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Hello All,

With less than a month remaining for open water bass excursions, making each day on the boat count becomes all the more important. After cashing in on 38 bass on my last trip into Quebec, expectations were high for this return engagement.

November 2

My good buddy and fellow writer, Tim Allard, and I made the trek northward this morning. We arrived to the lake at 9:30am and were greeted by fairly calm winds and stellar weather conditions. Although we still wrapped up…layers would be peeled as the day wore on.

We headed over to our favourite finger on the lake – which tops out at 11-feet, with 23-feet of water surrounding it. It runs approximately 50 yards out from shore.

Tim began working a small black and brown hair grub while I worked a football jig teamed up with a YUM Wolly Bug. The fish were up on the hump at this time of the day, and five smallmouth were quickly put in the boat. Sadly, they were lacking size.

We set off to work a variety of structure areas, keying in on some of the spots I had success with on the previous outing. On that day crankbaits were the ticket. Today….not even a whiff. I blame myself for wanting to hug shorelines – even against the better judgement of Tim – and that cost us some time on fish for sure. Although the water temps. had only dropped 4-degrees from two weeks prior – and hovered at 46-degrees now - it became obvious the largies had shifted to deeper water.

By noon we only had a dozen or so fish in the boat. We both began scratching our heads. With the sun up, I hoped that the afternoon bite would turn on, and for that, we’d have to stick with a deep-water tactic. (It wasn’t much of a morale boost when Andy joined us on the water for a few hours in his boat…and only had a few fish to his name when he called it quits.)

We decided to head up to the most easterly portion of the lake. This area has always produced, and in the past, it was connecting your jig with the small clusters of rock (in the middle of a mud and extremely sparse vegetation bottom) that would get you bit. Before giving that a shot, I motored us over to a small and visually insignificant rock “point” that has produced well for Andy and I in the past. Coincidentally, this was also when Tim cued up some Rush tunes on his IPhone. The fish must have liked the vibe. In ten minutes we put five chunky smallmouth in the boat. Finally, our confidence was back.

My big fish hit a 3/4oz Booyah Pigskin Jig with a YUM Chunk.

Although the largies were not relating to shallow structure areas whatsoever, I did pick off one chunk from some rock and weed clumps in six-feet of water. It also came on the Pigskin jig.

We decided to spend the last three hours of the day working our large mud flat, while keying in on any isolated rock we could connect with. The fish were now on big time! We were putting smallies (and a smattering of largies) in the boat in record speed, and the fun and laughter we enjoyed sure was worth wading through our dry spell of earlier. Tim’s football jig coupled with a plastic spider jig seemed to account for the most fish, although the variety of creature baits I employed certainly came in a close second.

This would be the average-sized fish we were catching.

The record Andy and I set on this lake two years ago was 53 bass. Our goal every outing is to break the magical 50 mark. With the flurry of action Tim and I were getting, both of us were pretty pumped to see about shattering it. Of course, this pig of a largie that Tim got late in the day (a 4lb 6oz fish that came from 15-feet of water on the spider jig) heightened our excitement even more!

As the sun dipped behind the trees, and the remaining light waned, we were forced to call it quits. I’m fairly certain we burned our spot out – as the action finally died - and unfortunately, we missed hitting fifty fish by a mere five. What a day it was! Certainly our best day for numbers of fish all season, and Tim’s tank of a largie was great to see. The power and fight these smallmouth put up is second-to-none, and both of us were amazed at how acrobatic they were when on the end of the line.

So, a certain 100+ pounds of weight for 45 bass. We both drove home in the dark with a smile on our faces.

Until next time….

Good Fishing,

Justin

Written by Outdoor wild Producer Justin Hoffman.   Submitted by Dean Romano