Way north bass guy

About 30 turkeys have been hanging around our place all winter. They cross the lake here pretty much every single day. Kinda funny watching a big line of turkeys walking across the ice, looks like some sort of ice age dinosaurs.

Went for a walk on the lake by the house today. Gonna be a while before I’m pitching to this laydown.

Same here! Bought a pair last summer, blue mirror glass. Love them so much I bought a second pair just to leave in the boat, and have my other ones in the truck for driving. So much clearer then any cheap plastic ones I’ve had in the past, kicking myself for not getting some earlier.

Was a cold, very windy day here today, didn’t have much for plans, so I grabbed these off the bookshelf and ate up the afternoon in front of the fireplace with them. I can remember getting these as a teenager just after they came out. Filled out the order form from the magazine and mailed it away with a cheque, probably read them both about ten times that long winter. There's quite a bit of older, slightly outdated info, at least concerning specific lures etc., but as far as seasonal movements and behaviour, they still are as good today as the day they were published. If anyone hasn’t read these yet, especially if your newer into the bass scene, I highly recommend you get ahold of a copy.

Just being able to back the boat down the ramp into liquid will be enough for me at this time. Soon. Soon.

I’ll take the bottom one any day! I’ve lived my entire life in the bush. Closest town is about 6500 people, and the closest city is over an hour away. We’re about 2-1/2 hours north of Toronto. Even before all this Covid crap, I couldn’t stand going to any city for more than a day, and even then it’s like pulling teeth to get me there. In the last year, I haven’t been anywhere near anything close to the size of a city, and that’s just fine with me.

I would’ve never thought of that. Thank you sir ??

If it’s just while launching at the ramp, could you just get the correct size rubber plug to fit in the outlet hole while you launch, as long as you remember to remove it once your tied to the dock before you head out?

For the last several days, whenever I try to attach a pic from my phone, it won’t let me. A banner pops up that says “ 1 file would exceed the total allowed size of 6.838kb, and was skipped”. I’ve never had problems attaching pics in the past, usually I’m allowed up to around 1.4 mb, so I’m not exactly sure what’s going on. Any ideas?

I’ve been a fan of Stile Kings KVD 200 size jerkbait for a while. Works well on lakes where they’re feeding on small smelts up here.

I think it depends on location quite a bit. Down where you are in Mexico, I’m sure the spawn is a longer, dragged out affair, so they’d likely take a bit longer to recoup. Up here in the North, they don’t have a real long growing season, so there’s no time to be in a “funk”. Maybe a day or two then they’re usually right back to feeding. I’ve caught quite a few fish not long after they’ve spawned, and they are healthy, chunky and ready to eat.

Now that the proper live is online this afternoon, I can see all the action I want ( although most of Gussy’s stuff is replays). Thanks for all the updates @TnRiver46, you should be on there all the time doing live action updates.

Maybe it’s only on the Fox one, cause he’s not been online at all that I’ve seen.

It’d sure be nice to see him on live for even a minute. Not sure what’s going on with their coverage this year, but it’s like it’s being run by kids. Haven’t seen him on there at all this morning, and he’s the dang leader!

My cousin was ice fishing on a big lake near me the other day where we have spent most of our lives on. He said there was about 10” of ice. Usually this time of year there’s over 2’. And on the part of Georgian Bay by my house that has ice, there’s only about 8”, and it also has often 2’ this time of year. That means that unless it gets and stays ridiculously cold, I should be able to launch the Smokercraft much, much earlier than normal ??

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Took this on the way to work this morning. Sure does look pretty, unless of course you’re a bass fisherman ?

The last few years, I’ve mainly hit spots that I knew I had good odds to produce. Mainly that’s because I haven’t always had the time in a day to really spend on quality hardcore investigating, and also because mainly I’m with the kid. Im not complaining though, as it’s always a good time with him in the boat. Every now and again though, I’ll get out on my own for a bit. That’s when I often will put the blinders on towards tried and true spots, and “get to work”, on searching out some new territory.

I’d like to feel bad for all you southern guys that haven’t had the best bass fishing weather the last few weeks, but I just spent 3 hours this afternoon snow blowing my house and shop driveway, and I also shovelled 2’ of snow off my boat shed roof. Guess it’s gonna be a bit longer before I’m boating anywhere

Almost anything Berkley for me. Been using Powerbait since I was a kid, and the last couple years I’ve caught an insane amount of smallmouth on a few different Maxscent products, mainly on a drop shot. Been a big fan of the General and the Creature Hawg for largemouth as well. And the Berkley Power Swimmer on an Owner ballhead jig has been killer for bass and big pike in the spring also.

Yesterday I went on my annual boys weekend snowmobile run. Usually we stay at our buddies hunt camp for the weekend, just hanging out at nights and spending the entire day in the thousands of acres of bush going pretty much wherever we want to. Most years there’s around a half dozen guys in total. This year with all the COVID stuff going on, we decided to just do a one day run, that way nobody is cooped up for two nights in a very tight space. Wasn't quite the same as years past, but it was still a great day to be out with 6 other buddies, and there’s always next winter for doing the weekend thing.

Bet that was a good fight. What’s the record for spots anyway? Gotta be close to that I’d imagine.

If you look on the map around my place, there’s almost more water than land around here. I’m about 100yds away from three different lakes I can get the small tin boat into, and there’s literally hundreds of lakes within 1/2 hour of me that I can launch the big boat into. The real gem for me is that I’m about 5 min away from Georgian Bay, where you could fish 24/7 your entire life, and never hit the same spot twice.

When I was a teenager, we had a 200lb potbelly pig in our house that was pretty much the same. After he died, my mom got a miniature one, that was about 10lbs fully grown. He still put up almost as much of a fight as the big one when he wanted to. I certainly know where the term “pigheaded” came from.

Haven’t had too many days below -40 here for a few winters now, but I remember it hitting -48C several times when I was younger. One day when I was about 14 ( young and dumb), I fired up the snowmobile one -45 morning to go for a 1/2 hour run down to the ice hut to fish with my buddy. It was so cold that my buddy took a live minnow out of the bait bucket and tossed it at the hut. It stuck to the side and froze solid almost immediately. I would never try a trip like that nowadays, and was very lucky that I didn’t break down in the sled in the middle of the bush ( no cell phones back then either to call for help).