It's been a few years since my wife and I were able to make it back to spend Thanksgiving at her family cottage on Fifth Depot Lake in the Land O'Lakes region of Southern Ontario. This year, our schedule and the availability of relatively affordable flights made it possible to make the pilgrimage once again.
Alberta is a beautiful province but it is hard to beat the stunning colours and the near perfect weather Ontario offers in the fall. Obviously, the chance to catch big bass that are fattening themselves up for winter is an added bonus.
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It's hard to beat Ontario in the fall
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When we arrived at the cottage late Saturday afternoon, the weather was unseasonably warm and the lake was glass calm. After hurriedly unpacking and helping with the opening of the cottage, I couldn't wait to set the boat up so I pulled the paddle boat down to the lake and paddled a few hundred feet down to where Skewgaw Creek enters Fifth Depot Lake.
The sun was setting so I tied on a black
Hula Popper topwater lure and started casting toward the creek mouth. Immediately, the water boiled around the lure. I was so stunned I failed to set the hook. Usually, this little inlet will yield one or two bass tops so I was pretty choked that I'd missed the first strike. To my surprise, a fat little largemouth inhaled the popper on my second cast and I was able to swing it into the paddle boat. These two first hits were no fluke. Over the next half hour I landed 4 more largemouth, two of which were around 15 inches (after bringing a scale on a recent trip I realized I'm better at exaggerating weight than I am at estimating).
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| The weekend's ice breaker bass |
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| A decent largemouth that slammed the Hula Popper |
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| Another topwater largemouth |
The next day the wind had picked up so I decided to try drop shotting a
X-Zone Slammer around some of the mid-lake weed humps I could find by looking for flat spots in the otherwise choppy water. I also tossed my rig toward rocky points and at a submerged tree that scared the bejeezus out of me when I nearly backed the boat into it while working along the deep edge of a weed bed. This is the pattern I fished for most of the remainder of the weekend. When the drop shot slowed down I did manage to catch a few fish on a wacky rigged pumpkin
Senko and I caught a small pike on a jerk bait I tied on mainly because I had bought it specifically for the trip. Faster presentations that often work on Fifth Depot, like crankbaits and inline spinners, were not producing this weekend.
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A decent smallmouth caught on an X-Zone Slammer
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| A largemouth from a mid-lake weed hump |
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| A largemouth that lived in a scary looking sunken tree |
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| Another timber-dwelling largemouth |
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| A largemouth that fell for a wacky rigged Senko |
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| Get off my line pike! I'm here for the bass! |
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| Another incidental pike |
After the boat was pulled ashore and the cottage was closed for the season I had managed to land around 20 fish including 6 fat largemouth and 1 smallmouth in the 15-17 inch range. Along the way I also landed 2 small pike and I lost 3 big bass that I'll have to try again for next year.
