The Baron

To prevent incidental losses, 40# has proven 100% effective. In most cases, the leader isn’t even nicked so will last multiple catches. Steel leaders are stiffer than the 40# fluro and less reliable - they can kink and break almost without warning. If I’m specifically after big pike, I’ll use heavier fluro or titanium leaders.

Ouch, that hurts. 😕 We have a lot of pike up here. I’ll risk inexpensive baits, but for things like jackhammers and glidebaits I use a 6” leader of 40# fluro that a local guy makes. He calls them “just in case” leaders. 40# is limp enough to allow a glidebait to work well, but tough enough to avoid being bitten off. Pike don’t “usually” inhale moving baits too bad, but they tend to t-bone things like glides and jerkbaits on the pause and that’s when things get dicey. Very often it’s the thrashing at the boat that gets you bit off, so a quick and efficient net job is really critical if you’re not running a leader.

Hello from Kingston, Ontario. The rabbit hole is indeed deep… and expensive. 😬😆

I caught a 4-5# bowfin on a white and red spinnerbait a week ago. I saw it surface just off a weed edge, within a long casting distance. It whacked my bait right away and for a while I thought I had a dandy bass on, big headshakes and pulling drag. We catch too many pike on drop shots and even when flipping soft baits.

I took a farmer friends two oldest boys out this morning, which is becoming a couple times a year tradition. I’ve been on two weeks’ vacation and fishing has varied from “poor” to “ok” so I was thankful to have an “ok” morning for them. We started in a big bay, working along a weed edge that’s usually pretty reliable. It was near flat calm and they brought live frogs - I was shocked they caught nothing on them. I caught a 2.5# on my first cast with a popper, then after a while with no more bites I tried a dropshot along the weed edge where it drops for 4-5ft. to 10ft. and got them on a few with that. Their family likes fresh fish so this is a rare occasion I’ll keep some. They brought home five bass about 1.5-2.5# and a couple medium size perch. They were happy… and I brought home a thank you gift of four T-bone steaks from their own beef.😎 Back to work for me tomorrow. I’m ready to go back though, and today was a nice way to end my vacation. (I don’t want to post pics of other peoples kids, hence the markup. Their youngest brother climbed up in the boat to join in the at home photos.)

That’s one heck of a bass, for up here. And to think I’m still looking for one 1/2 that weight! 🤪

I’ve got mostly Shimano Chronarch, SLX DC and Curado DC reels, also a couple BP Johnny Morris, Diawa Tatula and Tatula P/F, and one Quantum reel. As I buy more reels, I’ll be leaning heavily toward Diawa. I just picked up a Diawa cc80 and I’m highly impressed with it for such an inexpensive reel. So based on my own experience, I believe Diawa offers the most bang for your buck. In fairness, I don’t own any Lews reels but I’ve got a couple Speed Stick rods that I’m very happy with.

Welcome! My kids are my favourite fishing buddy’s - sounds like you’ve got good times ahead. 👍🏻

What a great introduction! Welcome, from Ontario Canada. All our lakes up here are natural, so the idea of a closed lake is new to me. But a lake that’s been closed for a while could offer some excellent fishing with you can get out there again.

“Best” is a relative term, because can’t think of anything I’m really good at yet. I took a very long time off of fishing and am still trying to catch up from when I put down my Mitchell 300 spooled with Stren. When I came back to fishing, my first trip to a well stocked bass fishing store was mind boggling. So maybe I could say my obsessive nature and how far I’ve come in a few years is a strength.🤷🏼‍♂️ Weaknesses are many, but I’d say poor casting accuracy probably costs me more opportunities than anything else.

We got quite a bit of rain yesterday, and it was still raining too much for me until late morning today. I didn’t fish yesterday, so decided I’d go ahead and get a little wet this afternoon (I don’t like the idea of my boat carpet getting soaked - I need to get over that, as I feel it may be an irrational concern 🤷🏼‍♂️). So I launched just after noon, with some off and on misty rain but the overcast and light wind were perfect for throwing a Whopper Plopper. I started by letting the wind drift me along a 5ft. flat that drops off into 15-20ft. with weeds on the slope. I caught a 2# smallmouth, then a 1.5# largemouth, and a short while later a 4.1# smallmouth. I tried a crankbait very briefly, but there’s just enough weed for that to not work. I dragged a worm in the weeds a bit with zero success, then went off to try another offshore hump that rises quickly to 10ft. from 50ft. of water. I threw the WP around there with only one small miss, then caught a small one on a dropshot. This is the very clear water lake that I’m still learning (it’s called Loughborough Lake, if y’all want to check it on a map). I went to explore a bay and found it too shallow, so started exploring and covering water again with the WP. The shore I went down is also 5ft. deep flat rock with very sparse weeds for a good distance out, before dropping off into 15-20ft. of water. I started catching a few, then the pattern finally dawned on me I was getting fish along the dropoff from 5ft of water - lmb if I threw more over the 5ft. flat and smallmouth off the deeper side. Once the lightbulb went on I stayed on that edge and caught 1/2 doz. in about 20 minutes, including a pair on consecutive casts. I would have liked to stay, but had to get home to help with dinner and prep for a family beach day tomorrow. Side note, I picked up a Diawa cc80 off FB Marketplace recently, to pair with a 7ft. medium bait caster I have. It casts like a bomb and I’m very impressed with it for a $100 CDN reel (I paid $60). 👍🏻 @ol'crickety - note that I took your advice and fished in the rain.🙂 Making long casts and covering water like @Pat Brown recommended… and yes I got a lot of my bites shortly after starting to retrieve, so more or less at the ends of the casts. Good coaching, both of you. 😎 The best 4 fish from today…

I didn’t know that stuff is called Pickerel Rush. It’s beautiful. And I’d agree that lots of frogs and bees make it sounds like a very healthy ecosystem. 🙂

My son and I got out for a few hours today. The wind was supposed to be very gusty so the frog rods stayed at home, but it was almost calm. We ended up working some offshore weed beds with chatterbait and I threw a Tokyo Rig for the first time. We caught a few pike on chatterbait, which was fun but I put that down to try the Tokyo Rig. I caught my first 5 fish ever on that - 3 bass and 2 pike. The first bass was maybe 1#, so it and the pike were released with no photos. The last bass was about 3.5#, but our scale refused to participate. Both the decent bass picked up the bait and swam toward me, and it was all I could do even with an 8.2:1 reel to catch up to them. The fishing was “ok” but doing it with my son made the few hours great. He drove the boat, which made him quite happy. 😊

Yes, bowfin but we use the name snakehead interchangeably up here (I’ve also heard them called dogfish). This one was maybe 4# and did give me an excellent fight - was wishing it was a monster largemouth when it whacked my spinner bait on a weed edge. I do appreciate the input @ol'crickety I know the clear water is an issue on my new nemesis lake, so am re-rigging some stuff - more fluorocarbon and less straight braid. There’s a lot more rock that my usual places so may also try some cranking, which I’ve never done because everywhere else I fish is just weedy enough to make that impossible. I struggle with early morning fishing - I love it, but like my early morning turkey hunts it puts me totally out of sync with the rest of the family. My son and I might try for the evening bite today, but those trips mess up family dinner which is something we value. If I was away from home I’d gladly fish the early morning and late evening, with a quality nap in between. 😊

I’m still battling a bit of a slump, not smart enough to take a break from it. I’ve been wanting to figure out a fairly large local lake, a very popular fishing destination but all new to me. After looking at contour maps I went out one afternoon and graphed over a very long rocky flat/point that falls fairly sharply on 2 sides from 4-5ft. to 15-25ft. with weeds then to much deeper water (eventually to over 90ft). The wind was blowing onto the point so I figured current, weeds, and a drop off it’s got to be good. Plan was to throw my new love Carolina rig and feel it out. I caught a 2.5lb. lmb on my first cast and thought “oh man, I’m learning!”. We all know how that story ends… 🙄 I couldn’t buy another bite so switched gears and just casted along the shore. I found lots of logs in the water so a good area to work. I did catch a couple along there, including a 3#. I tried the lake another day and caught a couple smallmouth on the rocky flat, and saw others cruising. I then tried for largemouth and although I saw some in the very clear water (visibly about 15ft. thanks to the zebra mussels), they wouldn’t bite anything I tried. I was frustrated by those two outings, so went to a different lake another afternoon. I don’t know the lake much better and caught zero for 3 hours in the afternoon heat. I was downright dejected after that. But I dragged myself out of bed at 3:30am to fish a lake I know much better yesterday morning. Only one swipe at my popper so I switched from topwater to a flashy swimmer and caught a decent smallmouth. Then I just picked up a dropshot and eventually caught 1/2 dozen, a couple pike, and another smallmouth and a snakehead on a white spinnerbait. I also fished a frog in some scattered slop with zero bites, so went back to the dropshot for a couple more. So my luck is on the upswing but I’m struggling to catch more than one fish at a time and long breaks between. Hopefully the upswing will continue. I’m wanting to get a friends two young sons out this week, but the fishing has been so slow I’m hesitant to risk it.

Oh, man that’s rough. Hang in there, and maybe try for her again when you’re up to it. 🤞🏻

I took a 30 year break from fishing - beat that. 🤪 I was a keen fisherman until I was 16 and got my gun license, then became an avid hunter. We had kids later in life (second when I was 40) and when they were young I was looking for ways to entertain them, so I took them fishing… and accidentally hooked myself. I came back in with a lot of time to makeup, and am doing my best.👍🏻 But I hear what you mean @RenzokukenFisher. I went through a major life upset 14 years ago. An abrupt career change just as we’d had our second child, that ended up taking almost a decade to recover from, financially. I followed the wrong road in a self-employed mistake and there was a 2 year period in there where I didn’t even buy a spring turkey hunting license. I know we’re talking fishing, but for me at the time, and I’m happy to say again now, spring turkey season was/is the highlight of my year. I keep a hunting diary and anyone reading it would see those were some tough times with almost no entries 4-5 years when previous seasons would each span several pages. Looking back, I realize I totally missed two season and there’s no way I can add them at the end of my story - they’re gone. The lesson I took away is that, no matter what life throws your way it’s important to make time for yourself. Doing your Masters is a fantastic investment in yourself, but you should mark a couple prime days on the calendar for some fishing. You’ll come back to the books with a renewed energy if you give yourself some quality mental breaks.

That’s a rough few years for sure @Fir3hawk. “What does not kill you, makes you stronger”. And now a wonderful new beginning with your first child. ❤️

Today I got up at 3:30am (aka way too early), to capitalize on the dawn topwater bite. I got zero love on topwater 😕 and in fact had zero bass bites at all in what’s “usually” a great morning spot. So I switched gears and tried dragging a Carolina Rig. Didn’t take long until I had the bass of my dreams pulling drag, which quickly degraded into being about 6-7# pike that snipped me off just as I botched the net job and only had him 1/2 in. A bunch more drags, then I threw a chatterbait and flashy swimmer for a 1/2 hour with no more bites. I was now annoyed at getting up so early for nothing, so decided to stop fishing for a bit and map more of this uncharted lake on my Garmin. I explored a shallow weedy bay with pads at the back and some bits of floating mats, that just screamed frog so I reached for my frog rod only to find I’d left it in the garage in my 4am stupor. I cut my flipping bait off, tied on a frog and after changing frogs 3 times to find one I could walk with a telephone pole of a rod, proceeded to get zero bites despite working the entire bay for an hour. So I switched bays, right to the other end of the lake and frogged a bit more with zero bites. Decided oh well they’re not biting shallow today, so I’ll go dropshot on my secret honey hole… which was part of my original plan for the day… too bad my drop shot rod was also in the garage, right next to my frog rod.🙄 By now it was 8:30am - 3.5 hours of fishing and not a single bass, plus two of the rods I intended to bring were somehow left behind. After questioning just why I was even here and wondering how much I money I could get for all my fishing stuff I started dragging a 10” worm along a weed line… and finally caught a couple. But that was for another 1.5 hour of effort. I think that brought me to plan F or G which was continue learning how to use a Carolina Rig. I managed to catch a few more off the edge of a weedy, gravel hump where the weeds start to fade out from 10-15ft. of water. By then it was 11am and I decided I’d had enough mediocre fishing for one day. Ended up with 6 bass between 1-2.5# for about 6 hours of trying.😒 I didn't get skunked, and it was a beautiful morning, but holy cow I feel like I got my butt kicked. I’ve just started 2 weeks vacation, and I sure do hope the fishing gets better.😬🤞🏻

Hahaha - I had the same thing when I was away too long. Not enough “likes” to catch up in one day. 🙂

If only you weren’t so stubborn, you’d have caught a decent number of fish. 🤪😂👍🏻

Sounds like a great day! We had a similar experience yesterday, Spot-locked on a cast that produced about 10 fish in a matter of maybe 20-30 minutes. 😎 The wind was a struggle for us yesterday. We’d fished probably 2+ hours with not a bite, then were locked over a saddle between two humps that rise to 8-10ft. from 22ft. of water. I’ve been meaning to try a Carolina Rig so decided if we’re catching nothing perhaps now’s the time to try. It was a great way to stay on bottom in the wind and I also learned how much it tells about the bottom as I could feel gravel, small rocks and weeds. Then I caught a fish and that little 1.5# was like a 5lb-er for my satisfaction level and my son as well that we finally shot the skunk.🙂 My son then caught a 3.5# and a smaller one, I caught one more so we were pretty happy to have found some. We moved on and I was telling Wes a spot that prior was the only time I’d even been able to catch multiple fish back to back. Well, we “lucked” into it again and I caught a few quickly on a drop shot worm with the same cast, into about 12ft. of water. Then we switched rods because Wes’ reel was all messed up, so he caught a couple 1.5-2lbers on that spot while I fixed his rod. He was happy to stay with the dropshot so I thought if they’re on bottom, that’s where I need to fish. He was using a paddletail on an owner flashy swimmer, so I made a similar cast and let it sink to bottom before retrieving. Wouldn’t you know it, I got three bites almost back to back. Usually good hooksets on the swimmer, but the first was about 2lb. and lost him at the boat, the second was a really good one. He was pulling hard and when I saw the line coming up I plunged the rod but he wallowed, and was gone. 😢 We floated over “the spot” and the graph shows maybe a rock pile with weeds around it - I’m not really sure what it is, but you can rest assured it’s on my list for that lake! An interesting note, the water in this lake is like green tea which is very unusual for here - black/blue/purple and white are the colours to use, it seems.

My son and I put together a decent bag today. We both caught about 8-10, his mostly with a paddletail minnow on an Owner Flashy Swimmer and one on a spinnerbait. I got a couple bites on a speed worm, one on a spinnerbait but then got into a good frog bite around sparse pads in 3-4ft. of water. My hookup percentage was much higher than usual, possibly because they were choking it (I’d like to think my timing is improving as well). My frog fish included a 3.85# and 4.45# 😎

Hey… how to y’all post so many photos? I get capped at 1mb and have to shrink my photos to be pretty grainy. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Thought the rainy weather yesterday might be good, and it was for my son but we caught mostly small pike. My son had the hot stick catching about a dozen, including his new PB lmb at 3.74# caught on a b&b chatterbait. He caught another that was very long, but skinny and only weighted 3.3#, that one on a flashy swimmer. It seemed the fish wanted moving baits in the middle of the water column in 6-10ft. yesterday. Dad got trampled, I only caught one 2.5er on a frog and a couple small pike so didn’t make the podium for any photos.lol