I fished with Mike and his father, Dave today on a local lake. It was a second attempt at getting them on the water after a weather cancellation earlier in the week. The skies were really overcast and a light sprinkling rain was on & off all morning. The air temps were in the mid 70’s with high humidity and the water temps were averaging 75 degrees. Senko’s were to be the lure of choice for the smallies today and it didn’t take long before they started to produce. Most of the fish were in really shallow water due to the overcast skies and once we started to fish there, we began to hook up often. Plenty of fish up to 5 pounds were caught and many more were either missed or lost. With this trip being only a half day, the time surely flew by and it was after noon before we knew it. I thought I would try one last spot on the way back and switched to tube jigs for this area. The wind had really increased and this made the drifts real short as the area wasn’t very big. The morning had seen literally no wind but now it was out of the S/SE at 15 to 20 knots creating a two foot chop on the lake. There were to be no more bass caught, but 4 or 5 walleye were taken with others also missed. After about 7 or 8 drifts, we called it a day and headed back to the ramp. All in all a great half day with at least 15 smallies caught and some bonus walleye too!!!

I fished with David & his wife, Carmin today on a local lake for smallmouth bass. We had severe thunder storms the night before & I was wondering if this was going to have any effect on our fishing. I thought I would start a little deeper than ususal, in case they moved away from the shallows. The start of the day saw heavy cloud cover that looked like another electrical storm might drop in on us at any moment, but it didn’t. The air temps began at around 73 degrees & eventually reached almost 90 by the afternoon, with high humidity. Winds were out of the N at less than 5 knots and increased to about 10 later in the day. The water temps still remained around 73 degrees in most places too. David hooked into smallies shortly after we arrived on our first spot and managed to land 5 or 6 of them on tubes. The largest bass went 4.6 pounds and was his personal best. Carmin was having a little tougher time and missed a few before she finally brought one to net. The fish were definately feeling some sort of effect from last night’s storm as most of the bites they got were very light, causing plenty of missed strikes. David broke off several other fish on the second spot with solid hooksets. He had never used Fireline before & was use to hard hooksets with mono. A slight adjustment and all was good! Carmine managed to hook a couple more as we continued to work this offshore shoal looking for bigger fish. Many of the shallower shoals that we tried to fish were holding huge bass that were not willing to take our offerings, so we opted for another deeper location not too far away. A couple of huge smallies were once again seen just cruising around but only one three pounder managed to get hooked up. Carmin did hook into a huge fish that turned out to be a freshwater drum. These fish are just raw power! We snapped a couple of pictures and returned it back to the water afterwards. With the afternoon getting on, I really wanted to get them into some bigger fish and tried several other locations. On almost every one, we saw giant smallies that would just not take anything. Finally on one of our last stops, Carmin got the hooks to a real beauty. This fish just went nuts, jumping out of the water all the way back to the boat. When I finally netted her, it was a great relief to see such a beautiful smallmouth come aboard. I placed her into the livewell and we continued fishing a little longer. Carmin had another huge fish on but unfortunately it threw the hook whent it went airborn. This too was another bass of more than 5 pounds! Carmin was looking for a wall hanger and had finally gotten one worthy of mounting. We took measurements and the weight of the bass and released her back to the lake unharmed, as this was to be a fiberglass replication and not a skin mount fish. There is really no need to kill such a magnificant fish with artificial replicas as good or better these days! The final weight was 5 pounds 9 ounces and the measurements were 20.5 inches by 16.5 inches in girth. This was definately a fish worthy of hanging on the wall! We fished a little longer without any luck, but did manage to see more huge smallies cruising around once again. Back to the boat ramp we went and called it a day. There were not a lot of fish caught today, but they were definately quality ones. Somewhere around 12 to 15 fish were landed with plenty more either missed or lost. All in all a great day on the water!!!

I love teaching young fishermen to fish and today was going to be a real treat for me! I had Leonard (grandfather) & his 7 year old grandson out on a local lake for smallmouth bass. The weather was an exact replica of yesterday with flat calm conditions and beautiful sunny skies for the run up the lake. Air temps went up into the mid 80’s and the water temps were mid 70’s. It only took a few minutes to teach Eron how to hold & cast a spinning rod & he was ready to catch some fish. Unfortunately, one of the first smallies of the day was to also be the biggest and after a short battle, broke off. This bass had to go between 4 & 5 pounds and had no intentions of coming to the net. He managed to get into another fish not long after and soon was tight to a Northern Pike of over 8 pounds. It took all that he could manage to reel this fish in and was happy when I finally grabbed it beside the boat. Leonard took a few quick shots and we let the fish go. Practicing « Catch & Release » at a young age is a great thing to do! Leonard soon got in the game and began catching smallies one after another when we managed to find a feeding school of bass. Smallies of 3 to almost 4 pounds were being caught and a few went into the livewell for a later photo shoot. Eron managed to do battle with his share of bass and it pretty much beat him up. These smallies are really strong and for a 7 year old boy, incredibly tough to handle! We fished up until about 2:00 PM and decided that it was time to head back to the ramp for the day. Like all young boys, he had to drive the boat and helped me steer it back to the dock. This was a great day with almost 20 fish being caught & released in a 6 hour period. The youth is our future and by introducing them to the sport of fishing like Leonard did today, it can only be a good thing. Hooked on Fishing, not other things in life!! Hats off to everyone who takes a young kid fishing!!

I fished with Warren & Eddie today on a local body of water for smallmouth bass & had a blast. The weather cooperated with beautiful sunny skies and an air temp that reached into the upper 80’s. The winds were non exitstent most of the day & from the E at about 10 knots near the end. Water temps were in the mid 70’s as well. As usual, senko’s accounted for the 25 or so bass that were to be landed today. Both smallies & largemouth bass were caught with the top honors going to a smallmouth & Warren, at almost 6 pounds. Many others were caught by both parties averaging 3 pounds or better. Some of the largemouth were also in the 3 pound plus range as well. It was just a spectacular day to be on the water! Catching all the bass was an added bonus!!! Warren even managed to get a freshwater Drum of almost 10 pounds on a Senko, as well!

I had the pleasure of fishing with Sherine & her twin sons, Nagui and Sherif today for smallmouth bass. We began the day with air temps around 75 degrees and high humidity on our run up the lake. The winds were out of the S/SW at 15 to 20 knots making for a bumpy ride. Water tems held around 73 degrees as well on most places that we fished. We were only to be fishing for a half day, so I tried for a few quick bites on one of the better areas on the lake. Unfortunately, Sherine was the only one to catch a couple of bass and they were on the small side. Both boys had bites, but nothing came to the boat! The second area produced a few more fish and Nagui managed to land a couple of bass a bit larger as well as Sherine once again. Several other fish were missed once more and we decided to switch locations again. This time, we were fishing even shallower on rocky flats with soft plastic jerk-baits and brought up plenty of smallmouth up to almost 4 pounds. The sad part was that only a few more were brought to net! Most of the fish were either missed, or lost after the hook up. I’m not usually a superstitious kind of person, but there were quite a few bananas on the boat! Once more, Sherine managed to land a real good one around 4 pounds and Nagui followed up with one slightly smaller. There were definitely plenty of fish as we saw several of them just swimming around where we were fishing. The wind was making it a little difficult to hold the boat in the areas that I wanted to fish, so we just drifted over the flats, casting at any rocks that we could see. Time was running out, but I really wanted Sherif to land something, so I stopped at one more place on the run back to see if he could hook up. This time, the fish were much larger and both Nagui and Sherif missed chances at smallies over 5 pounds. This was definately going to be the day of the missed fish as we called it quits and headed to the ramp. There were probably around a dozen fish landed by us, but more than double that missed. Oh well, that’s fishing! It was still a great day on the water!