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!!

Well, Norm & I were back out again today to see if the water had cleaned up some after the tournament weekend. It had and was back to almost perfect color but still a little higher than usual from the heavy rainfall from last week. We hit similar areas and wouldn’t you know it, landed a lunker in the high 5 pound range. This was surely a fish that we could have used a couple of days earlier but that’s fishing! The air temps were in the upper 50’s and the water temps had fallen slightly and were around 58 degrees but the sun was out and that would hopefully activate the fish. The one thing I noticed though was the presence of a new boat fishing the shallows. As we approached him, he decided to put a ski had on that covered his face completely. Looked like he had something to hide and I don’t think he was robbing a bank! He was obviously an observer from the B1 tournament and another guy that was looking for a free ride. He definitely didn’t know the area because he ran up on rocks several times and had to push himself off with a paddle. I’m sure there will be even more in the next couple of weeks! Throughout the day we managed to get into fish pretty much all over on a variety of different presentations. Although we didn’t really have any competition, our 5 best would have been another 20 pound plus bag once again. Go figure! We stuck it out until almost 5 o’clock and called it a day. It was nice to get out again in a non tournament position and just enjoy the day!!

No rest for me today as I was back on the water with Ross & Jack this morning, searching once more. I had decided to go to another body of water and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how high the water was. Looks like another day of finding fish again! Just trying to orient myself along newly developed current breaks was a treat as both of them casted jigs to the murky depths. Along with the high water was the presence of coffee with three creams! This was going to be a challenge to say the least as I began the exploration. Water temps were definitely falling with the color and were showing about 57 degrees at best. Fortunately for us, the sun was out and the air temps reached almost 60 degrees with a light SW wind. As with the last few days I was able to locate fish in shallow and although they caught more in the deep, the largest ones came from less than 3 feet of water. Both Jack & Ross caught their fair share of 2 to 3.5 pound smallies throughout the day, mostly on jigs but it was Ross that would get the lunker. Late in the afternoon he managed to hook into a personal best smallie that soon came to rest in the net, in awe. A quick weight read 5.25 pounds and surpassed his previous best by well over a pound. A few quick picks and back to the mud pit she went. By 4:00 we had seen enough and called it a day. As this trip was a 50th birthday gift from Ross’s wife, Jack got to benefit from it as well. They had caught & released plenty of fish today and the birthday boy had a great present with plenty of memories to last a while. Great day on the water!