Swamp Yankee

I can’t tell you how many bass I’ve caught on panfish jigs while targeting white perch and etc. I just caught what’s probably my PB river smallmouth yesterday on a 1/16oz crappie jig.

Latest fishing tale: I was fishing for crappie in my boat on the Quinebuag River is easternCT yesterday evening, just before sunset. Casting a tiny 1/16 oz. crappie jig on a light spinning rod,(see the pic below) the fish were really hammering it...white perch, sunfish, crappie, all small fish but plenty of them. A few smaller smallmouth bass, too. Then I hooked this beauty of a smallmouth bass and he went nuts. On my 5’3” Loomis mag-light rod with 6 pound test line it was all I could do to keep him hooked...but I did, and I got him on board and weighed him in at 3 pounds, 7 ounces - which is pretty d**n big for a Quinebaug river smallmouth. Holding the bass, still in the lip gripper but in the water now so it could breathe, with my free hand, I'm now trying to get my camera out of the zippered pocket in my fishing bag....and then the lip gripper slipped out of my hand.... @#$#@!!!! Not only did I fear I'd lost my fish, but also that this beautiful creature was now doomed to die of starvation with a plastic lip gripper in its mouth. Then, in 7 feet of water, mind you - I saw the white plastic lip gripper sitting on the gravel bottom of the river. Unable to tell whether it still had the bass attached as I could only see the white portion, I knew I had to try to get it back somehow. Since it was sitting still on the bottom, I figured the bass had escaped somehow, though I couldn't imagine how. I had to finaigle my boat into position and drop the jig back down into the water so as to hook the cord handle on the lip gripper and reel it back in. After several failed attempts, I finally caught the cord and to my relief, the fish was still attached! So, back into the boat he comes for a few quick snapshots, then back he goes into the river, free now, and swimming off hopefully with more injury to his dignity than anything else.

I’ve had a Sahara 500fd on my 5’3” Loomis Mag Light rod since I bought it... gotta be coming up on 10 years pretty soon. It’s performed flawlessly and has tamed all sorts of bass to as big as 4#, 8 oz. That’s my favorite set up, I use it primarily to fish weightless Zoom fluke Jr.s Texposed.

In my experience their magnum finesse worms seem every bit as irresistible to LMB as Yamamoto Senkos but they’re less expensive and a lot more durable. It’s kind of surprising as they don’t seem to have as much action... but I’ve taken lots of good bass on them since last summer.

After that, I’ve resolved never to go out fishing without a camera tucked into the bag. I don’t have a smartphone, so, it’s a small point-n-shoot digital camera. I did catch one yesterday evening but it was only 3#6oz. So... not photo worthy even though I did have the camera. Good fight on that one though... it took a Zoom Super Fluke Jr. I was fishing weightless on light line on my Loomis 5’4” Mag-Light rod. Heck of a tussle getting him in the boat... and he was a jumper, too

Well, my PB record was shattered yesterday morning when I weighed in a 5 pound, 10 ounce LMB. Different dead tree in the middle of the same stretch of water... a few hundred yards downstream from last week’s PB. Same time of day, Same rig - Zoom Magnum finesse worm in Watermelon Candy fished weightless, Texposed, on a Gamakatsu 3/0 EWG worm hook, 11 foot 15# Seaguar red label fluoro leader on Berkley Fireline Crystal, 15# running line. Same lack of camera. I hunted down my old digital, charged it up and tucked it into the bag. Now it’s there for each trip, even if, as I did yesterday, I’m only heading out for an hour or so of fishing on the boat.

I’ve been using spinning reels since the early 60s and never closed manually on a full bail spinning reel until I started using braid in the 2000s. Now it’s a constant habit, and, I believe, a good one to have. I have owned a number of manual pickup (Bail-less) spinning reels for surf fishing with mono in the 17lb + range. So I was certainly aware of doing it manually but never had the need.... until there was braid. Gotta snug that stuff up tight to the spool before you close the bail to avoid loops.

I haven’t been shooting it in a few years, but my CZ 452 Ultra Lux with the 28.6” barrel and Brno match peep sights is my favorite .22 rifle, ever. Can’t miss with that rifle! I briefly owned a few CZ/ Dan Wesson 1911’s as well. A Pointman 10mm, a Valor in .45 and a Guardian 9mm. That Valor, especially, was a gorgeous gun. Last was a CZ 85 Combat that never left the safe... then I sold it off to buy fishing gear

Caught my personal best LMB yesterday morning about 8:15. I weighed it at 5 pounds, 2 ounces. I was fishing a Zoom Magnum Finesse worm, watermelon candy, weightless on a 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG worm hook. I got the perfect cast in, maybe forty feet, bouncing the worm lightly off the branch of an old dead fallen tree right in the middle of the river. The bass was on it instantly and it was quite a fight to keep it out of the tangle of branches. No pics, sorry... nice fish though.... a good 6 ounces bigger than my previous PB and a very nice fish for the heavily pressured Aspinook Pond here in CT.

I’m more than satisfied with my 14’ tin boat with its 15hp tiller control Mercury. Where I do most of my fishing, anything more than 12-15 mph is overkill, in my opinion. Fluctuating water levels because of a hydroelectric dam, lots of New England glacial boulders, plenty of storms and beavers dropping trees upstream, stump fields and logs floating under the surface...even that 15 mph is too fast in some of my favorite stretches. The river gets lots of bass tournaments with guys flying up and down the rivers at full speed. But the “ regulars” are pretty much all running 25hp or less. Even so, there are plenty of times when I just grab the oars and roll my rowing skiff down to the launch on its dolly. After all, the biggest bass I catch mostly come from a shallow stump field about 1/4 mile upstream from the launch.

Nice catch! How’d your buddy do with bird’s nests?

So far, my biggest river smallie was 2 lbs, 8 oz. Them river smallies are scrappy devils for sure.

When I was 4, my parents bought a house with a trout stream in the backyard. I’m 63 now and I’ve been obsessed with fishing ever since I was 4.

No... it’s hooked up to automatic charge all summer. Come November, I unplug the camper, disconnect the leads on the battery and the battery sits in its case on the camper frame all winter. Come spring, I connect the leads and crank out the bump out on battery power alone so the 10 year old battery is retaining enough juice over the winter to crank out something that weighs a few hundred pounds at least. I’ve never had to charge it or boost it to get it to crank out the bump out in spring. And it’s ten years old. And I’ve never done anything to maintain or even protect the battery other than leave it in its case, exposed, on the tongue of the trailer. But of course, I’ve probably doomed myself by discussing this. I’ve angered the RV gods and, no doubt, they’ll smite my butt next spring for my hubris

And it leaves no marks on the hull... unlike my hack: taping the tarp to the hull with Gorilla tape. ?