Way north bass guy

So much green in those pics, very nice indeed!

Got up early this morning and headed WAY out into Georgian Bay to try for a salmon. Didn’t get any, but did manage to find a nice rainbow and a few lakers. Sure was a nice calm morning to be out with the kid. There’s nothing quite like watching the sun come up while your miles offshore.

Our big, old rescue cat found a good use for an empty box the other day. Been sleeping in it near constantly for two days now. We don’t know exactly how old he is, figure he’s at least 10 years old, if he ends up snuffing it while napping in there, I figure I could just tape up the top and he’d be ready for his final nap.

Being only 40, and self employed, I have a “few” more years until I can pack it in. I’m of the mindset that I could work like a dog and retire earlier, or I can pace myself a bit with work and enjoy a bit more time to do what I want while I’m younger. Some of my buddies work almost constantly, and that doesn’t seem like a fulfilling way to go about life to me. I know they aren’t real happy with their life, but some of them feel like that’s just what you have to do while you’re young. The way I look at it, my bills are being paid, my family is happy, and I’m not stressed to the point of exhaustion both physically and mentally. Plus, there’s also that whole “ you never know when your time is up” thing, and I don’t want to work like crazy and snuff it early, and not have the time to enjoy life a bit. Being self employed has a few advantages, in that I can make my own hours and with some of my jobs being water access locations, I often take my fishing boat and if I’m done early in the day I can fish my way back to the ramp, had some pretty memorable days doing that. That’s my take on it, I’m gonna keep rolling and try to get as much time on the water as I can, and when I retire if I still have good health and can extend my fishing time, well that’s even better!

I haven’t tried any other baits in that colour yet, but the Berkley Power Swimmer in sungill has been killer for big pike this spring for me, as well as a bunch of out of season pre spawn smallmouth incidentally caught while pike fishing.

I count myself as one of the lucky ones I guess. In all the weekends I’ve been out since our ramps opened back up, I can count on one hand the number of fishing boats I’ve seen, and most of those were trolling for rainbows on Georgian Bay. Honestly though, most of the lakes I fish even in the height of summer, I hardly see many other fishing boats, and the real bad lakes for jet skis/wake board boats etc I stay away from on weekends, at least in the summer. That’s the joy of having hundreds of lakes within a half hour of my place.

Although I’ve not fished the French, I’m only about a half hour from there. It truly is a wonderful piece of this planet to explore.

Georgian Bay isn’t always “angry”. Of course it’s like this while I’m boating to work, if I was going fishing there’d be 6’ swells likely.

Well, I’m likely one of the most northerly members on here, so come on up and we’ll hit Georgian Bay for some big smallies, then you can head over to A-Jay’s and work your way south from there ?.

There’s no way we could keep our feeders out this long or they’d be bear treats. We usually take ours down as soon as it starts to warm up in mid to late March.

Sounds like you had some mighty good luck there. Lightning is definitely not something to play around with. I’ve been up on 5 sections of scaffold ( basically a metal tower), and it’s started to rumble, a man can descend off stuff pretty quick when he wants to ?

Leaving the job site yesterday and this little fella and his/her mom were at the end of the driveway when I drove past. I stopped right beside it, and it didn’t know what to do. Just stood there for a minute shaking in fear of the “big scary blue truck”, then took off after mom grunted at it a few times. Couldn’t have been more than a few days old, I doubt it was as heavy as our old house cat we have.

Everyone should have at least a pair of needle nose pliers with them for hook removal. I just use them to wrap the line around a couple times and pull, they’re a lot tougher than even my old stonemason hands are ?.

I don’t normally fish a ton of real heavy vegetation, up here it’s mostly pads or some cabbage weed, most of my pitching/flipping is done to docks or laydowns and beaver houses. Braid isn’t really needed around the places I fish, so my pitching rigs are loaded with 20lb Berkley 100% Fluorocarbon. I’ve never had any issues with it, it’s plenty tough enough for my use and I don’t lose many bites.

Nice job, looks like everyone was very busy and happy at the same time ??.

Couple years ago I was catching a pile of decent smallmouth with my dad, and we were on a lake with lots of eagles. One decided to “follow” us along the shore, flying from tree to tree. After about 10 bass, I hooked one about 3lbs that was jumping like crazy. Well I guess the eagle had enough, and flew down from the big pine tree he was in and tried to ****** my bass right out of the air, on three different jumps! I literally had to yank on my rod to pull the bass midair away from the eagles talons. It followed us for another mile or so before we finally fired up the big motor to head to another spot.

I live right beside and fish Georgian Bay a lot, and there aren’t many places more clear than “ the bay”, especially on the outside big water part. I also spent about ten years fishing tournaments in the Kawartha lakes, many of them are super shallow/weedy and have about 6” of visibility in the summer. There isn’t much for baits that I haven’t caught bass on, either brown or green, and you’d be surprised by what will work if you give it a try. I’ve had some phenomenal days on gin clear water with big, gaudy, noisy lures, and some great days on pea soup coloured waters with tiny tubes and light line. They’re bass, not brain surgeons, if you give them a chance to eat, and they’re in the mood to, you’ll catch em.

I don’t eat too many bass, unless it’s one that I’m pretty sure isn’t gonna make it ( deep hooked etc.), Around here, walleye are the king of “eater fish”, although a nice pike from cool water if filleted correctly tastes the same to me, and they’re easier to catch ?. My favourite white fleshed fish is either perch or crappie, but I am a sucker for a fresh Georgian Bay salmon or trout on the bbq with a nice maple syrup glaze.

Quite the handsome young man there!

With the warm weather finally here, we’ve pretty much been living in the screen porch at the back of our house. With the door from the house to the porch wide open all day, our kitten spends the entire day out there watching the hummingbirds and bees at the gardens. Guess this afternoon he just got plum wore out by them.

Exactly what The Bassman said. They’re likely trying to steal the “meal” that the hooked bass has. It happens here all the time, especially with smallmouth. I’ve seen over 20 decent sized smallies chase a hooked bass to the boat, and if someone else is with me and throws out a bait, it’s almost a guarantee they’ll hook up as well. No matter where or when I’m bass fishing, I ALWAYS have a throw back bait tied in another rod ready to go at all times, often a senko or tube jig will be ready to deploy at any time.

I’m not sure exactly where in Ontario you are, but I can assure you there are many pike here that would not be considered “small”. Just this morning I got one over 40”, and saw at least one more that size and several just under that size, and I am not really that far north, despite my member name ?. There’s plenty of big ones around, you just have to know where to look.

Update: I finally had to change baits today, but only after catching another 36” and 40” pike on the same bait I used before! These things are pretty durable, I caught probably almost 300” of pike on one bait before I had to replace it.

Took the kid out for another pike fish this morning. With the consistent, hot and sunny weather we’ve had all week here, and a rain system moving in on Sunday, I figured they’d be set up to eat. Water was like glass first thing, we started getting some decent fish to follow but they wouldn’t commit until we got a bit of a breeze to break up the surface. This particular lake is gin clear, and they like a bit of a chop to make them a bit less edgy. We managed a 30”, 36” and a nice thick one at just a hair over 40” that we got to watch absolutely inhale a swimbait right by the boat. Saw a few more big fish and my son lost one about 36” at the boat ( gotta work on those hook sets), all in all it was a pretty decent morning.

My wife and I share the cooking about 50/50 most of the time, and we try to involve our ten year old in most of it. I find the most important thing, especially if your making a meal with several different things is to control the timing of everything. You don’t want the veggies done and starting to get mushy and the meat is still 15 mins away etc. With my wife working at home all the time right now, I am coming home to fresh baked sour dough bread, pies, and all sorts of extra special dishes almost every day. I am truly a lucky man indeed!