After a day off yesterday, I was back on the lake with Richard & his 2 sons, Max & Josh today, targeting pike and walleye. I had fished with Max before & looked forward to having Richard’s six-year-old son Josh, catch a few fish also. Another beautiful day with sunshine & light winds greeted us as we raced across the lake to our first spot. We trolled a weedy area & were into fish in minutes. Max was the one taking the rods as Josh piloted the boat beautifully. He was able to steer the boat over plenty of fish as Max landed both pike & walleye for the first few hours of the morning. The largest pike would have gone just under 8 pounds, but we had a nice couple of 3.5 lbs walleye along with a six pounder too! Late in the morning we switched up to casting for largemouth and went into a jungle of weeds to see if we could get a big one. To say the fishing was tough would be an understatement. We saw several just cruising, but only managed to catch a few smaller ones before we left, looking for smallies. Once more, we encountered similar conditions with cruisers, but not takers. The last couple of areas did produce fish however as both Richard & max hooked & landed some smallies up to 3.5 pounds. Overall, a tough day with most of the fish taken by trolling. The bass just didn’t want to cooperate today!

Alain, Cindy & I headed to the lake today in pursuit of some quality smallmouth. The weather was once again great, as we had to endure sunshine & temps as high as 79degrees. Winds were from the S/W at 10 to15 knots making boat control a little difficult at times. I thought we would start out trying for largemouth, but all we could catch were smaller fish until Cindy nailed a 4-pound smallie on the outside of a weed edge. After seeing this, I thought we would try for more smallies & threw senko’s & tubes for others in the area. We managed to catch several more through the day, all about the same size, before we switched up to trolling. I wanted to see if we could get into something a little larger & started on some cabbage beds for pike & walleye. It was difficult with all the floating weeds but soon a reel fired & Cindy was battling a Muskie & her first one ever! This 35-inch fish may have been small, but it had power. A couple of quick pics & back it went to grow for future battles. We fished a little more in this area & managed one other smallie before we switched up & actually started casting for bass again. Several more smaller fish were caught with larger ones seen before we called it a day. Not a lot of fish were caught today, but they were definitely quality!

Christiane & Warren joined me today on a local lake for a mixed bag type of day. The weather was just perfect with sunshine & practically no wind. The air temps went to almost 80 degrees & water temps were as high as 74 in some areas. We thought we would try trolling in the morning for pike & walleye & managed to get some of both before we moved into heavy weeds in hopes of some largemouth bass. The water was gin clear in the shallows. We only managed a few smaller fish with several sightings of some quality largemouth, but couldn’t seem to convinced them into biting. A heavier weed pocket was where Warren managed to land a nice largie over 4 pounds, on a soft plastic bait. We covered lots of good water & picked a few here & there, but they were really tight to cover & required slow presentations. I hooked a few others pitching into tiny pockets with dense vegetation & they were definitely better fish! Christiane was throwing a scum frog over grass in hopes of a real hog & was rewarded after missing a couple of blow-ups. She hooked into one over 5 pounds and winched it through all the vegetation as I grabbed it by the jaws. It was the best fish of the day & a few pics were taken before we released her back to the jungle from where she came. A few more fish were caught during the rest of the afternoon & even a couple of smallies before we decided to call it a day. Ironically, there were really not that many boats on the water on this glorious holiday and the fishing was great!

Mike & Ryan along with Jeff, Mike’s brother joined me on another local lake today looking for some bass action. We were into fish almost immediately as spinner baits & soft plastics were hooking largemouth in shallow, weedy bays from the start. Overcast skies looked like rain might be brewing, but we got lucky as the sun eventually over powered the sky by late morning. I knew that with the cooler water temps that the smallies were going to be a problem so I concentrated mainly on the largemouth today. Just like yesterday, we covered lots of water today catching bass pretty much all over. There wasn’t anything huge today, but there were several fish in the 3.5-pound range landed making for a few good pics. As usual, Ryan was on fire landing over 50% of all fish caught. I think I’ll just rename him hoover from now on as today he became the human vacuum! Being in the front of the boat played a big role in the outcome as he had first crack at all the best water before the others. With all the sunshine today, the water had a chance to warm up a few degrees causing the smallies to finally show up in the shallows. Unfortunately, all we did was look at them due to their lack of aggression. By 5:00 P.M. we decided to call it a day & headed back to the ramp. Lots of fish were caught, but nothing big again. I can’t wait for the water to warm up allowing us to hook into multiple, big fish every day, once more!

Today I fished with Ed on a local lake for a multi species kind of day. It was an eerie start with dark clouds & high humidity making it seem more like the end of the day. Very low light conditions slowed the bite for quite a while as we trolled stick baits looking for walleye & pike. Water temps remained low at 67 in the best areas & air temps were in the 70’s, but felt more like the 90’s with all the moisture. Floating weeds made trolling difficult & only a handful of pike & one walleye were caught so we opted for casting for bass. One decent largemouth from a small clump of grass in a smallie spot was all we had to show, so we moved again. A few more smallies on a crankbait in another spot & off we went once more. Just about everywhere we fished some action was had, but nothing like I expected. We hit about 17 spots & only had the last area produce multiple hook-ups when Ed got into several fish on a spinner bait. Crankbaits also caught several fish along with tubes today. But overall quite slow. Ed even caught another walleye on a tube in one of the shallowest spots too! I guess there were about 25 fish caught with many others lost as well, but with these conditions it just seemed like they were shut down today.