I was back on the water again this morning, but this time on Lake Memphremagog. I had driven to the lake to meet Ed & try for smallmouth bass once again. With the fish in their summer patterns, I knew it would be a tough bite on the lake. This time of year has always been difficult with the over abundance of food for them to feed on and today was no different. We began throwing top water baits with no takers so I switched it up and began throwing a jerk-bait for a while. This brought up a few bass and all they did was look but not take. The only thing hitting the lure was perch and they were a pain in the butt. Ed did manage to hook up on a jerk-bait a little later, but the bass was only around 2 pounds and not what I was looking for. The winds were from the north and I knew this wasn’t a good thing with the cool air blowing down the lake. Water temps were almost 73 degrees and should have been prime for the bass, but they weren’t! They weren’t really aggressive at all and I finally switched to a spider jig and slowly worked around the outer edges of the weeds & rocks. This method managed to get strikes and eventually a fish of about 4 pounds. Once I realized what was happening, I rigged another rod for Ed and he began throwing a tube jig. This was slow & methodical, but at least we were hooking up! I ran all over the lake hitting areas that I knew and finally found one in the afternoon that held several fish. It was a rock flat in open water that topped out at 12 feet with deeper water all around. We drifted over it several times when the wind was out and caught many fish from this huge expansive area. Nothing really big, but even a three pounder was welcome today! With the wind blowing we did fine, but when it died, so did the bite. I headed north again and hit many other areas along the way back picking a fish here & there along the way. Ed managed to get into 3 last fish in another area with his biggest bass of the day there on a tube before we called it a day. The second day saw us casting & dragging slower tubes & spider jigs in deeper water areas all day long. After yesterday, I realized that if we were going to catch fish we were going to have to fish slow & deep. I targeted points and outside weed edges with these jigs and we caught fish in almost each place we fished. They weren’t aggressive, but at least some of them were biting today as we jumped all over once more. The best areas were the ones that had the steepest edges and fell into deep water quickly. Pretty much all of the weed beds also held fish, but we had to fish the outside edges to get bit. I tried the same rock flat as yesterday that we had done so well on and didn’t have the same success. I was marking plenty of fish on the bottom, but with the lack of wind today, they didn’t want to move. We caught a few and I almost landed a big one in the 4-pound range but he got off at the boat before I could land him. The rest of the day we bounced around looking for weed patches and fished the outside, picking a fish here & there. It wasn’t fast & furious, but that’s Magog in the summer. Too much food for the fish only makes them difficult to entice into biting. They still look like springtime footballs with fat bellies and seem so full that it’s hard to believe they can be enticed into biting our offerings. All in all a decent 2 days of fishing with the weather being just spectacular!!

Richard & his son, Max fished with me again today on St-Francis for bass. I had them out a week ago on another lake and had caught both largemouth & smallmouth bass on a variety of baits. Today we were looking for some real trophy smallies and I hoped for only big fish. The winds were blowing from the W/SW at around 10 knots and perfect for what I had planned on doing. We were throwing jerk-baits and spinnerbaits over shallow flats in anticipation of reaction strikes from the bass in the area. With this kind of chop on the water they wouldn’t have too long to look at the lures and in crystal clear water, this really helps! The first fish to come aboard was almost 4 pounds and it really nailed the jerk-bait. It also had a few others following as the fish fought & I tried to get another by throwing a jig into the group while the battle was on. Unfortunately, they lost interest and disappeared somewhere into the weeds nearby. Many large fish were seen roaming the area as the winds moved us along this flat, but very few were willing to commit to anything we threw at them. Several of the largest fish came up on the jerk-bait and actually nipped the tail hook but didn’t get on. Richard managed to lock up on a nice one that we had follow a few times and landed another around the same size as the first one. He also hooked up on a couple of others a little further away on a spinnerbait and landed two more before we switched areas. Max landed a nice smallie on a senko in this spot with the winds almost dying out completely. Unfortunately this was the only fish caught with many others seen also roaming around. I thought we would change it up a bit and try for largemouth, so we headed into the shallows and thick weeds for a while to give it a try. This was to prove to be a tough bite as we lost a few in the thick weeds but never really landed anything. A little later we tried for smallmouth again and Richard decided to throw a big bucktail spinner to see if he could hook up with a larger pike or maybe a muskie. Guess what, he landed another smallie of close to 4 pounds once more! With the winds bowing even harder, we were into 3 to 4 footers at the end of our drift and decided to call it a day. I sure was glad to be in the Ranger for this run back to the ramp. A tough day again but there was a tournament on this lake the day before and I’m sure a lot of the fish were still feeling the pressure. Overall it was a good day with only large smallies caught, but no real trophies!!

Leonard & Ben fished with me today on Lake St-Louis for bass. The cool overnight temps and E winds made for a tough bite during the morning as we found out. The afternoon was a different story though as they hooked up quite well! The water temps were 73 degrees and climbed to 75 in a few areas with the air hitting 85 late in the day. The winds weren’t strong, but they were blowing against the current and that’s never good! Most of the day was overcast, but the sun did shine a bit throughout the day. I wanted to teach both Leonard & Ben a simple technique that they would be able to use on their lake up north so we fished senko’s all day. It took them a little while to get use to the baits, but eventually found themselves catching fish. Smallies up to 3.5 pounds were landed and several in the 4 plus range were unfortunately lost or just missed. There was however, a nice largemouth of almost 5 pounds landed by Ben and that was a real bonus fish for him. It was his first largie and it was a real beauty! By the end of the day there were about 15 or so bass & one pike caught but there was about the same or more lost as well. All in all a pretty good day for two guys that were new to this type of fishing!

I fished with Richard & Stephan today on lake St-Louis for bass and had a blast! The weather was great with a cool morning air of 60 degrees and no wind for the run up the lake. Water temps were barely 73 degrees and the fish were a little lethargic for the start, but once the sun appeared, they seemed to wake up. Richard was into the first decent bass of over 3 pounds quickly and Steph wasn’t long to follow. Soon both were hooking fish and enjoying the raw power of the smallmouth. It wasn’t fast & furious, but the fish were cooperating enough to keep us happy. The second location wasn’t as good with only one small fish being caught and we relocated quickly. The next area had fish on the first cast and our first double header. Richard landed a real nice smallie of just over 3.5 pounds and after a quick shot returned her back to the water unharmed. Steph hooked up almost immediately afterwards and could have made it a triple 30 seconds earlier. Another nice bass of over 3 pounds and a couple of missed strikes and we were moving on again. I thought we would go shallow into weeds and try for largemouth for a while, but had no success for our efforts. A couple of pike, a beaver fish and several missed blow-ups but no largemouth were caught. We spent the rest of the afternoon fishing senko’s for smallies and managed to get into a few largemouth on the outside of rocky shoals as well as many more smallmouth. By 5:30, we were ready to all it a day and headed back to the boat ramp. Overall t was a great day with around 30 bass landed, with the largest going almost 4 pounds.

Richard and his son, Max fished with me on Lake St-Louis today for bass and experienced one of the most difficult days so far this season. Mother nature decided to throw us a cross wind from the W/NW at 15 to 20 knots causing some 3 footers & making boat control almost impossible. Add this to the electrical storm we experienced last night along with a cold front and we just had a recipe for disaster. It’s not that the fish weren’t there, but that they were really reluctant to take our offerings in most all places we fished. The first area only produced about 5 bass with the largest going slightly over 3 pounds on senko’s. There were several missed strikes as well, telling me that they just weren’t in the mood to bite. Instead of waiting them out, I decided to switch locations and try for some that were. This next location gave up only a few fish as well but they were all decent smallmouth. Once again, we witnessed some of the largest ones just cruising around with no interest in feeding. The best thing that happened today was that Max learned how fish with a spinning outfit and his dad was able to retire his spin cast rod & reel. In fact, Max was casting probably better that anyone I had ever taught before with total line control on every cast he made. Being only eight years old, this is a major accomplishment! The winds reached their maximum while were in this area and it just got out of control trying to fish and hold the boat so I decided another change was needed. I ran a little further and tried another area that had been producing really well in the last few weeks in hopes that the shore would protect us from the howling winds. It was a little easier to fish this area but with the exception of Richard hooking up on his first cast, that’s all we had. He brought up a couple of other bass following the hooked one and I tried to get a double hook up. Unfortunately, the others lost interest and disappeared into the weeds without even a sniff. One more spot for smallies produced a couple more bass and then we decided to change up and try for largemouth in a more sheltered area. Richard drew first blood with a nice largemouth taken on a scum frog and we thought we were really going to get into them. This was not to be and we spend a while between fish. A few large bass were spooked in this jungle of vegetation and one more nice largemouth was landed on a scum frog but that was all they wrote. We took a few pictures of these bucketheads and packed it in for the day. The ride back to the ramp was a little splashy with the cross current winds and we all got a nice shower along the way. This was not a great day to be on the water, but anytime you can get out there is a good thing. Despite the low numbers of bass we were still able to land about a dozen fish up to 3.5 pounds and made the best of a difficult day.