Darrin & Blaine joined me today on a local lake for a mixed bag kind of day. They met me at my house around 7:30 AM and by the time we had done everything and gotten to the water to fish, it was almost 9:30 AM. Once again, there was no need in jumping out too early, as the night temps were way too cold to start out earlier than we had done. It had gotten so cold overnight that we had to break ice with the boat as we idled out to the lake to fish. This is typical for this time of the year and it hadn’t surprised me at all! The day was another sunny one and without any wind most of the time, felt like it was over 50 degrees in some areas when we fished. I had been wearing a survival suit lately and was beginning to second-guess myself on this day! I actually had to peel it down to my waist a few times to cool off. It was a little while before anyone hooked up, but Blaine managed to get the first one into the boat and it was a real beauty of 4.5 pounds and almost 20 inches long. These fish are so fat at this time of the year that they resemble a pre spawn smallie from the earlier months in the season. Once more, tubes were going to be what was needed to entice these fish into biting again today and it was to be a real slow bite. I think there were more missed strikes today than actual landed fish and I had many of them as well. We definitely saw the big bruisers, but with clear water, high sunshine and no wind, they were reluctant to bite our offerings. I had to vacate the mid range water and go deep in order to get bit, but the fish were a little on the smaller side when I did. Most of the larger bass were in 4 to 8 feet of water and cruising through the weeds and rocks but absolutely inactive most overall. It’s not that we didn’t catch them, it’s that we didn’t crush them! Darrin & Blaine were both into fish but 2 to 3.5 pounds most of the time. They caught a few over 4 pounds but nothing over 5 today and that was surprising. Darrin even managed to get a nice walleye over 4 pounds and a really jumbino perch that were to become dinner later. We picked at the bass all day long and caught many medium sized fish in 12 to 15 feet of water with tubes along with the occasional larger one but opted for a change. Around 3:00 PM we decided to close shop on the smallies and began to troll and see if we could get into a Muskie. Unfortunately after an hour and a half or so without a touch, we called it quits and headed home. All in all it was a decent day but below the calibre that I am so accustomed to at this time of the season. Regardless, there were still 40 or 50 smallies caught and that’s still a pretty good day for anyone!!!

I was back on the water again this morning, once more at the crack of 11! It was really too cold last night to be racing out in pursuit of fish that would bite just as well when you could actually have feeling in your hands. Alain & his girlfriend Cindy, as well as my wife, Christiane joined me today for some incredible smallmouth bass action. The water temps had gone down once more with all the cold nights we had been experiencing and were now a little over 49 degrees at best. This didn’t seem to matter as Christiane locked up on just her second cast. It turned out to be a really nice fish of 4.5 pounds or better as I netted it and put him in the livewell. We would be taking pics later and wanted to keep a few of the larger ones for the shoot. Although it may have been sunny, the winds were from the NE at 10 to 20 knots and that just felt cold. It might have reached 38 or 40 degrees again today but the wind chill had the temps more like 28 or 30 degrees max. We managed to get into lots of really quality sized; smallies today with probably close to a dozen in the 20-inch size. There were 5 bass that would have gone 5 pounds or better and an uncountable amount of 19 inch fish over 4 pounds as well. Even with the crappy conditions, the fishing was great! Everyone caught lots of big fish and we ended up with over 50 bass total by days end. This is pretty good considering we only spent about 5 hours on the water today!

Today I had the pleasure of hooking up with Andre & Jim for more smallmouth action. Once again we began a little later and hooked up after 8:30 AM with the air temps below freezing. It managed to get up to around 38 or 40 degrees during the day and with the added sunshine actually felt warm. Unfortunately, the NE winds plagued us and blew around 10 to 15 knots making it chilly in certain areas being fished. We were fishing in current and dragging tubes, but with the wind direction had to stop due to a poor drift. Casting the jigs would have to do and they began hooking up not long afterwards. As long as I positioned the boat properly in certain areas, they were able to get into the fish quite regularly. They weren’t as big as yesterday’s catch, but there were a few in the 4-pound size taken today. Although most of these smallmouth were 1.5 to 3 pounds, they were still lots of fun to fight with the added current to aid them. I had seen a significant drop in the water temps since the last time I was here and was now fishing water between 48.3 degrees and 49.5 degrees depending on the location. This should have grouped the fish up better that it had, but the fishing pressure in this area has been incredibly high this season. Today alone, I had seen close to 10 boats on the water and it wasn’t even the weekend. The word’s out!!! It might not be so bad if people would practice “Catch & Release” more often. I had heard from a reliable source that a few days earlier, someone had filled a 10-gallon bucket to the rim with only the bass tails sticking out. This is just ridiculous! Just how many bass do you need to kill anyway!! Regardless, we were still able to land close to 75 smallmouth ranging from 1.5 pounds to over 4 pounds in less than 8 hours of fishing. I still consider this a great day!!

I fished with Cindy today on a local body of water and oh, how we crushed them! The overnight temps were pretty cold so we hooked up around 9:00 A.M., as there was no rush to get out at the crack of dawn. The day began below freezing and never made it any higher than maybe 38 degrees. Water temps had dropped a bit and were now 51.5 in most areas. It didn’t take too long to start getting into them on a regular basis and we were both locked up often. Big smallies of 4 pounds and better were being landed and Cindy caught one that went 20.25 inches and was as fat as a football. It must have been close to 5.5 pounds with that girth! There were plenty of smaller fish in the 2 to 3 pound range as well, but we were after the real giants today. I knew we were going to get into numbers of huge bass, but was hoping for something above 21 inches and possibly closer to 22. Unfortunately, this never happened and we had to settle for numbers of 19 to 20 inch bass all day long. It’s really tough when you have to catch only fish of that size! As usual, tubes were the hot ticket once more as these fish were glued to the bottom and never seemed to want to chase anything down that wasn’t in their strike zone. I’ve tried crankbaits and really haven’t scored well! Occasionally in the shallows, you can pick up a decent bass on a spinnerbait, but that’s only when they are really active and feeding. We ended the day a little after 4:00 PM and had 40 to 50 bass to our credit. It wasn’t fast & furious, but they were definitely worth the effort. I was glad that we had both dressed for the weather and had warm enough clothes on as clouds blanketed us all day long. It’s a good thing that it wasn’t windy either, because without the sun it would have been a real challenge too. All in all a pretty good day nonetheless!!!

I was back on the water again today with Warren, for more smallie action. It wasn’t as fast paced as I had expected, but it was still a great day. The weatherman had forecasted sunshine with cloudy periods in the afternoon and no chance of rain until the evening. As usual, he was bang on with the prediction too! We drove to the lake in a light, misty drizzle followed by heavy clouds and the sun finally showed late in the afternoon. You gotta love them!! The air temps reached about 45 degrees at best and the water temps were 53.5 degrees later in the day as well. Winds were out of the S and very light allowing us to fish quite comfortably. I believe that Warren locked up on almost his first cast with a high 3 smallie and we were on our way to many more. I tried getting into a crankbait bite several times during the day, but it never happened. Every fish caught today was on tube jigs fished slowly anywhere between 3 & 25 feet of water. Quite a big range! We tried several locations hoping to intercept a large school of bass, but found the best areas to be weed edges with a deep drop off adjacent and some sort of hard bottom along the outside. Some of the bites were so light that it was almost impossible to detect without a tight line. We did also get into a few decent smallmouth throwing spinnerbaits over the weeds just trying to cover water. The best fish however, came from the jigs and some almost dead sticked in order to get bit. It wasn’t fast & furious, but we still managed to get into about 75 bass by working several areas looking for the mother load. I think the best is still yet to come, as the heavy weeds need to die out before the fish go into their schooling phase. Right now the concentrations are small and you have to move around plenty in order to get into the numbers that I am so accustomed to at this time of year. All in all a pretty good day nevertheless!!!