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!

Landed a Real Keeper!

Before June 30, 2015 all my spare time was pretty much taken up with fishing. You know how it is. Thinking about fishing, researching fishing, fixing stuff for fishing, buying stuff for fishing, trying to write about fishing and sometimes even actually going fishing.

Oh how things have changed. I guess I still spend all of my free time doing stuff that's related to fishing. I just don't have that much free time anymore. But it's all good. You see, I don't have as much time to spend on fishing these days because I'm busy spending it with our 5 month old son, Nolan. Since the last time I wrote for this blog, we landed a real keeper.

Watching Saturday morning fishing shows with Baby Nolan John

Life ain't all baby and being a dad though. The funny thing is, Nolan has become as much an excuse for me to buy new fishing stuff as he is something to focus on besides fishing. I mean, I really didn't need to buy a fishing kayak, but sooner or later Nolan is going to need something to take out onto the water, right? Hell, my wife even suggested buying a new pop-up ice fishing shelter last season because the baby "will need something to keep him out of the cold."

 

Smallmouth bass fishing in my, I mean Nolan's, new kayak

Also, since everyone wants to meet the new little guy, we've taken some trips that we definitely wouldn't have gone on if it weren't for the baby. It was just an added bonus that our recent trip back to Alberta to introduce Nolan to our friends from Calgary brought us to a province with some safe, early season ice fishing. If the current weather here in Ontario is any indication, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the only ice fishing I get into all season. Thanks Nolan!

There's safe ice in Alberta!

Of course I dream that Nolan will one day love fishing as much as I do. I am fully aware of the life lessons that fishing has taught me and the respect and love for nature that I gained while enjoying my favourite hobby. But I also know that Nolan may just as well find his own pastimes and interests and I can only hope that he finds something that he is as passionate about as I am about fishing. In the meantime, I'll keep justifying my borderline irresponsible purchases with the idea that my boy may want to use my stuff some day (I'm pretty sure he's going to need an ice fishing flasher pretty soon).

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!

Thanksgiving Bass Fishing on Fifth Depot Lake, Ontario

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.

It's hard to beat Ontario in the fall

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).

The weekend's ice breaker bass

A decent largemouth that slammed the Hula Popper

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.

A decent smallmouth caught on an X-Zone Slammer

A largemouth from a mid-lake weed hump

A largemouth that lived in a scary looking sunken tree

Another timber-dwelling largemouth

A largemouth that fell for a wacky rigged Senko

Get off my line pike! I'm here for the bass!

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.