I fished with Richard & Stephan today on lake St-Louis for bass and had a blast! The weather was great with a cool morning air of 60 degrees and no wind for the run up the lake. Water temps were barely 73 degrees and the fish were a little lethargic for the start, but once the sun appeared, they seemed to wake up. Richard was into the first decent bass of over 3 pounds quickly and Steph wasn’t long to follow. Soon both were hooking fish and enjoying the raw power of the smallmouth. It wasn’t fast & furious, but the fish were cooperating enough to keep us happy. The second location wasn’t as good with only one small fish being caught and we relocated quickly. The next area had fish on the first cast and our first double header. Richard landed a real nice smallie of just over 3.5 pounds and after a quick shot returned her back to the water unharmed. Steph hooked up almost immediately afterwards and could have made it a triple 30 seconds earlier. Another nice bass of over 3 pounds and a couple of missed strikes and we were moving on again. I thought we would go shallow into weeds and try for largemouth for a while, but had no success for our efforts. A couple of pike, a beaver fish and several missed blow-ups but no largemouth were caught. We spent the rest of the afternoon fishing senko’s for smallies and managed to get into a few largemouth on the outside of rocky shoals as well as many more smallmouth. By 5:30, we were ready to all it a day and headed back to the boat ramp. Overall t was a great day with around 30 bass landed, with the largest going almost 4 pounds.

Richard and his son, Max fished with me on Lake St-Louis today for bass and experienced one of the most difficult days so far this season. Mother nature decided to throw us a cross wind from the W/NW at 15 to 20 knots causing some 3 footers & making boat control almost impossible. Add this to the electrical storm we experienced last night along with a cold front and we just had a recipe for disaster. It’s not that the fish weren’t there, but that they were really reluctant to take our offerings in most all places we fished. The first area only produced about 5 bass with the largest going slightly over 3 pounds on senko’s. There were several missed strikes as well, telling me that they just weren’t in the mood to bite. Instead of waiting them out, I decided to switch locations and try for some that were. This next location gave up only a few fish as well but they were all decent smallmouth. Once again, we witnessed some of the largest ones just cruising around with no interest in feeding. The best thing that happened today was that Max learned how fish with a spinning outfit and his dad was able to retire his spin cast rod & reel. In fact, Max was casting probably better that anyone I had ever taught before with total line control on every cast he made. Being only eight years old, this is a major accomplishment! The winds reached their maximum while were in this area and it just got out of control trying to fish and hold the boat so I decided another change was needed. I ran a little further and tried another area that had been producing really well in the last few weeks in hopes that the shore would protect us from the howling winds. It was a little easier to fish this area but with the exception of Richard hooking up on his first cast, that’s all we had. He brought up a couple of other bass following the hooked one and I tried to get a double hook up. Unfortunately, the others lost interest and disappeared into the weeds without even a sniff. One more spot for smallies produced a couple more bass and then we decided to change up and try for largemouth in a more sheltered area. Richard drew first blood with a nice largemouth taken on a scum frog and we thought we were really going to get into them. This was not to be and we spend a while between fish. A few large bass were spooked in this jungle of vegetation and one more nice largemouth was landed on a scum frog but that was all they wrote. We took a few pictures of these bucketheads and packed it in for the day. The ride back to the ramp was a little splashy with the cross current winds and we all got a nice shower along the way. This was not a great day to be on the water, but anytime you can get out there is a good thing. Despite the low numbers of bass we were still able to land about a dozen fish up to 3.5 pounds and made the best of a difficult day.

Ira, Bert & Marcus joined me today on Lake St-Louis for some smallmouth action. The weather was going to be another carbon copy of yesterday, less the wind. Air temps got into the mid 90’s and the water temps were 74 to 79 degrees depending on where we fished. With no wind, our run up the lake was a real smooth ride to the first location. I rigged all the rods with senko’s, showed everyone how to work these baits and let the games begin. A few fish were missed before they began to hook up and bass up to 3.5 pounds were finally coming aboard. Ira even had a bonus largemouth of almost 4 pounds in this smallmouth location. The action was a little slower than I had hoped for but it was still pretty good regardless. We switched to another area when we began seeing bass just cruising and had no more hits. The second area had Marcus finally hooked up, almost immediately and I thought we were going to crush them here. Unfortunately that was not to be and we fished for some time after before another bass was caught. A couple of the next ones landed were in the high threes and low fours and were worth the wait. Ira was surely the hot hand today as he seemed to hook up more than the others, but everyone was having some action too. I decided to idle to the next spot and take advantage of this time by having lunch along the way. This next place proved to be a good one as well with Ira still continuing to get into quality bass of 3 pounds or better. I think the toughest thing about today was the heat and lack of wind. It was a real scorcher and it wasn’t going to get any better! The next move was a little further away and the wind actually felt pretty good while we were running to the area. Bert drew first blood here with another small largemouth and Ira was soon to follow with a nice smallie. We spent a little while fishing these rocky flats catching fish every once & a while in almost no water. The active fish were on top of these rocks in as little as a foot of water. We saw several good fish in the deeper water adjacent, but they had no interest in our offerings and just caused us more frustration as they cruised along. As it was getting on in the day and still real hot, the guys thought we would fish for a few more minutes and call it a day. I relocated and Bert had us staying for almost another hour when he started locking up regularly. The winds had begun to blow from the SW at about 10 knots and I believe the disturbance had the fish fired up as well. Everyone began to hook up here, but Bert was the one with his rod bend more often. It was definitely a good end to a great day with over 30 fish landed and many more lost & missed.

Well, today was definitely a lot more productive than yesterday! I fished with Sam, Stephan & Matt on Lake St-Louis for smallmouth and we got into them pretty good. The first area produced over 20 bass up to 4.5 pounds with most of them over 3 pounds as well. By working shallow, rocky areas adjacent to some vegetation and deep water we were able to intercept the fish both coming and going on their feed. In fact, every spot we were going to fish today produced good results. The weather was still hot & humid, but there was a little chop on the water in the morning that I feel contributed to our success. The air was cool, but it didn’t take long before we were feeling the 90 plus temperatures once again. Water temps were still between 73 and 78 degrees, depending on the areas we were fishing. Senko’s, as usual were the hot ticket once more with a few bass coming on a soft plastic jerk-bait too. All three guys were hooking up but Sammy had the hot hand today landing about 20 smallies himself before the day was over. By days end, there were almost 50 bass caught with many others either lost or just missed on the strike. All in all a great day was had by all and nobody got hurt! Last time out, Sam took a hook in the ear by his friend and I was glad to see that it healed up just fine. With days like these, the fish are definitely locked into their summer pattern and stable weather has kept them there too. I can’t wait to get back on them again!!

David & his wife, Barbara joined me today on Lake St-Louis for smallmouth bass. He was strictly fly-fishing and wanted to get into some of those football like smallies he had heard so much about. The weather was going to be picture perfect today with sunny skies and light & variable winds. Air temps were to reach into the upper 80’s with water temps around 78 degrees in some areas and 74 in others. It took a while before David hooked into his first bas on a fly, but it was a real beauty that went over 3 pounds and the skunk was finally out of the boat. He had another one over 4 pounds that just overpowered him and buried itself in the weeds only to eventually pull the hooks free. Too bad too, because it was quite a bit bigger than he first fish and definitely photo worthy! The next spot saw us struggling once again as there were many fish just cruising the area not too interested in his offerings. One of the largest bass actually inhaled his fly and unfortunately broke him off on the hook set leaving us with a limp line. Several more fish actually came up behind the fly and just turned away seeming uninterested. A change of flies only had similar results with the exception of another 4 pounder that actually ate the fly and broke him off again on the hook set. This was not turning out to be a lucky day and misfortunes were becoming commonplace. Several more lookers and quite a few cruises were seen, but we decided to try another location and see if our results could be better. Every location we tried seemed to have similar success with the fish even taking the fly in and immediately spitting it right back out. David brought a school of fish up from a submerged crib and they did exactly the same thing too! He did manage to entice one of them though and finally hooked into another bass of about 3.5 pounds. This time the fish was landed and released after a quick picture, unharmed. This was to prove to be the only bass taken from the area and after several frustrating attempts at the flies, we decided to move on once again. Similar results were had in every other area with limited success. Only a few more fish were landed and they were all on senko’s! With this being the kind of day we were having, we tried a couple more areas and decided to call it a day. If we could have only hooked up with 10 % of the fish we saw, it would have been a great day. I guess they just weren’t in the feeding mood today and that was all day long!