Jleebesaw

Come back with anything under 4 on the st lawrence and you wont be seeing a check.

I thought all tackle catagory meant artificial lures only? I could be wrong, for sure, but that's what I thought.

The article I read in the email from bassmasters stated that the list was compiled by averaging bag weights in B.A.S.S tourneys. If the fish are so big down there, you boys need to start putting together better bags in your derbies. I know that during the elite tourny on the st lawrence last year, they constantly talked about having more 20lb+ bags every day of the event than any event in elite series history. Maybe that has something to do with it.

I'm in the low numbers but big fish camp. I caught my pb smallie 2 weekends ago. 6lb 3/4oz.

That is a grass issue. The grass is pretty much touching the transducer and you aren't moving, so the grass is showing up as long horizontal lines. If you move into deeper water it should be fine. No fish finder is going to help you in weeds all the way to the surface.

Dont detail that fishery too well! It's not very crowded yet!

It happens to me with smallies on topwater a lot. Iuse a spook or spook junior a lot. Often, smallies will miss it and I stop the retrieve, they come right back and hit it again. I've had this happen several times before getting a hook set. People have told me that they will "head bunt" a moving lure to stun it before eating it. I dont know if bass think enough to do something like that or not. I have also had plenty of fish come off and then get another, immediate bite. I dont know if it's the same fish or not. I'm betting it's a different fish. I know that you often see several fish follow the hooked fish right up close to the boat when you catch smallmouths. So, I assume that's what's happening. The hooked fish gets off and one of the others jumps right on it as soon as it sees it get away.

Pretty much everything that people post about catching monster bass will catch smaller ones too. Where I fish we have a lot of smaller largemouths too. They will bite any of the baits that people recommend for giants.

Did the OP get out there last weekend? I went Saturday and got a couple nice ones. 4lbs 13oz, and 5lbs 3/4oz. Plus a few dinks. And a pike of course! That tournament ended friday, so I figured I'd try it out. 1st time this year. The no wake zone is 600ft from shore. There was a message board by the road near ogdensburg stating it.

Those cheap rapala scales work. I fished a tournament a couple weekends ago and they within an oz of the official scales.

I used to fish for pike a lot. Still do through the ice actually. They are fun fish to catch, but they make a d**n mess and stink to high heaven. They are a good eating fish if they are 28-35". Any smaller they aren't worth cutting away all the bone, any bigger they start to taste bad. I have a friend who pickles it with the y bones still in it. They soften up and you dont even notice them when you eat them. It's crazy. I started targeting crappie in the spring and haven't intentionally caught a pike since.

Be careful. That's how it started with me. I fished for crappie on opening day of bass this year. I may not target bass until the crappie scatter into deep water and get harder to find. My freezer is about full of crappie and perch though, so I may fish bass this weekend. I have plenty of fish meat to last until ice fishing starts again.

So will they be done tomorrow? I was thinking about fishing in waddington but didn't want to go if the ramps would be packed because of the tourney. I figured they fished over the weekend. I drove through waddington on Tuesday and the launch at the park and brandy brook were packed.

I fish there all the time. Look for shoals. The river has a ton of shoals and underwater humps that were made when they dredged the river for the seaway in the 1950's. Basically they dug out a channel and dumped everything on the sides. Some of the islands in the "lake st lawrence" area are actually just piles they made while dredging. There are sharp drop offs into the channel and the rest of the river tends to be fairly shallow. Keep the map on screen while boating. There are a lot of rocks if you aren't in the shipping channel. These shoals and humps are all over the place creating places for fish to get out of the current. I normally drift past the edge of these shoals and drag tubes or dropshot rigs off them toward deeper water. Fish just sit behind rocks on the edge of the shoals waiting for something to cruise by. The humps fish in a similar way. Dont be afraid the throw out marker bouys. Unless you have spot lock, it's easy to lose your spot. Downstream sides of islands are always good of course. I normally fish between chippawa bay and waddington. Upstream from there in the thousand islands area is a little more like a natural river. There are less shoals and humps. Downstream from waddington is basically like a resevior lake. They call that section lake st lawrence. Think stump fields, flooded roads, and foundations. Goby colored tubes and jigs are my bread and butter on the river. I use plastics that have brownish green colors to try to imitate them. Berkeley "goby magic" color is great. They make tubes and finesse worms in that color. The water is super clear so take care with line choice and stick to natural colors for baits. Btw, the bassmasters college series is fishing out of waddington this weekend. There are a lot of boats there this week. It might not hurt to see where they fish!

Yes. I'm glad I'm not the only guy who doesnt think the wopper plopper is "origianal". I have 2 mini mud puppies that I bought 20+ years ago. They work well. I have a whopper plopper and it is a complete rip off of the mud puppy. I dont dislike the WP, but its irritating to hear people talk about it like it's something new and act like it's such a great lure. In my experiance, super spook juniors and other walking stick bait lures out fish the WP every time.

Bass and crappie taste exactly the same to me. I dont know what spoonplugging is, but if it's a single technique that catches eyes, crappie, and bass, I want to learn it.

That looks like a bowfin, but what's up with its mouth and color. Its lighter colored than the ones I've caught. And like you said, you wouldn't lip one either.

So a guy who makes a living catching bass gives vague, general answers when asked how he catches them? Huh, who would have thought?

I would just keep doing your own thing. Maybe he will invite you again, maybe not. If he does, and you keep out fishing him, he will probably start to take some tips from you. He may think youre just lucky the first time or 2, but eventually he is going to see that he could learn a thing or 2 from you. Lots of guys dont like taking advice from younger people. Or maybe.... He takes his whippy rod and old school lures and hammers them. If so, would you be willing to follow his lead?

Went out friday after work and got 75. Caught them all on Mr crappie slab slangers and mr crappie slab poles. Blue with silver flakes and white with chartreuse tails were the main colors we used. Im not sure if they are spawning yet up here but they are moving up shallow. Got most of them in only about 6ft. Water surface temps about 60 degrees.

I had a hook unit last summer that did that every time I went out with it. It doesnt like to find bottom. Usually the reboot would fix it for awhile, but it would always do it again eventually. I just ended up replacing it with an elite ti unit. Hooked up to the same power source, mounted in the same spot, transducer in the same spot, and the elite series hasn't messed up once. Hook units are junk in my opinion. There are several threads on here about hook units not finding bottom.

If you fish for bass, you're a bass fisherman. I guess people can have other opinions about what makes someone a bass fisherman, but who cares? Learning new techniques or trying new equipment can be fun and maybe even game changing, but using tried and true tactics is great too. It doesnt matter what anybody else thinks.

They tend to go up when caught in 30ft of water too.

Oddly enough I've seen it many times. Just because of circumstance. I used to fish a lot when I was a kid from the banks with my friends. As we got older we didn't fish as much and we weren't very good back then. Only 2 of us really kept fishing regularly into adulthood. The last couple of years I have been out with some if these same guys. I've seen several get their pb bass, and then another get his first walleye. Of course the other guy who fished as long as me has seen most of my PB fish, and I've seen most of his too. We fish together a lot.

I like the heddon super spook jr if they are hitting top water. Man, it's hard to beat catching smallmouths on top water! It's my favorite thing in fishing. In smaller rivers I have had a lot of luck with the rapala original floating minnow. The color with a black back and gold sides has been a great lure for me. I use it like a jerkbait more than a steady retrieve, though steady works too. Square bills are great too, especially if there is a lot of trees in the water to bounce it off from. These 3 are my go to baits in small rivers. I'm not into creek fishing, but I'm sure those will work in them. The rivers I call small could be considered creeks to some folks!