Swamp Girl

Will smallmouth congregate where current flows out of a Canadian Shield lake, like shortly before a waterfall?

F13 orange Rapala.

I write a column for the leading paddling magazine and would like to profile a kayak fisher who meets these criteria: 1. Has paddled and fished from more than one kayak. 2. Has a favorite boat. 3. Is able to talk about why they love that boat best. 4. Can provide high res, fine photos of their person in the boat. If you want to do this, provide a way for me to contact you and I will. I can only profile one kayak fisher.

thedarkarcher, I write for a couple kayak/kayak fishing mags and I'm wondering if you're open to a profile. If so, provide your email and I'll contact you.

Hooray!

River fish rock!

Thanks for answering! I catch a lot of doubles in my canoe in Canada where my partner has one in the bow and I have one in the stern, but getting a pic of both bass isn't easy, since you can't stand and the canoe is pretty long. Say, Roadwarrior, this is a heckuva nice website. Whoever built it deserves an 11-pound smallmouth.

How do you manage to get a pic of two fish? Are you keeping both those fish? Do you catch one and put in a live well, hoping you'll catch another so that you'll have a pic of two fish?

So many of you suggest 4" Senkos that I'm sorry I own hundreds of 5" and 6" Senkos, but the bass I catch sure like those bigger ones.

For sheer numbers of smallmouth, it would be an orange F13 Rapala, which casts far, can be seen in the chop, and is most likely to trigger a strike in the first three twitches, although I have seen them hit the water and go straight down. Other than Senkos fished wacky style, which I use to follow-up a missed surface strike, I don't fish soft plastics much. On certain days, plain Mepps number 3 spinners in brass will catch fish after fish after fish.

It's not a certainty because I think I'll need a spring to keep it full, but the land I bought does include wetland, so I'm hopeful. If I'm able to walk over to the pond and dunk a worm in a few years, a dream will have come true.

As I've shared in other threads, 95% of my fishing is in wilderness areas where I've got the lake to myself and the bass are dumb and dumber. There are eagles and bears and ospreys, waterfalls and 90-foot cliffs. 100-bass days per person are typical. In short, it's Heaven. However, another sort of Heaven is coming as I bought a house in Maine and I'm going to have a fishing pond dug. It's expensive, so it won't be big, but I'm hoping for an acre. I'm thinking of bluegills or trout because they're tasty. When I was a kid, my brothers and I would pedal to ponds, where we'd bobber fish for bluegills by day and wade for bass at night. I loved those wee lakes and I'll love one again.

My smarts are my problem. Because I'm smart, I remember everywhere I've caught fish and I go try those places for several days, catching little, until I adapt. In short, I'm the stupidest smart animal you'll ever meet.

I also love private lakes and Florida has more than one could count. Good fishin', Gambler!

Pike are my foes! They take my lures. Walleyes are my friends because I put them in my belly! Every year, I catch some nice pike, but I don't bring them into the boat because they're berserkers and I don't want to tangle with the teeth in my slim canoe,

I haven't, but I will. Bounce 'em off the bottom?

A part of me is tempted to transplant some gobies to some smallmouth lakes in northwestern Ontario. The smallmouth also aren't indigenous. I won't do it, but I would love to have a Dwight-sized pic or two and even better if I were in a canoe! I fish a lot of leeches in Canada. I'll begin and end a day with surface baits, but when they stop hitting the surface baits, they'll keep hitting leeches. Nightcrawlers can turn to mush up there if there's a hot spell, but I can leave those leeches out of the water for an hour by oversight and they'll be fine.

I wish you were closer. We could fish together and you could teach me some things about plastic, which wouldn't be hard, since I know nearly nothing.

You could also move the seat the center. It will require four more holes in your gunwales and purchasing a new seat, but if you go solo, it could make your paddling easier.

I fish wilderness lakes in Canada, where it's rare to see another canoe, so there are few small fish because fish aren't being caught and kept and there are few big fish, because the summers are short and the winters long. An average smallmouth is 16.5 inches, which some of you would consider small, but I love 'em. If I had to choose between one monster on Lake Erie or a typical hundred bass day in Canada, I'd take Lake Erie for ONE day and spend the rest of my days catching those 15 to 20 inch-bass.

@ The one that got away Nice looking rig. My canoe is just a banged-up Bell Kevlar with no tricks and even then, it's hard to carry through the bush .

I prefer the canoe. Motors need batteries and batteries need charging and motors won't always start and to even get your boat into the water, you need a ramp. Best of all, my canoe reaches lakes that no boat with a motor can reach unless you're willing to drop a couple thousand to hire an Otter to drop you on that lake. I like to fish for stupid fish because you catch a lot more of them and the canoe takes me to stupid fish, thus I prefer it.

I wish I were like Nitrofreak and was competent fishing deep water. My strenght might be my stealthiness. I fish out of a canoe and there's no sneakier boat. I've caught smallmouth in two feet of water when my boat was right beside them. I've even put felt on my gunwales so that when I set my paddle down, it makes little noise.

You're the fishin' Cool Hand Luke. Good for you. I emote and I wish I were like you.

This is easy: plastics. I don't like them, so other than tossing a wacky Senko at a bass that's blown up on a surface lure, I don't use plastics and because I don't use them, I don't know how to use them. Plus, I can be slow to adapt. If I caught bass in a certain place last month, I might return to that spot for three or four days catching few fish before I concede they're gone.