Kickin’ Some Bass

I had the pleasure of fishing with Ron & his wife, Connie today on St-Francis for smallmouth bass. I had fished with Ron, earlier this season and he wanted his wife to catch some big smallies as well. The weather was beautiful as sunshine and light winds were with us all day. Air temps reached 80 degrees and I found as much as 73.5 degrees in a few areas for water temp. With this warming spell, the bass began to show more in the shallows and that was what I was hoping for! Connie hooked into the first bass after Ron had landed a couple of small perch on a jerk-bait earlier. She couldn’t believe how hard the fish had hit and especially how strong the fight was afterwards. It was only around 3 pounds, but it was still the largest smallie she had ever caught! The bite was a little slower than I thought it should be, but when you’re dealing with big smallmouth, it sometimes happens. It also didn’t help that we were close to the full moon and when this occurs, the daytime feeding takes a backseat to the night. The next fish Connie hooked into was an honest 4-pound brown bass that gave her the fight of her life. A senko had enticed this one to hit and what a battle it was. A few pics were taken before we released her back into the lake. Fish of this size are too valuable to kill and “Catch & Release” is the only choice in my eyes! I had forewarned Ronnie before he arrived that his wife would be kicking his butt and it was beginning to come true. Her next fish was a 20-inch smallie that was as big around as it was long. This time she was into a five-pound smallmouth and it definitely would be her personal best! A few pics and back she went again to the lake, unharmed. We got into a few more smallies along the area we were fishing, but the action was slow. I thought we would take a short break and relocate to somewhere else afterwards. We tried an area that had a mix of weeds and rocks but only saw freshwater drum and a few smallies just cruising around. The next spot saw a few more huge smallmouth and one 3 pounder was caught. Off again to an island nearby we saw the mother load! There had to be at least 20 bass cruising the flat adjacent to the island, but that’s all they were doing, just swimming around. I think we managed to get into just a couple of them and moved on once more. Each area we fished afterwards had similar results. We were seeing big bass but hooking only a few of them. The winds had died off completely and it seemed like the current had as well, causing the fish to just shut down completely. It was getting late in the day, so I decided to try one last area before we headed out. Several more large smallies were seen once again, but only one of them managed t hit the senko. I thought Connie ad a real big bass this time as she battled it to the boat. I realized that the fish I was looking at was actually another bass following the one she had on and Ronnie tried throwing a jig to see if he could double up. Unfortunately, we could only come up with one of the fish, an honest 4 pounder. The other was definitely over 5 pounds and dwarfed this one completely. A few more quick pics and back she went once more. This was to prove to be the last fish of the day as we called it shortly after. It wasn’t fast & furious, but there were some quality fish caught today. It was definitely Connie’s best day for smallmouth ever and that’s all that counts!!