steverowbotham

Nice! Taro's got the TO Pike waters figured out!

thanks for the replies.

Daiwa Bradia Amazing reels

You're right. I was surprised at how calm she stayed after its first jump. She told me after its first jump, this is the biggest I've ever caught.

Probably the smoothest reel I've ever owned!

Her previous PB was 5lbs 4oz and for 3 years now she's wanted to break 6lbs. She kinda shattered that lol

It's that time of year! I always look forward to fishing after Labour Day, its my favourite time of year! I've been out quite a bit lately, and on Friday I took out a couple friends for the evening. Launched at Smiths Bay and east to fish some islands and shoals. The fish were very aggressive and we were able to land almost 20 fish in the 3-4.5 pound range including one about 5.5 caught by a good friend. Fish were all caught on a variety of baits including jerkbaits, crankbaits, tubes and dropshotting slammers. Very fun evening and nice to spend some fishing time with good friends, and no money on the line haha. Noel's new PB @ 5lbs 8oz Sunday I fished a tournament on Lake Couchiching. I was on very big fish the weekend before but was unable to land many of the fish I hooked, a string of bad luck and stupid mistakes had cost me big. So this weekend I needed revenge. I went to my zone and caught a 3lbs largemouth on my 2nd cast. Looking good. An hour later and no more fish in the boat, I hit a stretch of docks. I finished the stretch of docks without a sniff. Uh oh. Headed to some deep rock/weed transitions... got a 13 inch smallmouth ... eww. Went to some shallow reeds and started flipping matted grass/reeds. I had a big bite under one of the mats and after I stuck her, I just couldnt haul her out and by the time I got in there, she was gone. Finally made the choice to go fish for smallmouth and it was the right choice. We landed about 12 good smallies and the choice was good enough to put us in 2nd place. Was hoping for #1 for the 3rd year in a row, and #2 is becoming far too familiar, but I'll take it! Kelli finished her old job on Friday and starts her new job on Wednesday, so with the incredible weather today, we decided to fish this morning. On the water at about 8am. We were visiting her parents in Innisfil so we launched there and fished my childhood stomping grounds. I have to say, I'll be spending a lot more time visiting that area. When I told my dad where we were going, he drove down to meet us. With the flat calm weather, the shallow fish were pretty spooky for the most part, and didnt get bit for the hour before my dad arrived, but we finally found the right colour slammer and they would inhale it. Still tricky to get bites, but we were able to get some and they were good ones! The highlight of the day and possibly the season was sliding the net under Kelli's PB smallmouth. This thing was a moose! She weighed in at 6lbs 13oz and was one of the fattest fish I have ever seen. She spotted it cruising in about 14 feet of water and and threw her dropshot about 20 feet past it and the fish circled it 3 times before deciding to eat it. Such an awesome fish! There is just so much good water to fish on this lake, it never fails to amaze me!

nice!

thats a moose!

When I was working at BPS, we'd have so many people call and ask about the lead warning it was ridiculous. I still crimp lead split shot in my teeth, I think having a bit in the reel should be fine lol

awesome man!

Cleared my inbox a bit... PM sent

LOL you're lucky I know you

I dropped to a lighter fluoro than usual due to the tough conditions. But looking back at it now, fluoro is fluoro they cant see it anyways. Should have stuck with what works

Well the winds have laid down after a crazy couple of weeks. I fished the CSFL Fall Challenge on Couchiching on the weekend. This was one of my most frustrating tournaments in my memory. We lost our trolling motor power for 4 hours on Saturday, and lost a high 4 pound smallmouth twice! The same fish bit twice and I missed it both times. We weighed 14.85 on Day 1 and that had us in 13th place. It was a disappointing position but left us in striking distance. Sunday, I had a new area to fish and the gameplan was fish slow and deliberate. We had a quick limit within 20 minutes but no size. We kept plugging and fishing very slowly to get bit. We lost 4 fish that jumped and broke off 4 more. The only thing I can figure is there were lots of zebra mussels around and we must have been knicking our lines fishing so slowly on bottom. All were quality fish that we lost and we only weighed 12.20 pounds. It was a tough day all around and that bumped us up a position to 12th place. It was a disappointing finish, but my confidence is pretty high. We were on the right fish and with fewer mistakes could have won the tournament. Thats the way it goes, always next year! Monday I got out onto Simcoe with a couple from the UK, now living in Canada. Fishing was very tough on Monday. Lots around, but they didnt cooperate too well. We put a few fish in the boat despite the tough conditions. Monday's tough bite had me stirring and I had to get back out Tuesday. My fiancee had the day off so we went out for a few hours in the morning and tried a different area. Fishing was good! We had 5 fish in our first 20 minutes and ended up with about 20 fish by 11:30am. My arms were sore by the end of the day, but dont file that as a complaint! Fishing is heating up and I'm offering $100 off a weekday charter to any member of this forum through September/October. Good Luck out there and stay safe! The water is getting colder now...

nice! Western Canada is so beautiful man. Cant wait to go back!

I would call it 3.5 lbs but its so hard to say

That was my brother Mike Rowbotham, he fights professionally

Well the weather this past week was just ridiculous and I had to cancel a couple charters because of it. It's just not worth the risk. Labour Day morning had a good forecast so we continued as usual and headed out to the Innisfil area of Lake Simcoe. It didnt take long to get into them, but we never got any giants. A lot of 2.5 - 3.5 pound fish. Clients got cold in the wind and rain and we headed in a little early, as they said they were happy with what they had. Still need to upload these pics* Tuesday a good friend of mine headed to a favourite lake in search of some big largies. We had a tournament on Tri-Lakes on Wednesday, but with the way the weather was, a good, informative pre-fish would have been near impossible. So we figured we'd trailer to a different lake and try for some giants. We saw a bald eagle here which was pretty awesome, I've never seen one in this area close enough that I could confirm. It was extremely windy and the bite was slow, but we did manage to tangle with some nice critters. All fish caught on Punisher jigs and Yamamoto Flappin Hawgs. Wednesday we fished the Classic for our small series we've been doing all year. Between us, we'd only been to Tri-Lakes 3 times and had no pre-fish so we werent exactly sure what to do. We started in Pigeon chasing smallies, but after only one 12 incher, we decided to move out to deeper weeds and target largies. They wouldnt eat the jig, but they would eat the Flappin Hawg, we got a bunch of 2 pounders to fill out a limit, then just tried to find calm shorelines to look for a bruiser. We never found our kicker fish but we did upgrade our bag quite a bit and ended up finishing in 2nd place. Another Bridesmaid spot.... too many of those this year haha. Fishing the CSFL Fall Challenge on Cooch this weekend, looking forward to it. Take care, and good fishin'

nice!

SLOW DOWN! Best tip I have for summer cold fronts!

awesome!!

Browning Midas 7'6XH Flippin Stick. I love it

thanks to everyone for reading and replying. The fishing season is just heating up! I live for fall fishing!

It's been a while since I've posted a report, but that doesnt mean I havent been busy. I've had a few guides this past week and a half. I had an excellent day on Cooks Bay last week so I've been focusing a lot out there as I've been on them good every day for the last week now. Most of my success has come flippin pads and cane using jigs and "power-shotting" Strike Zone Slammers and DartWorms. My dad and I had a good day fishing a small Muskoka lake and I reunited with an old friend for a day on Balsam Lake today! Here's the fish porn! smallie on Simcoe..flippin the cane. First time for everything