The Baron

Bob, I’m so very sorry for your loss. I’ve been absent since the ground turned white here, catching up now and I also apologize for not seeing this sooner. I cannot possibly imagine how you feel, but I’m very much aware I’m living a very good life right now. Good job, good marriage, good kids (16 and 18) and good health. And I’m for some reason aware this will not be forever, so possibly not just blessed by God for where I am, but blessed that He’s given me the awareness of how good I have it right now. Which I don’t remember everyday, especially in winter I stare at the empty part of my glass too much, but things like your strength to share give me a sobering reminder to not let any day pass without showing love to those who make my life whole. I don’t have a tattoo, likely never will, but if I were to get one it might be along the lines of what you mentioned. “This too shall pass” or “nothing lasts forever”, with the awareness that refers to things both good and bad. Life is a personal journey, for sure - wins and losses, laughter and tears, sunshine and tornadoes. Thank you for the reminder. God bless.

Our season was also “meh”. Bought a brand new Lowe Stinger 195 Bass in February (we love it - I’m very blessed to be able to afford such a nice boat). We have an early catch and release only bass season here on Lake Ontario/the St. Lawrence River that ends May 10 so my son I were super excited to get started with the new boat. But winter dragged on into an exceptionally cold/wet spring and I kept bumping our pickup time for the new boat. I finally drew the line and picked it up on a rainy day in mid-April (we’d hoped to be fishing by April 1). Took it straight to a local shop to have the dealer package basic Minn Kota swapped out for a Garmin Force, then waited another week for it to stop raining. Finally, in late April we got out for our inaugural voyage… and the new trolling motor wouldn’t steer. 😕 The boat/motor were great, but we couldn’t fish without a trolling motor. That turned into a two week process of getting the trolling motor fixed - Garmin support was great, but it wasn’t until early May we finally got out for bass. And of course the weather remained cold and wet, and we had little luck - guys who fish the lake regularly told me the cold had the bass way behind and no one did very well in the spring season. So the early season ended and we had to wait until the 3rd Saturday in June to bass fish again. Our soaking wet spring turned into a summer drought with lake levels 2+ feet low and the summer fishing was generally poor for everyone I know, largemouth especially poor with weed growth being affected by the low water. I had my hopes up for fall and we did have a couple decent days, I finally caught both a largemouth and a smallmouth over 5# but nothing really big (over 6# is the line for “really big” up here). Sadly, by early October both my son and I both tapped out on poor fishing. I’m hoping to pick the boat up today from getting winterized, and will double tarp it until next spring with hopes 2026 will be better. 😕🤞🏻

This is awesome - congratulations! 😎 It’s amazing how much an “I know I’m gonna catch ‘em” attitude can help.

We’re all done for 2025, just pulled all the gear out of the boat on Sunday. Our last couple trips were disappointing and it’s been too windy to try again. We were so excited about the year with the brand new boat, but it was a horrible cold, wet spring so our early season was a bust. Our regular season was mediocre with just a few good outings. We love the new boat and have got a little experience under our belts with these Lake Ontario smallmouth, but hopefully next year will be better.🤞🏻 Now we pray for a short, easy winter… because I ain’t got any more long ones in me. 😒

I was off last week. Didn’t fish nearly as much as I thought I would, I’m finding that fishing every other day is good for me. Partly because I’m slowing down, partly because the fishing was mediocre last week. Tuesday was an absolute pike fest - we couldn’t avoid them. Only caught a few 1.5-2.5# bass, but probably 30+ pike on a back lake, most 2-4#, one about 7-8#. I missed a couple days, then was out on Lake Ontario with a buddy Friday. It was slow, I caught a few and had a few followers. Later in the day we saw a few nice ones in 3-4ft of water (visibility is 10-12ft.) but they wouldn’t bite anything. Just a slow day, but a couple pretty ones.

The good (if there is one) about the prop is that it was already chewed up from power loading here the last trip. Then we found a shoal on the Ottawa River (while idling, looking for it 😆) and added more edge damage. So I was already calling this our spare prop and planning to get a new one, possibly stainless with a different pitch to see if we can’t squeeze a few mph out and get out motor running closer to the factor WOT rating of 5800rpm - right now we only run about 4600rpm. Anyway, we heard the thunk when Wes was loading and knew he’d hit a rock. I sometime get pretty angry about mistakes that cost me money, so Wes was probably relieved when we pulled the boat out and I looked at the prop and laughed. No damage to the skeg or the boat and the prop was already condemned. And not Wes’ fault, he did a perfect job coming on the trailer, it would have happened to me just the same. And we have to power load here - I tried wading in and cranking from where the boat stopped on Wes’ initial slide on and just couldn’t do it without the power assist.

Took Wes and a buddy out yesterday, to one of our favourite little lakes. The boys caught several up to about 2.5# with a few smallmouth sprinkled in, and Wes caught a 3# largemouth but didn’t want photos. I think because his friend didn’t care about photos Wes was playing it cool. 🤷🏼‍♂️ I caught several in our little hotspot area, of similar size to the boys. Then I suggested we move to the wind blown side of a fully submerged weed edge that drops from 4ft. to 10ft. The weed edge curves so forms a submerged bay about 75 yards across and it made sense to me the fish might be waiting for bait in there, and I was right. After catching another 2# on a dropshot, I decided to go for a bigger bite and started throwing a buzzbait. Darned it that didn’t work when a 5.15# blew up on it. I seem to be attracting skinny, ugly fish this year and she was no exception - if she was of proper fall proportions she’d have weighed over 6 for sure. Compare her shape to the 3.5# I caught about 5 minutes later. So, a good day of fishing and beautiful weather. But this lake is 2ft. low and the launch is just a spot to back in off the shore. Being so shallow it was a struggle to get off/on the trailer last time but we really wanted to fish it again. We got off/on a little better than last time, but Wes found a rock when power loading. I’ll be heading over the the local prop shop today. lol

Hi Steve! Welcome, from Kingston, Ontario.

PB alert! Congratulations @WaskaCrank12. I’ll bet that smallie put up a good fight - they’re feisty!

@Swamp Girl Yeah, a good day for sure. And we did it without FFS. lol To put it in perspective though… there was big tournament out of Kingston a couple weekends ago. There were multiple bags over 25# weighed in, two bags a hair over 29# the first day. Yes… 29# for five smallmouth. Big fish for the tournament was a 7.66# with several over 6# weighed in. This smallmouth fishery is crazy. But so are the boats we were ogling at the weigh-in… two or three big screens at both the bow and the console was standard.

Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Well, what does he know because we pretty much did that yesterday on Lake Ontario and it worked.😁 Wes invited a friend who loves fishing but has never fished from a boat (nice kid, and a very well mannered guest). We blanked at our first spot even though we’d caught them there before the area looks great (10-14ft. with rock bottom and stones scattered all over). After a poor start, we headed to a spot where we have reliably caught lots of 1-2# fish, the plan being just to get his buddy into some. Wouldn’t you know it, we rolled up and Wes stuck a 5.3# about five minutes in. Not long after, I got a 5.1#. I caught a couple more 2# then we couldn’t find them again, so moved on. Made a fairly long run to a spot I’d picked off the contour maps, and with no experience here I recommend we throw moving baits and l see if we get any bites or followers before we start finesse fishing. About 8 casts in with a small bladed jig Wes landed a 5.7# 😎 Took us a while, but his buddy finally got one at the next spot - a fat 4.5# on a Ned. I’d been trying to coach him to stay in contact with his bait, but he had a bad habit of slack lining and sure enough his fish was hooked in the gullet. Luckily, I was able to safely reach in an cut the barb off so the hook slipped out and his fish swam off strong after a little rest in a well aerated livewell.👍🏻 By then the SW wind had picked up, so we left the quickly growing 2ft. waves to try for largemouth in a sheltered bay. The protected south shore produced nothing, so we jumped to the windy north shore to try some docks. I really liked the look of a big covered dock with metal posts, and sure enough I caught a 3.5# largemouth there to end the day. It was a great day, very happy that maybe we’re learning a bit about these big Lake Ontario smallmouth. I think we were doing the right things a month ago, but looking a little too shallow for big ones. And we did enforce what a tournament angler told us, that once you find them at a certain depth on a given day you can pretty much shade your map and cut out 90% of the lake. Yesterday we caught all but one of our big fish in 11-12ft. of water, nothing deeper and only the last one in 9ft after the wind and waves had come up.

Glad to hear you’re back at it! For sure a 3lb. will get your heart going! 👍🏻😎

Too easy! I had something similar happen to me many years ago. We were on a canoe trip up the Petawawa River and I was catching nice smallmouth like crazy on a Rapala rattling Fat Rap. I’d caught a ton and should have retied much earlier, but finally caught one that broke me off. I was bummed because that was my hot lure and I didn’t have a spare. But about 5 seconds later, the bass jumped and I heard my bait rattle and saw ripples on the calm water about 10ft. from where the fish jumped. I paddled over, retrieved my lure and went back to catchin’ ‘em.😁

Hey @TnRiver46 and @Peacedivision…. good fishing! But how do you guys post so many photos? I have to shrink mine to max. 2mb total pics, so they’re very grainy and four is about the most I can post. Definitely can’t post any video. 🤷🏼‍♂️

@BluegillsTightlines … social media is a cesspool. Keep posting your pics here though, please - we want to see them and hear your stories.👍🏻 Like this beautiful, fine specimen I caught today on a frog. We named her Anna… Anna Rexia.🤪 She had the head and length of a 4+, but probably weighed 2.5#

haha. Cooper’s not a big guy, but Wes is - 6’3” 245# and still a few months until he’s 16yo. He’s pretty much the same size as me - I used to be 6’4”, now I’m shrinking. But I’m 240# of old muscle and life experience, so Wes still has to mind his manners.😝 I’m guessing that scale will tip after one more football season though.😬 Some nice fish from the crew here. I’m hoping to contribute more as our water temps cool and the fall bite heats up.🤞🏻

Wes and I were at it again on Wednesday. We wanted to chase Lake Ontario smallmouth, but the city owned launch/marina in town has started charging $22.50 to launch (used to be free). So we headed west to the next launch, which doesn’t have much parking… and found not only was the launch full, but the church parking lot next door (which doesn’t allow parking) was also full and it dawned on me this was guys prefishing for the big CISA tournament this weekend. There were lots of trucks covered in sponsor decals and Wes recognized Cooper Gallants truck. So we headed another 15 miles west to the next launch… and found it also beyond full with trucks/trailers parked all down the shoulder of the road.😒 So, we switched gears and decided to try fishing the east end of Hay Bay for largemouth since we were already halfway there. I’d been wanting to try Hay Bay, but it was a lot shallower than I thought, just a huge expanse of 2-5ft. deep and sparse weeds in the main bay. We ended up finding a few on floating docks out the neck of the bay where the water gets deeper, our best a 3.5#. You can see from how Wes is suited up in the first pic that we’ve got cool temps recently, it was quite chilling running across the bay. Water temps are already down to 69-70F. And the bass are starting to fatten up, and were aggressively hitting a bladed jig. I also forgot where I was, and donated one of those expensive bladed jigs of the name we cannot say to a pike 😕 before adding a leader. Wes wanted to drive back along Lake Ontario again on the way home to maybe see some nice bass boats. Wouldn’t you know, as we were driving back by the launch we saw Cooper Gallants truck backing down to the ramp. Wes was pretty excited about that, so I wheeled around and parked, said let’s walk down and say hi. I’m not sure Wes believed me but Cooper was checking his boat and I just walked up and introduced us. Cooper was very friendly, we talked about how rough the lake was and how much pressure the Lake Ontario smallmouth are getting now. Then I asked Cooper if he’d mind taking a photo with Wes. He was happy to, and Wes didn’t stop talking and smiling about it until he went to bed hours later.😊

Went up to visit my 88yo. Dad this weekend. He’s still doing great, living alone in a place on the Ottawa River. Wes is my adventure buddy, so was up for the 3.5 hour drive, sharing a double bed for two poor nights’ sleep and enjoying some very mediocre fishing. Saturday morning the weather was lovely, and we caught about 10 pretty stereotypical smallmouth casting along the shore over a period of almost four hours. We tried a couple shoals, but no luck. Still haven’t figured out much on the Ottawa River smallies, and I’m told there’s not much to figure out - the fishing isn’t that good. I find it very hard to believe there aren’t any bigger ones, but after 1/2 dozen trips in as many years we still haven’t caught any over about 3#. I was done with the river, so Sunday morning we tried fishing Corry Lake which is on the Chalk River just west of Petawawa. It was a very efficient outing, with two fishing trips to this lake in the same day - our first and last. After almost two hours Wes figured out a bit of a pattern and we finally put seven in the boat - Wes’ first was maybe 2# and he threw it back said no photo needed. I convinced him to let me take a pic of his second fish, because I had a feeling we needed record for this double trip before we fled the area. I’m a very sharing fisherman though - PM me if you want the GPS coordinates for the boat launch.😂 Oh well. Good to see family and boy I love that Wes is up for anything involving the new boat. ❤️

@Lottabass I’ve never seen or even heard of a crappie hitting a frog. That’s crazy.🤪

I woke up with eye trouble today - couldn’t see myself working. So I woke Wes early (8:30am 😂) and said let’s go get ‘em. Today was the mental health day I really needed, beautiful weather (partly cloudy, about 70-75F with a cool breeze) and the fishing was quite good. We were on ‘em consistently with a drop shot and black minnow or black worm, then Wes jacked a few flipping a 10” Power Worm including a 3.80#. I decided to try something different and caught a couple including a 3.23# with a big black Coffee Tube on a bubba shot. Most fish came off of wood, some fully submerged some partially but wood was the constant with very little action on the summer spot weed beds. That’s a definite indicator to me the fall transition is starting. I think we caught about 15-ish fish between 1.5-3.5#. All largemouth save for a 2.3# smallie for Wes. A great day! 😎

Yeah, those big swimbaits are a lot of fun to fish. I setup a rod for it but haven’t thrown them much as this summer has been very tough fishing. I did catch my first glidebait bass while fishing for pike in May. Walking a bone coloured S-Waver and saw it blast sideways when a 3.5# largemouth nailed it unexpectedly over a weedbed at a depth I wouldn’t expect a bass to be at that time of year. Out of season, but still fun. Our weather is cooling off here, it may be time to put in some more effort with the couple glides I have.

I used to use Seaguar Blue or Salmon, with good results. Recently been using Diawa J-Fluoro Leader, mostly because the local shop stocks it and the guys there recommended it when it cam out. I've had good results, seems to survive well fishing neds and dropshot around zebra mussels and rock.

Day two of Wes’ plan to make his old man fish three days in a row.🤪 We took a buddy of his out on Lake Ontario, looking for big smallies. We don’t know this huge lake, and being a near flat calm morning we had an overwhelming choice of guesses. First spot wasn’t what I thought, we weren’t there long before I picked an area of 8-12ft. deep shoal to try. I had a follower on my first cast with an underspin, then we landed three in probably 1/2 hour - 2.2, 2.4 and 3.1-ish with the boys both using a black 6th Sense Party Minnow on a dropshot, mine (the 3#) came on a 1/6oz. XZone tungsten Ned head and ZMan TRD in goby colour. Wes lost probably a 4# after a great fight, then that was it… crickets. We saw a few others but they wouldn’t bite - seemed like they shutoff. We went looking for more spots to try, and it seemed there was a bass boat on every shoal, hump or flat that I saw on the map. I was told the Lake O. monsters are getting heavily pressured, which I didn’t think was possible but seems it is. Most boats had a guy or two at the front, staring at a screen. 😕 So, a great start and a long drag between that and the bunch of 1-1.5# we caught at our reliable small fish spot… which the scopers either don’t know about, or they just have higher standards. 😝 Last note, Wes’ buddy didn’t own a spinning setup and asked for advice on a drop shot/ned setup. I took him to our favourite shop and we set him up with a Diawa Legalis 2500 and Diawa Procyon 7’3” ML rod. In his budget, and he was very happy with his first few fish on it - I do believe the Diawa reels, especially, offer great value at the lower-mid price range. EDIT: Day three is cancelled due to rain and high winds forecast as a cold front moves in. We desperately need the rain.

Wes and I got out with a buddy of mine, to a very popular lake that we’ve never really done well on but my friend grew up fishing. We got to see areas we’d never been, and learned a lot about the lake and how it’s fished over the years (it ain’t what is used to be, apparently, now that’s it’s a heavily pressured tournament lake). We spent over an hour working pads and slop with a frog and a weightless fluke, with not even a sniff. So we switched gears and went to a weedy rock point that slopes off sharply to 15ft. of water where the weeds taper off. We were on fish immediately, catching probably 20 in less than an hour. Nothing big, all about 1.5-2.5# but I was catching smallmouth off one side of the boat, Wes and my buddy catching largemouth off the other - very cool. Wes caught a couple on a bladed jig, then he and my buddy caught several on a 10” Power Worm, but I did some real damage on a drop shot with a black Berkley max scent worm. We held four for a photo opp, then released them in the same spot. A good afternoon, and a great start to Wes’ plan… that we’re fishing all weekend. 🙂

For the amount you’ll need, I’d just use whatever standard moss green line you already own - anything 20-40# should work fine. And I can’t imagine any advantage to cheap vs. more expensive line - braid’s not expensive anyway. But I do plan to use red hooks when I replace some of my own on cranks and topwater.