The long wait begins!

[MaineBassMan]

The boat is put up for the winter and now the long Waite begins. I'll be reading and watching fishing shows for several months to come. Browsing the fishing tackle catalogs and starting up my tackle wish list for next season.

The past season was a weird one with all the weather systems that came through. We had tons of rain and I have never seen the lakes that I fish stay so high throughout the season, they almost stayed at Ice-out levels. Even though we did have many days where we caught lots of fish, (25 fish a person or more a day), we did catch a lot of nice sized bass. There was a lot of feed this year for them.

The last tournament of the season my Dad caught the lunker bass for day 1 in a lake that produces a ton of small fish but some how he manage to catch a 5 pound small mouth in about 19 feet of water on a jig. We ended up in 5th place at the end of the two day tourney. I believe we ended up in 8th or 9th place for the overall standings for the season. Not our greatest year we struggled in the tournaments this year. The fish just weren't doing what they have done in past season for us so we had to learn how to fish totally different from what we are use to. Here is the 5 pound small mouth my Dad caught in the tournament.

Once again I realized that I didn't take enough pictures, these next pictures are the last ones that I took for the season. It was not our last trip it was just the last time that I dug out the camera.

That 5 pound smallie was my Dads new personal best small mouth. I caught my personal best small mouth this season at 4lbs 5oz, I caught 3 small mouths that weighed that this year. I really want to break 5lbs on a smallie. My biggest large mouth for the season was 5lbs 2oz, actually I caught two of them at that same weight. I didn't beat my personal best large mouth this year, which stands a 5lbs 15oz, I hope to break that 6lbs barrier, hey an oz is an oz! This is Downeast Maine fishing I know you southern boys catch them all the time down there but our fish go dormant in the winter.

Hope those of you that can still go fishing take advantage of it and have a good time as for me the mental break down begins.

[ctbassnut]

Those are some nice smallies and a heck of a season you guys. I highly doubt the smallies in your area go dormant. You just have to go deep for them with small black hairjigs,bladebaits and evenspider grubs will all work. Find some deep structure(25 to 40ft) and you'll find active smallies. In fact where you find one you'll find a bunch of them on that same spot all day long.This is my favortie time of yr to go smallie hunting. Its nothing to put 20+ fish days together. Then GPS the area you find them and jig them up on the ice.

[MaineBassMan]

Well they don't go dormant but you have to drill through 2 feet of Ice to get to them! ;D

[NewAngler]

beautiful fish.

[Crestliner2008]

Awesome smallies! Congrats! I too, have my boat shrink wrapped in the back yard now. We got 7" of snow yesterday and temps are going down in the low teens tonight.   

Oh well, makes the anticipated spring all that much more exciting! T.V. fishing shows, here I come!  ;D

[roadwarrior]

Nice smallmouth, congratulations!

8-)

[HuntFishAK]

I feel you pain man.  We're getting low temps in the single digits and high's in the teens.  We're supposed to get a "warming trend" into the low 30's this weekend.  Oh well, I still got coyote hunting to keep me busy.

[tnbassfisher]

Great fish!

But, do I hear a little jealousy of the south. Chalk another one up on the board.

[MaineBassMan]

Thanks,

The only jealousy of the south I have is that your fishing seasons are longer, but I wouldn't trade that for our remote fisheries. There is something special about fishing in Maine, you wouldn't understand it until you tried it. The lake in the pictures is the most crowded lake I fish as far as house and camps go. I hardly see anyone else fishing there. The other lakes I fish might only have up to a dozen camps on the whole lake and very few boaters.

That's why I'm a hunter too, fish all spring through to October then I grab the rifle and shotgun until Ice out.

[Hot Rod]

Nice smallies like that and 300 lbs. whitetail bucks?

Where do I sign up?

I might have to move north just a bit, ha.

[knap]

nice small mouths

[simplejoe]

Healthy looking Smallies. Congrats on the catch.