I fished Lake Memphremagog with Tim & my wife, Christiane today and was surprised to see the sun for most of the morning. The winds were out of the S/SW at 5 to 10 knots putting a little chop on the water, but the color was like mud. It was really difficult to locate water clear enough to be able to fish, but offshore humps were definitely the place to be. Once again, jerk-baits and jigs accounted for the 20 or so smallies up to 3.5 pounds that were caught & released today. The water temps were around 54 degrees in most places, but the mud lines were really thick from all the heavy rains we’ve been having lately making for difficult fishing conditions. The afternoon wasn’t much different today as the rain began to fall around 1:30 and we headed off the water by 2:30 PM when the conditions worsened. The winds had increased to 10 to 20 knots with 2 footers greeting us for the run back. The overall fishing was pretty good considering all that Mother Nature dealt us today!!

I fished with my wife, Christiane on a trophy lake for about 4 hours today. With all the rain and storms we’ve had lately, I knew I had my work cut out for me. Last night’s heavy rain muddied up the water, brought the level up almost another foot and dropped the temps down once again. The same area that had 55 degrees yesterday was now barely 52 degrees! The fish had also evacuated the area and only produced one smaller fish of about 3 pounds. I moved around plenty and concentrated on areas that I thought would be holding bigger bass and still came up empty. They were definitely in the deeper water as I brought up a couple in each place I fished. There were even a couple that might have been over 6 pounds as I visually saw them chase down the lures and retreat back to the drop offs. By days end, only 2 fish of 3 pounds were released, but several other bigger ones were seen. We even had follows from a couple of lakers once again! With all the rain that continued to fall during the day, the water temps seemed to fall even more. The next couple of days have the same weather forecast and I will have to stay deep if I want to get into any of the larger smallies as well as the high numbers that I am so custom to during this pre spawn period. No pics again!

I fished with Tim today on another trophy lake for smalllmouth bass. We got a late start and began fishing around 10:30 AM, once again in the rain. The temperatures were above 60 degrees, but with rain gear on, it felt more like 80. Our starting location was really muddy due to all the run off from the rain and didn’t produce a single strike. I decided that a location change was in order & ran to another area not too far away. We found water temps to be about the same at 52.5 and casted our crank-baits over the rocks in 3 to 6 feet of water with only one hookup. Eventually we ran into warmer water of over 55 degrees and began to get into them pretty god. Tube jigs produced over 10 fish in about 45 minutes with plenty of others lost before they came to net. As usual, the largest fish of over 5 pounds was one of those long distance releases! The afternoon weather took a turn for the worse and sent us off the water by 2:30 PM, when the rains got really heavy. The skies blackened up and winds also intensified looking like it might get worse and possibly dangerous. Mother nature wins again!! No pics today!

This was Mike’s last day here, so we decided to give the trophy lake another try before he headed home. As usual, it rained pretty much all day long, with some heavier downpours at times. The air temps reached about 65 degrees towards the end of the day and we actually got about an hour of sunshine around 4:00 PM. Light winds and overcast skies were what we fished in all day and this made it impossible to see any follow ups from the bass. It was a really slow bite until we switched to crank-baits! We landed several smallies up to 5 pounds 5 ounces in a few hours and lost others as well. There was even another lake trout caught on a fin-s tipped jig and one more lost too. The day was a little tougher as the water temps actually dropped to 51 degrees with all the cold rain that fell. Close to 20 more smallmouth bass were caught & released today on mostly crank-baits in 6 to 10 feet of water. All in all, this was a pretty good day considering all these horrible, rainy conditions.

Mike & I went back to the same lake again this morning and we had an even tougher time once more. It rained pretty much all day with downpours at times! The water temps were between 50 & 53 degrees, depending on the areas being fished. We had so much rain overnight that the water clarity was brown in some of the shallower sections of the lake. We began throwing soft plastic jerk-baits over shallow water and only came up with a few fish. The balance of the day was spent fishing deeper water along break-lines and most of the better fish up to 5 pounds were taken this way. Jigs accounted for all of these bigger smallies as well as another brown trout of over 4 pounds. Close to 20 smallmouth bass were caught & released on another miserable day.