Way north bass guy

Looks funny to not see you in shorts. Must be real “cold” down there ?.

My favourite deer rifle by far is this one, model 94 in 30-30 with Williams peep sight. For the thick, central Ontario mixed hardwoods that I stillhunt in, this little guy is a fantastic, super light, fast and very accurate gun. Most of my shots are quick, at deer that pop up out of nowhere, and usually under 50yds. It’s a great gun to carry all day in the bush. The 30-30 has been an extremely popular deer rifle around here for about as long as rifles have been around. My uncle used to say” a guy would be a long, long time crawling out from under the pile of meat that those guns have produced over the years” ?

I’ve been chasing brown fish mostly this year, and really got on to some concentrated fish on deeper structure ( Great Lakes). My number one bait by a huge margin, really for the last couple years, has been a Berkley Maxscent Flatworm in natural shad on a drop shot. Maxscent Flatnose Minnow in baby bass has done well also ( my sons favourite bait this year).

Thanks for all your stories. The way you’ve kept your chin up these last several months is an inspiration to us all. Do whatever you can, to be as happy as you can, for the time you have left.

Took the kid out for a walk in the bush for some grouse this morning. It was real windy, and way too hot for hunting, but we still had a nice walk and saw some nice views.

That’s like everyone that’s seen a “400lb black bear”. Sure, they definitely exist and I’ve actually seen bears much larger than that ( confirmed on a scale after shot), but in reality, there’s a heck of a lot more 150lb bears out there than real true monsters.

Haha, yeah, but teeth would probably be easier to replace, at least time wise ?. I already called my marina to see about getting a replacement ordered, god only knows how long that’ll take. No big deal though, I’ll just be rocking a “single console” rig for a while.

This was a day I won’t soon forget. I had to go out on Georgian Bay to check out a couple island jobs and measure up for some work to do later this year, so I figured with the nice weather I’d fish my way home. Started on a 15’ deep shoal surrounded by 100+’ of water. No bass to be had, but I did tangle into a nice thick 38” pike. Was a pretty good fight on the drop shot rod and 8lb line. I did find one nice bass on a spinnerbait, right around 4lbs. Several casts later, I hooked into something huge. I knew it wasn’t a bass as soon as it hit, and it was pulling hard for deep water. Finally after about 5 minutes of back and forth, I was able to scoop up a super thick, 42” pike. She was a beauty, and completely destroyed my spinnerbait, which is fine by me when they’re this big. Didn't have too much time to fish though because right after I released the pike, I heard a sickening, loud “Crack!”, and about 20sec later heard yelling and horn honking. About 1/2 mile away, two young guys in a Crestliner found one of Georgian Bay’s many, many rocky shoals. Tore the whole lower unit right off. Luckily nobody was hurt and the boat was ok, so after I gave them a 40min tow, I had them back to where they started. As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, right at the end of the trip I managed to send a spinnerbait into my windshield at about 80mph. Needless to say, I’m gonna need a new one ( spinnerbait is pretty much done too?). So it was one heck of an afternoon, with some pretty big highs, and some pretty big lows ( mainly for the other guys, a windshield is way cheaper than a lower unit). Ya never know what’s gonna happen on the water!

Fifteen years ago today, I stood up in front of about 250 people and said “I do”, to the best person I’ve ever met. Today we spent part of our anniversary hunting down a new ride for her. It’s basically a brand new version of what she’s driven for 8 years. She’s loved that car but it’s getting tired, so we figured we’d get an “anniversary gift” for her before the other one snuffs it in the middle of winter somewhere.

Who’s to say it won’t look “right”. I’ve caught a ton of bass on a wacky rigged stick worm on a drop shot, seems to me the bass don’t mind the look of it at all, but you do whatever you want to, if you can’t catch them and don’t want to try anything that gets suggested on here to you, why even ask then?

I don’t know where in the heck you read or heard that a drop shot won’t work where there’s gobies, but that’s nonsense ?‍♂️. I have caught well over 500 smallmouth this summer on Georgian Bay, and almost every one of them has come on a drop shot, many in water up to 40’ deep. And guess what they’re feeding on for the most part, that’s right, GOBIES! It’s not like you need a 36” long lead to your weight, most of the bass I’ve got this year are with a 10-14” long lead off bottom, and I’ve caught quite a few gobies on my baits as well. It’s not like the gobies can’t swim off bottom at all, and if a bait is presented just off bottom, the bass are still gonna hit it as evidenced by my very numerous bass catches this year.

He keeps fattening them up like that and they’ll be in fine shape for thanksgiving “guests” ?.

A sure sign of the change of seasons around here. Stacked 8 cords this afternoon with another 4 coming tomorrow. Guess we’re all ready for winter now ( physically, not mentally though).

My first truck at 17 was a 87 Chevy S15, with a gutless 4cyl stick shift. But it was a cool looking truck, black with a black low top cap on the back and jacked up a bit with bigger wheels. Was slow as molasses but in low gear and 4x4 it would go just about anywhere, great hunting truck. when I turned 18 I bought a new 98’ F150 with the small V8 to pull my new 98’ Triton Tr17. That was one heck of a nice outdoorsman package, especially as an 18 year old. My cousin and I traveled all over the place fishing tournaments with that setup for a few years.

That’s a cool lookin old boat! I love the colour matching motor. Definitely put some pics of the finished product up here when your done.

Could be as simple as one little rivet that’s a bit loose. Doesn’t take more than a pinhole for water to come in, especially if it’s under pressure from the boat running across the lake. Might be hard to find by yourself, I’d definitely do what A-Jay said.

You just need to toughen up those paws a bit. Take up a career in stone masonry, I can guarantee you you’ll be able to hold way more fish before they get that bad ?.

Took the kid out for some salmon on Georgian Bay this morning, but the wind speed and direction was way worse than predicted ( big surprise there ?), so we went in behind the islands for some smallmouth. It was still pretty windy in there, and my usual drop shot areas didn’t produce many fish, so we started tossing big spinnerbaits in the shallows to see if we could irritate a few cruisers. We managed a few fat ones that hammered the spinnerbait burned shallow, such a great hit when they crush that type bait. Right beside the ramp, I decided to try one last piece of shoreline with the spinnerbait and almost had my rod ripped out of my hands. The way it ripped out drag I figured it was a muskie, but it turned out to be a nice 8lb rainbow, so we managed to get a nice fish for dinner after all.

I’m not sure if it’s a super huge difference over regular powerbait ( which I use a ton of and have for years), but it sure does work for me. I’m a big fan of the creature hawg and the General, they’ve been excellent for pitching for largemouth and the General both Texas rigged for largemouth as well as wacky and drop shot for smallies.

Grab a few big elastic bands off your broccoli brought home from the grocery store, they work great to hold the weight. When I’m fishing it, I just roll the elastic down toward the end of the rod splits out of the way.

Similar to A-Jays, but I had to remove my 8 crappy little tubes to get my rods in. So much nicer with the extra space to have em all in there.

Sounds like you need to just sell your place and move ? When I used to fish tournaments, most of them were 3-5 hours away and I did the same as you, leaving with my partner at god awful hours in the morning. Now that I don’t fish tournaments anymore, I’m super glad that I have literally hundreds of lakes within an hour of my house, and many of my favourite ones within 15 min.

A nice misty morning run with the kid.

It’s always jerkbait time. I have one on the deck from the start of the season to ice up. Caught a ton of big bass in the heat of the summer on one, it’s just like any other lure, you have to put it in the right place at the right speed and it’ll work. Lots of bass have hammered one in the hottest weather for me, often ripping it as hard as I can.

Got out for the morning today for some more smallies. Water has cooled down to about 67 at the surface, and it took a little bit to find the fish as they’d moved a bit from last week, but once we found them it was steady action. No giants, but plenty up to and just over 3lbs.