Day two of Takeshi’s fishing trip and we awoke to the sound of rain. It was to be a real wet one and we didn’t care! It rained all day long with only a couple of small breaks in the weather allowing us to remove the hoods from our rain gear. This year I actually had a client ask me if fish bite in the rain! My reply was that they were already wet and didn’t care, so yes they bite in the rain! Today was definitely the proof as they bit all day long once more. Although we had to endure this misery, at least Tak was hooking up regularly on everything he threw. Most of the fish were a little lethargic and seemed like they were locked on the bottom, so tubes were the best choice again. There weren’t as many fish caught as yesterday, but under these conditions, I think he did pretty well. We also left this water and travelled to another lake in the afternoon and lost some valuable bass fishing time. I wanted to see if I could get him a Muskie and he was all for it! He had seen some of the pictures of these fish caught lately and wanted to catch at least one of his own. With this low cloud cover, I knew we would be pressed for time and that we had only a small window to accomplish the task. We trolled for about an hour in different areas without even a single rip. I was just about to tell him to bring in the lines and then it happened. The outside rod fired and the reel began to scream! I yelled, “Fish” and he quickly grabbed the rod as I reeled the other line in to avoid any unnecessary incidents. He couldn’t believe the strength of the fish on this heavy tackle as it continued to scream out more line. I thought he had a giant by the way she was acting and then it went airborne. She must have cleared the water at least 3 feet way behind the boat and in the dim light I thought he might have fouled a sturgeon. Fortunately for us, it was the real deal as we caught a glimpse of this beast alongside the boat. I quickly locked the boga onto the fish and cut out the hooks. No sense chancing an accident, as every one of these toothy creatures is a potential trip to the hospital! As I brought the muskie over the rail and into the boat, Takeshi’s eyes lit up! “Big Fish”, he said! We took a few quick pics and returned her back to the water unharmed. As it was now getting darker, I decided to call it a day and head back to the ramp. He had had another great day and this was the icing on the cake. Along with the 75 or so smallies he caught up to 4.5 pounds, this 45-inch muskie definitely made his day! We had accomplished what we had set out to do and all were satisfied!

For the next five days I was going to be fishing with Takeshi, all the way from Japan! He had made the trip a few years ago and wanted to come back, but fishing the Bassmasters had made it too difficult and had to wait longer than expected. He had travelled in alone this time, so I offered him a stay at my place to cut the expenses and he gladly accepted. We began the first day on a local lake in unseasonably warm temperatures that climbed to the upper 70’s by days end. It felt more like Florida than Canada, but we weren’t complaining! I had been having incredibly good high fish days lately and didn’t expect anything to change while he was here. Water temps were still around 58 degrees and sunshine greeted us all day long. A light breeze from the SW caused a ripple on the clear water and helped with the bite. Tak caught fish on just about everything he threw, but tubes were the best lures of choice. He did manage to get into a number of quality bass on both crankbaits and jerkbaits and this allowed us to cover water better. Sometime in the mid afternoon, he locked up with a real beauty on a crankbait and I knew this was what he was looking for. It was in the high fives and went 21.25 inches in length. It was a real football with an enormous girth as well! This fish had been holding in shallow water right on a drop off and nailed the crankbait as it passed by. What a beauty! We travelled all over the water and every place we stopped today produced fish. I’m sure that by the end of the day there were at least 100 smallies landed and plenty of others lost too. Even with the “Jet Lag” he was suffering from, he managed to beat on the fish pretty good. All in all a great first day of fishing!

I fished with Mike and his son, Ryan today once again and had a blast! They had fished with me before and I ensured them both that this was to be the best day they ever had! Like yesterday, the wind was to be the biggest factor and we were going to have to live with it once again. The air temps were in the 60’s and it was mostly a cloudy day but the winds blew at 20 to 30 knots from the SW with even heavier gusts at times. This was tough to deal with but I was able to keep the boat positioned for them to cast to the fish holding areas where they just pounded them. Once they became familiar with dragging tubes, they were both locking up on a regular basis. Many doubles occurred during the day and it seemed like each of them took their turn at bettering the other at times. Ryan definitely caught the largest bass of the day but that was only because he knocked off an even bigger one with the net while trying to land his fathers. Oops! Oh well, that’s fishing. I would have helped them out, but I was trying to hold the boat in these hurricane like winds and couldn’t leave the electric motor. It didn’t really matter as both of them were landing fish hand over fist all day long! I noticed that despite the heavy rains last night and all the dirty water because of them, the water had gone up another degree and was now 58.5 by the end of the day. This actually seemed to activate the fish a bit and they were chowing down heavily on the tubes we were throwing. Fish were caught all day long and there weren’t really any dead periods that something wasn’t happening. Every area we fished produced and produced plenty of quality footballs. These smallies were feeding like it was their last meal and we were loving every minute of it! I stayed out as long as possible and milked the batteries to the bitter end. By the time we fished our last spot, I was beginning to lose juice and after they caught another dozen or so bass it was time to call it quits. I believe that Mike was the last one to land a fish and even a nice walleye of about 4 pounds in the same area as well. Ryan was on fire today and fished slowly to get the big bites. I think he could have caught them in a bathtub today! It was everything that had hoped for and more! Another 100 fish day at least!

I had the pleasure of fishing with Kevin and his wife Chris from Oklahoma today for smallmouth bass. Kevin was an experienced bass fisherman, but fished mostly largemouth from where he was from and they both were looking foreword to the smallmouth. It was a little slow in getting started and took almost 15 minutes before they were hooking up regularly, but they caught on. The weather was nice for part of the day, but the wind was another story. It began almost dead calm where we were fishing and eventually went east at 5 to 10 knots only to change over SW at 15 to 20 knots. It was also gusting stronger at times and they were over 30 knots too! Chris had never really experienced smallmouth bass much before but after today, realized why everyone loves them so much. They just tore her up! She was complaining of sore everything before noon and it only got worse! Tube jigs once again were the lure of choice, but Kevin became my guinea pig and caught them on almost everything. I had him throwing spinner-baits and jerk-baits and hooking up on both lures as well. Some of the bigger fish came on spinner-baits and I broke off the biggest one when I tried to boga a 5 pounder hooked on a jerk-bait that Kevin hooked. I hope I get her back next time out! Just like the days before, fish were taken in each and every area we fished and large volumes I might add too! The wind was really causing havoc and thankfully they were both throwing jigs on spinning gear because the wind really made casting difficult. Trying to position the boat to enable them to get the perfect drift wasn’t easy either and I really had to work at it. Our last stop of the day had about 10 fish caught in about the same amount of time before we bolted to the ramp in the rain. I wish it could have held off a little longer as we would have been able to take the pictures a little easier. I don’t know about Kevin, but I’m sure that his lovely wife Chris was ailing that night! They must have boated at least 100 smallies by the time it was all over and every one of the fish gave them one heck of a fight. Overall, it was a great day despite “Mother Nature” and the elements!

Darren & I headed out again today to another body of water in pursuit of big smallies! The weather held out once again and we were faced with beautiful blue skies and little to no wind all day long. Air temps reached into the 70’s and we were in a T-Shirt for quite a while during the afternoon. The water temps continued to climb and rose almost another degree to over 57 in some of the areas we fished. Lots of fish were once again caught and even more lost mostly on tube jigs and many of them bigguns! Darren lost the best one of the day right after a fish over 5 pounds came aboard. Too bad too, because it would have been the largest one this fall. It didn’t really matter though as we caught over 75 bass during the day and multiple fish in certain areas brought the numbers up fast. It wasn’t quite as good as yesterday, but that’s fishing! All in all a pretty good day though and bigger fish were caught!