Way north bass guy

It’s a LONG way from Sacramento. I’m in Parry Sound On. Pretty much the other side of the continent ?

This, is only about an hour from my place. Been burning for several weeks now and over 10000 hectares (2500 acres). We’ve had some rain the last 24 hours or so but I doubt it’s enough to do anything to help. There’s hundreds of firefighters from Canada and Mexico battling it now and it’s only 5km from the trans Canada highway, if it gets much closer they’ll likely close the highway.

No pickerel around my place but I’m smack dab in the middle of some of the best pike fishing anywhere. Most of the lakes here have pike in them, some are mainly smaller fish and some have true giants in them. Our bass season doesn’t start till near the end of June, so until then most bass guys here fish pike. When they’re shallow in the spring, it’s often much like spring bass fishing only they’re way bigger! As for eating, I’ll keep some in the 25-32” range in the cooler water seasons and they’re absolutely fantastic once you learn how to fillet them properly. I know I’m likely never ever going to get a double digit bass around here, but that’s fine when these girls are swimming all around my spots ?.

I second what A-Jay says about “your lake”. Once I got side imaging units on my boat, I was amazed at what I saw in areas I’d fished hundreds of times over the years. They can show you so much more detail than traditional 2D sonar, and for me, it makes a world of difference especially when offshore fishing.

Went first thing this morning for some largemouths, but with the super dry summer we’ve had here, the lake has dropped over a foot since the last time I was there so the largemouths all pulled out of the shallow pads/eelgrass where I caught em last time. So I went out to the main lake and salvaged the morning with brown ones instead. Drop shot Berkley Gulp minnow took them all on the deep edge of shallow flats, best fish was right at 3lbs.

So I spent a good part of today building a nice dog crate for our new pup, and of course within about 20 min. of finishing it, our 16 year old cat has taken it over. She truly believes she owns the entire house and is just “letting” us stay here ?.

Couple of weeks ago we had to put our “old man” down. He was a wonderful huskie/Shepard cross that we had for 16 years. Today, my wife found a new buddy for our 4 year old huskie/Shepard cross, he was pretty sad for that last week until this afternoon. She’s a 9 month old rotty/lab mix, very well behaved and full of gumption!

But it’s soooo tasty ?. Seriously though, I’m not a big “fat eater” either, and I applaud your efforts to stay in good shape. If I didn’t do what I do for a living, I’d be working harder as well to keep the body flowing as I age. I fully intend to be around for as long as I can, and I’d like to be able to do physical stuff for a long time too, I’ve seen lots of people as they get older, even at my age ( late 30s), just get less active and slowly “soften up”. Doesn’t seem like a very fun way to spend your retirement. Heck, I know guys I went to school with that already couldn’t see their toes looking over their bellies, and these are guys that not even 20 years ago were pretty decent athletes.

Looks like A-Jay has it figured out. Myself, no gym for me, but as someone that’s been a stonemason full time for 21 years now, and self employed and doing it all on my own for the last 7 years, I’m pretty much “in the gym” five days a week. With baseball one night a week and hockey another night a week, I can’t eat enough to worry about extra calories ?. Nothing like carrying big stones and pails of mortar up several sections of scaffold all day to “burn the fat”.

When my son was about 4, he’d eat anything ( still does). He’d probably eat the darn plate too if you weren’t watching him.

Not sure about your area but around my place, there’s hundreds of small lakes and rivers where a fellow could fish from shore. Try it if you can, sometimes it’s a nice change of pace just quietly walking the bank with one or two rods and a handful of lures, and if your willing to work a bit, you can find some real monsters.

It’s funny how frogging works, for several years, it seemed I missed a terrible percentage of fish on the hookset. For whatever reason, the last few years I’ve done much better. Maybe it was a rod change, but I’m honestly at about a 90% hookup ratio with frogs now, and I don’t wait too long to set either. It seems like you just need to get a good “feel” for when to hit them, and once you figure it out, it’s game on.

Took a solo trip to a new lake this morning, lots of smaller ones and managed to get a few decent size bass in super shallow water on a frog and pitching to pads/eelgrass. Lost a nice pike about 36” right at the boat, she just opened her yap and spit the spinnerbait out, then sat there like she was mocking me ?. Heres the best bass I got.

I’ll take any drops I can get right about now, don’t mind using the rain suit at all on the water ?

P I’ll see what I can do ?. its getting pretty bad around here, complete burning ban everywhere and there’s way too many forest fires burning not all that far north of us. All it would take is someone’s careless toss of a cigarette butt and we’d be in trouble.

Hey A-Jay, do you mind maybe pushing some of that rain your getting over my way. We’ve not had a drop in about 4 weeks at least and I’m getting mighty sick of watering the flowers and veggies. Just right over here where the red X is, thanks ?.

I run non-ethanol in my boat all year, it’s pretty east to find around here. Usually don’t put much in it through the summer but once fall hits I start using fuel treatment, mostly just to make sure it’s through the entire system for winter storage. I also make sure the last tank of the year is topped up and has storage treatment. Never once had any fuel issues in anything for over 20 years of owning boats and small engines. Ive been using this for the last few years and it seems to work well for me.

Nice looking smaller lake rig! And I have to agree, Smokercrafts are great boats ??.

I’ve been using a life straw for the last several years in deer season (November). I stillhunt, walking lots of miles in huge public land areas in central Ontario that see absolutely no humans other than myself in hunting season. It works great there, as I’m only concerned about parasites/bacteria. The creeks and ponds are clear and clean, other than what the beavers do to them. The life straw is so much easier to carry in the day pack than a full bottle or thermos all day as it weighs almost nothing. That time of year, the water is at or just above freezing so it’s nice to drink, not sure if I’d use it in the summer, cause I’m not a fan of drinking warm water, but it’s work in a pinch if you don’t have anything else.

-Multiple canoes and 12’-16’ open aluminum boats w/tiller outboards -From shore by way of bicycle as a youngster -17’ Triton w/115 Yamaha -Lund Pro-V 1900 w/200 Optimax - Smokercraft 182 Promag w/Suzuki DF140 ( current boat)

I’ve witnessed a red squirrel getting smoked by a largemouth as it swam across a small lilly pad filled bay. I also caught a 4lb smallmouth on a spinnerbait on a big, clear northern lake that had an adult squirrel in its guts already. The tail was sticking out of its throat, was the only part of the squirrel with fur still on it. Talk about a hungry smallmouth!

It’s so hot I decided to go work on a roof in the sun all day today, ( no wait, that’s not a joke, that’s just stupidity) ? I love my job, I love my job, I love my job...

Some of the best pad spots around here are quite shallow. Maybe it’s because we have ice on our lakes for half the year, but it seems like the largest fish love to wallow in ultra shallow water as much as they can. Last week I was fishing after a cold front came through, and even then the best fish were on the back side of the pads in less than a foot of water.

Had a few hours to kill today so we went to one of our favourite lakes. Caught over 40 bass, about a 50/50 mix of smallies/largies and that’s with a couple swim breaks in between?. Today the fish were schooled up big time, almost like in the fall. Almost every fish we hooked had multiples of either species following and attacking the hooked fish, trying to steal their “prize”. We had multiple double headers, all we had to do was drop anything over the side and the other guy would hook up too. It was a pretty neat experience for my son. Fish were caught on KVD size 300 jerkbaits, 1.5 squarebills and wacky rigged Berkley Max Scent generals. The kid won the bet for first fish. Got a few nice ones as well. Same fish, they’re healthy in this lake ? This one followed one of the kids smaller ones to the boat trying to grab the lure, it hammered the stickbait.

I've had side imaging on the bow for several years now, and i use it more than almost any other view when in shallower water. If you're just turning slightly it doesn't screw up the image too much, and it's amazing how much stuff you'd miss if you were just on di or regular sonar. Works great to see weeds,trees, boulders other structure off to the side. Maybe SI will be next years big "game changer" icast release ?.