Well it finally happened today as we were able to coordinate a day on the water that has taken over a year to organize. John & his son Chris were joining Christiane & me for a fishing day that had the makings of a real beauty. The weather was picture perfect with temps expected to reach into the 90’s but little to no wind might make it feel a whole lot hotter! Water temps had now been over 70 degrees for several days and some of the fish were starting to change locations. I wasn’t worried though as I would begin by trolling areas that were holding a variety of fish species and surely some of them would bite. It didn’t take long before Chris was into the first fish of the day and this one was a walleye of about 3 pounds. Nice starter fish! He managed to catch a few more soon after with a pike thrown into the mix before his dad got into the act too. John seemed to pick the right time as a smallie ripped the line from the reel and proceeded to go to the air. Although it may not have been the largest of the day at just over 2.5 pounds, it was a contender! Not to be outdone, Chris landed another just under 4 pounds to overtake the lead once again. With the lake flat calm and dog pecker knats all over the place we decided to troll away from the area we were catching to see if something a little bit larger might be willing to bite. Unfortunately we only managed to get a couple more walleye and lost a few others in the next half hour making my next decision quite simple. We were off to cast for smallies! Well this didn’t take long as everyone was into fish almost immediately, once again. John managed to get the best one at over 4 pounds but Chris had plenty of opportunities to match or even beat his dad. Christiane even got a few casts of her own in and landed a couple of nice ones herself. In about an hour of casting there had to be at least 15 smallies battled before we decided to move once more. Back to trolling and only one more northern to show for our efforts before we called it a day. Between the floating weeds gathering on the rods and the blazing heat, we were spent. In just several hours of fishing they had managed to get into a bunch of quality fish and had a riot spending quality time on the lake. All fish were released to fight another day too! Can’t wait to get them back out again but John’s schedule can be pretty hectic running a local restaurant. I should know as we see him there at least once or twice a week on a regular basis. The food can only be surpassed by the service as all of his staff treats you like royalty when you eat there. Located in the west island, everyone should give it a try as I’m sure this won’t be a one time visit. This place is packed most days and really fills up on the weekend too. Check it out on line at http://www.delfriscos.ca you won’t be disappointed!

Herve & his son, Thomas were fishing with me today and we met at the ramp shortly after 7:00 A.M. I had been out the day before searching for more walleye & pike spots in order to get them into fish today and definitely found them. Today however, we were back to the hurricane winds and floaters all over the water column. Although it looked pretty rough out there, I thought I would give it a try anyway. Winds were out of the west blowing at 20 knots or better when we began and in a couple of hours closer to 30 knots. By then I realized that it just wasn’t going to happen on this lake and decided to jump ponds. We had caught one bass & one walleye in all the time we had been fishing and I had probably cleaned all the rods a couple of hundred times. I literally went from one rod to the other and couldn’t keep up. We arrived at the second lake around 10:30 and were fishing shortly after in similar conditions. The only thing here though was that I was able to fish areas for bass casting different baits. Thomas hooked the first bass on a spinnerbait and it was pushing 5 pounds. Definitely his personal best! He also landed several largemouth bass before his father, Thomas got into the game. His first smallie hit a soft, plastic jerk bait and committed suicide. At around 3 pounds it was nice but not quite photo worthy! Senko’s were thrown into the game and soon several more smallies were coming aboard along with a few more largemouth. Herve even managed to bring a nice one aboard that too was pushing five pounds and this time photo worthy. A few quick pics and right back to the lake. We fished several more areas, all the while getting into fish both large and medium in size. Most of them were smallmouh bass but some largemouth were caught right along with the smallies too. I decided late in the afternoon that we would give the trolling another shot and tried for northerns in one area closer to the ramp. This turned out to be an identical replica of the morning troll on the other lake with huge rollers and tons of floating vegetation. Needless to say, it didn’t last long! After checking & cleaning the lines 25 to 50 times each I just packed it in and called it a day. Jumping lakes was definitely the way to go as we managed to catch plenty of big smallies in just the few hours out. I hope next time the weather cooperates a bit better because trolling would definitely pick up the numbers for them. Tough day but Mother Nature didn’t totally win this time!!

Well, I had hoped for better weather today but the winds were pretty much just as bad as yesterday so I opted for another lake instead. Haissan, Danny and “W” were to join me in hopes of some bass. I was hoping for smallies along with largemouth as a backup in case the rollers were as bad as they were yesterday. Well, they were! We got a later start than usual but were fishing before 10:00 and Haissan was the first to lock up on a tube. His fish was an honest 4 pounds and I thought we were just going to crush them when he landed this one, but it was to be the last. We had a few others on and even more missed strikes but could only come up with one quality bass. I hopped around in 3 to 4 footers from the S/W and only hit a few here and there in several hours of fishing. We finally decided to try for largemouth and ventured out of the wind and into the weeds looking for old bucket head! Apparently it was the right move because everyone caught fish here. Although there weren’t any real big ones, the action was pretty good for the remainder of the day. The largest bass in the weeds was around 3 pounds but at least we were out of the wind and catching fish. I definitely would like to see the winds get down to around 10 knots in the coming days instead of the 20 to 30 with stronger gusts that we have been fishing in lately. Let’s hope for a miracle!!

David joined me today on this blustering day on the lake! It started out at 15 to 20 from the S/W and got worse shortly afterwards. Trolling for walleye wasn’t going to happen as we had to go down wind in 3 footers and vegetation was floating everywhere not allowing me more than 30 seconds of clean time at best. Although the air temps were in the 70’s, the water temps had fallen again and were now close to 63 degrees. We shifted to another location hoping for better results but soon found more of the same. Dirty water, floating weeds and big rollers were everywhere but we fished through nonetheless hoping for a few biters. A couple of the reels fired but small northerns were attached to the lines and not the walleye we wanted. We did however have a reel scream that hooked up with a decent smallie of 4.5 pounds. This was to prove to be the best fish off the day and we headed out of this area when the waves grew to 4 & 5 footers. I tried to get out of the wind in a few locations but the water was almost mud and vegetation was floating all over making it even more difficult. By 1:00 it was almost impossible to fish the open water but we still gave it a try as we drifted along a weed line casting to every nook & cranny we could find. One more, smaller bass was all we could manage and by 2:00 we decided to cut our losses and call it a day. We’ll get back out soon for another kick at the can and hopefully Mother Nature won’t be quite as mean this time!

Scott & Peter were to be fishing with me today finally, after several previous postponements. We met at the ramp right around 8 after last night’s outing & very little sleep and proceeded to get into fish almost immediately. Winds were out of the SW at 5 to 10 knots but were unfortunately scheduled to go lighter throughout the day. It may have only been in the 70’s but the humidity made it a whole lot stickier. Sunshine and slight cloud cover occasionally were what we fished in through the entire day with the emphasis on the sun. Peter wasn’t much more alive as he finished his shift at 2 this morning and probably could have used a few more hours of shut eye too! As with most days lately, the reels were firing right on cue but this time the first several fish were smallies up to almost 4 pounds. We even had a double bass bite that made for a nice pic too! I actually moved from this area in search of walleye as they too wanted to learn more about how to catch these fish. Right on cue, they hit and we were soon changing from bass to Walters as the rods were kept bent while the wind blew. Several hours of bass, walleye, pike and even another small Muskie had everyone entertained until it stopped. Right on cue, the bite went out like a light when the wind died, making my life that much more difficult. To add to that scenario, we had a ton of floating grass and that really sucked. I was forever cleaning the lines due to the vegetation. We went from active fish biting every few minutes to working hard for just a few bites each half hour. They weren’t even really hitting hard as several were drive byes or they got off on the way in. It’s amazing how they can be affected that much with a subtle change like the lack of wind! Except for a little flurry of activity that lasted less than an hour, we struggled for the remainder of the afternoon from about 2 o’clock on. We did manage to land several more fish but with the flat calm conditions, high humidity and those damn “Dog Pecker Knats”, we were wasted. By 4:30 we had just about enough and called it with another double header. One walleye and a northern and we were on our way. The boat traffic was also a bit of a pain as I was constantly adjusting my troll due to all the other boats just playing around. You can’t blame them though as it was really a nice day to be on the lake. Overall, just another day in paradise!!