Today I fished with Craig & Herm on another trophy lake for smallies. The day started out great with sunshine and no winds, but soon changed. The sun was blocked by cloud cover and rarely showed for more than a few minutes at a time afterwards. The winds also picked up & blew from the west at 20 to 30 knots with higher gusts. Water temps were around 53 degrees at the beginning of the day and went as high as 55 by the afternoon. Most of the best areas had lost almost 8 degrees in water temps since yesterday, due to the strong westerly winds and were void of any fish. Air temps went into the mid 60’s but felt more like 50 with the cool winds we had. Craig hooked into the first big fish but lost her when she went airborne. Herm also did the same thing when he also lost another decent fish as she jumped too. I had a few hits from lakers, but no real hookups. A few smaller fish were caught before Craig finally got one worthy of pictures. This fish was 21 inches by 16 inches and was somewhere around 6 pounds. Herm wasn’t as lucky and only caught a couple of perch and a lake trout before we switched lakes. The water was slightly warmer with a few areas going as high as 60 degrees, but the winds were also unbearable. It was a tough bite with only a few smaller fish until we switched sides. Craig lost a couple of good-sized smallies and landed a couple of others that went 4.5 pounds apiece. This was all we were going to get on the lake and decided to head off and go home. Tomorrow is still another day and hopefully, Mother Nature will cooperate this time around. All in all a good day but not a great one.

I was back on the water again today with friends, David & Keith, but looking for real giant smallmouth bass. We started on one lake and found the fishing to be a little slow but still managed to get into 8 bass with the largest going in the mid fives. All the others were either four pounds or better and David even managed to get into a bonus lake trout too! The weather was an overcast day with light drizzle towards the afternoon and air temps around 65 degrees. Water temps were in the mid 50’s at best and the warmer water was at the wind blown shoreline as usual. Winds were from the west at 5 to 10 knots with an occasional gust thrown in for good measure. In the afternoon we jumped to another lake and had about the same results. The water temps were slightly higher with 57.5 degrees being the highest, but some of the bass were actually on beds. By casting jigs and jerk-baits towards the deeper adjacent water, we were able to get into another 7 or 8 fish with all of them being 4 pounds or better. This was a pretty good day with the weather we were dealt. I would rather fish with sunshine and warm temps each day, but Mother Nature has the last say in this matter.

I fished with a buddy Mike & his son Ryan today on Memphremagog for bass & we all had a blast. It began a little slow but really picked up as the day went on with both Ryan & Mike holding their own. Super flukes were the choice baits today, as that was all we were going to be throwing. Some of the bass even hit so fast that the top water bite seems to be at the beginning stages and surface fishing will be around the corner soon. In one location during the afternoon I had the boat positioned just right that they could both cast to a large submerged tree. This piece of cover had so many fish that we spent almost 90 minutes in one place pounding smallies as well as largemouth. Most of the fish today were around 2.5 pounds but a few of them went into the 4-pound range as well. With the fall in air temps today and the north winds, it felt much cooler than the past few days at just 75 degrees as the high. Water temps were up as high as 66 degrees in certain areas but fell almost 7 degrees in some others. Winds were from the W/NW at 15 to 25 knots and there were waves around 3-foot making boat control a little more difficult. To say this was a good day would be underestimating it. The day was great! Total catch count would have to be at last 75 bass with almost that lost as well.

We were all out again today, but we started on a different lake for some trophies. It didn’t take long and A.R. was into a 4 pounder on a jerk-bait, but that was all they wrote for quite a while afterwards. Marc, Rocky & A.R. decided that they needed more action and jumped from this lake back to Magog for more numbers. By their days end, they had had another 100 fish day and were all wore out! I decided that we were going to stick it out and try for some really big fish. We were to find out later that this was a great choice! With cooler water temps on this lake we had a hard time finding water over 51 degrees for quite a while until one area that was wind blown. Here we started with 52.5 and it climbed up to almost 57 shortly afterwards. The air temps were in the upper 70’s and actually climbed to the upper 80’s before the day was over causing the water to warm all day long. With practically no wind at all we were seeing all kinds of huge smallmouth just roaming in from deep water and then it happened. The first fish was a 5.5-pound smalllie and DD was convinced that this was the lake to be on! The gang took a few more bass in the 2.5 to 4 plus range and then DD locked horns with a real trophy. This fish was in the mid 6-pound size and once in the net, looked even bigger. We fished harder when we saw the size of this one and continued to hook up every once in a while with fish up to 5 pounds. We made one more stop in an area before heading off the lake for lunch and Chip hooked into a laker on a drop off. This fish was all of 27 inches and probably 7 pounds once in the net and the first one these guys had ever seen. After lunch we jumped to another lake and before Chip could park the truck and trailer, DD was locked up with a 4 pounder. The next area produced fish for everyone on jerk-baits and soft plastics up to 5.5 pounds. Another area a little later saw the guys locking up with several fish in the 4-pound plus size and many more followers too. We finished the day off shortly afterwards ad headed back to the ramp. There were probably 6 over 5 pounds and several of them in the high fives caught today. One fish was in the mid sixes and plenty of others over four as well. All in all there were probably 25 or so fish landed but they were all big ones today. A great day to be on the water!!!

Today was a real treat as there were 8 of us on Memphremagog in 2 boats. A bunch of our friends wanted to pound smallies and I told them, they were finally on fire! I fished with Matt, Daniel, DD and Chip in my boat and Marc fished with Rocky & A.R. All I can say is what a day on the water! Between the 2 boats, there were over 200 smallmouth bass landed up to almost 5 pounds. Most of these fish came on Jerk-Baits but there were plenty of others landed on soft plastics as well. The air temps managed to get into the mid 80’s and the water temps were around 63 degrees in some areas by days end. Little to no wind was what we fished in for most of the day but there were some 2 to 3 footers from the west by the time we took off at the end of the day. It’s a wonder how everyone managed to keep track of the fish with the numbers we landed, but we did. It’s been a long time coming, but I think the warmer weather has finally arrived. A great day was had by all!!!