Three Hours on the Water - Report and Pics

[JustinHoffman]

Hello All,

 

With the weather looking pretty decent yesterday, Tim and I decided to tow the boat into Quebec to fish my buddies small cottage lake.

 

A quick stop for poutine and dogs on the way up, and the boat was in the water at about 3:10pm.

 

Headed over to the productive area Andy and I had found the week before. Not as stacked this time around, but still found some fish that were willing to play.

 

Tim's small bucktail jig (black/green) seemed to be the best producer, although my BPS craw and SPRO bucktail also accounted for a few fish. Most were again relating to a sparse flat with isolated weed clumps, and were concentrated in water between 5 and 12 feet deep. Quick snaps of the jig while "swimming" it close to bottom seemed to work best.

 

This was the best fish of the day. This girl smacked the craw and football jig at boatside:

 

 

 

Fished up until sundown, and put 15 largies and one jumbo perch in the boat for three hours work. No smallies to be found this time. Still amazed at how well these largies fight - definitely a blast on spinning gear!

 

Kept a few fish for the table, and made a bit of an interesting discovery. Like I mentioned last time, most of the largies from this lake don't have the fat guts like they should this time of year. Checked out the stomach contents of the fish I kept - all were empty except for a large, black water beetle in one. Tim's jig mimicked this perfectly, and perhaps that is why it seemed to work so well on this outing. Don't know enough about the lake to figure out what the main forage base is - but perhaps this flat is harboring a large concentration of these beetles??

 

Another fun fall afternoon on the water...

 

Good Fishing,

 

Justin

Edited November 3, 2008 by JustinHoffman

[Mike the Pike]

WTG Justin great report but 15 bass please more pics next time.

 

Whats this no baitcasters in the fall is there a reason you're only using spinning gear in November.

 

Betcha half the guys on this site have never had a good Quebec poutine.

 

MTP

[JustinHoffman]

Mike - Was a "quick" three hour trip, so didn't spend much time with photos. Was more of a fun fish, without the worries of work and magazine photos to shoot...

 

As for the use of spinning gear, it all comes down to what I'm throwing and the areas I'm throwing to. When targeting deep rock and wood, flipping jigs (and the appropriate stick) is generally my choice - especially in late fall.

Shallow weed flats seem to work best with more of a finesse-style bait - bucktail jig, smaller plastics on football jigs, etc. Hence, the spinning gear. These last two trips have been more this style. I did toss a flipping jig, spinnerbait, and crank around on this day, but the fish weren't having anything of it. That gave me the insight to toss more of a finesse-style bait.

Also, most of these places have smallies and walleye around, so I'm not necessarily targeting only largemouth - again, the reason for the jigs. All comes down to the lake.

 

Will be changing up tactics this coming Tuesday, as I am fishing a deep water lake for big largies - baitcast equipment in conjunction with jigs, Senkos, swim baits, and cranks will be part and parcel of that trip. Look for that report come Wednesday...if the fish co-operate.

 

Good Fishing,

 

Justin

[b2kptbo]

Some good info. and report, thanks Justin...

[Greencoachdog]

A real nice fish Justin!!!

 

I find when I clean fish a lot of times their stomachs will be empty too, maybe they regurgitate their stomach contents during the fight?

Sometimes they don't feed until conditions are perfect for them... i.e skunk trips!... I dunno