After a short time away from the water, I was back again once more on my local lakes. Today I had the pleasure of fishing with 3 brothers from Chicago & Washington for smallmouth bass. We started the day by driving to the lake in an intermittent rain, which seemed to stop upon arrival at the ramp. The air temps got up to over 80 degrees and the water temps were as much as 64 in certain areas. By afternoon, the sun was shining and the winds were howling from the S/W at 20 to 30 knots. This definitely made boat control a difficult task! Jeff drew first blood with a smallie over 3 pounds caught on a senko, but Howard soon followed it up with one slightly larger on a small crank-bait. Jim was having a difficult time with the hook sets, but soon learned patience & restraint was what was needed for these bass. Every spot we fished seemed to be holding some fish, but we had a hard time holding in the wind and soon found ourselves heading away from the main lake spots and into some sheltered areas for the remainder of the afternoon. Plenty of largemouth bass and a few northerns were caught in the last hour of the day and Jim managed to pick a few too! One of his bass was thought to be just a weed by Jim until it began to move. Pretty active weed we thought! By the time it was all over, they had caught close to 20 fish with a mix of northerns, smallies and largemouth up to almost 4 pounds. One of the northerns was probably 8 pounds as well. All in all a great day with the wind being the only problem we had!

Richard, Dax & Andrew were to join me on Lake Memphremagog for a day of bass fishing today. It started like every other day lately with light rain and overcast skies and turned worse as we headed up the lake. The water temps had dropped once again and were now 59 to 60 degrees in most areas of the lake. Air temps never exceeded 52 degrees! I also experienced something the likes of the Detroit River when I ran through a washing machine like series of waves. There was a wind direction switch as I had W/NW & straight N winds at the same time. I tucked in behind an island and saw some really serious 5 to 6 footers higher up the lake as well. The top water bite had really slowed down with the drop in temp and most of the smallies came on soft plastic jerk-baits. We eventually tried for largemouth and got into about 15 or so mostly on senko’s. By the end of the day, close to 50 bass were caught & released up to almost 4 pounds. Due to the horrible weather & water conditions, this was a good day nevertheless!

I fished with Dave again today, on a trophy lake for smallies. The weather sucked, to the max! It rained all day and the wind got up to 15 to 20 knots with stronger gusts by afternoon. Visibility above & below the water was really terrible as we worked our way along the shores of the lake. Air temps went up to 50 degrees and the water temps were 62 in most areas. The lure of choice for the day was a fin-s tipped 1/8 oz jig on light line. There weren’t as many fish caught as yesterday, but they were all quality ones. By 3:00 PM we were fed up of all the wet weather and decided to call it a day. The total count for landed bass today was eleven and the average size was above 4 pounds with the largest going over five. All in all a good day considering what “Mother Nature” had dealt us to fish in!!!

Today I had the pleasure of fishing with David on Lake Memphremagog for smallmouth. He brought his fly rod along in anticipation of getting into a few smallies on poppers & hooked up almost immediately. Several smaller bass were caught on the fly rod before we went to spinning tackle and soft jerk-baits. The weather was once again overcast with occasional misty rain falling, but there was virtually no wind at all. Air temps went to almost 60 degrees and the water temps were around 63. Plenty of decent sized smallies were caught throughout the day but the best was left for last. The last hour of top-water fishing with zaras was just unbelievable. For a while, it was every cast with an explosion & hook up. It was just a perfect end to a perfect day. All in all, over 75 bass were caught & released today!!

This was to be the last day for Ron, Sam & Doc and I wanted it to be a great one for smallies. We started on a smaller lake for bass and it didn’t take long before the first hookup to occur. Doc was into a top water fish on his second or third cast and an LDR (long distance release) soon followed. Too bad as it was a good fish! In a few short hours, they had shots at over 20 fish and landed less than half of them. I decided to head to Memphremagog for the second half of the day instead of staying on this lake. Weather was overcast once again and air temps never reached 60 degrees. There was a good wind from the north and 10 to 15 knots and the water temps were 62 degrees at the highest. Fortunately though, the top water bite was fantastic! Between the three guys, there were over 100 smallies caught & released up to 3.5 pounds. Everywhere we went, there were fish hammering the surface baits. In fact, we lost all track of time, as 7:00 PM was the first thing we saw. Another area was fished with multiple hook ups and we headed off the lake for the day. All in all a perfect end to a great smallmouth experience for the guys!!!