I began the day on Lake Champlain with Peter, but after an hour or so of fighting the 4 & 5 foot rollers on the lake with only one bass, we opted for a change. We re launched at another ramp in much calmer waters and took our chances in a large bay. The air temps went up to almost 80 degrees but the water temps were down to 72 in most places causing the fish to develop lockjaw. The skies were a mix of sun & cloud and the winds were out of the S at 15 to 25 knots with stronger gusts. Smallies were what Peter was after, but we had to settle for mostly largemouth today as all the better areas were just unfishable. We managed to get into a few good smallies at the end of the day, but all the better fish just got off. A difficult day to say the least with Mother Nature winning another battle. With worse conditions forecasted for the second day, I suggested that Peter travel to my place and we would fish a local lake closer to Montreal. The winds would still be bad, but it would be much better than taking a pounding on Lake Champlain again! He agreed and was into fish almost immediately on Lake St-Francis. The skies were sunny and the winds were from the S/SW at 15 to 25 knots with gusts up to 35 at times. Difficult conditions, but very doable on this lake! Water temps were around 75 degrees and the air temps reached 80 degrees by the end of the day with clouds moving in. Most of the fish were caught on slowly dragged tube jigs with the larger fish coming on senko’s. Plenty of smaller bass in the 2 to 3 pound range were caught but only a few larger fish over 4 pounds fell victim to our offerings. The best smallie of 4.5 pounds came right at the end of the day as Peter finally landed a beauty. A few others were caught shortly after and it was time to call it a day. This was a difficult 2 days of fishing, but we managed to get into fish nevertheless. Hopefully, the next time we will have better weather!

Today, I had the pleasure of fishing with Danny, Sammy & Hassan on a local lake for smallmouth bass. They had caught smallies before, but nothing like what they were about to experience! The weather had dropped the temperatures to a tolerateable 75 degrees and the humidity was all gone. Water temps were still close to the 80 degree mark and the winds created a good chop with 10 to 15 knot blows from the N/W. Sunshine greeted us all day with a little cloud cover late in the afternoon. Within the first two minutes on a demonstration with a tube bait, I had the first fish of almost four pounds hooked and soon after, landed. I always like when the bass cooperate! Sam drew first blood soon after, when he hooked into a smallie of almost 4 pounds that soon came to net. The rest of the day was no different with plenty of quality bass in the three to five pound range being caught with consistancy. There were several down times during the course of the day, but when a fish was hooked during those periods, it was a good one! All three of these guys experienced something that most people dream of. Just about every smallmouth bass that was seen was in the 3 to over five pound range. By the end of the day, everyone had caught several fish between 4 & 5 pounds and there were probably 5 that would have weighed more than five puounds! We had one of those days that just produced large fish and there were over 30 fish caught. When it came time to take the pictures, the livewells looked like a pile of logs in water! I think we had 15 smallies from 4 to 5.5 pounds waiting to be released. This was to be one of the best initiation days for three guys to be hooked on! Ironically, there were just as many fish either missed, or lost as well! What a spectacular day to be on the water!!!

The day of the Heat Wave! What an unbelievably hot & humid day to be on the water! It felt more like Florida than Quebec where we were fishing today. Alain & Cindy joined me for some smallmouth action on another local lake and it was as hot as the weather. We started with air temps in the low 80’s and the water temps slightly below, but by afternoon the air reached an unbearable 96 degrees. Add the high humidity and it felt more like 115 degrees. Thank god for the 20 to 25 knot winds we had or we would have cooked! It started a little slower than I had expected, but Cindy managed to land a few smallies up to 5 pounds on our first spot. There were definately more fish missed than caught there and after an hour or so, I decided to try another location on the other side of the lake. It was still a little slower than I wanted, so I continued to move around until I found active fish. Finally I hit a couple of rocky areas that began to produce some action and both Cindy & Alain started hooking up. Once again, senko’s accounted for the bulk of the fish with tubes coming in second. Despite the almost 80 degree water, these smallies were absolutely spectacular with the fights they gave. Each & every one of them took to the air immediately after being hooked and ripped line from the reels like ten pounders. Several fish in the 4 to 5 pound range were landed with plenty of threes as well. We made the mistake of tucking in behind an island, out of the wind and nearly died from the heat. I now know what it feels like to roast in an oven! We jumped around a little later in the afternoon and picked a fish here & there before calling it quits around 5:00 PM. There were probably around 20 fish caught today with plenty of others either missed or lost before they were landed. All in all a great day for real hot action!!

I fished with Mike and his father, Dave today on a local lake. It was a second attempt at getting them on the water after a weather cancellation earlier in the week. The skies were really overcast and a light sprinkling rain was on & off all morning. The air temps were in the mid 70’s with high humidity and the water temps were averaging 75 degrees. Senko’s were to be the lure of choice for the smallies today and it didn’t take long before they started to produce. Most of the fish were in really shallow water due to the overcast skies and once we started to fish there, we began to hook up often. Plenty of fish up to 5 pounds were caught and many more were either missed or lost. With this trip being only a half day, the time surely flew by and it was after noon before we knew it. I thought I would try one last spot on the way back and switched to tube jigs for this area. The wind had really increased and this made the drifts real short as the area wasn’t very big. The morning had seen literally no wind but now it was out of the S/SE at 15 to 20 knots creating a two foot chop on the lake. There were to be no more bass caught, but 4 or 5 walleye were taken with others also missed. After about 7 or 8 drifts, we called it a day and headed back to the ramp. All in all a great half day with at least 15 smallies caught and some bonus walleye too!!!

I fished with David & his wife, Carmin today on a local lake for smallmouth bass. We had severe thunder storms the night before & I was wondering if this was going to have any effect on our fishing. I thought I would start a little deeper than ususal, in case they moved away from the shallows. The start of the day saw heavy cloud cover that looked like another electrical storm might drop in on us at any moment, but it didn’t. The air temps began at around 73 degrees & eventually reached almost 90 by the afternoon, with high humidity. Winds were out of the N at less than 5 knots and increased to about 10 later in the day. The water temps still remained around 73 degrees in most places too. David hooked into smallies shortly after we arrived on our first spot and managed to land 5 or 6 of them on tubes. The largest bass went 4.6 pounds and was his personal best. Carmin was having a little tougher time and missed a few before she finally brought one to net. The fish were definately feeling some sort of effect from last night’s storm as most of the bites they got were very light, causing plenty of missed strikes. David broke off several other fish on the second spot with solid hooksets. He had never used Fireline before & was use to hard hooksets with mono. A slight adjustment and all was good! Carmine managed to hook a couple more as we continued to work this offshore shoal looking for bigger fish. Many of the shallower shoals that we tried to fish were holding huge bass that were not willing to take our offerings, so we opted for another deeper location not too far away. A couple of huge smallies were once again seen just cruising around but only one three pounder managed to get hooked up. Carmin did hook into a huge fish that turned out to be a freshwater drum. These fish are just raw power! We snapped a couple of pictures and returned it back to the water afterwards. With the afternoon getting on, I really wanted to get them into some bigger fish and tried several other locations. On almost every one, we saw giant smallies that would just not take anything. Finally on one of our last stops, Carmin got the hooks to a real beauty. This fish just went nuts, jumping out of the water all the way back to the boat. When I finally netted her, it was a great relief to see such a beautiful smallmouth come aboard. I placed her into the livewell and we continued fishing a little longer. Carmin had another huge fish on but unfortunately it threw the hook whent it went airborn. This too was another bass of more than 5 pounds! Carmin was looking for a wall hanger and had finally gotten one worthy of mounting. We took measurements and the weight of the bass and released her back to the lake unharmed, as this was to be a fiberglass replication and not a skin mount fish. There is really no need to kill such a magnificant fish with artificial replicas as good or better these days! The final weight was 5 pounds 9 ounces and the measurements were 20.5 inches by 16.5 inches in girth. This was definately a fish worthy of hanging on the wall! We fished a little longer without any luck, but did manage to see more huge smallies cruising around once again. Back to the boat ramp we went and called it a day. There were not a lot of fish caught today, but they were definately quality ones. Somewhere around 12 to 15 fish were landed with plenty more either missed or lost. All in all a great day on the water!!!