I was scheduled to fish with Andre & Jim today back on the same lake but had to rearrange the plans when Andre told me that Jim had been in a car accident on his way in. He had driven from New Jersey the night before and made it all the way past the Lacolle Border before a truck wiped his van out on the Canadian side. He didn’t want to waste the day, so he called someone to come and pick him up so that he could go and fish. With the cold temperatures and snow that fell overnight, it wasn’t going to be a great one. We all met in the east end and fished the St-Lawrence River for the remainder of the day. It rained a mist almost the entire time making it feel like we were fishing in the clouds! The bite was really tough as well with us only getting into some fish in the last 2 hours of the day. The fish were marking in all the places we tried, but for some reason wouldn’t eat. Somewhere around 2:00 in the afternoon when the moon rose, they decided to bite and we managed to salvage the day. This was definitely not one of the better days, in more ways than one!!

I was back out again today with Tim once more and decided to use another ramp due to yesterday’s incident with the ice. I was able to heat it up, melt all the ice and duct tape it so that it doesn’t get any worse in the next few weeks of fishing. We once again got a late start due to the overnight lows and hit the water around 11:30 AM. The fishing was a little slower today, but we still got them pretty good. The water temps were around the same, but there were literally no winds creating a smooth surface to fish. The bites were a little difficult to detect as the fish were once again just picking up the tubes and tight line was a necessity if you were to feel them at all. We moved around a lot picking a few fish in almost each area we fished, but no real big schools were found. We caught fish in as shallow as 3 feet and as deep as 25 feet today making the pattern tough to figure out! Tim managed to get a nice walleye of around 4 pounds and even had a northern over 10 pounds beside the boat before it broke the line. I don’t think there were as many bass caught today, but they were all pretty good size. Another short day on the water and it looks like the duct tape held out!!

I was back on the water again today with Tim and oh, how he got em! We began our day around 11:00 AM and had to break the ice at the boat ramp in order to go fishing. The air had warmed to the freezing mark when we began, but the winds were still blowing strong. Today however, they were coming in from the NE again, contrary to the weather report and we had very similar conditions to yesterday. The water had lost another degree or so and was down to 46 at the best of times causing the fish to become really lethargic. We had lots of them just picking up the jigs and not getting hooked when we set into them. One of the areas fortunately produced only big fish averaging 4 pounds or more. There were also several over 5 pounds and a couple in the high fives. Tim had a blast hooking, losing and hooking the same fish again on several of his casts. Some of these fish were just so aggressive when the moon was rising that it was like you couldn’t do anything wrong. If you missed a fish, just stop the retrieve and wait a couple of seconds until he had it again. We stuck it out right till the last few minutes before the sun went down and then headed back to the ramp to take out. I was amazed to see my Hamby Keel Protector ripped to shreds when I pulled the boat out of the water. It must have torn from breaking the ice on the way out, but they are made of Kevlar and shouldn’t tear like that, so I thought! I have another friend that breaks ice twice that thick every fall for the past 3 years and doesn’t have a scratch to show! Oh well, the perfect end to an almost perfect day!!

I had to cancel yesterday’s attempt at hitting the water due to tremendous, high winds and was back out today with Tim & Mike for more jumbino smallies. We hit the water a little later than I had hoped for with the cold overnight temps and were into fish almost immediately. Winds were suppose to be from the SW at 15 to 20 knots but looked and felt more like the NW by the waves we were in. Water temps went 47 degrees in most areas and the air temps were about 37 degrees at best. Thanks to the bluebird skies and sunshine, it was cold but toleratable. Mike had the hot hand today, catching smallies up to 5.5 pounds, all on tube jigs. I spent the better part of the time just trying to keep good boat control in these conditions so that both of them would be able to fish effectively. Tim did manage to get a number of quality fish as well, up to 5 pounds and I even caught a few too! In the 4 or 5 short hours we were out, there were probably 30 smallmouth bass landed and plenty of others lost. It wasn’t a great day, but it was definitely a pretty good one with big, fat fish for the photo shoot at the end of the day! All in all a good one nonetheless!

Darrin & I were back on the water again today for what we hoped was to be another Multi Species kind of day. This time however we were to spend a little more time trying to catch a Muskie and with any luck, we would succeed! Unlike the weekend weather, today felt more like Florida with the 50 plus degree temperatures we were having. There was no ice to break with the boat today as we made our way out to the lake from the boat launch and this was a plus! We began fishing about 11:00 AM and got into some nice bass rather quickly, but not the numbers we had thought we would. With the water temps remaining about the same as Sunday at just over 49 degrees, not much had changed. We did however have a pretty strong wind from the W and I thought this would have helped us somewhat more than it really did. By moving around we were able to find one area with a better concentration of fish and managed to get into about 25 or so smallies up to almost 5 pounds before we called it quits and began trolling for Muskie elsewhere. The conditions were absolutely perfect looking and we were taking advantage of the afternoon major at 1:30 PM when we began our troll. We tried several areas and marked some fish in as deep as 34 feet, but were never able to get the rods to fire. These fish were glued to the bottom and didn’t have any interest in moving to take a lure. At one point I trolled about 8 times over the same fish just trying to piss him off and it just backfired. We could have stopped this lure washing disaster and gone back for more smallmouth, but both of us thought we would eventually score, so we kept on. We kept on so long that we trolled right into the dark, still marking fish and with the same success. The temperatures were so warm that even once the sun went down, it still felt comfortable. It was too bad that we hadn’t had a single pull as this seemed like the perfect trolling conditions for a score. I know it was just right for us, but apparently not for the elusive ski!! All in all a pretty enjoyable day, nonetheless!!