Bass Tard

I've been there the last two years for a week for Canada day. The advice here is good, when you're off the main channel or even just outside of channel markers, beware of rocks. My first year I ran up on one at night when I was down a small channel in the west end. Kind of scary, but I was only in a 12' with a 9.9 so it was too slow to really hurt me. The dam is a good spot to fish, plus any of the small bays close to the main channel. I've also caught fish around pretty much of the islands where the lake opens up close to the marina. Usually the bouys are a very good thing because they seem to be marking hazards wich tend to make for good fishing. Good luck!

Me and my girlfriend went camping there last summer for a few nights. Fishing was pretty tough for me. I'm used to fishing shorelines, and with basically no visible weed growth on the surface or visible structure I had a tough time catching anything. One day I got into a few smallmouth on the finger of the lake that goes left from the campsite. I was a couple hundred meters from the mouth of the small stream there. We really didn't have a very good time there, I can't think of the last time I had two pretty bad days of fishing in a row, and people that I had talked to said it really isn't that good there anymore. It was nice that we could get the boat out on the small lake that's rather local, but that was about all it seemed to have going for it.

A texas rigged worm isn't the easiest setup to catch fish on. Now that I'm used to fising them I do catch a lot on that setup, but it takes some learning for the feel. I think my first season of fishing texas rigged worms I must have lost 40% of the fish that bit them. I would say a small crank bait like a countdown or floating Rapala is one of the easier things to learn to catch some bass or pretty much anything else on. If you're fishing in/around weeds off shore one of my favorites is a white spinner bait. Always be looking for visible structure to fish if you can find something. A bend in the river, rapids and a pool after, a tree in the pond, a weed line, anything! That's all I've got. (patience is virtue)

Is that lake in St. Marys? Can I take my boat on there with a 50 horse? How big is the lake?

The free ramp is crazy talk.. We tried to put the boat in there last year when we stayed at silver pines and wound up with the car more in the water than the boat! When it came time to get the boat out, we went over to the marina and just payed the money to use that ramp, SO much easier.

Alright, thanks guys. It looks like I need to do some more research and hopefully I can get everything straight. I don't really have a lot of information on the boat, no owners manuals or anything. Its a 17.5' Bass Tracker with a riveted Jon boat hull. The motor is a matching 89 Evinrude Tracker 50hp. Is a stainless prop my best bet? (once I figure out what size/pitch)

So I just broke the boat out on the weekend to make sure it still floats and everything works before opening day, everything worked just as last year, minus a bad ground on the trailer but that's an easy fix. Now, in our old boats we had a 20hp Johnson and a 9.9 Evinrude and since they were really small and really slow, I would pretty much always run them wide open and really never thought twice about it because they never seemed to have a problem with it, even for extended periods (half hour trip or so). On my new boat it has a tachometer and it has a red zone at around 6,000rpm, but that's about 3/4 of my throttle. Just to be safe I usually will run it around 5500, but I'm wondering how bad it is to just open it and run it all out? Also, is there a way of finding out if my batteries that have been in storage all winter are still as good as last year? I didn't charge them or anything, I hope they're okay. Horay for bassin'!

I have that exact one. It changed my life.

Rich, I just bought one this year very similar to that. Mine is a Tracker Tournament TX17, I just accidentally picked up off my cousins husband who had it just sitting around. It was cheap, I payed 4Gs for it and I've seen them for all over around that price.. It might even be good to look in the states for one right now. If you can save 12-1500 for a day of driving/gas its not that bad of an idea. I don't know what your budget is, but they're about as cheap as you can get into a bass boat for. I love it, its kinda a big boy toy, but not quite and on a much nicer budget for me at least. Its got a 50 horse Evinrude, and will do around 30-35mph with two people, our gear, and 3 batteries. Pretty nice on gas, I run around 30mph all the time (I like speed) and we can run it for two days on $15-30 worth of gas. I could stand to have a much bigger rod locker, and a second console for my girlfriend, but I think its kind of funny when she gets splashed anyway. And its easy to keep in mind that for the budget the other option is basically a tin boat. As far as water goes, we've had it all over the place this summer.. Rice lake, Conestogo, and Long point bay is basically my home for fishing, and its been fine on there. I know it get kind of rough out there on the bay, but it would handle it. Because its a jon boat it does tend to belly flop onto the waves, but as long as the wind isn't bringing them back into your face its no big deal. My uncle has an aluminum princecraft bass boat, and its got a wide V hull on it, and it does the same thing in waves. Ummm... I think thats it. Do it, you'll really like it and there's lots of great places around here to use it, just you obviously don't take it out on Goergian bay, or Eerie or something like that. You just go in a friends boat those days.

Well, I'll hopefully put together a report when we get back. I don't mind getting into smallies, they're so much fun no matter how big they are.

Thanks, good advice so far.. I'm not sure that I want to spend a whole lot of money on a setup for her when I'm not too sure how much she's going to get into it. I mean I think I should get a decent entry level spinning reel for $70ish tops. The Shimano looks good, I've always like their reels, both my spinning setups are made by them. Power pro is a braided line? I know lots of people on here seem to love it, I really love my monos. But for her, maybe a braid would be better. I found I missed a lot of fish with them because I was so used to the mono stretching, I guess she wouldn't have to un-learn that. Also, I just picked her up a new rod the first time we went out, she was using my Quanutm Energy spinning reel and broke it the first time out! I tried to fix it and my trolling motor fugged up while I was looking at the broken reel all compfuzzled. Off to bass pro I guess..

I'm heading up there to camp for the weekend and get the boat out for a couple of days, just wondering if anyone has fished, or fishes there? What kind of water or cover can I be expecting? Is it good and deep and well marked? I would assume it to be. Any help/insight would be super-duper. Thanks!

Hey all, I started dating a girl in the winter who is really new at fishing, but to humour me she's been comming out with me a lot. Its great, she's a trooper through 8+ hours of fishing as long as I'm up for it. I pretty much always use baitcasters. I like to fish for largemouth and pike, so I'm usually in heavy cover, and pretty much any other water I fish I use my ultra light setup because its just so much fun. So, I don't really know what to set her up with? I try and find deeper water and let her use jigs a lot because its easy. Right now she's borrowing my OLD Shimano Spirex 4000 with 10lbs test on it. It seems to work okay, but its a big reel and after a long day of fishing she'll complain about the weight a few times.. So I need to replace that reel, but I don't know what to do. Nex summer I'll just train her on one of my old baitcasters, but right now she still has a lot of "oops" casts, and it would be a major PITA if she was on a different reel than spinning. So, what are your simple bassin' setups? What kind of reel, what kind of line? Thanks!

Why are you even typing? Shouldn't you be in the driveway sitting in it?

Thats not the little lake I'm talking about, I'm talking about the one near Tilllsonburg...

haha, nice report.. Gotta love the "property of lakeport" t-shirt!

Yeah, give it another shot. I used to fish that place all the time with our ultra lights and a small of a spinner bait we could buy. So easy to catch 50 fish in there in a day, just fish the shorelines.

Sorry Tybo, I don't want to be annoying but I want to be sure I completley understand what you're saying.. Welding around the rivet would not be a good fix because it would crack, correct? I mean, I kind of figured that to be so, but if thats the case then some kind of epoxy would not be the solution either, and the only real answer would be to replace the rivets. Correct? I'm a composite guy by trade, I'm really out of my realm when it comes to fixing aluminum. Thanks

Going there tommorow! Thanks for the heads up.

I just bought an 89 Bass Tracker and it has leaks in a few of the rivets, it looks like the person before me tried to use some of that aluminum stick to fix it temporarily, but it's broke off. Every two hours or so of being on the water I just run the bilge for 3 or 4 minutes, and it doesn't seem to take on nearly as much water if it just sits at the dock overnight, mainly I think from hitting waves and the hull felxing. I wouldn't worry about it too much, I plan to get mine fixed, but from what I understand about riveted boats is its really not that big of a deal. Does anyone know if you can just weld the rivets shut so you don't have to worry about it anymore?

All good names mentioned above. I've always loved Shimano baitcasters, but they're expensive. I've had a Browing that I've had for well over 10 year now that I love but is starting to show its age, and a really old team Diawa which was a good reel in its day, and now I recently added a Quanutm Accurist that is now a couple years old and I just bought a bass pro shops reel. I haven't used the bass pro one yet very much but it seems like a pretty nice peice for the $70 I payed for it. Just spend some time getting a look, a feel, and a little research on all of them before you make a decision, I'm sure most companys have some good reels and some bad ones. Also, keep in mind when reading reviews that the person doing the review isn't nessesarily quailfied and might not really know what they're talking about/getting into. My advice would be look in to a cheaper baitcaster to start instead of jumping head first into a $300+ setup and make sure its right for you. I currently use a cheap BPS "graphite series" rod on my medium-heavy setup and it does the job just fine. The reel I picked up is a "bionic plus" and it was $69 in the store too, it would be a really nice beginner setup for less than the cost of just that abu reel alone. If you like casting accuracy and using a heavier line, you're going to love your baitcaster. Good luck!

I might be up for this, I just have to see if the girlfriend is up for camping that weekend! (too poor for a cottage)

That is just unreal, you must be SO happy. Big time congrats!

Mine's simliar too, about three weeks ago I was fishing in Buckhorn and I threw my spinnerbait out and started to reel and just noticed that my line was unusually limp, so I immediatley cranked in as fast as I could and SET the hook! The musky charged the boat, jumped about three feet away and spit my bait back at me. Its brief, but so cool. The first musky I've ever hooked on to in 15+ years of fishing and I didn't get him in the boat. My girlfriend was with me and it was her first fishing trip with me and all she caught all day were little smallies and stuff, she was crapping her pants at the size of it, and all I wanted to do was cry because my first musky got away. I would say it happens to the best of us.

I'm going to agree, 2 is about average on alomst anywhere as far as bass go. They're pretty predictable.