First Time Smallies

Max & his son Easton had never caught a bass before, but that was about to change today! We had tried for sturgeon for about 90 minutes, unsuccessfully, and headed for smallies immediately afterwards. They were only with me for the afternoon and I wanted to get them into as many fish as possible.

We pulled up on the first spot and I instructed them on how to fish the baits properly. They were throwing soft plastics and it didn’t take long before Easton got hit. Unfortunately his hookset was a little early and the fish got off. Not to worry, plenty more where that one came from! We moved around slowly and several more fish were hooked into but they all came unpinned before coming to the net. I reinstructed them on how to set the hook & slowed them down even more and then it started to change. Max was officially into his first smallmouth bass! It may not have been a giant but it was a good fish, acting like it was even bigger. They had never experienced them before and now knew what everybody was talking about. “These things really pull”, he said! A few quick pics and they were both back at it, looking for more.

Easton still wasn’t having much luck hooking up, but he was getting them to hit his bait. He just wasn’t setting the hook at the right time, missing them in the end. Eventually with more coaching and another bait change, he finally locked up on his very first bass as well. He too couldn’t believe how hard they fought as they were use to fishing for walleye & pike back home in Calgary. Shortly after I netted his catch and more pics were taken of the smallie. A quick release and they were back at it hard, looking for more of these brownies to battle.

In the next hour or so Max & Easton managed to land a few more bass each before we pulled out of this area completely. We relocated to another spot much further away in order to drop shot for deeper fish. With limited time remaining in the day I wanted to give them another technique to be able to use back home. We set up for a drift in deeper water and it didn’t take long before both of them were hit. Rods loaded but the fish were lost! Soon after and on a delayed hookset, they both landed small walleye. I could see that the bottom was loaded with fish and wondered why they weren’t biting. Several different position drifts were made with similar results before I relocated once again. It was here that on their first drift multiple hookups were had. Both bass & walleye were landed and although they had caught plenty of quality eyes back home, this was the first decent one from Quebec. A quick pic and we were done. The time had flown by so quickly and before we knew it, 4:30 had arrived.

It may not have been the banner day I had hoped for, but they had caught good fish and on two new techniques. They had also landed a fish that they both wanted to experience and that made it all worthwhile! They left happy and that’s all that counts! Good day of fishing!