Darrin & I headed to St-Francis for a day of smallmouth bass fishing today in tremendous winds. The waves were three footers before eight o’clock and we knew they were going to get even worse. With winds out of the S/W at 15 to 25 knots and stronger gusts, they made their way into the 4 & 5-foot class before noon. Fortunately, the sunshine made it feel comfortable and with the Ranger, boat control was a breeze! We were throwing jerk-baits and tubes pretty much the entire day in these winds and fended pretty well. Darrin hooked into a few smaller bass up to 3 pounds before he finally got into a real giant of a smallie that brought up abut 5 or 6 of it’s friends during the battle. I don’t think either of us actually realized just how big this bass really was until it was finally in the net. She was 21.5 inches long and had to run close to if not over 6 pounds! I thought I would livewell her and take some pics later, so that we could continue fishing. Almost immediately, Darrin was into another big fish and eventually brought a smallie over 4.5 pounds to the livewell once again. I followed up with another bass close to 5 pounds on a tube shortly after and it was starting to look like we were going to have a big fish day. These winds were a bit of a pain to fish in, but thankfully the boat made it really comfortable and easy to control a decent drift through the area we were fishing. The entire day was like this with pretty much big fish coming from wherever we fished. We tried a few other areas and Darrin either got into big smallies or had them follow the jerkbait right up to the boat. I stayed on the tube and occasionally switched up to either a spider grub or another jerkbait, depending on the area we were in. I am sure that if the winds weren’t quite as strong as they were, we might have caught even more of these giants. There were probably close to 25 bass landed and plenty of others seen and lost! All in all it was a great day with a limited amount of action, but really quality results!

This morning I fished with Mark & his son Daniel for a half day on Lake St-Louis. I was actually glad to be on the water for just a half day due to the weather forecast scheduled for this afternoon. It was suppose to be thundershowers and heavy winds up to 30 knots from the S/W and I didn’t want to experience that again. We began by making a long run up the lake to our first spot and Mark lost a good fish on a spinnerbait when she went airborne. Moments later, Daniel also lost one that should have been well hooked on the third or fourth jump. These two fish were Kodak worthy, should they have come aboard! We did manage to land three others and a pike before we relocated due to slower than expected action. Nothing on the second area and 5 missed strikes on the third made us move on once more to another location. This time it produced two nice smallies over 3 pounds on senko’s, a couple of walleye on tubes and another northern around 6 pounds as well. Being pressed for time and watching the weather move in, I decided to try one more area in hopes of some action. Unfortunately, only two smaller bass were taken on a spider grub and we had to leave when the sky looked too bad to hang around. Overall the day had a possible 18 chances at fish and over half of them were landed. The weather really had a lot to do with the outcome as we ran in, in pretty heavy rain and dark skies. Half days are always difficult unless the conditions are just prefect. All in all a pretty good half day, nevertheless!!

I was back on the water again this morning, but this time on Lake Memphremagog. I had driven to the lake to meet Ed & try for smallmouth bass once again. With the fish in their summer patterns, I knew it would be a tough bite on the lake. This time of year has always been difficult with the over abundance of food for them to feed on and today was no different. We began throwing top water baits with no takers so I switched it up and began throwing a jerk-bait for a while. This brought up a few bass and all they did was look but not take. The only thing hitting the lure was perch and they were a pain in the butt. Ed did manage to hook up on a jerk-bait a little later, but the bass was only around 2 pounds and not what I was looking for. The winds were from the north and I knew this wasn’t a good thing with the cool air blowing down the lake. Water temps were almost 73 degrees and should have been prime for the bass, but they weren’t! They weren’t really aggressive at all and I finally switched to a spider jig and slowly worked around the outer edges of the weeds & rocks. This method managed to get strikes and eventually a fish of about 4 pounds. Once I realized what was happening, I rigged another rod for Ed and he began throwing a tube jig. This was slow & methodical, but at least we were hooking up! I ran all over the lake hitting areas that I knew and finally found one in the afternoon that held several fish. It was a rock flat in open water that topped out at 12 feet with deeper water all around. We drifted over it several times when the wind was out and caught many fish from this huge expansive area. Nothing really big, but even a three pounder was welcome today! With the wind blowing we did fine, but when it died, so did the bite. I headed north again and hit many other areas along the way back picking a fish here & there along the way. Ed managed to get into 3 last fish in another area with his biggest bass of the day there on a tube before we called it a day. The second day saw us casting & dragging slower tubes & spider jigs in deeper water areas all day long. After yesterday, I realized that if we were going to catch fish we were going to have to fish slow & deep. I targeted points and outside weed edges with these jigs and we caught fish in almost each place we fished. They weren’t aggressive, but at least some of them were biting today as we jumped all over once more. The best areas were the ones that had the steepest edges and fell into deep water quickly. Pretty much all of the weed beds also held fish, but we had to fish the outside edges to get bit. I tried the same rock flat as yesterday that we had done so well on and didn’t have the same success. I was marking plenty of fish on the bottom, but with the lack of wind today, they didn’t want to move. We caught a few and I almost landed a big one in the 4-pound range but he got off at the boat before I could land him. The rest of the day we bounced around looking for weed patches and fished the outside, picking a fish here & there. It wasn’t fast & furious, but that’s Magog in the summer. Too much food for the fish only makes them difficult to entice into biting. They still look like springtime footballs with fat bellies and seem so full that it’s hard to believe they can be enticed into biting our offerings. All in all a decent 2 days of fishing with the weather being just spectacular!!

Richard & his son, Max fished with me again today on St-Francis for bass. I had them out a week ago on another lake and had caught both largemouth & smallmouth bass on a variety of baits. Today we were looking for some real trophy smallies and I hoped for only big fish. The winds were blowing from the W/SW at around 10 knots and perfect for what I had planned on doing. We were throwing jerk-baits and spinnerbaits over shallow flats in anticipation of reaction strikes from the bass in the area. With this kind of chop on the water they wouldn’t have too long to look at the lures and in crystal clear water, this really helps! The first fish to come aboard was almost 4 pounds and it really nailed the jerk-bait. It also had a few others following as the fish fought & I tried to get another by throwing a jig into the group while the battle was on. Unfortunately, they lost interest and disappeared somewhere into the weeds nearby. Many large fish were seen roaming the area as the winds moved us along this flat, but very few were willing to commit to anything we threw at them. Several of the largest fish came up on the jerk-bait and actually nipped the tail hook but didn’t get on. Richard managed to lock up on a nice one that we had follow a few times and landed another around the same size as the first one. He also hooked up on a couple of others a little further away on a spinnerbait and landed two more before we switched areas. Max landed a nice smallie on a senko in this spot with the winds almost dying out completely. Unfortunately this was the only fish caught with many others seen also roaming around. I thought we would change it up a bit and try for largemouth, so we headed into the shallows and thick weeds for a while to give it a try. This was to prove to be a tough bite as we lost a few in the thick weeds but never really landed anything. A little later we tried for smallmouth again and Richard decided to throw a big bucktail spinner to see if he could hook up with a larger pike or maybe a muskie. Guess what, he landed another smallie of close to 4 pounds once more! With the winds bowing even harder, we were into 3 to 4 footers at the end of our drift and decided to call it a day. I sure was glad to be in the Ranger for this run back to the ramp. A tough day again but there was a tournament on this lake the day before and I’m sure a lot of the fish were still feeling the pressure. Overall it was a good day with only large smallies caught, but no real trophies!!

Leonard & Ben fished with me today on Lake St-Louis for bass. The cool overnight temps and E winds made for a tough bite during the morning as we found out. The afternoon was a different story though as they hooked up quite well! The water temps were 73 degrees and climbed to 75 in a few areas with the air hitting 85 late in the day. The winds weren’t strong, but they were blowing against the current and that’s never good! Most of the day was overcast, but the sun did shine a bit throughout the day. I wanted to teach both Leonard & Ben a simple technique that they would be able to use on their lake up north so we fished senko’s all day. It took them a little while to get use to the baits, but eventually found themselves catching fish. Smallies up to 3.5 pounds were landed and several in the 4 plus range were unfortunately lost or just missed. There was however, a nice largemouth of almost 5 pounds landed by Ben and that was a real bonus fish for him. It was his first largie and it was a real beauty! By the end of the day there were about 15 or so bass & one pike caught but there was about the same or more lost as well. All in all a pretty good day for two guys that were new to this type of fishing!