Darrin & his father Joe were to be my guests today on a couple of lakes for smallies. They were looking for a personal best brownie so we decided to target only the trophy lakes in hopes of a big fatty or two. The weather was pretty nice today as air temps reached into the low 60’s but the water temps on these lakes were 56.5 at best. There were even certain areas that didn’t exceed more than 44 degrees too! Unfortunately, the first lake only produced lakers and one salmon along with another brown trout, but no bass. The winds were out of the N/NW at 10 to 15 knots and there was intermittent sunshine along with clouds. Once on the second lake it didn’t take long to find the warmer water and Darrin was the first to connect with a football like smallie that would have gone 4.5 pounds or better. This thing had a belly on her that looked like it was ready to explode. Not to be outdone by his son, Joe hooked up almost immediately afterwards with another fish of equal size and I had to cut the tangled line from the first fish in order to be able to net the second one. There was one other clone of a fish caught by Darrin a little later and Joe caught one of just 2 pounds as well. I had a few follows from lakers on a jerk-bait, but never connected with any of them. We got caught in a torrential rainstorm that lasted about 20 minutes causing the auto bilge pump to kick on and that was it for the fishing. We tried to get into more of these bruisers, but weren’t able to hook up with any more due to the cooler water temps. All in all a pretty good day with a few jumbino bass as a reward!

After a day off the water due to motor problems, I was back on Memphremagog with my buddy Scott today. Being a fly fisherman, he wanted to take bass on the fly and oh how he did! Scott had to pick the nicest day of the year as the air temps went into the mid to upper 80’s and the water temps climbed as high as 63 degrees in certain areas. Sunny skies and no wind made this a perfect day to fly fish. We pretty much caught bass in every area fished on jigs and flies and by the days end had caught probably 50 or more smallmouth up to 3.5 pounds. The best areas were the deepest part of the points in 10 to 15 feet of water. Some of the shallower water also produced towards the end of the day as these areas heated up considerably more than the earlier part of the day. All in all a great day on the water!

I fished with Andre & Marcel today on Memphremagog for smallmouth bass. Ironically, the first two bass to be hooked into were both largemouth. The weather warmed up quite well today with a high of 81 degrees. The highest water temps were just above 56 degrees with a S/SW wind of 10 to 20 knots. Sunshine was above us for most of the day until a late afternoon cloudbank came through and chilled the air just a bit. As usual, Fin-S tipped jigs and jerk-baits were the lures of choice used to capture close to 50 fish today. Some of the bass are finally starting to move into their usual areas but the bulk are still in deep water awaiting warmer water. All in all a pretty good day!

I tried another lake with my buddies from yesterday, but the water was also very cold there as well. There were a few smallmouh bass caught and several perch and one large walleye of over 7 pounds. The conditions were pretty much the same as Memphremagog with water temps around 47 degrees at best and winds were still blowing from the north at 10 to 20 knots. Thankfully, there was mostly sunshine to comfort the chilly air temps in the 40’s. We tried Mmphremagog again in the afternoon and managed to get into several smallmouth and a bunch of perch, but not the numbers I am accustomed to at this time of the year. The winds are supposed to take a 180-degree turn in the next couple of days and that should mix the colder water with the warmer stuff, causing a little more fish activity.

Today was a slightly better day on the lake but equally as windy too! Danny, Stephan, Sam and his brother joined me for a cold windy day on lake Memphremagog for bass. The winds were still from the north at 25 knots and the water temps were close to 50 degrees in some of the shallower bays. The offshore structures were a little cooler and very hard to fish under these conditions. The bay on the other hand was a little easier and had some fish willing to cooperate. All of the guys managed to hook up and some better than the others. There were about 30 or so fish caught today with about half of them being smallies. There were even a couple of largemouth caught as well. Our air temps were a little cool as well but with the sunshine it wasn’t too bad at all. Still a tough day on the water!!