Darren & Jack joined me today on a local lake for smallmouth as well as pike and walleye. We dropped the boat in around 7:30 and were on our way to the first location shortly afterwards with high expectations. The weather was a little dismal with heavy clouds lingering overhead and winds from the west blowing at 10 knots. Air temps were in the 50’s with highs to reach into the 70’s along with sunshine, we hoped! On our first stop it was a little slow with Darren breaking the ice on a smallie around 2.5 pounds that he landed on a blade. Jack was throwing a crankbait and not having much luck except for the moss he kept catching but soon was tight to a nice one of his own. Unfortunately, the three pounder threw the hooks when it went to the air leaving him disappointed. Eventually I switched Jack up to a senko and he finally managed to land a few of his own. Darren also went to soft plastics and got bit by some and managed to land a few smaller ones too. I wasn’t seeing the activity that I had hoped for and was wondering if the fish had moved to deeper water with the cold front that came in overnight. The water temps were barely over 68 degrees so I ran to some of the deeper shoals to try our luck. Once again Darren was the first to lock up on a fish and although it was a bass, it was a little smaller that I had hoped for. We managed to catch a few more but they were all around the same size and the action wasn’t too fast & furious so I switched it up once again. We had the same thing on the other places with a few smaller ones being caught, all the time marking plenty of fish sucking bottom on the sonar. I really didn’t like what was going on so I threw in the towel for bass and decided to try our luck trolling for pike & walleye elsewhere. This was apparently the right choice as we didn’t wait more than a couple of minutes before the first reel fired and the game was on. From that point, the fish were coming in every few minutes and for two or three hours the numbers climbed. We didn’t really catch anything larger that 3.5 pounds for walleye and twice that on the northerns, but they had action! Somewhere in the afternoon we decided to go back for the bass and packed it up for the trolling. I began covering water on a shallow flat in hopes of active fish now that the sun was out and quickly saw results. Darren once again managed to hammer one on a spinnerbait and Jack soon followed on the soft plastics. The bite wasn’t really aggressive so we all switched to the senko’s and picked at them for a few hours all the while looking for the mother load. Today wasn’t to see the best results on the bass but they still got into plenty of fish by mixing it up. One more final location at the end of the day in hopes of trolling up some big walleye or smallies resulted in disappointment too. We did have a good sized smallie on briefly but after several jumps, it came unpinned. For Jack’s first time out he didn’t get to experience the potential that this lake has to offer, but did enjoy the day none the less. Darren on the other hand wasn’t worried as he has seen this before and knows that the best is still yet to come. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks the temps will fall and the bass will start to move into their fall patterns. Then the results will be insane each and every day out and both size and numbers will climb to the levels I want. Bring it on and soon!!

Christiane & I headed out again today on another lake looking for some smallmouth that we could play with. We left the house around 7:15 in order to drop the boat trailer off early afterwards due to an overheating with the brakes. I thought we would fish while the trailer was being worked on and take advantage of it by catching a few bass. The weather was looking like a beautiful one with sunshine and air temps scheduled to hit the mid 70’s. The winds were blowing in from the east at 5 to 10 knots causing a good chop on the water and I liked that! With the cooler nights the water temps had been dropping slightly and that should start the bass moving shallow, I hoped. We began by working offshore on a flat and it took a while before we saw anything happening. By throwing faster moving baits we were able to cover this area pretty quickly and slowed down to jigs when we located some active fish. Unfortunately, the fish weren’t all that aggressive as they were mostly following the lures to the boat and losing interest afterwards. Even the jigs had them turning the other cheek as they mostly just swam the other way when they saw our offerings. Although we were able to get some of them to commit, the bulk of them weren’t active at all. After a couple of hours of total frustration from seeing them we decided to change it up a bit and headed elsewhere. The next location only produced one bass but it weighed 5.5 pounds. It was a real giant and when hooked, came up with about 20 others all in the same size range. This place died immediately after the bass was landed and the others also turned the other cheek. We stayed there for almost an hour trying to get another to commit, but they showed no interest at all forcing us to relocate once again. I figured if they wouldn’t move, we would! This time I stopped in deeper water to try a drift and drag that had been working on every other body of water I had been fishing lately. It didn’t take long before I locked up on a nice fish that went over 4 pounds. Christiane nailed a clone of this one a hundred yards or so down stream and the confidence was born. We made several drifts in the next hour or so and managed to get into fish on every pass with some of them a little smaller in size. I had one more spot I wanted to try so we packed it in and bolted to the other place in hopes of better fishing. I couldn’t believe it when I arrived as there were fish everywhere! Christiane had several on but was only able to land a handful of them as they were just too big and the hooks didn’t seem to get penetration on the majority of them. I too had a bunch of them hooked and the jigs and lures just never stayed pinned on the majority. In the last hour or so we must have had about 20 chances at these big bruisers and I was glad to see that they were here and thick. I wasn’t too thrilled with the landing ratio though but I will be back. We weren’t able to get anything over 5 pounds from this area but it wasn’t for lack of trying as we did have them on. All in all the day was a little slower than I had hoped but the fish were big and that compensates for the lack of numbers I guess. I will be back and I will get even!!

Norm was back from a two week vacation down south, fishing permit & tarpon and wanted to get back out for those feisty smallies once more. We rolled out shortly after 7:00 A.M. and were fishing soon after with his faithful companion, Buddha. The run up the lake was a little snotty with the N/E winds blowing near 10 knots contrary to the S winds that were forecasted. Gotta love the weatherman! The air temps were in the upper 50’s and expected to reach almost 80 degrees by the end of the day, with only sunshine. We began in a shallow area in hopes of locating an aggressive school of bass and threw top water & blades to try and find them. It didn’t take long before we had a take on the spook and it was spectacular! A three pounder had fallen victim to the lure and it was great to see the strike. A couple more bass didn’t feel the same as they exploded on the bait once again, but this time they just seemed to hit it with their backs and tails instead. A sure sign of a lack of activity! Norm finally managed to get a beauty of his own on the spinnerbait after watching the show and was relieved to feel their power once again. Pound for pound the strongest swimming freshwater fish alive, in my books! When I realized the nature of most of these fish I immediately switched up to tubes and senkos to try and get a few more biters. Well it worked because they were active enough to pick up these baits and many more smallies put on spectacular shows in the next couple of hours. When we had seen enough of the shallows, I opted for a deeper bite and headed to open water in hopes of getting some larger fish. Almost immediately, Norm was locked up! This time however, it was a 4 pound walleye and immediately released. We wanted the bass and weren’t going to stop until we found them. I drifted and dragged in the depths picking a fish here and there but not really any concentration was found. Somewhere around mid day we decided to give the shallows another try and apparently it was the right decision. In the next couple of hours, Norm just hammered the bass and most were in the 4 pound range. The slow presentation of the senko really paid off as he was crushing them! Several of the mid size ones came on tubes, but the larger ones only seemed to want the subtle fall of the senko. Eventually we headed back out to the depths again and tried drifting for bass with better results this time around. In one area, we managed to land a pile of 2 to 3 pounders and even a few that were over 4. Then it happened! Norm snagged bottom and was trying to free the jig when bottom began to move. I knew right away that he was into a sturgeon and this was going to be a long battle. After a lengthy dog & pony show we finally caught a glimpse of this beast and it looked more like a shark by its mass. I grabbed a glove, leaned over to tail it and nearly got yanked into the lake when I went too far. These things are just so powerful that when it kicked it was heading straight to the bottom, with or without me. I held the railing and lifted the beast into the boat in awe of its size and Norm couldn’t stop laughing. I had him hold it for a few pics and then we weighed it for r fun. It showed just above the 30 pound line on the boga and we released her back to the depths afterwards. What could top this for the day? I soon found out as not long after I was stuck on the bottom just like Norm and mine also began to move. This time the battle lasted nearly 15 minutes and it took us out to over 40 feet of water before we were able to get the beast to the top for a look. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that it was actually larger than the last one and then it sounded to the bottom once again. It’s tough to land these things when they’re hooked on 10 pound test! Eventually after drifting forever, Norm grabbed the tail and the same thing almost happened to him. It damn near pulled him into the lake too! We wasted no time shooting a few pics and threw her back immediately. What a magnificent creature! We were both afraid to drop our jigs back down so we relocated to another area for our last spot. Here we both managed to get into several more bass in the shallower water and then just called it a day. This one was definitely full of surprises and one we will remember for quite some time. Back from the saltwater, Norm lands a freshwater shark and so do I. How great is that!!

I headed out again this morning with four clients looking for a variety of fish for them to play with. The air temps had stabilized somewhat with the switch in wind direction from yesterdays N/E to a S/W of 5 to 10 knots. This was definitely going to make the fishing a little bit better, I hoped! Although we didn’t get set up until after 9:00 A.M. it didn’t take long for the reels to go off. Within a couple of minutes, both Sammy and Ouissam had landed fish and one of them was a decent walleye that was to be the main attraction at dinner tonight. The other was a northern of 4 pounds and released immediately. I knew now that we were going to have a successful day and reset the lines for more action. About every five minutes or less, one of the reels fired for almost an hour and there were many pike coming to the boat providing plenty of action for all. With the cloud cover overhead and the temps around 60 degrees, it made the conditions really comfortable to be on the water. The boat traffic was a little heavier than I was use to and I knew it was only going to get worse as this was the final day in a long weekend. I was working hard covering all the waypoints and icons I had for this area trying to get a big walleye and keep the tradition rolling when another rod went off and Stephan was into a good fish. By the way it was acting, I thought it might be the one and coached him on how to finesse the fish so as not to pull the hooks free. When I finally caught a glimpse of this one, all was confirmed. It was a big eye! As soon as I slipped the net under the fish, the hooks flew out and she was free. What a beautiful fish of over 26 inches and Stephan’s personal best at over 6 pounds. After a few pics, she was free to go and back to the bottom she went. I told them that we weren’t going to kill a big fish like that just so that someone could eat it and they agreed. These are our big spawners and you have to continue the cycle! Back to the troll we went and almost immediately after setting the lines out, another reel fired and more pike were coming aboard once again. I am sure there were a few walleye lost while reeling in when some of the fish came unpinned, but we’ll never know for sure. All I know is that in the 3 or 4 hours of trolling there were many fish landed as well as lost before we cut out of this area. By now the boat traffic was just insane and I was forced to relocate due to everyone trying to fish. Other than one of the boats, I never saw anyone catch a thing while I trolled through the obstacle course. We stopped for smallmouth bass at another spot in hopes of getting into some of the same action that I had the day before but were somewhat disappointed. Hassan hooked into the first one and just like yesterday, there were plenty more followers as he fought the fish to the boat. Unfortunately, nobody could monopolize on this situation and they all disappeared. A few smaller ones were caught by all but nothing of the size I was looking at and we left not too long after. They just didn’t want to feed and I wasn’t going to stay there waiting for them to turn on. I thought I would try a deep drift with all the bodies in the boat and moved out to between 15 & 25 feet and began. The first fish to get landed was another walleye around the same size as the3 pounder in the morning and it too went into the livewell. Several smaller bass were taken in the next hour or so by all but once again they weren’t really what I was looking for so we threw in the towel and went back to trolling. They all had a good time earlier and it was unanimously decided upon! Back to the troll and instantly a reel fired once again as Hassan jumped on the rod like a cat to a mouse. He’s like lightning when the reels go off! Lots of pike came in the last hour or so and one of the last fish was landed by Hassan and it too was a good one at over 8 pounds. Without a doubt, trolling was the way to go for the numbers today as well as the number of bodies in the boat. It was definitely the easiest method for everyone to catch and boy did they catch fish! It was another mixed bag, multi species kind of day and loaded with action. The fish in the livewell even caught a break when we released the walleye back to the lake due to no one wanting to clean their catch. All in all a pretty good day and nobody got hurt!!

After driving for 11 hours yesterday on a return pickup trip, I was ready to hit the water and do some fishing. Christiane & I headed out looking to see about a possible muskie bite and thought we would throw in several other species along the way too. We decided to start early and were launched before 7:30 and loaded for bear! There were so many rods in the boat that we almost didn’t know where to start! Unfortunately we started with muskie, didn’t do anything for the first couple of hours and decided to switch up for another species instead. Muskie are just hateful creatures! With a N/E wind blowing at 10 to 15 knots, we were not loving the waves as they were contrary to the current and rolling big. The air was also on the cool side with temps in the low 50’s at the start and climbing all the way to 70 degrees by days end. The next attempt at a fish was trolling for pike & walleye and that wasn’t great either as only one pike committed suicide. I covered so much water that I was almost in a different lake when I decided to give bass a shot, with the others not cooperating. At first we tried a drift & drag in deeper water only to have to give it up when the wind was pushing us up current, not allowing a proper presentation to the fish. By now we were into the early afternoon and I really needed to make some adjustments in order to salvage this day. I gave up on using Mother Nature and headed in tight to an area that I had some success in before and prayed for better results. Our prayers were answered as we located a concentration of bass that kept us entertained for over an hour with multiple hook ups. Most of the fish were in the 3 pound range but there were a few that went over 4 pounds and they were just so aggressive on the bite. We had multiple doubles when several others followed, bringing the numbers way up. I knew this wasn’t going to last and milked the area for all it was worth before they just turned off the switch and died all together. Time to relocate and we went back for those hateful creatures once more, also without good results. We trolled a new area for almost 30 minutes and came up empty once more causing us to ponder a possible end to this day. I figured we had nothing to lose so I headed to another spot that put out big bass as well as large walleye and set the lines once again. We covered plenty of water before one of the reels fired, but it was a good one this time. I was able to slip the net under a beautiful walleye of 26 inches and things were looking up. After a few quick pics, we returned the fish back and reset the lines once again in hopes of another, just like the other. A coupe of drive byes happened before another fish actually locked up and a three pound walleye was soon landed. By now we were just pressing our luck and decided to end the day on a high note, as always and unanimously called it. By not giving up, we were able to salvage a not so good day and turn it around landing a bunch of quality fish once again. Tough bite but we survived and overcame the hum drum day!!