The Baron

Wes and I were on Lake Ontario before sunrise, expecting a great day. We had a good adventure, but Wes caught the only smallmouth of the morning.🙁 Made me feel moderately better talking to a guy at the ramp who had three screens up front, and said it was a slow morning for him too - said he only caught a few. My only catch was a drum, which was a welcome minute or two of drag peeling fun.

Wes and I finally located some decent sized Lake Ontario smallmouth.😎 We’ve been catching them, but hadn’t broke 3lbs yet (which is small, by Lake Ontario/St. Lawrence River standards). That changed this afternoon with a few 3’s and a couple 4’s in the net. A Zman goby coloured Ned rig and black minnow on a dropshot were the winners. We’re headed out tomorrow to break 5# barrier (🤞🏻) before we start family “vacation” and can’t fish for a week.😢🤣

Yes, the lower priced auto-inflating PFDs use a water soluble bobbin. I had both of ours go off when stored under the seat storage in a Bass Tracker (very humid/wet storage) so lesson learned. Hung them in the garage and had one go off again in humid weather… twice. Now I store them inside and still had one go off spontaneously one morning when sitting on the seat in the boat - not sure if it was humidity or a splash of water. Now we’re fishing Lake Ontario more often and have had some runs in a bit rougher water so we’re getting splashed and it’s just a matter of time before another vest goes off from that. At $30 for each recharge plus the annoyance, I’m planning to pickup a couple Mustang HIT vests which user a hydrostatic pressure sensor to inflate so can get splashed or be in humid weather and not go off. They’re a lot more money (about 3x the price of the soluble bobbin style) but at the current rate of having to buy recharge kits, I’d eventually make my money back.

For lake fishing, we often use a wacky rig as a follow up bait. Smallies miss topwater a lot, and getting a wacky rig right back to them is a high percentage play.

Max Scent Minnow and Flat Worm are my go-to baits for smallmouth. The Max Scent Hit Worm is fantastic for largemouth.

Dropshot for sure. Or a heavy ned (1/4oz), football jig or Carolina rig (try it with a fluke… you’re welcome🙂). BUT… catching smallies from any deeper than 25ft-ish presents the risk of death from barotrauma. My understanding is if you release the fish immediately, the risk is lower. But if you plan to keep them in a livewell, you may need to fizz them. I’m no expert, but I avoid fishing any deeper than 25ft. just to be safe.

Smallmouth are great fighters, and a blast to catch. Try some topwater in low light - a Whopper Plopper or Choppo 90, 110 or 130 (depending on your local bait size) is a super fun and sometimes very productive way to catch ‘em. Spooks can be great too.

Looks like a Rock Bass to me.

I love tube jigs for smallmouth, especially small finesse tubes. I’ll try various retrieves any given day - hop, snap, crawl and swim - because what they want can change day to day. Exception is when fishing over rougher bottom - rip-rap or ridged rock. In those areas a slow drag or swimming seems less prone to landing in a crevice and getting snagged.

Weird. We think it’s the Americans who are not being hospitable.🤷🏼‍♂️ Gotta love politics. 🤮 You would need an Ontario non-resident fishing license to fish our side of the imaginary line. But the grass is always greener on the other side - we read about how great the fishing is on the NY side. lol. There is so much great water, just come up and give it a go. I’ve been over to the Alexandria Bay area a lot in the past, great people and very friendly. Hopefully I’ll be back over there again as part of my regular routine, but the stories about Ontarians having their trucks keyed and tires slashed on day trips to NY have kept me away.🙁

Fished one of my go-to local lakes for a few hours this afternoon. Started off catching a couple small pike on a bladed jig, running it through sparse cabbage on an 8ft. hump. Backed off the downwind side and was able to pull out a few on a 10” power worm from about 12ft. where the weeds taper off. Felt good to catch a few - fishing has been generally poor. Surface temps 79F, which is very hot for around here.

A texas rigged 10” Berkley Power worm is a staple for me in the summer. Usually worked along the edge of weed beds in 8-12ft. of water, it does draw them out. 😎

Holy Hannah, I didn’t really see this properly first time. That girls huge on the front end and torn right up on the back. I’d assume she was a beast pre-spawn!

Great to see you fishing again @Swamp Girl!! 😎😁 I left my desk early yesterday, for an afternoon/evening fish. Very slow, Wes caught a nice one on the flashy swimmer. I caught a couple smaller ones, on a spinner bait and an evening fish on a Choppo. That was for almost four hours’ trying. Our dog days may be here. 😕

This is odd to me, because we use 7mm and even 8mm crossover rings (not always using Yamamoto senkos) and don’t lose any baits. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Yup, that too. Some days it’s really aggressive big “bloopy” pops and short pauses, other days walking either slow or fast. It’s a crazy guessing game what the bass want any given day. I’ve had great luck on the Storm Arashi poppers, from pops to walking it has a great action and good hooks.

A popper is one of my summer go-to lures. Slick calm, usually the first or last hour of light is best. Some days they really want to think about it, other days you’d swear they catch it. On the slow days, try casting at cover and just dead stick it for 10-15 seconds. Then just one little twitch and repeat. I caught one of my best popper bass a few years ago, cast it out and got a backlash. Had been working on that for I don’t know how long and a nice one slurped it. That opened my eyes to just how long it can take for a fish to get tempted. I think a rear feathered treble helps.

What’s “hair”? 😢

Wes played an away football game yesterday - a quarterfinal upset win, so the Kingston Grenadiers U16 team are off to the semifinals. 😎. But that made yesterday a long day, so best we could do was get on the water for early afternoon. It was hot, but the breeze helped and I managed to pull a 4lb+ smallmouth and then a near 4lb largemouth off the same structure just 10 minutes apart. Both on a dropshot Roboworm. Felt good to stick a couple that feel like a snag until the line takes off. Unfortunately, the scale came out for the first time this year with no batteries in it so an honest guess is all I got.

Great stuff! All those bass were hanging out together, saying “hey, that lady in the canoe hasn’t been around in a while”…. “Oh look, something tasty plopping along up there! 😋” 😆👍🏻

Our 4 day heat wave broke Wednesday, but it’s been quite windy. Forecast was good this morning though, 4-8mph winds and about 60 degrees at 5am. Took a buddy to a small local lake, and enjoyed a mix of bass and pike. Caught a couple on a popper early, including the biggest (just over 3# I’d guess). This one made me think I had a much bigger fish, sucked in my popper about 5ft. off some lily pads, then swam out fast into 8.5ft. of water where it got wrapped up in submerged coontail. Treble hooks are trouble in the weeds and I only had a medium rod with 12# copoly. I keep pressure, he finally swam free, and just as we saw some gold he pulled drag and put me right back into a different patch of weeds. Steady pressure again and I tightened the drag just enough to feel some progress, with my buddy finally netting my “5 pounder” that was the fish and two pounds of weeds. lol The topwater bite didn’t last an hour, then we got into a good bite with my buddy throwing a spinnerbait and me using a paddletail on a flashy swimmer. That bite died about 7am, and we only caught a few more the next two hours. Ended up with probably 15 bass, a dozen pike, one bitten off frog and a couple waypoints to build on next time. At one point, I turned to say something to my buddy and saw black smoke to the west. I called 911 and they said thank you, it’s been reported and fire department is dispatched. It was probably less than 10 minutes before we heard sirens from the south, then 5 minutes later more from the north, as this area is between two rural fire stations. Not a bad response time for an all volunteer fire department. The smoke turned white and ended not long after the sirens stopped. I hope everyone was ok, and hate the thought of a house fire happening to anyone.

Oh lawd, we’ve all godda knuckle down and try to fill the void if @Swamp Girl ain’t fishin’. Rest up and hopefully we’ll see you haulin’ in hogs again come September! 🙏🏻💪🏻

Who says you can’t have logical thoughts on alcohol! 🤣 I did the one lure challenge last Saturday, sort of. Fished a small black popper around the shore of a small lake. I had other lures, but after 40 bass in less than three hours, no need to change anything I figured. But I should accept the challenge and just fish a swim jig one day. I have a few, have heard how good they are, but I’ve never thrown one.

I’m relatively new to using a Carolina rig. But generally speaking, I use Texas rig stuff when fishing cover or weedy areas. I use a c-rig for long casts in more open water, so covering more water. I also find that the c-rig is really good for feeling the bottom and finding things of interest. My best luck c-rig bait has actually been the XZone Whiplash Shad. That said, I haven’t tried a salamander type bait yet, which “they” say is “the” c-rig bait.

A Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper on an Owner Flashy Swimmer has been a consistent producer for Wes and I. The xZone Swammers are great too.