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.

Ira, Bert & Marcus joined me today on Lake St-Louis for some smallmouth action. The weather was going to be another carbon copy of yesterday, less the wind. Air temps got into the mid 90’s and the water temps were 74 to 79 degrees depending on where we fished. With no wind, our run up the lake was a real smooth ride to the first location. I rigged all the rods with senko’s, showed everyone how to work these baits and let the games begin. A few fish were missed before they began to hook up and bass up to 3.5 pounds were finally coming aboard. Ira even had a bonus largemouth of almost 4 pounds in this smallmouth location. The action was a little slower than I had hoped for but it was still pretty good regardless. We switched to another area when we began seeing bass just cruising and had no more hits. The second area had Marcus finally hooked up, almost immediately and I thought we were going to crush them here. Unfortunately that was not to be and we fished for some time after before another bass was caught. A couple of the next ones landed were in the high threes and low fours and were worth the wait. Ira was surely the hot hand today as he seemed to hook up more than the others, but everyone was having some action too. I decided to idle to the next spot and take advantage of this time by having lunch along the way. This next place proved to be a good one as well with Ira still continuing to get into quality bass of 3 pounds or better. I think the toughest thing about today was the heat and lack of wind. It was a real scorcher and it wasn’t going to get any better! The next move was a little further away and the wind actually felt pretty good while we were running to the area. Bert drew first blood here with another small largemouth and Ira was soon to follow with a nice smallie. We spent a little while fishing these rocky flats catching fish every once & a while in almost no water. The active fish were on top of these rocks in as little as a foot of water. We saw several good fish in the deeper water adjacent, but they had no interest in our offerings and just caused us more frustration as they cruised along. As it was getting on in the day and still real hot, the guys thought we would fish for a few more minutes and call it a day. I relocated and Bert had us staying for almost another hour when he started locking up regularly. The winds had begun to blow from the SW at about 10 knots and I believe the disturbance had the fish fired up as well. Everyone began to hook up here, but Bert was the one with his rod bend more often. It was definitely a good end to a great day with over 30 fish landed and many more lost & missed.