Way north bass guy

Surprisingly most of the lakes in the area we fish don’t have huge numbers of pike, especially the little ones. But there are some “nicer sized” fish that will find your bait every now and again ?.

Instead of playing with the shiny black thing on the right today, I dealt with the big brown pile to the left ( d**n you winter!). It’s all good though because tomorrow I’m off to my parents for four days of chasing huge, dumb northern Ontario smallies, the bass thumb will be good and raw by the time I come home and that’s all right by me.

When it finally rains real good after literally weeks of dry weather, but you still want to go to the beach, sometimes you have to improvise.

I’ve been using world wide sportsman uv shirts for the last couple years, and they work great in any temps. Breath real well and dry super quick if they do get wet. And along with some sunscreen on a few exposed areas and a big brimmed hat, I and my son stay pretty well covered in the boat.

After my son takes a quick pic of a fish I just caught (takes some pretty good pics too), sometimes he’s not in a rush to put the phone down. It’s always interesting when I get back home to see what other art he’s added to the fishing folder.

We left the big boat at home today, took the “mini bassboat” just up behind our place to a small lake that’s loaded with decent smallies, largies and panfish. Managed to get about 20 or so, mixed bag of both types of bass. Biggest was about 3lbs, but most were in the 2-2.5lb range. Today was a “ bring only one rod day”, 7’ spinning outfit with 8lb fluoro and a Berkley maxscent General on a wacky jighead. At one point my son had a 2.5lber on and there were easily another 10 about the same size cruising around the boat at the same time. I didn’t know weather to help him or try to catch one myself. Defenitely a fun couple of hours on a quiet, fish filled lake with my favourite fishing partner.

I prefer to store my hooks firmly in the upper lip of a bass ?. Seriuosly though, I’m like most guys and sort them in a smaller Plano box, it’s not too hard to get to what I need to fairly quick while on the water.

I don’t know what makes them change colours as much as they do, but up here on Georgian Bay, there’s almost like another sub species of smallies that you only see sometimes around the outside edge of the islands on the big water ( and yes, I know they aren’t actually a different species ?). They are often massive specimens, usually travel by themselves, and they darn near look black compared to the usual brown fish. Also, in some of the inland lakes around here, the water is stained a sort of tea colour from the tannins in the pine trees. In those lakes, the smallies are the most beautiful copper colour, real dark and fight like crazy. Here’s one I got a few weeks ago that’s fairly dark, next time I get some real copper coloured ones from a stained lake I’ll post some pics, they are some of the coolest looking bass I’ve ever seen.

The General has been great for me, Texas rigged for pitching into the thick stuff for largemouth and wacky rigged or wacky drop shot rigged for smallies. Last week one night I got on a big school of them and they were smoking it on nearly every cast. Once I was down to my last one, after it finally ripped in two I just put on the half section and they kept on eating it. Good stuff indeed!

It’s funny you mention this, I have three Helix units and have never once had an issue with depth reading. I’m sure there are glitches with some units ( in every different company), but I also think a lot of this “problem” that I’ve seen on other forums as well has to do with user error. They are after all small computers, and it doesn’t take much to screw up a setting on a computer ( god knows I’ve had experience with that ?).

Wee baby tarpon ?.

Someone was hungry ( or real mad) last night!

Tried for some salmon on Georgian Bay this morning, didn’t stay out too long due to the ridiculous heat and not a bit of wind, but my son did manage one nice fat laker about 10lbs or so.

I initially had the transducer wire running straight from the unit to the tm foot, and the interference was still there. I’m sure with some setups this would make perfect sense but it didn’t seem to matter for me. Seems like every single boat configuration is different when it comes to interference.

I have to confess, I’m such a powerbait junkie that I’ve never even tried the havoc series. I’m sure it’s mostly a confidence thing but I’d rather have the powerbait/gulp/maxscent in the bait, even if it only gets me one more bite a day or it means the fish holds on for one second longer to get the hook driven into it. My go to for the last few years has been the powerbait thief and this year I’ve done really well with the maxscent creature hawg. Just my 2 cents.

First pic- 18g wire comes out from under bow deck and runs parallel to the transducer wire Pic #2- wires run up through coiled main cable Pic #3 and 4-both 18g and transducer wires go over to shaft then are siliconed down groove in shaft. Pic#5- 18g wire is attached to ring terminal that is held tight underneath transducer hose clamp. And that’s it. Works great for me. Hope this helps.

Nope, but I did have a bunch of cement blocks to lay this morning ? Nice pic though, I’ll be doing that in one more day.

I agree, I’ve had one on a frogging rod for the last couple of years and it’s been a dream to cast, and a real workhorse with 50lb braid to muscle largies in. I’ve had lots of different quantum stuff over the years and it’s always done well for me.

When I come across schooling smallies, a wacky rigged stickbait often gets hit pretty hard. Sometimes without weight, sometimes with a wacky jighead, depending on their mood.

I’m a big fan of the General as well. Been catching a lot of smallies on them wacky rigged, and largemouths while flipping into heavy weeds with a small weight, they slide right through the jungle. I’ve also become a huge fan of the creature hawg. It’s very much like the powerbait thief, which I’ve been using almost exclusively for pitching/flipping the last couple of years. Those creature hawgs have been getting absolutely hammered, darn near every bite is a big ole thud, which is about the nicest feeling you can get on the end of your pitching rod!

Happy birthday A-Jay, hope there’s a birthday 8 lb brown fish on the end of your line.

For me it’s mostly a super spook junior, but I’ve also caught some monster smallies on a hollow frog when they’re in shallow water. Also, when it’s real calm and low light, this guy “just barely twitched” on the surface with a spinning rod and light line will call up some real dandies.

This, has worked very well for me to help with both casting and spinning reels to “tame” fluorocarbon.

Sunrise over Georgian Bay this morning. One of my smallies spit up about 10 of these guys when I was reeling him in, I’d say I’m “matching the hatch” fairly well.

As a stonemason and stainless steel chimney/wood stove installer, I’m often up on roofs or in attics working on older chimneys. Wasps and hornets absolutely love to get up under the chimney flashing and create nests, which are always right where I need to tear it down. I’m sure there’s been a few times where customers neighbors have wondered why there’s a crazy person on the roof with a full zipped up rain suit on when it’s sunny and 90 degrees outside ?