Way north bass guy

Berkley power thief has been my best Flippin/pitching bait for the last couple of years. Lots of nice colours too.

If the cover is thick and I’m flipping or frogging with few hooks involved I’m usually trying to get the fish ( largemouth usually) moved up and out fairly quickly. If it’s big, strong smallies and I’m using crankbaits or jerkbaits then I’m more likely to go easy on them, at least until I can see how many hooks are embedded well. Obviously with light line/finesse I’m not gonna horse em too much. I don’t fish too many tournaments any more so I’m not quite as worried about a fish coming off, unless of course it’s a monster, then I’m a bit more careful with them.

This year for me was the drop shot. Even though I live in central Ontario, the heart of big northern smallie country, I’ve never used them much in years past. This year I made myself throw them a few times and boy was that ever a good decision. And with an 8 year old for a fishing partner, we tag teamed them this fall when they were schooled up and feeding heavily. Best bait for us was a 4” Berkley gulp minnow in smelt colour, that stuff is like crack for smallies!

I just ordered one off BPS, they’re on sale right now for the cyberweek sale. Should be a beauty for quick pitching to lots of targets and for frogging to get that lure back quick for another cast.

Don't complain too much, we got 3" of snow last night and the smaller lakes are starting to freeze up here. Put the boat away for the winter last week ?. I'll take your "problem" any day over mine ?.

Nice rig! I had a 98' TR 17 dual. Bought it brand new from the first Triton dealer in Canada, it was the 12th Triton sold in Canada. Fun little boat.

My wife took this one of me showing my 8 year old the finer points of frogging this summer.

This couldn't be more truthful. I was always a crankbait "buyer" but never fished them much, just left them in the tacklebox. One day I decided I'm only gonna throw a crankbait, man did I catch em! All it takes is one day to greatly improve your confidence in a lure type, now I always have a squarebill and a deep diver tied on a couple rods.

I've owned a dual console Triton, a dual console Lund Pro-V and now have a Smokercraft with a full walk through windshield, and I can say from now on I'm going full windshield for any future boats. Living in central Ontario, we're on the water in early spring and late fall when parts of the lake still have ice on them, just this morning I had to sweep an inch of wet snow off the cover before I launched. That full windshield sure is nice when it's this cool out, especially with the family onboard. I've not found the larger windshield to be any more of a nuisance than the smaller ones for casting, but it sure is nice for running or trolling for lakers in the snow at ice out.

Here's my latest rig, 2014 Smokercraft Pro Mag 182 with Suzuki 140 fourstroke. Rigged with Humminbird Helix units, Minnkota Terrova and 12' Talon. Awesome rig, motor is whisper quiet and super good on gas but still will hit 50mph. We do everything in it from downrigging salmon and lakers in big swells on Georgian Bay to flipping for largies in 1' of water on smaller inland lakes.

I'm a straight fluoro guy for a lot of my rods, especially spinning. One trick if you do get a bit of twist ( which is gonna happen eventually with spinning rods), is to cut off your bait and let most of your free line behind the boat to troll it along for a few minutes. This'll untwist it fairly well, then just reel up, retie and off you go again.

This year I've caught an absolute ton of smallmouth and some nice largemouth on the larger kvd jerkbaits in a variety of colours. Their action seems to be just the ticket for snarly brown bass here. For plastics, my go to for flipping/pitching in the weeds and docks/trees the last couple of years has been the Berkeley power thief in several colours. The northern largies here seem to hammer it.

With an 8 year old fishing partner, I ALWAYS have a small grocery stores worth of grub to keep him happy. If the action is good, I sometimes have to tell myself to stop and eat something, or else my little garbage compactor won't leave me anything to eat.

Funny how this topic just appeared, I just caught a "blue" smallmouth last weekend. Never seen one like this before, seemed to not have any red or brown toned pigment at all. Wasn't a big guy but pretty cool to see anyway.

Hello everyone, I've been a "lurker" here for a while now and decided to join today. Lots of interesting discussions on here and I'm hoping I can add as much as I've taken from here in the past. I've lived my entire life in central Ontario ( Parry Sound/Muskoka region) and fish for pretty much anything that swims, but bass are my favourite by far. Used to fish quite a few tournaments on the Kawartha lakes and Simcoe about 15 years ago but gave that up to concentrate on guiding for bass, pike/muskie and lakers/salmon on Georgian Bay. Im now "retired" from guiding but now that my son is old enough to show interest in fishing, I've really gotten back into it a lot more. Up here the lakes are usually iced over from January to early April, but after that the boat is in the water pretty much weekly and we hit everything that swims all season long. Anyway, I'm happy to join and hope to swap a few lies and stories with everyone. Cheers,