Checked the weather yesterday and it looked like it was going to rain pretty much all day in the Barrie area. I was thinking muskie, but I really didn't want to sit in that fine misty rain all day. Talked to the oldman and we decided to head north to see if we could put a few smallies and maybe a walleye or two in the boat. Gbay is one of my most favourite places to fish. It's giant, vast and there is fishy water everywhere. One thing I love about fall smallmouth is that they're fairly predictable. Started off motoring around until we started to mark fish. Got a few in the 15-20ft range but they were dinks. A few bigger ones around 25-30ft feet. I know they can be found very deep this time of year so I turned the spot lock off the Terrova and the slight wind we had just kept pushing us out deeper bit by bit. Then this happens.
First fish was probably 4lbs, and not a second later my oldman pulls up a monster as well. We found the motherlode. Wolfpacks of giant smallies smashing big bait balls made up of shiners, etc. We couldn't get the lines back down fast enough. We caught them on everything but the giants came on big sucker minnows a few feet off bottom. . As fast as they'd show up on the screen, they'd be gone again. Move 20-30ft and we're ontop of another wolfpack. This happened pretty much all day. I don't wanna guess how many fish we put in the boat and how many were lost, but it might be the best day of smallie fishing I've ever had. The deep fish were brought in fast and released quickly, I didn't take pics of them. I do have a big needle in the boat to fizz them but luckily we didn't have to use it. My oldman is diabetic, so of course he doesn't bring anything with him to eat so we gotta call it after only 3hrs, lol. I'm hoping this warmer weather sticks around a bit longer so I can get back out there. Put two OOS lakers in the boat as well, not really surprised as they should be in full spawning mode once the water cools down a bit (I saw an average of 61 degrees out there). Haven't even thought about dusting off the steelhead gear!