The Baron

I’ve got a 2002 Merc 50hp 2-stroke. Runs great. Started no problem yesterday, but was a bear to start this morning (cool out, not cold). But then started immediately this afternoon. We ran about 10min at full throttle for fishing this afternoon, and noticed an electrical/rubber smell. Motor started right up and ran great for the run home, but I realized the smell was definitely from the motor. Pulled the cover off at home and found a hole melted in the rubber face of a part, and looked like a bit of ash inside. Can anyone tell me what this part is?

I took my farmer friends 2 oldest sons out again yesterday. They didn’t seem nearly as enthusiastic as the first trip, and despite one of them catching the first fish about 2 minutes in he spent a lot of time not fishing, instead going through all the tackle in my boat and looking at the fish finder. That frees up the back deck so I decided to fish. I continue to have excellent luck with a white paddle tail on an Owner Flashy Swimmer weighted/willow bladed hook so started with that. I’d caught 4 smallish ones and decided to switch it up and look for a bigger bite. I threw a black and blue chatterbait for probably 30 min with no bites, so I went back to the white swimbait. Literally 3 casts later I boated a 3.95#. About 15 minutes later, I had just reeled the swimbait quickly over a barely submerged clump of weeds in about 5-6ft. of water, then killed it to let it sink and got whacked by a 3.13#. We packed it in after 3 hrs. on the water, which felt like enough for all of us.

@A-Jay - what a gorgeous pair of smallies! @thediscochef - your hands are absolutely huge. It must be impossible to find gloves. ?

@LrgmouthShad @ol'crickety A 10” T-rigged Power Worm in either Tequila Sunrise or Junebug is one of my favourite ways to catch ‘em. Drag that along a deep weed edge real slow. ?

@ol'crickety lol. We found a sandy bottom in a lot of areas, so we’re assuming that’s where the name came from.

I could write a very long list of weaknesses, and brag on a much shorter list of strengths. But I think my most recent lesson on my personal limitations is all day fishing. I was on the water 6:30am-5pm on Sunday and came home exhausted and not much good to my family for spending any quality time. Fishing was not that good, and in hindsight I did not have much fun trying to push a rope that long. I'm going to start capping myself at 4-5 hour half days.

Well, I talked with a buddy who fishes Desert Lake regularly and he said he doesn't bother in September, said fish are scattered and it's too tough. He's fishing lake trout now but said the fishing will heat up in October and even better well into November. Seems like unless you really know exactly where your fish were and where they're going, the transition is a struggle. And so, a very bad time to try and learn a new lake.

A pretty disappointing day. Caught about a dozen each of largemouth and smallmouth, plus a few pike. Everything small - biggest bass might have made 2#, but I doubt it. ?? We tried it all - spooks, cranks, jerkbaits, dropshot and chatterbaits. Caught them everywhere from 2ft. to 25ft., with no apparent pattern. I cannot figure out this fall fishing thing.? But it’s a very clear water lake and we saw several deep weed beds that deserve a summer visit.

Hitting a new lake tomorrow. Well, I did fish it once a few years ago with a friend, and we did very well just casting the shore. But this time I’ve been looking at maps, planning a bit better now that I’ve advanced from zero knowledge to basic. lol The lake has smallmouth and largemouth, and as (almost) always up here, lure stealing pike. I don’t know about water clarity yet - likely medium to fairly clear. Night temps have been getting cool, so we’re a good couple of weeks into the fall transition. It’s a very deep, natural lake. Forecast is light rain overnight, changing to just cloudy all day tomorrow with NE winds 5-10mph. If you’re bored and want to tell me where we’ll catch ‘em, it’s called Desert Lake up here in E. Ontario. My plan is to start at the major point up the west side of the lake, and focus on that SW arm. Topwater, jerkbait, squarebill, medium crankbaits and chatterbait are my preferred weapons of choice. Focussing on hard banks, hard cover and fairly shallow (<15ft). We’ll see… https://www.gpsnauticalcharts.com/main/ca_on_v_103382205-desert-lake-nautical-chart.html

Not much topwater love today, but a white 3.75” Strike King Rage Swimmer on an Owner Flashy Swimmer hook put four 2-3#ers in the boat for me this morning.? All were in the shade, tucked up close to a blast rock/sparse weed shorelines in 1-3ft. of water. Sunny, little wind and it was a cool 50F overnight.

I've got a spinning reel spooled with 4-5 yr. old 20# yellow braid. Other than color fade, it's seems perfectly fine. I'll likely only change it is I start having line twist or wind knot issues, or if I decide to change line weight.

Not a rookie, but there is so much to learn it takes a lifetime. If the bass fishing expertise scale were a 1-10, I'd say I'm a 2, maybe a 3. My half coffee thought of the morning is to think how much experience a pro bass fisherman gets compared to me. Let's say I get to fish an average 2 days/week for 5 months of the year (working sucks and our bass season is sadly very short - really only late June-mid November and that's IF it stays warm enough to fish that late). So I'm getting about 45 day's experience year. Compare that to a pro who likely fishes 6 days/week for what - 10+ months/year? So that's more like 260 days/year. In 10 years, that means I've got maybe 450 days experience vs. 2600 days for the pro. Plus they hang out with other pros so have direct access to a ton of knowledge, plus the fish the country top to bottom where I may only fish a couple dozen relatively local lakes in my lifetime. That's a depressing takeaway.? Welp... off to work.☹️?

Looks thin, but at 24" she's still got to be pushing 7# ?

If I’ve got a light office day planned, I may sneak out to fish a few hours in the early morning. Always risky though, because I’m on call 24/7 and those early mornings catch up to me pretty bad now at about 2-3pm.

I decided to give the couple of lakes I’ve been focusing on a break, and try to change my luck (which has been poor recently). It worked and we had a fun day. I hooked and landed 4 decent largemouth and about 8 pike (one about 4#, the rest very small) on a chatterbait. This was a victory for me, as I’d previously had very poor luck on a chatterbait. It may have finally sunk in for me that this lure needs to be run through or just ticking the top of sparse weeds. It’s a very cool bite feeling as the bait feels like it just stalls and then the instinctive rod sweep loads up on a fish. ? I was fishing a 1/2oz. Z-Man Original on a 7’ MH moderate rod with 12# Suffix Advance. My hookup ratio was very high and landing percentage 100% so it confirms the softer rod and line stretch in that system is perfect. I also caught one largemouth on a jerkbait, and missed a couple good ones (big blowups, anyway) on a frog. All in all, a very good day. ?

I've got a couple 6-7" pieces of 1" dowel rod in my line box that I use for seating my FG knots. If I need to break off heavy line, I wrap it around the dowel several times and use that to pull. Be careful not to wrap the line over itself anywhere on the dowel, especially with fluorocarbon, or it could damage the line.

I’m going to pick up a 7’4-7’6” MH glass cranking rod for chatterbait fishing. Local options are the St. Croix Mojo Glass, Halo Crankin’ Series II, 13 Fishing Meta-G or Lews David Fritts composite crankin’ rod. Are any of those a stand out for throwing 1/2oz.+ chatterbaits?

I bought this spinning rod, thinking the extra length would help with long casts and an XF tip would provide better hook sets with small-medium Keitech type swim baits (2.5-3.5” with 1/4-3/8oz. heads). I paired it with a Shimano Ultegra 2500 and 15# braid to a 10# fluoro leader. The rod has been disappointing for this purpose, with poor casting distance and a very low landing percentage. So, I’m going back to a medium/fast rod for my small swimbaits. Which leaves me wondering what other use this rod is best suited for. There are no suggested uses marked on the rod and I couldn’t find anything on the Lews website. It’s called “Smallmouth Magic” so there must be some such application it excels at? ??‍♂️

Fishing continues to be slow for me, with so many cold fronts and rain recently. Went out Saturday morning before more rain hit in the afternoon. No smallies biting, only a couple small LMB on my go-to popper so I switched over to a frog. Missed one on a standard walking frog then decided to switch colours and go to a popping frog. The next fish hit that frog like it owed him money, then I picked up a second decent one not long after (both about 2.5#) in the same area. That was it, so I moved on down the windward shore trying to decide what to do next. I lost a pike on a small swimbait (didn’t get to see it, but a 3 second fight and then a snipped bait tells the tale). The next two hours were fishless.? Two decent fish is a lot better than a skunk, but not a very satisfying result for 4 hours’ on the water. With poor fishing, rain coming and work weighing on my mind, I felt the pressure to call it quits at about 10am.

@Captain Phil That’s hilarious. I can say that, so far, I’ve caught no more fish this year from a bass boat with 5-6 rod combos and every lure I own at my disposal, than I did last year in a canoe with 3-4 combos on hand and one tackle bag. But, by golly, I sure am more comfortable and the fancy sonar can keep me entertained for hours!? @Big Hands Yes, sounds like we’ve evolved about the same. My rod/reel collection does allow me to mix and match to do anything a bass fisherman needs. I think it’s more my OCD for perfection that keeps my spinning in circles and buying the next perfect rod or reel - with no sign of anything improving just yet.?

@A-Jay Are those rod sleeves colour coded? ? I’m stealing that idea - colour coded by rod ratings, maybe?

Not sure this is the right forum… but I’m wondering how everyone else approaches organizing your arsenal of rods/reels. I really plunged back into bass fishing only a few years ago. I’m blessed with a good job and a little disposable income so have been adding rods and reels more or less ad hoc as I want to dial in technique specific setups. This has led me to amass 16 rods and 14 reels (I’m in Canada, so that’s split almost down the middle for spinning/baitcasters). All are of good quality but somewhere along the way whatever plan I had degraded and I feel like I’ve got a random assortment. When I start adding in line choices I feel almost overwhelmed with options. Complicate this with the fact my kids like to fish, so I at times need duplicates if we both want to fish the same way on a given day. So, for those blessed to be able to line the deck with combos - how do you go about choosing and organizing your combos? Maybe just have a “perfect” setup for the 1/2doz. favorite presentations and a few floaters for the rest? The second aspect is related, being when you’re headed to Lake X how to you decide what to bring without having the boat look like a hardware store of combos that don’t even get used? Do you ever just say I’m frog fishing and that’s it, or I’m fishing these three ways and that’s it? This is very much a first-world problem, I know, but I’m still curious. lol

That was my first thought back in May, but the length and amount would be shocking so I wasn’t convinced. Now I know for sure it’s not bait, because it’s always there in the same place.

Here’s a largemouth I caught Saturday on a swimbait. He wallowed once, but if he’d jumped and head shook I bet he’d have been gone too because he was barely hooked even though he really sucked the bait in. Maybe just not enough hook gap is the problem, but I watch guys fishing the same type baits on YouTube and feel like I’m the only guy having this problem so consistently. @bulldog1935 I’ve started trying to plunge my rod tip into the water when I see my line coming up fast with a smallie headed to jump. Looks cool, but I’m still not getting any good fish pics. ?