Way north bass guy

Luckily I’m a stonemason, so it seems I always have some other hand injury somewhere to make me forget about a sore wrist after fishing ?.

Well, Kawasaki green gives them a good run for their money. Gotta love 80s dirtbike colours!

After a couple different two day tournaments where all we threw were jerkbaits for 8 hours straight, I know exactly how you feel.

Nice gym, almost looks like a caterpillar garage ?

I have an 11 year old, probably seen that movie a dozen times over the years. Pretty sure it’ll be on the tv here again sometime in the next month.

Looks like the Polar Express to me.

I had that same motor, except it was a 130 hp on a Triton years ago. Was a fantastic motor that never let me down, except of course the typical two stroke cold weather lazy ass starting. But that might not be as much of a problem for you judging by your location, up here it gets “a touch cool” some mornings in spring and fall.

2020 was a pretty good year for me, both fishing wise and for work. The problem with work, if you could call it that, was mainly in the summer and fall, I was always too busy to get out fishing as much as I wanted to. As I get older, I realize more each year that I need to start making more “me time”, and leaving work for a bit every now and again. If I have one thing to change for next year, it’s simply that. Being self employed, I plan to just say to hell with it sometimes, and take those occasional days to free up some head space on the water.

I can remember my wife and I “moving” all our stuff into our house when we bought it almost 20 years ago. We were both young, had almost nothing to our names, and got the entire “move” done in one shot with my truck and a 5x8 trailer. Boy, we sure couldn’t do that now, it’d take probably two semis to move all our crap somewhere. We’re not even hoarders, it’s just amazing how much someone accumulates over the course of a bunch of years. Our house was like a gymnasium compared to now with some actual furniture in it ?.

Also, I’ve been a big fan of Surflon Micro Supreme for my leaders for a couple years now ( thanks A-Jay for that one). I use 20lb test in black, and I’m often in gin clear water and it doesn’t affect my bite ratio at all.

With our bass season not starting until June for the most part, I am definitely a pike head in the spring! Having fished fairly seriously for them for over 20 years, including many pike tournaments, I’d have to say that day after day, a suspending jerkbait accounts for more good sized pike ( especially in the spring when they’re fairly shallow), than all other baits combined, at least for me. The last couple of years though, I have really started to figure out and do quite well with swim baits on an exposed jighead. This last season I was using a Berkley Power Swimmer, mainly in the 4.3” size on an Owner ballhead jig ( 1/4 to 3/8 oz). They have a great action, and are surprisingly tough. I caught multiple fish on one bait, and they didn’t tear apart much at all, even with some big ole teeth chomping on them.

My lucky charm is about 18’6” with a 140 on the back. If I didn’t bring it along with me, I’m sure my catch rates would drop drastically. Especially on the days where I’m 20 miles out on Georgian Bay.

It was an interesting year for me. We also lost a few weeks in the spring, due to the ramps all being closed ( first time and hopefully the last I ever see of that). Once it did all open up though, we were off to the races. Got quite a few real good sized pike in the spring, then when things warmed up we did real well this year, especially on the Georgian Bay smallmouth. Managed to get out a fair bit with my number one fishing partner, who was also the only one in the boat with me all year, other than the wife a few times. No real giant bass this year, but we sure got a ton of them, up to about 5lbs. Found some new areas that were basically untouched water, and I plan to expand on that a lot next year. Also finished off the year with a couple more huge pike, which is always fun.

With the boat put away for the season, I’ve spent a few days in the woods the last couple weeks looking for a buck. This morning, I was able to sneak up on this bruiser, bedded down with a doe. When he turned his head and I saw the crown on top, I knew he was the one! Hit him once as he got up, and tracked him about a mile across a huge bog, where he was trying to sneak along the shore of a lake. After about a 5 hour drag out of the bush, he’s hanging in the shed and I’m gonna enjoy some fresh venison steaks after going a couple years without!

If we weren’t in the middle of our two week gun hunt for deer, I’d be pulling the boat back out of hibernation for the weekend. Figures that as soon as I winterized it we get almost summer like weather for a week. Oh well, I’ll be out in the woods tomorrow first thing, that’ll work too.

Lookin good on my end ??Good job folks!

My last boat ride of the season today. Didn’t get a chance to wet a line, but I had to install a wood stove and chimney on an island on Georgian Bay. Air temp was 17deg F when I launched at 8:00. Took a minute for the water to thaw the boat enough to float off the bunks. She’s now parked in the garage for the night, and gonna be winterized and put into hibernation tomorrow.

One of my latest projects at work. The first two pics are of a fireplace that came from a cottage that’s been in my customers family for over 100 years. They tore it down, and brought the stone about an hour drive to their current cottage, and I reused the stone to build a new, much more efficient and safer fireplace ( last pic). I’ve had the chance to reuse/rebuild several extremely old fireplaces over the years, and I always enjoy the fact that the finished product came from someone else’s work that was done perhaps over 100 years before I was even born. Being a fourth generation stonemason, I’ve even had the privilege of doing this a few times with fireplaces my grandfather and great grandfather built many years ago. Not sure why it’s sideways, but you get the point?

I sure am glad we bought new furniture last week for the basement. Be nice if I could actually use it some day ?.

Got out this afternoon for a couple chilly hours. Water is still 50 deg but the high air temp was only about 38 or so and cloudy. Bite was tough, and I had lots of hits but they were just mouthing the bait. Finally managed to get a few on a Berkley Maxscent Creature Hawg on a football head, dragged slowly around weed clumps and rock. Depending on what the weather does in the next week or so, this might’ve been the last trip of the year. If so, I’ll take it. At least I didn’t pull the boat smelling of skunk ?.

My two always meet me at the top of the stairs as soon as I get home, can’t even sit my lunch kit down yet and I have to pet them.

No snow in the air here yet, but the last two days have been rain, rain, rain with temps not too far above freezing. Got the fireplace and wood stove rockin for the first time this fall.

I’ve not met a dog yet that can’t be moved with the help of some bacon waved in the air. I swear you can almost bring one back from the dead if you can get some bacon in front of its nose.

There’s a few rigs that I do the braid/fluoro combo, but with drop shots I’m all fluoro, all the time. Caught right around 500 Great Lakes smallmouth so far this year, many on a drop shot, and I can count on one hand the number of decent fish I’ve lost this year.

No offence, but you should probably stuff that app in the trash. I use quite a bit of technology on my boat, from trolling motor to Talon and side image units in between, but it’ll be a cold day in hell when I rely on a stupid app to tell me when to fish. If the lake isn’t froze up, and I have the time, my boat is going for a float, and it’s extremely rare I don’t find fish of some sort. There’s always a way to catch them, regardless of the time of day or weather pattern. Just have to figure out what they want, that’s the fun of fishing to me at least.