Flight for Smallies

Josh & Denis flew in to enjoy some of our excellent smallmouth bass fishing, literally! With both of them being pilots for a large company they are fortunate enough to travel all over and occasionally take the time to fish. Just coming off another trip from catching cutthroat trout on the Snake River, they were really looking forward to getting into some of our northern smallies. The conditions were absolutely perfect this morning with flat calm waters, beautiful sunshine and cool air temps. We began over a large flat trying to get an idea of what the fish were doing. It didn’t take long to find out what they weren’t doing, eating! Several of these big footballs hit the baits but none of them stayed pinned. I made another attempt at changing baits, covering the area a second time, but it produced the same results. Time to move! The next location was somewhat better, but also slow in my opinion. Josh managed to land some good fish here but we really had to work hard at getting them. Most of the fish were just lookers! The next area was quite similar with only a few fish getting caught as well. I immediately made a long run to what I thought was going to be great spot, only to find it wasn’t. A couple of fish were landed by covering plenty of water and I knew I had to make a decision, fast. All the years of tournament fishing had me in tournament mode and under the gun to locate fish. I headed much shallower and almost immediately got them into fish. They started pounding on all kinds of smallies congested in a very small area. Josh was first to locate them and brought to net a really good one that started the ball rolling. These fish weren’t chasing but were eating if you presented the right baits from the proper direction. I tried several different angles and soon realized that they were definitely current oriented. They practically had to dead stick the baits in order to get one to commit! They milked it for every last strike before we moved on. I finally had something to go on and hit another area further away with the same results. Unfortunately the winds had picked up considerably and I was having a difficult time holding in the two & three footers. Josh continued hammering smallies of all sizes right up until I pulled the plug, because of the wind. I had planned on the big winds and left an open water area just in case. We ran to it and fished the remaining couple of hours here, catching mostly walleye. Although it was difficult, the style of fishing made it much easier on everyone. By 5:00 we were done and headed back to take out. Both Josh & Denis had experienced some great fishing while here in Montreal and I think the next time they get back to the city, I will be hearing from them again. I look forward to hooking them up on more of our big brown bass!!