Hog Hunting

Matt, Sabrina and Ryan were fishing with me today and we were looking for some real trophy smallies! After a quick stop at Tim Horton’s, we headed to the lake in hot pursuit of hogs. We had another day with winds from the N N/W and this would surely mess up any drift & drag possibilities. It would be a casting kind of day! Water temps were still close to 62 degrees and although the air temps were almost 70 degrees by the end, it still felt cold with the wind. I targeted strictly big fish areas, looking for a five or six pounder and finally came across one such place. Matt was the first to nail a huge smallie on a jerkbait and I instructed him not to try & power the fish to the net. Tiny hooks and big fish can end poorly when over pressuring these mean smallies and I wanted him to land this one. Fortunately, he did just that and we soon had one over 5 in the boat. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the size of this thing, along with the others! This would surely be the largest bass he had ever landed and without actually weighing it, I called it an honest 5. Back it went and we did to, looking for bigger & better to follow. It was quite a difficult task to get another one but eventually Sabrina was landing one even larger. This one had eaten a senko and with the larger hook buried in its mouth, I wasn’t as worried about the fight. She eventually brought it boat side and I slipped the net under one closer to 6 pounds. As with the previous one, we took a few pics and released her immediately. It had been a slower than usual morning without any success but we were definitely making up for it now! With a little protection from the wind here, I thought I would try a drift just to see if there were any deeper fish willing to take the jigs. Matt was quick to find out that there were, as he boated one around 3.5 pounds almost instantly. Not long after he hooked another and a slightly smaller one was also landed. He seemed to have the only hot rod and didn’t stop there, hooking yet another even larger. Unfortunately this one took to the air and threw the jig on the jump. Oh well, two out of three isn’t bad! With the action really slowing down, I decided to try another area and it was here that all three began hooking up regularly. Ryan was now throwing a spinnerbait and just hammering several decent ones. Matt was killing the smallies using a tube and Sabrina was catching some too. She even managed to land the largest one in this area that topped out over 5 pounds! We hung in here for a while until they just stopped biting and headed to another area closer to the ramp to finish up the day. Unfortunately only one more fish was hooked there and it came unpinned when she took to the air. It looked to be a pretty good one and may have been another in the 5 pound class! We pulled the plug on this day soon after and headed in. What had started out to be a slow day really turned around and both size and numbers were had by all. I think Matt has a better understanding of what lives here now, after landing his personal best smallie. I know the others won’t forget the fishing either as they all hooked & landed plenty of quality smallies today!!