Cristina & Shawn had an absolutely perfect day on the water today, catching all kinds of fish. The weather couldn’t have been better with cool morning air followed by warm temps throughout the afternoon. Little to no wind made it easy to anchor for the big sturgeon as well. It took a while to get the first bite, but it was well worth the wait. Shawn battled a nice average giant for almost 10 minutes before we were able to get it in the net. Several pics later, we returned her to the water to fight another day. I had planned on getting them both at least one fish and switching to walleye & bass by afternoon, but this never occurred. After a relocation, we started getting into more bites and Cristina got the next rod when it was bit. She was into one slightly smaller than Shawn’s first one, but just as strong! It took her about 5 minutes to get it boat side for me to net and now we had two. She was in her early stages of pregnancy and I was glad to see that the fish wasn’t too big for her to handle. Shawn held it up for her pics as we weren’t taking any chances! Right about the time things were settling back to normal, the rods began bouncing. There must have been a bunch of fish down there hitting the lines, because we had plenty of false strikes. One of them however was the real deal and Shawn was back locked with a beast. This one was heavy and pissed off! It made several long runs and each time Shawn brought it in, it went straight back out again. After about ten minutes of fighting the monster, we finally got a glimpse as she came up. Definitely one of the large ones! Throughout the entire battle, Cristina was doing a live feed on Facebook. Apparently a lot of people were watching as her phone was pinging like crazy when it was done. I knew by how much trouble I had to lift the fish into the boat that Shawn was about to have even more. He had to bear hug this beast in order to be able to hold it for the pics. Once done, it bolted right to the bottom when he torpedoed it back into the water. Instead of pulling out of here, I decided to hang in with all the fish we were seeing in hopes of even bigger. Cristina & Shawn had no problem with this as I had the top up and everyone was comfortable in the shade. It had gotten pretty warm and without any wind, downright summer like! I reset the lines and soon after we were back hooking more fish. The balance of the day saw many more sturgeon coming aboard as well as a couple of exotic species. Cristina managed to land a big drum and a channel cat to add to her sturgeon giving her a great slam. One of her sturgeon proved to be a monster as well as it tended to grow during the fight. What I had thought was small ended up being a monster when we finally got it in the net. She did a great job battling it and especially in her condition. Shawn definitely had to hold this one for her during the pics and I believe it was also live on Facebook throughout the entire fight. I made a couple more moves before we were to leave and managed to get Shawn into one more big fish. Throughout the day with all the fish we had, not one jumped. I had found it strange but on this last fish, we finally saw one jump. Now we knew what he had to deal with and it was another large! It may not have been the biggest one of the day but it definitely gave him the best fight. This one took over ten minutes to land and really put him through the grind. This is how you end a day! We packed up afterwards and made our way back to the ramp. We were going to top off the day with dinner at a local restaurant in celebration of their 2nd anniversary. I don’t think we could have planned this day any better and for a change, Mother Nature shined! I guess moms stick together sometime!

A recent cancellation saw Darren & I fishing for a half day. We hit the lake for walleye & bass around 9:00 and were off by 2:30. Although it wasn’t fast & furious, we did catch plenty of big overs as well as good numbers of keepers. Flat calm conditions had me reconsidering the sturgeon fishing. Too bad I had left all the necessary items back home! I had decided earlier that the focus was going to be on walleye. There would be plenty more days ahead for sturgeon!  Darren was quick to hook up with a big eye on his first cast. Within 5 minutes, he had landed two walleye and a good smallie. Unfortunately it slowed right after and he struggled to hook another bass for about 15 minutes. Several misses were had from both of us as the fish were striking light. I made a few changes and we corrected that problem, catching plenty more throughout our stay. I’m sure that given more time, we would have really hammered them well. So much for cancellations! One person’s loss is another’s gain as Darren & I left the lake completely satisfied with the results of today. Cool morning temps and warm afternoons now make for comfortable outings.  Fall is such a great time to be on the water and it’s just around the corner. Days like these remind me that most boats are already in the process of pulling out and less & less traffic is coming. Even better fishing days ahead! Plenty of openings are available so book a trip now if you want to experience some of the best fishing ever!!

Josh & Denis flew in to enjoy some of our excellent smallmouth bass fishing, literally! With both of them being pilots for a large company they are fortunate enough to travel all over and occasionally take the time to fish. Just coming off another trip from catching cutthroat trout on the Snake River, they were really looking forward to getting into some of our northern smallies. The conditions were absolutely perfect this morning with flat calm waters, beautiful sunshine and cool air temps. We began over a large flat trying to get an idea of what the fish were doing. It didn’t take long to find out what they weren’t doing, eating! Several of these big footballs hit the baits but none of them stayed pinned. I made another attempt at changing baits, covering the area a second time, but it produced the same results. Time to move! The next location was somewhat better, but also slow in my opinion. Josh managed to land some good fish here but we really had to work hard at getting them. Most of the fish were just lookers! The next area was quite similar with only a few fish getting caught as well. I immediately made a long run to what I thought was going to be great spot, only to find it wasn’t. A couple of fish were landed by covering plenty of water and I knew I had to make a decision, fast. All the years of tournament fishing had me in tournament mode and under the gun to locate fish. I headed much shallower and almost immediately got them into fish. They started pounding on all kinds of smallies congested in a very small area. Josh was first to locate them and brought to net a really good one that started the ball rolling. These fish weren’t chasing but were eating if you presented the right baits from the proper direction. I tried several different angles and soon realized that they were definitely current oriented. They practically had to dead stick the baits in order to get one to commit! They milked it for every last strike before we moved on. I finally had something to go on and hit another area further away with the same results. Unfortunately the winds had picked up considerably and I was having a difficult time holding in the two & three footers. Josh continued hammering smallies of all sizes right up until I pulled the plug, because of the wind. I had planned on the big winds and left an open water area just in case. We ran to it and fished the remaining couple of hours here, catching mostly walleye. Although it was difficult, the style of fishing made it much easier on everyone. By 5:00 we were done and headed back to take out. Both Josh & Denis had experienced some great fishing while here in Montreal and I think the next time they get back to the city, I will be hearing from them again. I look forward to hooking them up on more of our big brown bass!!

Darren & his friend Gary joined me a little late this morning as we met up about 9:00. This was the third straight day with a big blow happening and I wasn’t sure if we would be able to anchor for sturgeon. In fact it was howling so bad yesterday that I had to reschedule a client! This is the way the entire season has been going with either flat calm or hurricane like winds. There’s been no in between! Well at least the anchor eventually held today, but despite all our efforts, we never really got bit. The gobies were out in full force but the sturgeon just didn’t seem to want to eat. Shortly after 12:30 we switched gears and headed to deeper, open water in search of bass & walleye. Darren hooked up first with a nice eye but it was an over and had to be released. Dave was having a difficult time getting into the drift thing but eventually caught on and hooked his first fish soon after. It turned out to be a northern though and we put it back as well. Although I was marking plenty of good fish they weren’t hooking into as many as I would have thought they should. I made multiple drifts over the area in hopes of better results but they just picked at them here & there. I even made several casts to see if it was just them and hooked a few, but missed more than I caught. The bites were terrible and the fish weren’t staying pinned for long. Throughout the afternoon over several areas, they did manage to catch a bunch but the results were definitely lower than usual. Darren finished the day off with a nice big smallie that fought like a champ. It wasn’t the largest bass, but it had plenty of attitude! They may not have caught the sturgeon that we wanted but pike, walleye, perch and bass were landed through the afternoon. By 4:15 we were done and called it a day. I was surprised that the waves were as bad as they were and cut through a 45 degree angled roll back to the ramp. It felt like ship waves and looked like 3 to 4 footers as we made the run. Darren even had several good keeper walleye to take back with him that they had both contributed to. Although a tough one, it was successful and fish were caught. More giant winds scheduled again for tomorrow! Go figure!

Giovanni was with me this morning all the way from the land down under! I wanted desperately to hook him up for sturgeon but the winds had gone big overnight and I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to get the anchor to hold. After many attempts at trying in several different locations, we had to go to plan B instead. It just wasn’t happening! We raced over to deep water and I started him out with a drop shot rig while I prepped a few other rods. His first fish was a nice smallie and also his first ever. Being from Australia he had only seen them in magazines and on fishing shows. He couldn’t believe the power they had and was thrilled to finally have one on the line. We shot a bunch of pics and released it back to grow. Giovanni wasn’t into keeping anything until I mentioned to him how good the walleye were. He asked if it would be possible to catch one and I just  laughed! I told him that if he wanted to take a limit home to his sister’s place they could all enjoy a great meal. There were at least 8 mouths to feed and he looked forward to catching his first walleye. It didn’t take long to start getting into them and in no time, there was a limit in the livewell for him to enjoy tonight. I had switched rigs and he was tossing something else and getting plenty of bites. The hooking up was the tough part in this wind and we had to really pay attention to the light bites. I moved around a lot and switched baits constantly to continue catching fish. this went on until about 2:00 when thoughts of another move back to the sturgeon occurred. The winds had switched slightly to a NW and lightened up slightly. We both agreed and ran over there to finish up the day. Luckily the anchor did hold, but unfortunately we never got bit. The gobies beat up the baits pretty good and even with several moves to get away from them, they still tormented us to death. We pulled the plug before 5:00, a little disappointed but glad of the day we had. One big fish would have been the icing on the cake but the overall success on the bass & walleye was still great. Giovanni left with a couple of new species checked off his list and a limit of walleye for his dinner tonight. I’m sure they’ll all love eating the Walters & wishing they had more!!