Richard wanted to take his father Maurice fishing, so he hooked up with me for another day of bass fishing. His brother in law Sheldon joined us as well as we ventured onto the lake. It was a brisk morning again, with air temps around 27 degrees at the start and not expected to rise any higher than the mid 40’s during the day. Although the winds weren’t too strong, they were from the N/E making our drifts somewhat difficult. Water temps were hovering around 51.5 degrees and didn’t climb much higher even with all the sunshine we had. Maurice drew first blood with a smaller than usual bass lost right at the boat. He managed to land another one not too long after that actually went closer to 4 pounds and that was worthy of a photo. We caught a handful of small to medium sized ones in the first hour or so with only one fish above the 5 pound mark and decided to move to another area in hopes of better fishing. It was here that the other two managed to land their first few fish as they began to have a better understanding of how to work their baits. We mixed it up with both casting as well as drifting where we could and caught fish with both methods. Most of the fish were a little smaller than I was use to but at least there was action. The day eventually warmed up to what turned out to be a beautiful, sunny fall one but there was still a crisp bite to the air. Whenever the winds kicked in, it felt a whole lot colder! We hit several other areas throughout the afternoon and caught fish in each & every one with the largest ones around 4 pounds. By 4:00 we had seen enough action to pack it in and headed back to the ramp, calling it a day. Overall a slower than usual day, but it sure beats sitting on the couch!!

Craig & Herm were back once again for another day chock full of surprises. They had a difficult time on Champlain yesterday and were really looking foreword to battling some active smallmouth this morning. We started out with cold temps of just 33 degrees when we launched and they never really warmed to more than 45 throughout the day. The winds were definitely better than their previous trip when we had 3 footers and were N/E around 10 knots today. This made drifting a challenge with the current slower than the wind and I had to improvise with a few tricks of my own just to get some movement. Overcast skies were also upon us for most of the day and the water temps were hovering just below 52 degrees when they made their first cast. Within a couple of minutes, Craig was locked up and I knew it was going to be one of those days! Herm followed up not long after and they were both starting to get into them when Craig set into what seemed like the bottom. After just a couple of seconds, the line went limp and we both knew that one had teeth. I won’t say that the fish came easy today as we had to really work for them and stay on our toes with the bites. Several hits were quite difficult to detect and many a missed fish was had in the process. Although there weren’t any real giants today, there were some real good ones of over 4 pounds landed. The largest fish of the day though would have to be the walleye that registered just under 6 pounds. We never really got into the mother load of bass but we caught some fish in every area we stopped. We literally picked at them all day long! Tougher fishing than usual but still a productive day overall!!

David wanted to catch a lot of fish on a fly so I thought this would be a good opportunity to tangle with numbers of smallies for him. What I didn’t expect was the negative nature of these bass as we targeted them all over the place. We got a slightly later start than usual but with the cold overnight temps it wasn’t such a bad idea. The air was a brisk 37 degrees when we began and the water was barely 56 degrees. Thankfully, there was sunshine and only a light wind from the SW blowing under 5 knots. I set him up with several patterns of flies and was pretty sure at least one of them would work. We began in fairly shallow water working specific areas all the while anticipating the first strike. To say they weren’t aggressive would have been the understatement of the year. They just didn’t want a fly as one literally held the tail of a bead head leech and just swam with it. When David realized what had happened it was too late and the fish released it leaving him more disappointed. From sink tips and leeches to floating lines and weighted bugs, the arsenal was unlimited as he threw everything but dynamite to try and lock up. I tied a perch pattern tandem streamer on one of the rods and he tossed that for a while before the rod finally loaded up and he was locked. I’m not sure which one of us was more surprised, but we were both relieved as the chunky 3 pounder took to the air. I could see by the length of the fly that the fish was only hooked by the tandem hook and once in the net, she fell off completely. I really didn’t know what to make of this and hoped that as the day went on, the water would warm up a bit making the fish a little easier to catch on the fly. I had been throwing a jig every once and a while and having good success on it, but David really wanted to take them with a fly rod and kept at it a little longer. We even moved out to deeper water in the 15 to 20 foot range and I set up one of my high density sinking lines to get him down. We drifted and dragged over these depths as I landed a few more smallies on the jig. David was able to get the fly down with no problem and we think he even had a few strikes as we covered this area of the lake. Unfortunately, they never locked him up! I knew that if we were going to salvage this day, he was going to have to switch up to conventional tackle and bite the bullet. He agreed and was immediately into a decent smallie of around 3 pounds. What had taken him several hours to do on the fly had just taken less than 3 minutes on spinning tackle. In the next 15 minutes, he was able to land a couple more and miss a few strikes as well! Although it had been quite a while since he held anything other than a fly rod, he was very comfortable by the looks of it. We drifted over the better areas and on the next spot he loaded up on what I thought was a real good walleye. It wasn’t fighting like a bass and was staying down during the battle making me believe that it wasn’t a smallie. I was shocked to see that I was wrong when it got closer to the boat and I was able to slip the net under her. Once weighed, it went 5.33 pounds and all of it bass! What a toad as Craig would say and he would have been right. We kept at this technique for the remainder of the day all the while catching fish every once in a while. It definitely saved the day and I was thankful that at least some of the fish were cooperating even if it wasn’t with the fly. The lethargic nature of the bass today made it even more difficult as a desperate adjustment was needed in order to trigger them into taking. We did miss many strikes, but at least fish were caught in the balance of time that we spent fishing. I will be back and I will get them on the fly before time draws nearer to freeze up and hopefully figure out what makes them go. This was surely one of the toughest days spent targeting smallmouth bass and we had to do it with a fly. I would have to say that it could have been compared to catching a « Permit » with a fly rod! We had gone and taken a difficult sport & made it tougher, but spinning tackle had saved the day!!

Craig & Herm joined me today for what finished in a win, for the bass! We started in a light drizzle as we launched the boat along with some pretty strong winds from the W/NW blowing 10 to 20 knots. Air temps were in the upper 40’s and the water temps were in the upper 50’s as we began casting in the shallows. Within the first few minutes, both of them were locked up and we thought it was going to be a phenomenal day. Oh boy, were we wrong! The fish were biting light and they kept losing the bass or just missing the hits all together. I think that the landing ratio was less than 50% in the first hour or so and it didn’t get much better afterwards. Add to this that the fish were on the small side and it made things look even worse. We switched it up somewhat and tried deeper water in hopes of finding some of the larger, more aggressive biters and came up short as well. Although there were plenty of fish landed today, I don’t think there was even one that went over 4 pounds. I believe we had a few on, but as with most of the others, they didn’t stay pinned long enough to confirm for sure. I didn’t want to believe what our total for the day finished with, but I know it felt like a 60/40 split in favor of the fish. We will reconvene tomorrow and with any luck, maybe get even! Day two saw us gathering once again for another crack at those nasty fish and this time they even had « Mother Nature » on their side. I woke to the howling sound of angry winds and wasn’t even sure if we would get out. Thoughts of a cancellation day were on my mind but I figured we would give it a try anyway. The sun was out and at least it would be warm, or so I thought! We arrived at our first spot and to our amazement, there was less than a one foot chop on the water. We began drifting and in the first pass had landed several decent sized bass. I knew right there that today was going to be much better than yesterday as we continued fishing. The water temps had dropped slightly overnight and were now below 57 degrees but the fish were eating. We spent the first couple of hours in almost perfect conditions, catching fish constantly before the winds began to blow and then things changed. It was still tolerable, but barely as we had to throw out a drift sock just to slow down our passes. Several walleye were caught along with the bass and even a large Muskie made an attempt at eating one of the smallies as it neared the boat. Fortunately for the bass, he missed! By now the winds were increasing and clouds were upon us with threatening skies in the distance. It was only a matter of time before the rain would hit and we weren’t looking foreword to it at all. The remainder of the day saw us making longer drifts due to the increasing winds, all the while still catching fish. It wasn’t the prettiest day on the water, but we made it work! The waves had increased and at one point they were in the 3 foot class with an occasional rogue thrown in just for fun. Sure glad I have the Ranger! We stuck it out right up till 5 o’clock before we called it a day and headed back. All in all a pretty good one nonetheless with many fish landed under not so perfect conditions and to think we almost cancelled the day! Whatever were we thinking?

Another trip with Norm and another phenomenal day for smallies was what we had in store today. Although the weather wasn’t as predicted, the fishing was red hot! With S/W winds forecasted at 10 to 20 knots and sun & clouds scheduled, we were excited! Too bad there was almost no wind and clouds all day. We began by hitting plenty of fish in the shallows and eventually moved out to the deeper water to try and find some of the bigger ones. A few break offs, bite offs and lost fish after hook ups had us wondering what was going wrong. After a couple of slight adjustments we were back in the swing of things boating some decent smallies once again. The bite was a little strange in this area and we had to wait a little longer before we set the hooks in order to keep the fish pinned. I thought there might have been a predator lurking when I hooked something that didn’t feet quite right. The runs were powerful and not too many head shakes came from this 30 second battle. Unfortunately the fight was short and whatever it was came unpinned before I could see what it was. I hate the not knowing! We covered plenty of water both in shallow all the way out to over 30 feet and managed to get into some fish all over. Numbers of fish in the 2 to 3 pound range were caught along with several in the 4 to over 5 pound range. Most were caught by slowly presenting offerings but there were a few that just hammered a blade making it a real mix of a day. There were even a couple of nice walleye caught with the largest going over 7 pounds. By the time it was all over we had lost track of just how many fish we had landed and called it a tie. The day was just too good to argue who had caught more and although I had the largest fish with the walleye, we remained equal in our landing ratio. A great day was had by all!!