candy drop. She looked daisy fresh too, as if she'd miraculously avoided life's chisel all her years. She was 19.25 inches and a bass of the far north, so she'd lived a few years too.

We already have top shelf fishing experts here. They might not have the celebrity, but I'm pretty sure that they've outfished most celebrities. Their sponsorships might make them a less valuable addition than others already here. I like JonB on YouTube, but am also annoyed by him hawking everything from his boots to his rod to his lures.

Then I too am a hot mess, for what you described is pretty much my fishing life. It's good to meet another hot mess!

Great link. Thanks!

Palin, I'm fishing my first New England fall. How will the LM fishing be in the second half of September and the first half of October? Will it have to be warm for the bass to bite? On Wednesday, after several days in the fifties, it will reach 68. Will that nudge the bass to bite? I know you don't know for sure, but I'm asking for your best guess.

My catch was just about cut in half my last two outings. And the last outing, the average size was down too. I haven't lost all my mojo, but half of it for sure. No mo' mojo. Just 'jo.

Thank you, Dwight.

My bedroom is decorated with old fishing magazines. I love the art of the old mags and hate the busy-ness of fishing magazines today, which are littered with breathless lies, like "37 Surefire Way to Catch Bass!" I also love the articles inside the old magazines, which weren't a whit about promoting tackle and were largely about how it felt to be on the water, dancing with fish, blessedly alone or equally blessedly with friends and family. There is still one vestige of the old magazines and that is Gray's Sporting Journal, whose writers plumb what it's like to work with a Springer or Pointer, knowing it's your last, bittersweet time because knees and eyes don't last forever, or how it feels to loft fairy flies to rising bass beside your son or brother. Today's magazines are all P.T. Barnum and no T.S. Eliot. As fishers, we are attuned to language, as we're attuned to water and woods. I heard this when I went north with 19 musky fishers for a week. One was a retired fighter pilot. A couple rode Harleys. One was a ex-football player. Another a bouncer and yet another a race car driver. They were manly men, but all used language in surprising ways: They were sometimes raw, often funny, but nearly always they expressed with concision and precision. Each strove to capture and convey what they'd seen and felt on the water because those moments mattered and will matter even more when we're too arthritic to cast and catch. Those callused men wanted our trip to last, so they went into the burrows where words bunker and wrestled them out. I see that here at bassresource.com too, a love of language that is necessary to say what we saw and felt this fishing day. C'mon, Field and Stream, fishers are poets, not marks for carnival barkers!

About ten days ago, I hooked and lost three four-pound bass on consecutive casts, all from the same spot. I was fan casting and throwing my Whopper Plopper, which casts a long ways, but those three gals were all in the same vicinity.

Tim, my biggest was 47", which isn't big to most serious musky fishers, for their cut-off is 50" and 47" is a long way, weight-wise, from 50". Heck, yeah, they do! As I nuzzle them up to my canoe, they're closer, "Closer, closer. Just a little bit closer and I unleash wet Heck!"

You had me at "canoe." The good fishin' was just frosting on the yummy canoe cake.

Whoa, Bassman! Beauties!! Thanks, Tim, for all the teaching. Speaking of teaching, I taught a year in South Bloomingville, west of Logan, and right by Old Man's Cave.

Thanks, T-Billy. I had to Google a couple of your words, which tells you how farm fresh your info is for me, and I'll try swimbaiting for sure. Nope, Alex, we'll have hard water come January. I frogged last night and this morning and triggered one tiny bite that was likely a pickerel. The lily pad bass have lost their frog appetite.

Be careful what you wish for, Alex. Muskies are scary! Their baleful glare boatside is just the beginning Then then there's tendency to strike a foot from the boat. And they leap like smallmouth. What's even scarier are the damage reports, i.e. the stories that musky-fishers tell of the damage musky lures have done to them. When I fished muskies from a canoe, my approach was to never bring a fish into the boat. The bonus is that they're no healthier release for a musky than a full water release. T-Billy, I like when fishers share tips on protecting the fish we love.

Alex, I never thought of gardening and fishing as similar. You've got me thinking! I went fishing this morning because the forecast was cloudy and rainy. It was clear skies and sunny, which meant it was cold this morning. Honking geese flew overhead. The maples are going crimson. I'm seeing more ducks than ever. The lily pads are dying. Yeah, it's fall. Like last night, I struggled to catch the numbers of fish I caught this summer and my morning total was the same as last night: 19 10 of them were pickerel, so I feel I should start posting at pickerelresource.com. The bass topped out at 14 inches, except for the big girl (19.25 inches) below the leaping pickerel. She hit my loon-colored Whopper Plopper and jumped twice. The frog fishing is dead, dead, dead. Is this normal? Does it die in the fall? However, my new froggin' outfit casts beautifully. I just don't catch any fish with it.

Alex, the old trail to the lake was blocked by a landowner, so I had to bushwhack through state land. No portage trail, lots of downed and dead trees, and an old stone wall. And I had to do it four times, going and leaving with the canoe in one carry and my gear in the other. Tomorrow morning, I'll park by the bog I'll fish and be thankful for that. ☺️ They are dark and beautiful fish! I'm glad that you appreciate that. I do too. I also agree that I won't have to use the scale a lot. I'll quickly get a sense of weight just by weighing a few. As far as my "high RPM motor," I'm building a garden too! Those are beautiful fish, Mr. 87!

Fishing conditions changed in Maine. It's no longer summer. It was 45 degrees this morning after three days of the wind blowing in cold air, from 14-18 m.p.h. I feared the sudden cold might clamp some mouths and it did. I took five rods and caught bass with all five lures, but determined no pattern whatsoever. The one bonus is that when the bass did hit, they hit hard and I caught 19 of the 20 bass I hooked. The first one was 17.5 inches. There were some small ones like you see in the last photo. Then there were also some in the 16-inch class. I did catch one thick fish: 19.75 inches. She hit a pumpkin Senko with a chartreuse tip. There were two tiny taps and then nothing. I watched the line and thought I saw it moving. I didn't wait long because I don't like to gut hook bass with Senkos. When I set the hook, it was barely in her lip. I actually managed to photograph her with me. I'm holding her with my elbow behind my head to situate her right beside me for perspective. I always have a hard time discerning size when fish are thrust toward the camera and maybe I'm not the only one who prefers a fish positioned right beside the fisher. Note how thick her tail is. The state of Texas has a length to weight table and that says she weighs 4.5 pounds, but I think Maine bass are thicker than many bass in other places. What do you think? I think she might weight five pounds.

Phil, if your wife "never complains about the weather," then she's the perfect fishing partner. I'm going fishing this afternoon and again tomorrow morning. I usually don't fish back-to-back, but tomorrow morning, it will be raining. I love to fish in the rain, but I understand that my wet Heaven is other people's wet Heck and I love that they feel that way, since I'll be on the water alone. Alex, I think I catch fish for one obvious reason, which is that I fish water that isn't pressured, and two less obvious reasons: The first is that I'm a sneaky snake. I paddle my canoe so quietly that the fish don't hear me coming. The second is that I can cast a long ways and cast accurately into pockets, which are other ways to surprise fish and trigger those reaction strikes. But mostly it's that I fish water that doesn't get fished much. When I chose lakes in northwestern Ontario, I would never fish one with a cabin, not even a single cabin. In Maine, I pick water that looks too shallow to hold fish and too weedy to catch them. And I pick lakes that required a little suffering to reach. So many people want comfort first, but I'm like Phil's wife: I shrug at a little cold, a rocky or muddy path, and a lot of rain. However, I leave in an hour and we'll see if I get humbled today or not!? The pond I'm fishing requires driving down dirt road. Then the road ends and I have to portage down a path and then bushwhack through the woods. However, I fished it once already and I know it holds big bass, so the grunting will be worth it. I HOPE!

The scale I ordered has a clamp and I won't weigh them all. I won't even weigh 5% of them. I too want them back in the water ASAP. I would like to weigh a 19-inch MAINE bass to see how heavy a fish that long is. I'd like to do the same with an 18 and 20-inch bass. Then I'll have an idea of weight going forward. I promise to be as quick as possible and I won't weigh every long fish I catch.

Thanks for the fish pics, guys! Some real beauties! I love this line: "I wish I could have frozen time this afternoon...." We should all be on the water with such awareness and gratitude.

Alex, I haven't been hooked largemouth for life. I've fished and fish for what's available with all due joy. For years, it was panfish and farm pond bass. Then fearless, slashing pike. Then bonkers white bass on the Mississippi. Then skulking muskies in Ontario. Then aerobatic smallmouth in the same area. Now it's big-shouldered largemouth in Maine because whereas smallmouth lakes are the norm in northern Maine, on the mid-coast, largemouth thrive. Yeah, I've loved them all. The thought of a dancing bobber excites me nearly as much as a green musky latching onto my figure eight lure canoe-side. As someone noted above, muskies are likely beyond me now not because of my gender, but my age. Heaving those big lures broke down my back when I was young, but when you're young and hurting, you simply have to sleep to recover. Nowanights, if I fall asleep sore, I wake up even more sore. I too wish more women fished. I made a local call yesterday to a sporting good store looking for a SPRO frog and the woman who answered the phone clearly fished and we talked froggin' and that was great, but you guys are great too when we talk fishing. I have fished with a couple fairly famous female fishers and that was fun, but I wouldn't want to be one of them. When you have a modicum of fame as a female fisher, you are constantly being watched...and judged. You even have to apply lipstick before you pose with a fish! I'm happiest in my stained clothing and weed-splattered canoe, snaking through the reeds, watched only by the eagles. And I'm happy at bassresource.com because of you guys, who are so generous with your time and wisdom. Now I'm going to spool some 50 lb. braid onto my Shimano Curado and tie it directly to my frog, which is what you guys taught me yesterday. No more time-consuming leader and HOORAY for that! And I found a stiffer, longer baitcasting rod in the basement this morning in case my just-ordered one doesn't arrive before I leave to fish mid-afternoon. One more thing: Thanks to all you guys who want more women to fish.

Again, this is great news. I've been using a 17 lb. mono leader and that weak link in my chain is no more. It's 50 lb. test from the bass to the reel. The bad news is that my rod didn't arrive today. Now it's supposed to come tomorrow, but I'm worried it won't arrive before I leave to fish. Oh, well, I'll make do with my old rod if this happens for one more time.

What a thrilling morning for you, Norcalbassin!