smallmouth bass

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Bass Opener 2015 – Collins Lake Derby V4.0

Another bass opener has arrived and along with it, the annual bass derby on Collins Lake.  This year attendance was a bit low due to some health issues among the group, however we still managed to put a group together and proceed with the tournament.

As is typical, our tourney started with a meet and greet on the Friday evening with some sociables and poker.  For some of us it is the one time in the year we get to see the group and there are always lots of stories to be told.  Its always difficult to call an end to the night before festivities since its always such a great time and the quality of sleep a fisherman can expect the night before the opener is almost not worth the while.  But hey, its bass opener and some would argue being sleep deprived only makes that first bass of the year that much sweeter.

The tourney itself has an interesting structure; competitors may weigh in two fish after the first morning and may cull them in the following afternoon.  Two more fish may be weighed in after the next morning, at which point weights are tallied.  As easy as four fish sounds, separating the weigh ins by days  makes it infinitely harder.  Mostly because on a small lake like Collins, Every weed bed gets hit hard on the first day, leaving shy and skittish fish for the second.

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The weather ended up being a bit cold in the morning with some nifty fog which made for cool looking blast off. Eventually the sun burned off the fog and the fishing began.  Fishing started off fairly well and several decent fish were caught off shallow weedbeds and shoals using senkos and swim baits.  As most bass fisherman do, we slowly moved around the lake fishing weed beds.  Eventually we arrived near a bed located immediately adjacent to deeper water.  Once there we started connecting with much larger fish, with some in the 3lb + range.  Immediately I thought of the old saying “Big water = Big fish”.  We worked the deeper edge of the weedbed with a variety of tactics we managed to cull a few of our fish before deciding to move on to try a few other hot spots.  The morning wrapped up and we finished with a two fish bag weighing 6lb 8oz for me and 4lb 12oz bag for Dave.  The afternoon was mediocre at best with nothing bigger than a 2lber caught.  We were in the running but there were lots of folks coming in close to us with one gent in the lead by 1lb.

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The next day was a bit tougher since the shallows had been hit pretty hard the day before.  The shallows were ice cold and we were forced to change up our methods to deeper water tactics.  We did manage to fill each of our remaining two spots and our final bags ended up at 11lb 13oz for me and 9lb 9oz for dave.   Great bags to be sure but not enough to take the win.  We ended up coming 7 oz short behind the gent who culled up on the first day.   Interestingly enough he culled up with one of the elusive smallmouth bass that inhabit the lake that weighed 4lbs 4 oz.  Catching these fish is like winning the lottery; it rarely happens, and the pay off is usually big.   All said and done the gent weighed in a four fish bag totaling 12lb 4oz.

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(Above: The tourney winner with his 4lb 4oz bronzeback, being assisted by “Captain” Joe, the tourneys resident joker)

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(Below: Dave and I even managed a double header with two decent largies)

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(Above: The author with a couple of chunky hogs from the first day)

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(Above: Jay holding a decent 3lb 14oz on the left)

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(Above: the second half of my bag – not as impressive but solid fish weighing 2lb 14oz and 2lb 7oz)

In addition to some great bass fishing, we also tied into some very respectable pike and a ton of other species ranging from pan fish to an incidental bullhead.

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(After a year of custody, I was obliged to give up the trophy to the next winner)

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(The top three finishers)

Another year, another great tournament with some exceptional bass fishing.   Not to mention some stellar competition with some big pushes by several anglers right at the end of the tourney.  This tourney truly was a nail-biter right up to the end.  Collins Lake certainly produced once again for everyone with quite a number of decent sized fish.  Out of all those fish caught, I’m proud to say all except one was released to swim another day.  What about the lone mortality? I understand, he promptly became dinner.

Cheers from the lake

Albert

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Fall Feedbag Bass – Southern Ontario Giants

Fall is kicking off in southern Ontario as signalled by the increasingly cool evenings and fall colors starting to dot the trees.  Soon the dull glimpses of orange and red dotting the treescape will burst into an full explosion of fall colour.  This is the time to be outdoors.  Weather your a waterfowler, upland game hunter, hiker, photographer or a fishing enthusiast, everything comes to a head in the fall.

I woke up this morning with hopes of capitalizing on the fall action both for geese and fishing.  Although the geese were a bit sparse for any real success, the fishing sure was hot.

My friend Dave picked me up at 5:30 on Sunday Morning with his canoe atop his car and gear all set. After loading both hunting and fishing kits into his ride we were off speeding north towards a beauty of a day.

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We arrived at a small lake north of Verona about an hour or so later and packed our gear in the canoe.  After five minutes on the water I realize I left my DSLR back in the car.  This is what happens when I get excited about hunting and fishing.

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First up, we spent about 30 minutes in one of my goose spots waiting for some birds.  Unfortunately all we saw were solos and doubles and they were way to far out for the 870.  Ah well, its only the tail end of the early week in our zone and goose season doesn’t really start to heat up until the end of September anyways.  On to bigger and better things!

We abandoned the goose hopes and decided instead to focus on the fishing. After all, it was the begginnings of fall and that’s when the giant bass come out to play.

Fishing started off in a big way with what I believe to be a monster walleye that hit my jig coming off a rocky shore line.  The big guy did the typical “im to tired to fight” walleye dance and got off right by the canoe.  Although this was a big disappointment, soon after my friend caught this jumbo perch which was a welcome addition to the boat.  No quite the consolation prize I was hoping for but it will work for taking the skunk off.

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Following the meager catch, we proceeded to catch a few bass along some weededges near deep water (this is a key tactic for fall bass).

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For a change of pace we decided to hit up some deeper areas near some rock faces along a lake channel that connected two of the lakes larger areas.  This turned out to be a great idea as Dave hooked and lost a pretty massive largemouth.  Almost immediately after, he hooked into another rod bender.  This one was hooked pretty well and wasn’t going anywhere.  Energized and excited by the prospect of a giant bornzeback Dave fought the fish for quite a long while.  I was pretty amazed by the patience Dave showed as he gingerly fought the fish and took his time bringing in the beast.  These are all skills required to bring in larger fish when fishing from a canoe and these traits are especially important when the large fish is a 6+ lb smallmouth and your new personal best!

Congrats Dave, that is one hefty looking smally.

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The adrenaline kept us pushing forward, optimistic for another big fish.

As luck would have it, it was my turn to tangle with a southern Ontario giant of the largemouth variety.  The fish hit on a soft wacky rigged worm just near the edge of a weedbed facing the open lake.  At first the hit seemed light and I reeled in to clear the small fish from my line.  The minute the fish spotted the boat the game changed and my drag was singing the sweet tune only a fat lunker makes.  This fish lived up to the hype the reel was forcasting and was estimated at 5.5 lbs (Scales are a luxury when your paddling in a canoe with goose gear and wo sets of fishing gear).  This fish was definitely my biggest largemouth of the season.

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(What a nice surprise!)

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Fish were caught using a variety of methods including wacky worms, spinner baits, jigs and texas rigged swim baits.  All fish seemed to be caught on deep weededges or rock faces near channels or big water.

In my experience, Bass start to put on the feedbag in the fall in a big way.  Although they move out of their summer shallow water haunts for deeper waters, they still stay proximal to weededges and the like.  Look for drop offs with submerged weeds or weed edges near the larger portion of the lake.   Bass will often hangout near these edges popping up into the shallows when food is around.

One more piece of advice, don’t be intimidated by slower action either and try to have a little patience.   You may not have a 30 fish day, but your bound to tangle with the larger fish in the lake.

Cheers from the Wild

Albert