Way north bass guy

It’s been my #1 Texas rig bait for the last couple years here. Usually a 1/4-1/2oz tungsten weight with a bobber stop in front to peg it, and I pitch to a mix of shallow weeds/pads, as well as use it around docks and laydowns. I’ve caught a pile of bass on it, mainly in a green pumpkin or black/blue flake.

Since almost all of my lakes are gin clear, I’m a big double willow guy. Vibration isn’t as much of a need as flash is. My favourite two baits by a country mile for years now have been a Strike King KVD Burner, and a Nichols Pulsator.

I’d say I feel bad for you, but seeing that your bass fishing in shorts, and I’m feeding my fireplace while it’s -20 outside with 2’ of snow here, I don’t feel bad at all

It’s also the trend for people to blame pike on harming bass lakes as well. Around here, pretty much every lake has both pike and bass, and many of them have muskie as well. And I can tell you, they all have lots of bass, as well as some good ones too. I don’t think they’d make much of a dent in the bass population, unless perhaps it was a very small lake or pond that they’ve been introduced into. I remember an article I once read ( perhaps it was an In-Fisherman article), that did a study on muskie diets in multiple lakes in their main northern U.S. and Canadian range. In most water bodies, the main forage by a huge margin, was brown bullhead catfish.

Wanna trade ?

I took my wife bass fishing not long after we first started dating. She was tossing a spinnerbait and there were two loons swimming around the bay we were in. I told her whatever you do, don’t cast in their direction. Next cast, she sent one flying perfectly about ten feet from them. I started yelling “ reel, reel, reel!”, and she cranked it in as fast as she could. Both loons were right in that spinnerbait, and luckily she yanked it out of the water just as one lunged at it. That would not be a bird I’d want to tangle with ?.

I’m like you, no pro by any means but I enjoy it, providing I have all the ingredients needed for the recipe. I find the hardest part about cooking, especially if it’s an entire meal, can be time management. You don’t want to have your veggies all cooked up too early, and then get all soft and crappy while your waiting another 1/2 hour for your meat to be done etc. If you can figure out how long it takes to get everything done all at the same time, then your on the right track to a decent meal.

Surprisingly we’re only supposed to get up to maybe 20” in total, but with the wind it still drifts up pretty bad. The squalls will wave around, kind of like a scarf in the wind, so it’ll be almost sunny for ten minutes, then for 1/2 hour you can’t see 20’ in front of you. Makes for terrible driving conditions, especially out on the open highway.

That’s about what we’re dealing with today. On my side of Georgian Bay, when it and Huron aren’t froze up, we get squalls when the winds blow in the right direction and it’s the right temps. Today, the “snow conveyor belts” are doing their thing. Good day to stay inside with a hot cup of coffee and keep feeding the fireplace. You can see me ( Parry Sound), right in the middle of all that crap.

Snow day today and busses were canceled, so I’m making bread with the kid this afternoon. I accidentally grazed the butter dish with a measuring cup, and the kid said “ oh no, are you gonna tell mom?” I said” of course I am, it’s not a good idea to lie or try to hide this from her, no good will ever come from doing that”. In reality, I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it to her, except I had to text her to ask where she put the ceramic glue ?

I had a 17’ Triton and fished team tournaments with my cousin for several years out of it. He’s 6’3” and about 280lbs, built like a pro wrestler. We always fished together up front, never had any issues at all with it. I think if your both aware of what’s going on, it’s not an issue. I often fish the front deck of my 19’ deep-v with my 11 year old, and we don’t have any issues either. I’m actually more concerned when there’s someone at the rear deck on a smaller bassboat, with the wrong angled cast, your lure can be right in their face. If you’re both standing right beside each other, it spaces your baits a bit further from your faces if your angles are correct.

Looks pretty nice. Too bad your gonna have to get it all covered in salt now. That’s the one down side to buying a truck in the winter up here, it looks good for about the first 100yds away from the dealership, then chalky white crap until May.

Weather was a decent temp this afternoon for a little ride. Trails are currently closed around here, and there’s not much snow on them anyway, but we did put in an hour or so cruising around the lake behind our house. Not another person around, saw lots of critter tracks and the kid got some driving time in. Looks like there’s not a ton of ice, so at least it should go quick when it warms up. The lake I was on today only had about 10” on it. This time of year it usually has over 18”, so I’m hoping for a super early ice out ??

Our one cat has absolutely no use at all for the tv, unless there’s a nature program on. Currently, he’s been “carefully observing” a show about songbirds for the last 20 min or so.

Looks like the second one ?

My son had that once. Like you, we only have one kid so we got “included” in the fun. And you are correct, the testers don’t likely get paid enough for the bang up job they did ?

Don’t you have other stuff to chase until May? Up here, I’ve been out as early as the first of April, and our bass season doesn’t open until the third Saturday in June. Sure doesn’t stop me from spending a TON of time on the water though.

Depends on the lake. Some lakes I fish, I could go an hour or more between fish, but they’ll be larger than average. Other places, like when I’m on Georgian Bay in the summer, my son and I can get easily 30-50 an hour, and many of them are over 3lbs. In mid summer on “the bay”, if I’m not exploring and looking for new structures to fish, and if the weather is just what I’d like to have, I’d be very disappointed if I didn’t average over 20 bass an hour.

Looks very “Scottish”.

That’s a real shame. He will definitely be missed. I hope he was able to get out one last time on the water after he was last on here, and hope he was able to spend his last days with those he loved.

When I used to fish tournaments, we’d often use clear plastic pop bottles with the wrappers removed for markers. If you knew the general area of where you threw them, it was easy to find again, but the average Joe flying down the lake in a boat would almost never see them.

Ah, the joys of retirement! Our old rescue cat, Jasper. Nothing like a good sit in front of the fire after a big bowl of cat food. Not me though, I still have way too much time before I can enjoy not having to work.

I think a lot of it depends on the location of the fisherman. I would imagine there’s more baitcaster use in the south, especially Florida and areas that have quite a bit of heavy vegetation. Up here in Ontario, we have literally every kind of water you could think of, except for possibly tidal rivers. I generally have around 18-20 rods in the boat all season, and they’re pretty much split 50/50 for spinning/casting outfits.

Well that’s 5 more then I got to see.

Nothing wrong with that at all. And for slonezp, that bird is to let the steam out, my wife has a bunch of them beside the stove, ready to go at a moments notice ?