2016 Summer Bass Review

It's been a while since my last blog post so I'm going to keep it simple and pic heavy.

Life has been busy and the cottage needed a lot of TLC this summer which meant we had to spend a lot of time at the lake. Tough life eh?

Extended periods of time at the cottage made it possible to relax and be picky about when I wanted to fish. I could afford to keep the boat docked during the middle of the hottest days and just head out for an hour or two near dawn or dusk on those sweet calm overcast days. Having a new baby around also made it easy to get in on the dawn bite. Any parent should be able to relate.

My simple little rig

This year the hot technique was definitely rigging soft plastic Senko-style worms wacky on light weedless VMC Wacky Jigs. Any variation of the pumpkin or perch colours worked consistently. I also boated a bunch of morning bass on topwater poppers. My very favourite topwater bait continues to be the classic Hula Popper in black but I also did well with Cabela's Fisherman Series Top Poppers.

Here's some fish:

Many more fish were landed between learning to take care of the cottage and enjoying time with Nolan. With the addition of a new window air conditioning unit, 2017 looks to be even better!

When Life Gets Too Grown Up, Fish Like a Kid

Having a cottage is amazing but maintaining them can be a lot of work. Over the last couple of weekends, my father in law and I have been building a new shed at the cottage so fishing time has taken a back seat to construction time. I haven't even had a chance to put the boat in the water so I have been limited to fishing off the dock or the paddle boat. (I do understand that complaining about this means I'm totally spoiled.)

There is a silver lining though. Being restricted to the dock has given me a chance to put aside the expensive crankbaits, electronics and fancy finesse-rigged soft plastics and get back to the basics. Any break from shed building I got I grabbed a rod, tied on a bobber and a worm, and ran down to the lake...like I did when I was knee high to a grasshopper.

My tackle box during shed construction

A nice looking off-the-dock largemouth

It had been a long time since I spent any amount of time soaking a worm under float. I hate to say it but I think I had forgotten just how fun it can be. Over the course of two weekends I maybe fished a total of an hour and a half but I caught a bunch of bass including a couple of decent ones. Not only is fishing this way easy and successful, the adrenaline buzz you get when you see your bobber disappear or suddenly go sideways isn't so bad either.

I watched this guy swim right out from under me and then my float went sideways

Works done for the day

I love fishing because there is no end to the learning and progressing but life this summer reminded me how and why I started fishing in the first place; it doesn't have to be complicated and it's really fun.

Off-the-dock smallmouth

If you're gonna fish like a kid, you're gonna get some sunfish!

Accomplishing a Long Standing Fishing Goal

For me, one of the most appealing aspects of fishing is the fact that there is really no end to what you can learn, attempt or achieve. There is always a new technique to try or spot to fish. There are species of fish you've never caught or size class accomplishments to pursue.

My list of fishing goals is substantial and every time I think about it, something new seems to be added to it.

I haven't really had a chance to catch my first musky, arctic char or inconnu; fish species at the top of my North American freshwater bucket list. Just recently I boated my first lake trout. Even though it was just pan-sized by laker standards, finally striking the species off my list felt pretty good.

My fishing bucket list also has many size targets for fish I'm familiar with catching. I would love an opportunity to land a northern pike over 20 pounds or a walleye over 10. Hell, how awesome would it be to haul a 2 pound perch out of the water?

Sometimes, my fishing goals are very personal and related directly to things that only I seem to have trouble doing or are specific goals for specific places. 

My very first Bow River brown trout. Reached two goals that day!

One such goal was catching a walleye, of any size, on the lake where my wife's family cottage is located. This lake is supposed to have a decent walleye population but I have never been able to catch one.

And believe me, it's not because I didn't try. Over the past 7 years I had tried everything from bottom bouncing spinner and crawler rigs, trolling crank baits, casting swim baits, slow death rolled worms to jigging weed edges and even drop shotting minnow imitators and swimming buck tail jigs in likely looking spots. You name it, I tried it. The only reason I was sure there were actually walleye in the lake was a dead walleye fry I found while swimming one afternoon and a walleye skull a bird had left on a rock near the cottage.

Well guess what. Last week I finally caught not one but two walleye and one was of pretty decent size! 

I wish I could say I was out targeting them but my friend and I were drop shotting plastic minnows around a mid-lake weed hump that often gives up big bass. A big group of fish showed up on my fish finder so I dropped the rig down vertically on a prayer and immediately got bit. I readied myself to land a big bass but I damn near jumped out of the boat when I caught a glimpse of a big walleye before it barrelled straight back toward the bottom. A couple minutes later I was giddily holding my first walleye out of our little cottage lake.

My first cottage lake walleye

My second ever cottage lake walleye. Not a trophy but
more memorable than the big bass we were catching!

We managed to catch a bunch of decent bass that afternoon, but I really can't remember much about any of them, my memory blurred by the excitement of achieving one of my longest standing personal fishing goals.

A nice largemouth...that I almost forgot about