Joycer81

I spend most of my time fishing Lake Ontario for smallmouth, and fish the dropshot about 75% of the time. Is a heavy weight better to keep it on the bottom? On the great lakes the wind can get quite extreme as well as waves in the 6 foot range, in these conditions I will fish weights of 5/8 or 3/4 and sometimes more. On most days I fish about 25-32 feet deep and prefer a 1/2 ounce weight. The most important factor is choosing the lightest weight to give you good bottom contact. (For this reason I use nothing but tungsten now) I used to use lead but during the Canadian Open this year was given some tungsten sinkers and after feeling the difference in sensitivity I can't go back. What's a good distance from the weight? I let the bottom tell me what the best distance is, I rarely keep less than 6-8 inces off bottom, and in heavier cover I increase this distance so that the fish can still see it over rocks/weeds/etc. Can I fish ANY soft plastics or should I stick with worms? I use worms almost exclusively and have found te most success with 3 to 4.5 inch offerings, although when the fish want something bigger I find it hard to beat a 5-6 inch trick work wacky rigged. I ask that last question because a lot of my Missouri/Ozark success is due to YUM Craws first and Senkos second (typically T-rigged). What size hook is appropriate? I don't have any experience on these lakes but ave found the smaller the hook the better, I pretty well only use no.1 gammy octopus, but sometimes use a no.2 with 5-6 inch trick worms. Have you had better luck weedless rigging the hook or simply hooking it in the head? I usually nose hook the worm with the hook point still hidden in the head to balance weedless properties without taking away from the action of the worm. When the bite is tough and the bass are only nipping the tail I will move the hook to an exposed posistion, but only as a last result. (In these cases I would try a tube) Is there anything against rigging two hooks? The biggest issue with tying multiple hooks is that you will be genearally be using light line on spinning gear so line twist is a big issue. I always will try and fish with the lightest line posible, and adding extra knots in these cases reduces the strength of te line. This become a big issue when fighting 7 pound smallies on 5 pound line.

This summer fishing a back lake early in the year my buddy and I had some good fish on a dock pattern as the sun was getting up. My buddy was super excited about fishing docks because he just dropped 400 bucks on an 8 foot long dock flipping set up and was getting his casts dialed in. We were making good progress down the bank hiiting all the docks when my buddythrew his first errant cast in an hour, right into the rope securing a gentleman's boat to his dock. To make things better the gentleman was standing 25 yards away trying to start his weed eater. The guy sees us and we get talking abot fishing turns out he is a local guide, and he asked me if i was fishing in the Kingston Canadian Open of fishing because he learned we tornament fish. As I have to run the trolling motor up to his dock so my buddy can retrieve his jig the guy proceeds to tell me he is the tournament director for the Open. Needless to say I was pretty embaresssed and couldn't run the trolling motor fast enough. The guy could not have handled it any better at all and but I still had to swallow my pride.

I prefer river2sea bling spinner baits in either 1/2 or 3/4. White is my go to color with silver willows because I don't like throw a spinner bait much when it's not sunny out. Like everyone else has said I burn them back to the boat unless it gets super windy, then I am comfortable slowing down just a little bit.

If the weather was overcast and cooler than usual I have always found the pike get real fired up and can be hard to get away from and the bass can be tougher to locate and get to bite.

I find that accurate roll casts from further out from the dock get bit more than pitches in ultra clear water. Also fish natural colours and sizes,and/or fish quicker to avoid giving the fish a good look at it.

I'm a big fan of lews reels and use them on all my setups. They have several great reels all priced around 100 bucks. My buddy has an abu reel but stopped using it for flipping and pitching because the spool would woble when he loosened it right up so he could make pitch casts. I let him try a couple of my lews reels which have never had this problem and he hasn't used anything but since. Also I like duckett rods, if you got a duckett ghost series rod and lews reel you could be setup for around 200 bones.

I fish mostly for bronze backs and spend most of my time throwing a drop shot

Caught fish off bottom in 52 feet of water in the middle of the summer with blue skies and high sun over ultraclear water. The fish were so willing to chase and follow hooked fish right to the boat it was crazy.

The shakey head is a light line presentation so it's not your best choice around heavy cover. The shakey head is also a numbers bait that should get you lots of bites and work well when the bite gets tough. The Texas rig is extremely weedless and can be fished through lots of different cover without getting hung up. The Texas rig I would also consider a numbers type bait unless you go with some really up sized offerings. The jig is a bait that will catch bigger average sized fish and with the right retrieve and jig style can be fished almost anywhere. The jig is also one of my go to baits in colder water. When it comes to skipping baits up under cover it's also tough to beat a jig.

This year I will be fishing as a co-angler in the Canadian open of fishing. This will be my first experience fishing a pro/am tournament. After searching the forums and doing some reading I found many articles about fishing as a co-angler but many were geared towards club tournaments and the like. I understand pro ams require similar etiquette but was wondering if anyone could give me some advice about what to expect and what to do/not do seeing as I will be fishing a true "pro" event. Also this tournament has a different format in that the angler and co-angler fish as a team each day and that weight is carried over each day. Being that this is a team style tournament and it will largely focus on offshore smallmouth fishing how do the traditional co-angler fish differently rules apply?

I spend most of my time on the water chasing bronzebacks in the great lakes. By far my favorite deep water technique is the drop shot as it is very easy to fish a variety of depths unlike a crankbait. Catt is right the key to finding fish off shore is map study. It is quite easy to use navionics to identify points and dropoffs and then run them until you mark fish. To gain confidence in fishing off shore I would throw a bait that you have confidence in beating the bank just in its deeper version. If you have confidence with shallow square bills throw a deep crank, if your confidence is in flippin jigs then throw a jig.

I own a second generation 7'2 heavy, fast action crucial worm and jig and have nothing but good things to say about it. One of the things I like most about this rod is how durable and versatile they are. I have straight up abused this rod and have had zero issues with it. I also fish duckett rods and like them however I don't find them to be as tough as my crucial although I find the ducketts slightly more sensitive.

This is my personal best smallie that came out of Lake Ontario in Canada. This football was 21 inches long and weighed six pounds eight ounces, doubt I will ever catch one that big again.

I used to fish straight fluorocarbon but now will never go back to fishing without the braid backing on my spinning gear. The braid makes the setup more sensitive, and casts better than fluorocarbon. I also find braid much easier to work with and less prone to tangling and wind knots (and easier to untangle). Braid is also not only more cost effective than fluoro but I also find I have to respool much less often.

When I see smallmouth feeding at the surface I start trying to catch them from the top of the water column down. I will start by fishing the Zara spook anytime I can especially when bass are active at the surface. I do most of my fishing on either Lake Ontario or the St Lawrence River though so surface lures aren't always an option. If the fish won't hit at the surface I will try and finesse them with light fluorocarbon and jerkbaits, tube jigs, a spy bait or the good old drop shot. In these situations where I've thrown everything without luck I try and focus on how I'm throwing the lure instead of what I'm throwing. Some days the trick is just to pick up the fairy wand and down size my line to the lightest possible. Another thing I've learned after reviewing gopro footage of myself is that on these tough days often I get caught up in changing lures to try find the magic one. As a result of this I get locked in to one style and speed of retrieve with every lure. After noticing this I started to focus more on not being so static by changing speed and concentrating on varying styles of retrieve on these days and did see some improvement. If they still won't touch anything in my box, I try not to get to frustrated because it gives me an excuse to buy more tackle!