The Baron

I'm a fan of the Gary Yamamoto 5" senkos. I use a 1/16oz. VMC weedless wacky jighead, sometimes even 1/8oz. if I'm fishing more than 8ft-ish of water. I use a band and can get dozens of fish on one bait, whereas with no band I was getting 2-4 at most. The YUM Dingers are also great for the price. I've found I do a little better sticking with one brand of senko, as I'm used to the fall rate.

I'm very sorry for your loss. But you offer good advice - don't keep putting off those things you want to do "some day".

Another solo couple of hours this morning. Tried a new spot that’s part of a big chain of lakes on the Rideau Canal system, but unfortunately the whole area I launched from was pretty shallow and weedy. I did a circuit around a couple bays but didn’t want to venture further in the canoe. I caught a few, first was about 2# so I was happy after so many dinks yesterday. He pulled my frog down, then grabbed it again when submerged. I tossed a wacky rigged green pumpkin/red flake senko in right behind that and he nailed it.? I don’t want the weekend to end, so might try again tonight.

Yes, it's a consideration as I'm shopping for our first bass boat. I was always thinking aluminum (eg. Bass Tracker) but was considering fibreglass if a good deal came up. Given the larger motor and increased fuel cost to push a fibreglass boat, I've ruled that out. The last thing I want to do is finally have a decent boat and have to worry about whether I can afford to go fishing for the day.

Awesome! My son and I have the same dream. Congratulations.?

I couldn’t find a partner, so did a solo canoe outing to a small back lake this morning. The lake delivered exactly what I expected - good numbers of small fish. I caught almost 40 fish, with maybe 2 of them over a pound. I started with a popper, then a frog (I was surprised how shallow I caught some), a small spook and finally a wacky rigged senko. All were fun, but the senko was the winner - I caught over a dozen in the last 20 minutes before deciding I’d had enough. Pic below is actually one of the bigger ones.?

I’m a topwater lover, and I still keep a Hula Popper and a Heddon Dying Flutter Spook in my kit, for when conditions are right.

I caught all of my fish last night because I was too lazy to tie on the wrong bait. lol

Got out in the canoe this evening with a buddy. It was calm so I fished a frog over 3-6ft. of water with coontail and some small pad patches for probably close to an hour, with no takers. I was thinking I’d try a buzz bait, but the rod I was going to use for that had a TR black/blue Bandito Bug tied on and I felt too lazy to change it right away. First cast toward a bit deeper water (8-10ft) and boom, about a 3# whacked it on the fall. Very next cast I got about a 2#. Few casts later a 1.5# or so, then a while later another 2# or so. Heck of a good time and I’m suddenly a big fan of beaver baits.?

I’ll be running either deep water or weedy bays. The consensus is I should pass on this one. Thanks!

I'm looking for a modest, used aluminum bass boat. There's a Bass Tracker PT175 for sale locally, with a 40hp Mercury jet drive. I've got no experience with jet drive motors - what are the pros/cons? Also, a 40hp sounds pretty light for a BT 175?

Welcome! From sunny, beautiful... but not quite as warm as there Canada! lol

YoZuri 3DB Pencil or the Heddon One Knocker (which caught me my PB largemouth just a couple weeks ago). But they all do the job if you work them right.

Thanks, Tom. I’ll look into that book. It may be dated, but so is my sonar… and the operator. lol

Ah, ok. I’ll see if I can turn off the fish symbols and maybe play with the sensitivity a little. This “high tech” is all new to me. lol

I wondered if the "fish" lined up on the bottom could be rocks, until I came back over the same spot and marked fish at several shallower depths. Those were not there earlier when I passed that same spot. Also, the "fish" on the bottom were gone, which makes me think those were fish who had now moved up shallow.

I’ve been trying to figure out the smallmouth (and deeper largemouth) on Weslemkoon Lake in central Ontario. I fished it a fair bit last year with disappointing results on smallmouth. I basically gave up on them and started flipping soft plastics around cover and my average size largemouth is steadily increasing, but I’ve yet to find a smallmouth over about a pound in all my efforts. I researched that the main forage in the lake are Cisco, and that the big smallmouth are likely suspended chasing those. I was totally blind last year, so I bought an old Humminbird 535 for this year (yes, it’s laughable against todays tech, but I’m happy to have some clue what’s going on below). I was on the lake this weekend and marked several fish in an area just off a submerged point, that ends with a large boulder just at the surface and drops very steeply into 40ft of water. They were lined up just off the bottom at about 33ft. at about 6pm. As far as I can tell, it’s a hard bottom here. I tried dropshotting with zero bites, but it’s very hard to say if I was right on them or not as I have no experience in reading electronics. I also have no trolling motor, so am at the mercy of the wind. At about 8pm, I was back over the general area and marked several fish again, but they were coming up more shallow. My Q is, do you folks think these might be bass sitting deep during the day and moving up more shallow to feed in the late evening? There are also lake trout in the lake, but I’d think 35ft. is too shallow for lakers?

Got on the water over the Canada Day weekend - an early morning outing with my son, then a solo evening (son was swimming with friends) and a solo morning (son sleeping like a log and I didn’t want to wake him. lol). My son was excited to try some Googan baits, so I bought a pack of Trench Hawgs and a pack of Bandito Bugs. We Texas rigged them and he was able to land a fish on both, although the morning was slow. I was able to pick one up on a Berkley Digger, just off a dock on a rocky bottom. My evening outing resulted in only two decent bites on a YoZuri 3DB Pencil - the first was a maybe 2#-ish smallmouth that jumped and got off, then a better largemouth as the evening faded. My first fish of the next morning was a good one on a weed less wacky-rigged Gary Yamamoto senko. I caught a few small ones after that, then had to head in as it was my turn to make breakfast for a cottage full of people. That was about it for fishing - hard to just disappear all weekend when you’re a guest.? Looking back, almost all our fish came off areas with rocky bottom and weeds in 4-8ft. of water. We tried frogging, flipping shallow weed edges and fishing deeper with dropshot, with almost no luck.

I got down to CT last weekend and a friend invited me to a private pond (about 15 acres). I had a really good frog bite for the first couple hours of the morning, getting bit on every 2-3 cast for quite a while. But, most fish were small and I was in a canoe so missed more than I hooked. That made me lazy when I finally got one about 3# right to the boat without insuring my hook set. He spit the frog just as I was reaching for his lip, so there’s no proof I saw any over a pound. lol. Once the frog bite slowed, I switched to a TR 6" worm with plenty of bites. After hearing my host say they've caught fish up to about 7# here, I up-sized to a 10" Power Worm on a 4/0 EWG with 1/4oz weight. First time I’d ever fished a worm that big and I was surprised (and disappointed - lol) how small a fish I could catch on it. After catching at least 50 fish and missing more than that in 4-5 hours, my buddy said the fishing was very slow that day - my thumb tells a different story. ?

Running spooks, I use 30# braid and a 12# mono leader - mono floats and the bit of stretch is welcome when a good one hits, so a better choice than fluoro IHMO. Drag setting depends a little bit on where I'm fishing. If I'm enticing smallmouth in deep water or on a rocky bottom, I like to let any good one take drag to keep the trebles from pulling. If I'm working a clear surface but over thick weeds for largemouth, I'll tighten up a little more, as they will head into the weeds and I like to get them out before they either find a log or before any exposed trebles get wrapped up in the weeds (a frog or buzz bait would be better after the bite in those spots, but I just love spook fishing). I was glad to have 12# mono when my PB largemouth did just that this year - beautiful hit on the spook then I had to really horse her out of the coontail below.

One of my favorites is the XZone 6" Finesse Worm. Start 'em on Texas rig and after they've had to be bit off a couple times they work well on a shaky head or a heavy ned head. If the tails survive that, the back 3" is a great dropshot bait. Yes, I'm frugal. lol

I sure hope so. I was "almost" ready to buy a boat pre-COVID, then pricing on used boats went through the roof and moved the goal posts two fields away. I think they're starting to creep back down, as I've seen a few at prices I could stomach. I'm hoping to be in a position to buy something in the $15k-ish range for next season - ideally something like a Bass Tracker 19', but I'd settle for a 17 if that's what my budget gets me.

Bass opened up yesterday in Zone 18 Ontario. Conditions were cool and very windy, so the canoe stayed dry and we just shore fished a bit yesterday with very little luck. We went on a family Father’s Day picnic this afternoon and fished a windward point. Zero luck on plastic worms and drop shot, so I decided I might as well fish in a way I really enjoy and out came the Heddon One Knocker Spook. 4th cast way out there (I love the way a spook casts!) and I got an almost immediate swat from what I thought was a small one. I kept on trucking and about 4 twitches later she sucked it under. As soon as the rod loaded up, I knew it wasn’t small. No scale, but she was 21” - a bit thin after spawning, but I’ve estimated 4.5# which would be my new PB.

I have a spinning rod I bought a long time ago, trying to find a use for it. It’s made by “Zzinger” - a small Canadian company who are still in business making salt water jigs, but no longer make rods. This rod is about 7’2” and is labelled as a graphite composite drift jigging rod. I’m not much of a rod expert, but this one seems very soft - a moderate action, if not softer. There’s no rod strength or lure weight rating on it, but I’d guess it’s a M or maybe even MH, just based on the thickness at the handle. Would this rod have any practical use for bass? Or should I just garage sale it and buy the drop-shot rod I’m one short on?

If the spoon mimics what they're feeding on, then absolutely they work. I caught one of my best smallmouth on a big Williams Whitefish. We were steel lining for lake trout in mid-summer, fishing a 45ft. deep feeding flat that comes up from 100+ ft. of water over a 20ft. deep rock shoal. I let the spoon down too early and picked up a dandy smallmouth off the rock shoal, likely there ambushing herring that the lakers were pushing around.