I fished with Keith today on a local lake for both Muskie & smallmouth bass and oh, what a day! We got a late start as his flight only arrived this morning and the best we could do is about 10:00 AM. After last weekend’s success at muskie, I thought it would be a good idea to give it another try. I knew the bass would cooperate and wasn’t worried about catching some of them, so we set the rods out for skis and began to troll. The winds were out of the SW at less than 10 knots and the skies were completely clouded over with possible storms in the distance. Water temps were slightly above 67 degrees and the air temps weren’t much higher either. Keith had never caught a muskie before and I was hoping to show him how impressive they were to see when they are 20 to 30 pounds or more. About 30 minutes into the troll, one of the reels started to scream and I knew we were locked up! This fish really bulldogged as Keith reeled her to the boat and he freaked when he saw the actual size of her alongside. I knew that it would weigh at least 25 pounds and boga gripped the muskie for a few pics. A quick measurement of 43.5 inches and she was ready for release. We wasted no time getting the lines back into the water in anticipation of another hook-up! Sure enough, the same rod fired about 45 minutes later and Keith was battling another fish of almost the same size again. Once more, I boga gripped the fish and unhooked her for a few more pics and released her unharmed. This one went 41.5 inches, but was much fatter than the first fish making her weight very close as well. We continued trolling for a little while longer without any luck and then decided to try for some bass close by. The rain had begun and the winds had kicked up a little bit more, but I was sure we would be able to catch a few. Keith wanted a little side bet and thought he was going to kick my butt or as he said, “school me” with the most bass caught, so the gloves were off! I told him that it was a no brainer and hooked up a few casts later on a jerkbait. Of course he wanted a lure like that so I handed him the same rod and grabbed a tube jig instead. Shortly after, I was locked up on another smallie and it wasn’t looking too good for Keith. He said he had a follow, but no hook-up! I missed a couple of others and we moved on looking for the school of bass that frequent this area. The rain had begun to fall pretty good making visibility in these areas rather difficult, but the skies looked like there was a clearing soon to follow. The next area saw me telling Keith that he had a hit on the tube and to set the hook. Unfortunately the hook set was light and the fish came off. I hooked a few more and was up 4 nothing when I decided to give him a break and hook a couple of his own. There were just too many fish in this last area and I knew even a blind squirrel eventually finds a nut! Bottom line, 8 to 4 was the end result and dinner was on him! I suggested that we go back to trolling for Muskie again and see if we couldn’t get another to make it three and he agreed. This time I don’t think we had the rods in the water for more than 15 minutes when the rod fired. Another screamer as I yelled, “Fish”. He managed to get the rod out of the holder as I cleared the other rod and fought the beast to the boat once again. This one seemed to be about the same size as I brought her aboard for pics again. A measurement of 43 inches and a real fat belly on this one would have put her around 25 pounds once more. Back to the lake she went and we tried a little longer without success before we made a run for the ramp. The storms were moving in now & I didn’t want to get caught out there in those conditions. To say it was a great day would have been an understatement, it was awesome! Catching his first, second and third Muskie all in the same day wasn’t anything he had expected. I hope he can sleep tonight!

Today, I fished with Darren & Max on a local lake for a Multi Species kind of day! The weather looked perfect with a wind out of the SW at 5 to 10 knots and sunny skies. Water temps were around 67 degrees and the air temps climbed to the mid to upper 70’s by days end. We began our day by trolling for Muskie in anticipation of at least one big bite. This was to prove to be the right choice as the reel fired about 90 minutes into the day with a real screamer. I had been marking good fish in the areas being trolled but up until now had no luck in enticing any of them into hitting. Darren was into the first muskie of the day and the battle was on! Fortunately it had hit on the long line and there was plenty of room to play the fish as we cleared the other lines. Eventually I was able to boga grip the fish and bring it aboard for a few quick picks and back she went. It took only a few minutes to revive the fish before she bolted back to the depths and soaked Max in the process. He got a little too close to the water and the fish and received a nice shower from the tail kick. We continued trolling and marking good fish and hoped for one more so that Max could feel the power, but it never happened. I thought we would change it up a bit and get into some action with the bass, so we relocated and began casting spinnerbaits, jerk-baits and tubes for smallies. It didn’t take long before both of them were with bent rods and this lasted pretty much all day long. There were low periods, but when we found fish, they were schooled. Each time we took 10 or so fish from the schools and lost probably more as they just came off. Late in the afternoon, we decided to try one last attempt at getting Max into a muskie and trolled for a couple more hours. Once again, good fish were marking, but nothing was taking! We each grabbed a rod to bring them in and while reeling the lures back to the boat; Max got slammed by a Mack truck! He said that something hit him so hard that he felt like the lure had run into a brick wall. Darren got a quick glimpse of this fish but was unable to determine how big it was and it was gone as fast as it appeared. Somebody more experienced may have been able to bring it back with a figure eight, but it happened too fast for Max to react in time. Close, but no cigar! Back to the bass for the last hour or so before we were to call it a day and apparently the right choice too. Both Max & Darren began hooking up almost immediately and there was another 10 fish or so landed before we packed it up for the day. There was also at least that many lost as well! All in all a great day on the water with 30 to 40 bass landed and who knows how many others lost. The Muskie would have gone 43 inches and pretty close to 25 pounds with a quick estimate. This was the icing on the cake!

I fished with Dave & Jeff today on a local lake for smallies, and tried a little Muskie action as well. To say it was a tough day would have been an understatement! We began the day with sunshine and a 10 to 15 know wind from the SW and tried trolling for a while to see if we couldn’t hook up with a toothy critter. This apparently wasn’t going to happen and we switched to bass after a couple of hours of washing lures! It didn’t take Dave long to hook up with a nice smallie around 4 pounds, but this was to prove to be the only one landed in this area. There were a couple of other hits and one other fish briefly on, but nothing came to net. By now the winds had intensified and I thought I would try an area fully exposed to the elements of Mother Nature before it got too bad. We threw spinnerbaits, jerk-baits and tubes to these fish but had limited success here as well. Jeff managed to get into a few fish on a spinnerbait, but nothing to write home about. We did manage to see several large smallies roaming around and this made it all that much more frustrating as they wouldn’t bite. With the increase in wind to 25 or 30 knots, the boat control became a little more difficult and eventually we gave up on this area all together and changed back to Muskie trolling. By now the conditions were 3 to 4 footers with an occasional 5 footer thrown in for good measure and even the trolling was difficult. I had to resort to using the big motor just to get the speed up enough to control the troll. I marked plenty of baitfish as well as large fish and really thought we would score, but this wasn’t to be the case. We trolled around for a couple more hours in several places marking huge hooks on the sonar, but no cooperation on the part of the fish. Eventually we decided to try one last attempt at smallies and hit another area on the way in. Dave had a shot at one good fish, but unfortunately it came unpinned shortly after hook up and that was all they wrote. By 4:00 PM we had enough and headed back to the boat launch as they had to get back early for an evening hockey game in Montreal. Tough bite today!

Sammy, Stephan, Anthony & Vic fished with me today on a local body of water for a multi species kind of day. We began trolling huge plugs for Muskie in the morning to see if we could score a big fish and it proved to be the right choice. In the first 15 minutes, the long line went off and the fire drill began. After several attempts at getting the rod out of the holder by them, without success, I had to remove it and handed the rod off to the closest person. Sammy was the lucky one and he battled this muskie to the boat. It was quite impressive for them to see a fish of that size beside the boat as I reached out to lip it with a Boga Grip knock off. I now know why the real Boga is so expensive as the fish twisted and broke this cheap Matzuo model leaving me with a bent tool, so to speak! I really wanted to get this fish in for a quick pic, but was only able to unhook it and release it while still in the water. No sense harming the fish or a potential injury to someone with all those hooks hanging out of the fish’s face. I estimated this fish to be around 18 pounds and somewhere between 41 & 44 inches in length. Not a giant, but enough to get everyone’s adrenaline pumping! There was a nice mist coming off the water with the cool morning temps of barely 50 degrees and a light wind from the SW at 5 to 10 knots making it a perfect looking day. I knew that the sun would eventually burn off all this and wanted to take advantage of it as long as it remained. We trolled for quite a while longer without another touch and decided to try for smallmouth bass instead. It took about 30 seconds in the first spot to have the first fish on and Vic soon landed one of about 3 pounds on a tube jig. Unfortunately, one other bite off afterwards was all we got in this area and I knew it was from a Muskie roaming around. We moved to another spot a little further away and let the games begin! Stephan was the first to lock up and I knew what was to follow. A huge school of smallies came in with the fish and Sammy dropped a jig in the middle and snapped a good fish off almost instantly. When this happens, you have to be quick to react and the others weren’t fast enough to take advantage of the situation. We released the hooked fish and reorganized once more. The next attempt had a double with Anthony & Stephan both locked up and again, Sammy broke off a decent fish on another hook set. With 10 feet of line in the water, a less powerful set is all that is required, not a lip ripping hook set! The school was beginning to get a little spooked and eventually disappeared to the deep water and never showed again. We now had to cast the entire area and hook one here and one there. Everyone managed to get into fish, but Sammy definitely caught more than the others, as he seemed to be with bent rod, almost constantly. When all this died off completely, we relocated once more and tried casting spinner-baits for a while. The fish seemed to be in a real negative mood and were either following them or lightly hitting the skirts like they wanted the lures out of their faces. I managed to hook one around 4 pounds on the spinner-bait when three of the others decided to take a break. Unfortunately it came off at the boat when I tried to swing it aboard! We continued fishing smallies for a while without any luck and then tried trolling for Muskie once again. At one point, all 4 guys were asleep and I hooked up on a deep rod. Stephan woke up first and he was the lucky person who got to fight the fish for about 20 or 30 seconds before the line went loose. Somehow the fish managed to get off and that was all they wrote for the trolling bite! It wasn’t the best day, but there was a good amount of action with the bass and a nice Muskie in the morning to add to this picture perfect day on the water. All in all a pretty good day!

I fished up north on a remote lake again today, but this time with Mike & his son Ryan. We had great expectations when the weather looked like it was going to be a beautiful day only to have clouds move in early in the morning and stay all day. Originally, the plans were to fish a local body of water in the Montreal area, but they forecasted really strong winds and a smaller lake was the alternative choice. Air temps reached into the 70’s with the winds out of the SW gusting at 20 knots but there were plenty of protected areas that fishing wasn’t unpleasant. Catching on the other hand, could have better! There were only about 10 bass caught up to 4 pounds and a Northern Pike of about 8 pounds caught while trolling for Muskie. A couple of other Muskie were lost on light tackle when they just bit the jigs off completely. One was seen that looked to be around 15 pounds, but the other one never showed his face and just cut the line instantly. We fished hard and with many areas covered, there definitely should have been better results. Unfortunately, that’s why they call it fishing! All in all a rather disappointing day that had to be settled on up north!