The Line Rippers

I had the pleasure of fishing with Bruce, Pat & Buzz today on Lake St-Francis for big smallmouth bass. The weather wasn’t too bad, but the winds were quite strong! They started out blowing from the S/W at 15 to 20 knots and switched to the W, blowing even harder at 20 to 30 knots in the afternoon. It was warm, but the temperatures fell towards the end of the day with a cold front moving in for the evening. Water temps were above 72 degrees in most areas and the air temps were in the 80’s most of the day. Buzz drew first blood on a spinnerbait with a snakelike northern of about 4 or 5 pounds. Not what I really wanted to see and quite disappointing too! Bruce managed to hook into a few smallmouth on a jerk-bait a little while later and things were looking up. Pat eventually got into a really nice bass on a spinnerbait, only to have it come unpinned at the boat in the 3 footers. On his very next cast, he hooked into what was to be the largest bass of the day and it did make it into the net. This fish wasn’t only long; it was fat too, going an honest 5 pounds minimum. We threw it into the livewell for photos later and continued fishing. A few more fish were gotten into on tubes and spinnerbaits and several others lost when they just ripped line from the reels and never got on. This line ripping happened a few times during the day to Pat and was really starting to become frustrating. Eventually, one of those line rippers actually got the hooks and Pat fought another 4 pounder. These fish are really strong and nothing like the bass he was accustomed to landing. They really beat him up! After a few more missed smallies and some mishaps with equipment failure, we were nearing the end of the day. I really wanted Buzz to hook into one of these fish on steroids and not just have them follow his baits like they did all day. Right at the end, he finally got a chance and slammed the hooks to one, on a senko. It damn near broke his wrist as the fish never even moved! It did however go airborne and throw the bait back at us almost instantly. I believe that one was in the high fives if not six pounds! It would have been a nice way to end the day, but instead we only got to see what could have been. Oh well, that’s fishing! Overall, it was a tough day, but there were many chances at big bass and several decent sized ones caught. Pat would have had the top honours with the 5 pounder he had taken earlier in the day. Way to go Pat!