Swamp Girl

Do you troll while paddling? I do and catch lots of bass. I troll underspins and spinnerbaits. If I have enough depth, Mepps are great too. If it's dark, I troll Whopper Ploppers.

The latter.

Now that you mention it.... Deal! Wait, I uh, there is no, err, glass?

I've bought a few homes, so here goes: I bought my last home, even though it looked like a granny decorated it back in 1937, and hadn't been cleaned since then because: A. It came with wrap-around woods. I've only had one bad neighbor in my life and that was more than enough. Now I want a woody buffer in every home I own. B. It had great bones. I didn't care about the grime and dated finishes. I cared about a good foundation and frame. So, I told the home inspector to focus on that and he gave it an a-okay and when the home was demoed, I could see that he was right. I didn't spot a single knot in the wood of the frame. Not one. And the basement is dry and crack-free. Some other HUGE pluses: Dead end road. Big trees. Sure, you can plant trees and they'll be big in 50 years, but big trees today are great. The neighborhood. Visit it at different times of the day. Get out and just listen. Do you like what you hear? Plus, knock on doors and ask your maybe-neighbors about what it's like living there in the summer. On weekends too. The degree of shoreline development. The more homes you see, the lousier the water quality will be. If you're buying lakefront, is it a lake that is used by jet skiers and wakeboard boaters? Unless you plan to jet ski or own a wakeboard boat, those are big negatives, for they're noisy and erode shorelines. LAST POINT: You're young, so buy an imperfect home and work on it. Make it yours. P. S. - That bass you're holding appears to be heavier than three pounds.

Oh, I'm just trash talking. I'm sure it's hard and I'd be happy to try it. I just wouldn't want to lock onto that screen. I like sight-seeing when I fish. There are so many wondrous things to see. However, I don't think we have FFS in Maine. We're the ends of the roads, you know. We have one freeway and it literally dead ends. Here's an Ontario Backcountry smallie, another wondrous thing to see!

That's insane, @pdxfisher, but if it weren't an FFS bag, I'd be even more impressed. Knowing exactly where to cast incurs a 15-pound deduction. Still, a 25-pound bag is more than I've ever managed.

I haven't mustered the courage to cast an A-Rig yet. It looks so awkward.

I'm just hoping that one of you guys will be willing to insure my old canoes. I can afford six bucks a year. Any takers?

I love Clayton's blimps!!!! Thank blue somebody is still catching bass.

My pond is hosting a kids' bass tournament this week. Of course, they'll do a little drilling first.

Heck, yeah! I once waded the north shore of Lake Michigan looking for a boulder that gathered bass mentioned in a 1969 Field and Stream article. The first two summers, I skunked. Then I finally found it and out of 100 casts, I'm guessing I had 97 bass hit. I didn't hook them all, of course, but they sure kept me busy. So, 99.9% of that big water was bassless.

$100,000 is chump change. I'm looking to build a $4,000,000 canoe. It will have a swimming pool, helicopter pad, and discotheque. It will, of course, be impossible to paddle, so I'm hoping I can catch a bass while it's docked.

I might see bass. I don't know. I do scan the casting possibilities...constantly. Even when I'm retrieving a lure, I'm surveying, looking for the next spot to cast. And while all the possibilities look good, there are some that make my Spidey Sense tingle, perhaps due to a bass moving the water.

Bumping this thread because it's so interesting.

Heck, yeah! And this is why I include pretty pics in my fishing reports, as well as critter counts. Yep, it's not just catching bass. I'm guessing you outfish the majority of the guys who buy $100,000 boats.

There are bodies of water where you might need a boat that big and that fast and that equipped with electronics to catch bass, but on lots of water, you can catch big bass and some days, lots of bass with lots less. See @Pat Brown, @AlabamaSpothunter, @pdxfisher, @N Florida Mike, @thediscochef, @PhishLI, @Aaron_H, @Fried Lemons, @Scott W, @Bluebasser86, and many others. Some of these guys don't even have a boat and when @Fried Lemons floats, he's fishing from a board with his feet dangling. Then there's @TnRiver46, who catches bass from every conceivable craft. If I had a hundred grand bass boat, I'd feel soooooooo much pressure to catch soooooooo many big bass and to put everyone I know on their PBs. Like the Bible says, to whom more is given, more is expected.

I've caught several five-smallie bags over 20 pounds, but not by much. I remember one evening when my five best were, in inches, 19, 19.5, 19.75, 20.25, and 20.5, which is a mix of four and five-pounders. Not @A-Jay-sized, but not bad for northwestern Ontario from a canoe. The In-Fisherman length to weight chart says my bag above was 22.87 lbs. I remember another evening when I caught six thick smallies ranging from 19 inches to 21 inches, so that would be a similar bag. Nowhere near as big as the others in this thread, but pretty hefty for how far north I was, WAY north of Simcoe. FWIW, my all-time heaviest smallmouth was likely six pounds. I didn't weigh her, but she was extraordinary, built like a spawning lmb. It was nearly dark when I landed her and my brother, in another canoe, got one lousy photo of her. I'll see if I can find it. She had a sagging gut like you see on big lmbs.

Yep and yep! Ha! And so true. I did help. The base wood came from beaver-girdled trees on my land, split lengthwise and laid flat sides up, and I fetched the pallets, provided for free by a local hardware store. The only wood I didn't provide is the oak on top. I also bought the wood screws. What they provided that was PRICELESS was their wood savvy and their manly toughness, for they donned their Muck boots and were working in the bog. It has three layers: twin tree trunks on the bottom, then pallets, and then locally milled oak on top. It's crude and clever and full Maine-y!

Here's their house after Alex decorated it: Seriously, here's the boardwalk that some local men built for me after I granted them access to my pond. They also leveled my path through the woods and spread gravel on it, so a helpful, grateful angler is a win-win for landowners. They since extended the boardwalk all the way to open water:

Anyone else loving the look of that eel? I'm thinking this is what whitwolf really looks like:

Bob, if I were you, I'd use Google Earth to locate some ponds. Then I'd think about what you could offer in exchange for fishing access. I bake cookies, but also give landowners cashews, beer, wine, etc. I know at least two Bass Resource members give labor in exchange for fishing access. I think @AlabamaSpothunter even made Christmas decorations for the landowner who lets him reach his honey hole and he recently caught a near DD there!

@Pat Brown is one of Bass Resource's best teachers and he lives close to you. Message him and take notes.

@little giant already suggested it, but I second the Yamamoto Kickin Zako Swimbait. My local bass prefer Chartreuse Shad Laminate. And @AlabamaSpothunter taught me to use the Deps Sakamata Shad Soft Jerkbait, which I prefer in the 7" length. Here's a Deps bass, but be warned that it is a soft and expensive bait. However, I think bass love it because it is soft. I just hate when I have to keep biting off the shredded head of the bait, turning it into a 6" bait and then a 5" bait and then....:

I worry about you guys when the temp drops that low. My home is built for 18 degrees. Texas homes aren't. For example, when we lose power, as we often do with all our trees and wind, I won't bother to fire up the generator for a couple days. My home will hold heat for a couple days even if it's 18 degrees outside. I can't imagine most homes in Texas staying warm that long. And my next home will have 19" thick walls with a predicted monthly energy bill of ten bucks.

One more thing. Look at the photo of Andy braced on his casting deck and note how he's leaning away from the bass. I can't do that. My first year of catching lmbs in weeds, in the fall of '23, I started a thread that I think I titled, "How do you Southern guys do it?", where I asked about landing bass from weeds. And whereas some tried to help, it was Father Time who largely taught me because I think I'm the only angler at Bass Resource who fishes from a 32-pound canoe that looks more like a typical sculling boat than most canoes. It's tippy and is bullied by both wind and bass, so Father Time taught me to "case the joint" before I cast and to formulate a plan if a bass hits. Where will I first try to direct the bass and then what will I do next and next? Father Time taught me to apply pressure, but not too much pressure, lest I yank the hooks free. And so on. Again, I learned to fish where I fish. Move me from my ponds and bogs and I'm a noobie again.