Today I had a tournament on Lake St-Francis with my fishing partner Marc & finally got to fight some fish. Conditions cooled off overnight but rose quickly during the day to reach into the 90 degree range with high humidity. Light winds at times & bright sun made it a difficult day for most. We took advantage of the peak feeding period by sacking a strong limit early during the minor & upgrading slightly in the afternoon in the major, before having to leave to weigh in. With a 5 fish limit of almost 22 pounds of smallies we took first place by 2 lbs. We were also lucky to take lunker as well with a 4.7 lb fish bumping up our earnings more. The weights fell drastically after 2nd place to just 14 pounds proving that the largemouth bite was definitely off today. Thankfully we were after smallies & they were big. What a great day on the water!

I fished today with Irwin & his 6-year-old daughter, Chelsea for a multi species type of day. Chelsea was the reason Irwin had hooked up with me, as she loves to fish. She would be in for a real treat today! I don’t think we had been trolling for more than a minute before the first fish hit & she was battering a 3 or 4 pound pike. This was the largest fish Chelsea had ever caught, as pan fish were all she had fished for before today. We trolled for several hours with the rods firing like popcorn! We pretty much averaged a fish every 7 minutes for over 4 hours. Chelsea even landed huge pike of almost 10 pounds with a little help form her dad. We even had to adjust the fighting belt to fit her making it easier to reel in all these fish. At one point, we got into a bunch of walleye & she reeled in 7 of them up to 5-pounds. When the fishing finally slowed down we packed up the trolling rods & headed to another area to cast for bass. Here, Chelsea fought some smallies in the 4-pound range & had a hard time landing these strong, bruisers. They were so much more powerful on spinning tackle & almost wore her out! After catching several of these smallmouth she was eager to troll again, so we set the lines up once more in a new area. A rod fired almost immediately and she reeled in another samllmouth of 3.5 pounds. Shortly after, they called it a day, as Chelsea had to be at a party by 4:00 P.M. and needed to rest up before. What a tremendous day with this little sweetheart having the time of her life. By the time it was all over, she must have battled close to 50 big fish!

After a day off yesterday, I was back on the lake with Richard & his 2 sons, Max & Josh today, targeting pike and walleye. I had fished with Max before & looked forward to having Richard’s six-year-old son Josh, catch a few fish also. Another beautiful day with sunshine & light winds greeted us as we raced across the lake to our first spot. We trolled a weedy area & were into fish in minutes. Max was the one taking the rods as Josh piloted the boat beautifully. He was able to steer the boat over plenty of fish as Max landed both pike & walleye for the first few hours of the morning. The largest pike would have gone just under 8 pounds, but we had a nice couple of 3.5 lbs walleye along with a six pounder too! Late in the morning we switched up to casting for largemouth and went into a jungle of weeds to see if we could get a big one. To say the fishing was tough would be an understatement. We saw several just cruising, but only managed to catch a few smaller ones before we left, looking for smallies. Once more, we encountered similar conditions with cruisers, but not takers. The last couple of areas did produce fish however as both Richard & max hooked & landed some smallies up to 3.5 pounds. Overall, a tough day with most of the fish taken by trolling. The bass just didn’t want to cooperate today!

Alain, Cindy & I headed to the lake today in pursuit of some quality smallmouth. The weather was once again great, as we had to endure sunshine & temps as high as 79degrees. Winds were from the S/W at 10 to15 knots making boat control a little difficult at times. I thought we would start out trying for largemouth, but all we could catch were smaller fish until Cindy nailed a 4-pound smallie on the outside of a weed edge. After seeing this, I thought we would try for more smallies & threw senko’s & tubes for others in the area. We managed to catch several more through the day, all about the same size, before we switched up to trolling. I wanted to see if we could get into something a little larger & started on some cabbage beds for pike & walleye. It was difficult with all the floating weeds but soon a reel fired & Cindy was battling a Muskie & her first one ever! This 35-inch fish may have been small, but it had power. A couple of quick pics & back it went to grow for future battles. We fished a little more in this area & managed one other smallie before we switched up & actually started casting for bass again. Several more smaller fish were caught with larger ones seen before we called it a day. Not a lot of fish were caught today, but they were definitely quality!

Christiane & Warren joined me today on a local lake for a mixed bag type of day. The weather was just perfect with sunshine & practically no wind. The air temps went to almost 80 degrees & water temps were as high as 74 in some areas. We thought we would try trolling in the morning for pike & walleye & managed to get some of both before we moved into heavy weeds in hopes of some largemouth bass. The water was gin clear in the shallows. We only managed a few smaller fish with several sightings of some quality largemouth, but couldn’t seem to convinced them into biting. A heavier weed pocket was where Warren managed to land a nice largie over 4 pounds, on a soft plastic bait. We covered lots of good water & picked a few here & there, but they were really tight to cover & required slow presentations. I hooked a few others pitching into tiny pockets with dense vegetation & they were definitely better fish! Christiane was throwing a scum frog over grass in hopes of a real hog & was rewarded after missing a couple of blow-ups. She hooked into one over 5 pounds and winched it through all the vegetation as I grabbed it by the jaws. It was the best fish of the day & a few pics were taken before we released her back to the jungle from where she came. A few more fish were caught during the rest of the afternoon & even a couple of smallies before we decided to call it a day. Ironically, there were really not that many boats on the water on this glorious holiday and the fishing was great!