I decided to try a trophy lake for smallmouth bass this morning, with Christiane. The black flies were just insane as we launched the boat and began fishing. I thought that they would be better once we got on the lake, but without any wind, they weren’t. The air temps went into the low 80’s and the water temps were low 60’s. Some of the fish were starting to bed as we saw nests all over the lake. They haven’t spawned yet, but I am sure it won’t be very long! We decided that the black flies were biting better than the bass after we only landed 3 fish in a couple of hours. The afternoon was spent back on Memphremagog, black fly free! There were probably close to 25 bass landed in about 4 hours in tough conditions. Most of the fish are shallow right now, but the water is still really dirty making the visibility just terrible. You have to fish really slowly with noisy baits just to get their attention. I hope it cleans up soon!!

I was back on the water once again with my wife Christiane today on Lake Memphremagog. We met Jeff, from Mass at the boat ramp while getting ready and decided to show him a little bit of the lake. As the new owner of a beautiful, Ranger bass boat, he was eager to learn the lake, having never been on it before. I thought it would be a good idea to have him follow us around for a while, get a feel of this body of water and catch a few smallies. The weather wasn’t too good as we had a light drizzle with low visibility and 15 knot winds from the north for our run across the lake. The air temps were in the mid 60’s and the water temps were 57 to 61 depending on where we were. Christiane landed the first bass of almost 4 pounds on a fin-s tipped jig, but the fishing was real slow for this area. There were only a few more bass landed in a half hour or so, so I decided to relocate to an island nearby. Both boats split up as we went in opposite directions around the island. There were about 10 fish hooked between us, but nothing great. Another area across the lake amongst big boulders and rocky shoreline produced about a half dozen or so fish before we parted ways. Christiane & I headed north and managed to get into another 20 or so bass before calling it a day at 3:30 PM. Most of the fish were caught on jigs in slightly deeper water of 15 feet, but there were plenty of others taken on jerk-baits once the sun came out later in the day. The high water and lack of visibility has definitely slowed the fishing as the total numbers at the end of the day have shown. Hopefully with all the nice, sunny weather on the way, the fish will become more active. Still a good day with over 30 bass caught & released today!!!

Brian & Marin were my guests today on Lake Memphremagog, for smallmouth bass. We started fishing round 8:30 AM under sunny skies, but soon found ourselves in the clouds. There was almost no wind at all and the water temps were 55 to 57 degrees depending on where you were. Our air temps reached almost 70 degrees by the end of the day when we finished around 2:00 PM. Both Brian & Marin managed to catch plenty of perch & smallmouth bass with the largest bass going to Brian at almost 4 pounds. The lure of choice today was definitely the jig as over 75 percent of the 30 fish or so fell victim to the fin-s jig. Rock shoals offshore were definitely the place to be as our last stop yielded about half of the catch. Overall, a great day with plenty of fish caught by all!

After yesterday’s ordeal with the electric motor, I had to finally switch out that motor for the spare in my truck. I was fishing with Kevin & Denis today on Memphremagog for the morning and didn’t want any more problems while on the water. The fishing began with a few smallies caught on a jerk-bait by Denis and a few more on jigs by Kevin but they were rather small in my opinion. I moved around quite a bit trying to locate some of the larger females with no success. All in all, about 10 or so bass were caught & we decided to try another lake to see if we couldn’t find some larger smallies somewhere else. By 12:30 PM we were fishing a trophy lake and it didn’t take long before the first fish came aboard. Unfortunately, it was a lake trout and a little on the small side, so we released it back to the lake. We did a little running & gunning, trying to get into some of the larger bass, but it was really slow. Denis managed to get into a smaller bass of about 3 pounds on a jerk-bait and eventually one around 5 pounds on a super fluke. The rest of the afternoon was pretty much the same with a fish here & there, all on super flukes. Kevin landed one over 4 pounds and several others a little smaller too! The weather finally broke late in the afternoon when the sun came out and the clouds went away. This began a warming trend that got the fish a little more active and the water temps went up to 54 degrees. No wind was present, but the black flies were and this was a real pain to fish in. All in all, a tough day with about 15 or so smallies caught up to 5 pounds!!

After a couple of days off, due to the miserable weather, I was back on the water for a few hours this morning. I spent the first 30 minutes in the parking lot of the lake, repairing my electric motor. It seemed like all the wet weather had caused it to run poorly and needed a little opening up. After I finally got on the water, I found the water temps had dropped once more and held right at 50 degrees. Fishing was tough, but the few fish I caught in just three hours were all in the 5-pound range. Cloudy skies looked like rain and the winds were blowing pretty well, from the N/NW at 10 t0 20 knots. The day was cut short when the electric motor began to make a funny sound from the head. Seems like the relay was shorting out and making a buzz that I didn’t like, so I decided to call it quits for the day and try to repair it back at the room. Tough day all around!! No pics once again!