I had a full boat today with Bram, Neil & Aerie trying their hand at some jumbo smallmouth bass. We hit the water around 9:00 and they were locked up within the first few minutes. Aerie had the least amount of experience and I knew he would most likely land the best fish. He surely got the ball rolling as he was into the first couple of 3 to 4 pound smallies before Neil & Bram joined in with their own. The weather was just perfect with almost no wind, sunshine and temps that came close to 70 degrees by the afternoon. It was the perfect day to be out! Sometime in the morning Neil hooked into a bass less than three pounds and it soon turned into a giant. Just like a shark, the Muskie decided to take advantage of the helpless smallie and thought he would make a meal of it. We caught a good glimpse of the beast as he was able to lift it from the depths and I realized she was huge. Twice, he managed to bring the lunge up and both times it sounded back with the bass crossways in its grasp. I’m sure we were looking at a four foot fish and on the third attempt to raise her back to the boat she finally let go. Oh he did land the smallie but it looked like an attack from a Bengal Tiger! This poor thing had lacerations on both sides of the body and ironically it was still alive. When I released the tortured fish it actually swam away. I’m pretty sure it won’t make it but that’s all part of the food chain when you’re dealing with lunge of that proportion. For the remainder of the day they were catching bass from 2 pounds all the way to almost 5 pounds. Although they all had chances at the big ones it was Neil that finally had the best catch of the day. I believe that he had a couple that weren’t quite five, but definitely high in the four range. Regardless of the outcome, there were plenty of fish caught by all and a spectacular day was had thanks in part to Mother Nature. I can’t believe I’m saying this but she finally came through. Hopefully it’s not the last time either!!

I finally had a day off so I took advantage of it and went fishing! Mike & I took a road trip to another lake up north looking for the big bruisers. Due to the cold morning air we took our time and arrived somewhere around 10:30 with the sun up warming the chilly air. Temps were in the low 40’s but did climb into the 50’s as the day passed. Water temps were similar to lakes back home and hovering around 58 degrees in most areas of the lake. I took my time rigging my rods as Mike started casting the area we began in. It wasn’t long and he had one on but not the bass we were searching for. This lake also has a good population of Muskie and one had just eaten his tube! A quick unhooking and back it went, all of 37 inches and mean. When I finally was ready I don’t think I had casted more than a couple of times and I too was tight to a heavy fish. It dogged like a lunge and I was totally surprised to see that it wasn’t, but it was a giant smallie. This pumpkin wasn’t only fat but long as well and weighed over 6 pounds when we put it on the scale. Wow, my first 6 of the season and I had to do it on a remote lake up north! We live welled the fish for later pics and continued casting along the breakline when I nailed another heavy one soon after. This too was a smallie but only in the high four pound range! Offshore on a nice hump we managed to get into a couple more bruisers and these ones were above 5 pounds as well. What this lake lacks in volume it more than makes up for in size! As with before, we also hit a few Muskie on the bump and managed to land a couple of them too. We also got bit off by others and I knew there were more lunge than bass here & decided to move elsewhere. We pretty much covered all the better areas throughout the day and totaled out with 5 lunge and 4 smallies with more being lost too. The way the lunge were hitting I think we would have been able to have a 20 or 30 fish day had we chosen to solely fish for these creatures instead. All in all a very relaxing day full of entertainment as Mike filmed it from a new hat cam. I can’t wait to see this dog & pony show and relive the insanity that we provided for each other. Great day on the lake!!

This was a long weekend and W, Shawn & Nick would be fishing with me on Thanksgiving Monday. We hit a local body of water and I hoped the fishing would be better than the last two days out! Although it was chilly and in the low 40’s, the sunshine and lack of wind felt pretty comfortable to me this morning! Water temps were still at around 57 degrees and it seemed like it had receded and cleared some when they made their first casts. It didn’t take long for a confirmation as Shawn was tight to a fish almost immediately. Although it wasn’t the largest one around, they were here! Several more bass in the 2 to 3 pound range came aboard on mostly tubes but a few fell victim to a slow moving crankbait as well. They had fish on throughout the day with some areas holding bigger and more than the others but at least there was action. We even had a couple of boats move in on us and anchor while fish were being caught signifying their lack of catching elsewhere. People just don’t care where they fish and today was no different. In the end, we had to move due to impossible drifting from these guys and found more fish everywhere else. It’s the fall and when you find one, you usually find a bunch. Weekends like these make me want to fish only during the week but I guess that’s true for everyone! They caught fish all day and somewhere around 4 o’clock we decided to call it a day. Although there weren’t any real big ones caught today, they all had managed to get their share of bass and everyone was happy. Hopefully in the next few days, the water will continue to clean up and the fish will be able to see our baits once more. Cranking these areas is usually a better choice for covering water and it surely brings up the numbers of fish landed by the time the day is done. No more rain please!!

A road trip was what I had planned for the weekend and headed east to Lake Massawippi to meet up with Alain & Cindy. They had a house on the lake and were looking forward to learning the water a little more. Unfortunately, the same rains that had hit local waters back home had flooded the rivers entering the lake here and it was too a mud pit. The lake had risen about 4 feet and along with the new height, become so muddy & cold that I knew I would be working my butt off just to get a few quality bites. The conditions weren’t the best and added to that were the heavy cloud cover and strong north winds. The upper 30 degree air temps soon felt like low 20’s and we bundled up thick. I really didn’t expect the lake to be in the low 50’s when we hit the first spot and had both Cindy & Alain throwing spinnerbaits over weed beds and along the drop off edges. Alain hooked up pretty quickly on a bass and I could tell that it was quality when it began to fight. With the water so dirty, I never got to see the fish until it was alongside the boat and going crazy. Definitely a five pound class fish full of piss and vinegar! Too bad it broke off just as I was getting ready to slip the net under and threw the bait as well. No pic this time! We covered lots of water today, twice as we broke for lunch at their place and headed back out in the afternoon. I knew the weeds were the place but tried several other areas including deep shoals hoping for a concentration. All we could come up with in the deep were smaller fish under 2 pounds and went back to the weeds again. By the time we called it in the afternoon, there were only a handful of decent fish caught with the largest landed being over five pounds on a tube jig. This fish hit almost as soon as it hit the bottom along the outside edge of the weeds. Right where she should have been but impossible to see with the mud and waves! Hopefully tomorrow would be a better day! Sunday also started out cold as we hit the lake sometime around 9 o’clock praying for warmer temps. Same winds, same conditions and pretty much similar fishing too! Cindy did however nail a decent sized pike on a severe break quickly but that was all she wrote for that area. We picked a few bass here & there but it wasn’t until later in the afternoon when we found a warm pocket of water that hit 55 degrees in weeds that several decent smallies came aboard. As quickly as they hit, they were gone! I moved around plenty trying to relocate them but was never able to lock on to them again and had to try alternative areas of the lake once more. This was proving to be the same all over as we would catch one fish and nay another from each area. Somewhere around 4 o’clock we packed it in and this lake became a memory. It couldn’t have worked out worse as these conditions should have had us on another body of water for sure. Quickly falling water temps coupled with high muddy water and overcast skies with cold winds from the north are a recipe for disaster. I’m actually surprised we were able to even get bit the last two days. This lake is suppose to be phenomenal throughout the fall months right up until freeze up and you would never had known it from these results. Talk about a tough couple of days on the water. I can’t wait to hit the lakes back home again!!

Craig & Herm were fishing with me today for their first of several trips scheduled this fall. Craig had a few 6 pounders already from past trips and herm was still looking for his. Would today be the day? We began drifting the deeper breaks with jigs looking for the big ones just moving in and unfortunately only came up with smaller fish. The weather was a little gloomy with heavy cloud cover and a little misty rain when we began and the winds were blowing from the NW making a drift & drag nearly impossible. I decided to try something else and switched them up to blades and moved into the weeds. Well, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this was what we would have to do when Craig hooked up on his first cast. Herm was not thrilled with the baits as he had never had any success throwing them before, but that was all about to change. This was soon to become his favorite new lure when he started slamming fish after fish throughout the day. I didn’t think there was any need to go back to jigs and just covered water with steady hookups. Smallies were violating them constantly and there was a whole lot of groaning going on with each and every hookset! Herm even hooked what I thought might be his 6 pounder only to see that it was a huge northern of almost 40 inches. Definitely his best pike ever and probably around 12 or more pounds. I don’t think they went more than 5 minutes between fish at worst throughout the day making this their best aggressive bass bite day ever. I know Herm was sold with the lure and it’s probably going to take the “Jaws of Life” to pry it away from him from now on! When they left I had to retire the lures, to them as it just wasn’t fair to take them back after the day they had. Let the craziness continue!!