The Baron

Wow, makes me think I hung it up for the season too soon. 👍🏻

A few of the die-hards still at it.👍🏻 Update from Canada: The boat is still sealed up and most lakes are freezing over now. Only about 4 months left until we fish again.😩 One good thing about getting old is the 5 months of suck will go by as fast as our 5 months of fun did.

😱 Yeah, that one’s OK. Not as big as all the ones I lose though. 🤣

Welcome! Bass fishing can be as simple or as complicated as you choose, often with similar results. lol 🙃

I did the same thing. It was very expensive. Beware. 😬😂 Oh, and welcome! 🙂

Lots of pike up here. The big pike have usually dropped deep come our summer bass opener, but the little pike (<3 lbs) are a common catch when bass fishing. The don't "usually" steal many moving baits, but things like frogs and jerkbaits that usually get hit on the pause are always at risk (especially frogs on braided line). A lot of pike come in fairly easy and then try to roll/thrash at the boat, and that's when the majority get lost so if we don;t have a leader on we try to net them right away and not play around. If we're fishing in areas with a lot of pike, I'll often run a 6" leader made of 50# fluorocarbon. The guy I buy them from calls them "just in case" leaders, and they'd good for expensive things like jackhammers and glidebaits that I really don't want to lose. But, they're supple enough to not affect the lures action much and bass don't seem to notice them even in clear water. Catching pike on purpose is fun, especially in spring/fall when the big ones can be caught shallow. Catching pike while bass fishing can be annoying, especially when you load up the rod and then everything is just gone. lol

Well, that’s it for our 2024 season. Wes and I fished for a couple hours this afternoon. Water temps were 50-53F and we only caught 1 pike. I don’t know where to find ‘em when it’s that cold, so we’re done for the year. It makes me sad, but we had another great year in our little Bass Tracker. Time to winterize the boat and spend more time in the fall woods. (my biscuit topped squirrel pie just came out of the oven 😁)

Excellent! Do you have a spare bedroom? 😁

Well, my fall fishing bonanza has taken a sudden downturn. I fished a week ago and water temp was in the low 67’s… this afternoon it was in the low 58’s. I was really looking forward to the great fishing I had last year as water temps fell through the 60’s, but I seem to have pretty much missed it this year. 😞 Only one 4# fatty on a plopper today, and a couple smaller ones. Had another good fish on a deep crankbait but it got off before I had a chance to see it. Might be time to winterize the boat and start hunting. 😕

It was absolutely beautiful here today - high in the mid 60’s, sunny and a cooling north breeze. Water temps were 64.5-66. Not a lot of bites on the buzzbait, but good quality and enough for me to not put it down all afternoon. The last was a 4.2# that absolutely train wrecked it. 😁

Congratulations! Funny that your friend heard you holler and texted you. 😆👍🏻

Wednesday was my mentee’s 1st work birthday - he’s an engineer fresh outta school and getting the hang of the job very well. So I said we should celebrate and go fishing (he’s an avid hunter and fisherman). He liked the option of topwater smallies, so I hoped for a repeat on that. We launched into thick fog at sunrise and ran the same plan as Wes and I did on Sunday. It held up well and we caught probably 20 smallies and a handful of pike. Average size was down a bit, I caught a 3.75# and a 3.92# near the end but most were 1.5-2.5#. No complaints though, it was a good couple hours. Our topwater bite died not long after the fog finally cleared, so we went shallow for the last 45 minutes and blanked on trying to find any largemouth.

A local shop sells A-Rigs, it’s a great shop with good staff who specialize in bass fishing so I would “assume” they’re legal here. I’ll definitely confirm our regulations about number of hooks/baits before proceeding - I’m sure the guys at the shop will know as well. Sounds like I should try one, at least once. Our water temps are at 67 and should be falling slowly down toward the 50’s through October. Things are just getting great here now. 😎 EDIT: checked our regs and its maximum 4 hooks in Ontario. The local shop sells only the 6th Sense Divine A-rigs, so I’ll just run one of the 5 arms with no hook. 👍🏻

OK, it’s fall feeding season. We caught smallmouth chasing small bait on the weekend. I’m now thinking an A-Rig / Umbrella Rig could be a ton of fun… or it could be a money wasting rabbit hole.🤔 I’ve got a couple suitable rods to throw them on. My question is… are they amazing, or just another bait? The fact they’re banned in tournaments makes me wonder if I don’t need to try one and have some fun. Do you fish an A-Rig? Or did you try it and they weren’t worth the hassle? 🤷🏼‍♂️ If you love ‘em, what’s your recommended rig and baits?

That’s some beautiful scenery @Swamp Girl 😎 I’ve been so uninspired about anything lately, it was a toss up whether we’d fish at all this weekend (didn’t fish last weekend either 😕). But I felt guilty at the thought of “wasting” a beautiful early fall day, so Wes and I went after smallmouth. There’s a particular stretch of shoreline that has produced a few for me on a whopper plopper/Choppo in the fall so that was my plan. Water temps were about 67 degrees. We started in about 6-8ft. of water with sparse coontail, and I caught a chunky pike on about my 5th cast. Not long after we’d moved to a deeper shoreline I caught a 2.60# smallmouth near a rock sea wall between two docks in about 5-10ft. of water (it’s a steep shoreline, dropping from 5 to 35+ ft. in a casting length. The pattern along that steep shoreline was my El Choppo 105 around docks, and I weighed four 2-2.5# smb. But it wasn’t a barn burner with a fish every 20-30min. and Wes blanking with his flashy swimmer (we’ve got several other ploppers, but he didn’t want to change). So, I suggested we try a long underwater point that rises steeply from 30ft. of water to a narrow flat 8-10ft. deep. I think we stumbled into a feed and Wes caught a 3.72# on his 2nd cast with a buzzbait (was trying for a largemouth) and I landed a 3.35# and a 4.01# about 5 minutes apart. My 4# was very cool because I had just cast when a good smallmouth swirled 10ft. in front of the boat with a bunch of minnows spraying ahead, then my plopper got whacked about 1 second later. I had one other miss on the plopper, then we lost track of the school, We did see some bait busting again a couple times and trolling motored over there quickly with no luck. So after 1/2 hour with no more bites, we called it a great afternoon and headed home for dinner. 🙂

I’ve been awol so long, I thought I was gonna run out of “likes”. And who the heck is @Swamp Girl 🤷🏼‍♂️😆 @Peacedivision Nice job on the new PB. Impressive to keep pushing that long, but funny how often it happens like that, or on a first cast or last cast when you least expect a record to get broken. I just haven’t been feeling it recently, but I think Wes and I are gonna dust off the boat this afternoon.

Man, @BluegillsTightlines that’s a rough day of fishing when you go to work to get away from it. But I’ve been there. lol We had rain all night Friday-Saturday noon then spotty showers blowing through on a 10-20mph west wind. Wes and I went out around 2pm and enjoyed a cool, windy outing with some spotty rain. We’re in cold front conditions now - it was 57 degrees yesterday afternoon (water temps 68). It’s 42 this morning! Wes was the bass guy yesterday, I was the pike master. I really wanted to fish a whopper plopper but it was too windy, so I caught one bass on a DT-14 but we found them shallow so I switched to a white and chartreuse spinnerbait. The pike loved it so I spent my time shaking off 1-2# pike with a few similar bass mixed in. Wes only caught a few bass on his underspin paddletail, but all were bigger than mine including a 3.4#. We were very glad to have our rain suits for warmth and the couple of showers that we got.

Yea, he shot past 6ft. tall over the summer - he’s not even 15yo yet. Here’s my little boy picking me up at the dock yesterday. 🤪😊

A chilly north wind today, water temps dropped from mid 70’s to 69 in just a week! Wes and I tried a lake he’s never been to and I haven’t fished yet this year. A very laid back outing, just enjoying the cool weather and I was hoping for that one good bite on a glide bait. A buddy who grew up nearby said the lake used to be a very good for bass then pike took it over 15-20 years ago, but apparently the bass are making a comeback. I fished the glide bait for about an hour with no bites. Wes caught a couple small pike and lost a couple inexpensive baits to others before I “suggested” he should put a leader on. We got into more shallow/weedy water so I started throwing a buzzbait - one of my favourite lures to fish. I caught one small largemouth as did Wes, then I called the shot on a little point of pencil reeds in about 2-3ft. of water. Wes caught a small pike then I caught a nice bass off it. I didn’t weight the bass, was probably about 3#. Not long after Wes had another oopsie and accidentally hit the cast button when he tried to flick weeds off his bait. Another spool of FC Sniper cut off prematurely. ☹️

Agreed with @Pat Brown - I haven’t been flipping creature baits much this year, but especially on target flipping (a blowdown or hole in the weeds) I get a lot of bites on the fall. I find it a tricky balance between feeding line so the bait falls straight down, but not being slack and missing those immediate bites. That’s a chilly night - I’d expect your water temps will start dropping and bass will be on the move soon, headed to hard cover that’s holding heat (logs and rocks). We’re already seeing some weed areas turning brown up here, and bass will be gone to green weeds are hard cover.

God bless both of you. And a reminder for me to quite whining about slow fishing or the weather.

Welcome aboard! I’ll be looking forward to some fishing pics from you. Come see is in the Latest Catch Pics thread. 🙂

Welcome!

Another couple days of slow fishing this weekend. Fished dawn until 1pm with my son and a friend of his on Saturday. I only caught a few 1.5-2.5# largemouth, my son caught a nice smallie that was long and surprisingly light at 3.4# (take a look at the photo and tell me what you think the two dents could be from?). Wes’ buddy caught only one 1# largemouth early on. The boys are both 14 and when the fishing proved to be slow they got acting goofy, not listening and then Wes was whining about how hot it was (it wasn’t hot). His friend was casting very aggressively and thought all the bluegill nibbles were big bass he had to violently hookset then say oh, I missed it that was big. I tried to coach him a bit, but he didn’t listen so I gave up and concentrated on not drowning anyone. 🙄😒#yerbugginme Sunday I took a good friend and his 13yo. son to a favourite small lake. My friend used to fish the lake with his dad, and his son had only been there once before when he was young. They were great guests and it was a pleasure to take them to experience that together. His son has a great sense of humour and despite slow fishing he stayed in good spirits. We had some good natured ribbing when he declared it a tournament and kept changing the rules when I was winning. It was a weird day and seemed I caught the first and only fish at each new spot, then there’d be no other bites so we’d move to a new weed bed or hump and I’d do it again even when I hung back and let my guests take a few casts first.🤷🏼‍♂️ I caught 1/2 doz. including one solid bass and a pike that could swim through the eye of a needle - he had some gill damage (not from me) and was obviously struggling, but still fought like a pike does. My buddy got 1 pike and unfortunately his son struck out (had one pike bite him off, that was it). I’ll be trying again to get his young lad out for a better day. 🤞🏻

For sure @Bluebasser86 writes a good update.👍🏻 but I’ve got the same thought on tournaments. That said, my son wants to fish a tournament so maybe I will someday just to say I have. Maybe if I do that with no plans to win and just enjoy the experience, it will be fun. But it could end up like my sporting clays career - tried one tournament just to see what it was like, zero expectations and I shot very well. So then thought I’m good at this and as soon as I thought I’d get serious, that’s about when both engines caught fire and my tail fin fell off… ✈️ 🔥 😆 @Aaron_H My chatterbait setup uses copoly line and a MH/mod crankbait rod. I’ve had great success landing with with that setup. 👍🏻 Crazy to say you lost maybe a 6# but it wasn’t one of the really big ones - a 6# up here would be the fish of the season, if not my life. 🤪