My brothers are in town this coming week as I am hosting our river fishing trip.

2019 we did trout on the epic Bow, Crow's Nest & Old Man Rivers near Calgary, Canada.

 

This year its Ontario, Canada. We' ll canoe or kayak the Thames & Saugeen Rivers with a few days with a guide on Lake Huron and Erie. 

 

Wish me luck. Were limiting our lure/bait selection each day. As an example on the river trips we will each bring 

- 1 bag of 3.5" Kietech on a split shot rig

- whopper Plopper

- 1 bag of senko or trick worm

- unlimited jigs with or without trailers or one bag of tubes.

On the lakes we will bring

- again the kietechs but on swimjigs

-  one bag of tubes rigged weedless

- one deep crankbait

- ned or dropshot

 

 

Daily bets for 1st fish, largest fish and most fish.

 

Ps - i have two brothers ages 58 and 56. I'm the middle son.

End of day 1. We fished a 400 yd long boulder feild in about 3 ft of clear water in the sunshine with a bit of breeze.

1st fish of the day was a 15" walleye, took about an hour to get my brother dialed in on as good pattern.

Little brother took home honors with a #3.3 and a #3.7 smallie on a lime/watermelon craw and a 1/8th oz split shot.

Tomorrow we move downriver to a bit more depth. Should be alot of rock again, clear water, clear sky, max 7 ft depths and 1.5 to 2 ft/sec flows. 

Im thinking of white flukes, small shallow cranks and topwater

3 hours ago, PaulVE64 said:

End of day 1. We fished a 400 yd long boulder feild in about 3 ft of clear water in the sunshine with a bit of breeze.

1st fish of the day was a 15" walleye, took about an hour to get my brother dialed in on as good pattern.

Little brother took home honors with a #3.3 and a #3.7 smallie on a lime/watermelon craw and a 1/8th oz split shot.

Tomorrow we move downriver to a bit more depth. Should be alot of rock again, clear water, clear sky, max 7 ft depths and 1.5 to 2 ft/sec flows. 

Im thinking of white flukes, small shallow cranks and topwater

Awesome!

End of day 2

 

Most of the day was lost to thunderstorms. It poured until about 3 pm so we went from about 6pm til dark. We threw only topwater but only managed a few smallies. 

The big drama of the night was little brother taking trebles hooks in the hand from a thrashing smallie. He got one hook right past the barb and mr smallie just kept thrashing. We had a good laugh before we unhooked him and like good brothers we got some video first.

The rains clears out but its  supposed to remain cloudy for a few more days.

End of day 3

Most of the day has been lost to thunderstorms.

We managed to stretch a 2 hr window into 3 hr and everybody caught a smallie on a jig.

Tough go today.

 

 

End of day 4

More thunderstorms today. Since the river is blown out we tried a local largemouth pond but the boat was skunked for the first time.

Hoping for better weather and if the wind calms down we could get out onto the lake this weekend

 

 

End of day 5

The weather has finally stabalized but the lake has 4 ft swells so was back to river for fishing.

Most of the damage today was on a 3" pitboss in black w/ blue flake and on a 4" Archelon. 

Tomorrow we have our first full day of nice weather and "the bet" is all tied up.

 

Wish us luck. 

 

End of day 6

Last day and today everyone was able to take any lure or soft plastic they wanted.

 

Brother "trout snob" went with the soft plastic craw that worked so well on day 1.

Brother "older not wiser" picked out a 1 oz whopper plopper to cover water.  (he really just enjoys casting to open water.)

Given a chance to pick their own tools was a brilliant move on my part as they struggled early and often to locate the bass. By the time I was up by 3 fish the younger brother wanted to try a senko and the other bro wanted to add some split shot to his 1 oz behemouth.

 

 

Some days are glorious and others are satisfying. I love my brothers butva little humiliation keeps them in line for the rest of the year.

11 hours ago, PaulVE64 said:

End of day 6

Last day and today everyone was able to take any lure or soft plastic they wanted.

 

Brother "trout snob" went with the soft plastic craw that worked so well on day 1.

Brother "older not wiser" picked out a 1 oz whopper plopper to cover water.  (he really just enjoys casting to open water.)

Given a chance to pick their own tools was a brilliant move on my part as they struggled early and often to locate the bass. By the time I was up by 3 fish the younger brother wanted to try a senko and the other bro wanted to add some split shot to his 1 oz behemouth.

 

 

Some days are glorious and others are satisfying. I love my brothers butva little humiliation keeps them in line for the rest of the year.

Atta boy!!!