Bass still on the beds for opener?

[Old Ironmaker]

10 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

There’s 0 doubt that electronics are extremely handy, especially when it comes to navigating. Certain times of year/patterns rely a lot on utilizing your sonar and even more specifically down imaging. Smallies in September like to sit on bait, for the most part the bait they feed on is barely visible on chirp sonar, but on down imaging you can see the fish chasing bait.

I still have no friggin clue how people used to get around on Georgian bay prior to having a gps. I mean sure you could learn the way through some of the main channels through experience, but there’s no way in hell you’d venture off of them unless you were paddling.

heck I still run into rocks with some regularity while standing on the deck running the trolling motor. I’ve been lucky enough that to date (knock on wood) I haven’t hit the lower end of my outboard off of anything. I basically 100% owe that to having a gps to guide me on my way. As a rule of thumb I stick to drive lines and charted areas and when I want to explore I throw in the bow mount and make my way carefully. I’ve learned a lot of water this way. 

When I venture out in water I'm not familiar with here on Erie I use my drive lines to come back to port. If I didn't come across a shoal going out I doubt I will hit anything coming back. Sandy rivers and Long Point inner bay however can fool you. I got hung up on a sandbar in the inner bay that definitely was not there when we headed out. Crazy winds on shallow water can change the bottom in a few hours or less. 

We must be nuts Akri fishing G. Bay and Lake Erie. I have friends that have fished up north on back lakes their entire lives that won't go out in my boat here. 

[AKRISONER]

Re: bass on beds

i think people forget that bass spawn anywhere from 0-10 fow. Sure we all know about classic sight fishing but that only represents a piece of the picture.

furthermore if you have ever surfed, you realize even bigger waves expel most of their energy above the surface of the water. When you dive beneath them you hardly move at all. Yes if there are waves crashing on the beds in a foot of water, they are definitely taking a beating. Remember bass also spawn in waves, only a particular subset of fish will be doing the deed at any given time.

The only time using a gps failed me and scared the heck Out of me was the time I decided to go adventuring into a giant shoal/sunken island field on the western outskirts of pointe au baril. The area is basically totall uncharted and impassable and therefor sees quite literally 0 boat traffic or fishing pressure quite literally ever. I figured I was going to be slick and slip my tinner through the gaps in the shoals and fish the deeper areas between the strips of rocks keeping a driveline to focus on where i was going. Simple, troll out and then follow my driveline back home. Sure enough I made my way out heading south west through the rocks (it was glass calm by the way) slipping through the doorways. Caught a few fish but nothing to write home about, then made my way back when I realized that even while sitting on my drive line, those 4 foot wide gaps in the rocks I had slipped through on the way out were now far more difficult to spot and were in many instances my only way  to make my way back north east to safety...and even worse, at some point I had clearly taken the wrong “doorway” and what this meant was that I was now probably 10 feet away from my way into the maze and had no idea how the heck to go out. Admittedly I’m pretty sure by the end of my way trying to make it through the maze, I gave up and smacked the TM off of some rocks and scraped the bottom of the boat over a shoal just to make it out. In hindsight I was really really stupid. Had a lake breeze kicked up or anything the waves could have built very quickly out in that open water and put us in an area unnaccessbile to help, and in a small boat stuck.

We easily could have swam to safety (there was rocks above water everywhere too), but I definitely could have lost the boat that day

 

[Terry]

You guys using the word driveline

i take it that’s tracks or trails your talking about 

 

I have just never heard them called driveline

[BillM]

10 minutes ago, Terry said:

You guys using the word driveline

i take it that’s tracks or trails your talking about 

 

I have just never heard them called driveline

Me either, lol.  

[moxie]

Ill preface my comments by pointing out i rarely catch and keep and ethically follow rules set out by authorities entrusted to manage our resources. That said, We fished them last wknd and will be fishing them this wknd as well and as such time as dates and rules change, we'll keep fishing them in the future. Ethical? Yup.

[misfish]

Will be tossing my goby fly in the morning for them. Open season.

[Old Ironmaker]

Akri used "driveline" so I did too. Better than other names, it's self explanatory, I like it.

I will know if the Smallies are still on the beds in exactly 17 minutes. Rod, reel and top water are all set up.  

Akri, I too have been caught in water I had no business being in. Nipissing in Purgatory Bay lost at night, (should have been more frightening, but at 23 invincible) and here on Erie (a strong 2nd place).

Edited June 22, 2019 by Old Ironmaker

[Sinker]

Muskie are off the beds, I know that for sure. Bass? Who cares .....lol

[misfish]

Not a single fish to be seen in 3 hours, 5am - 8 am. Never even seen a bed. This area was my go to for years. It,s finished.Ruined by sand build up. Made it back to shore just in time though, before one of the toons went completely flat.

 

Think I will walk some creeks Sunday morning.

Edited June 22, 2019 by misfish

[Old Ironmaker]

Bass are not on the beds here at least. We got a few hog females about 50' off the shoreline. Hit very aggressively. One took a spinnerbait into the upper jaw and into the skull. She was north of 5#'s. Cut off the hook, she swam away strong, hope she made it. I put a small Black Fury on an ultralight and the small Greenies were hitting it steady. 

I couldn't care less about Trout and Salmon either, smell like fish but don't taste like chicken. 

[AKRISONER]

Today was just another classic Georgian bay opener. Sack just shy of 20lbs but close to 40 fish boated between 8am and 2. Average size high 2’s and 3’s. Spent the high sun period site fishing in 7<fow watching schools of smallies seek and destroy our ned and whacky rigs. 

Gonna try for some largies in the pads just to shake things up this evening.

Edited June 22, 2019 by AKRISONER

[Old Ironmaker]

29 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

Today was just another classic Georgian bay opener. Sack just shy of 20lbs but close to 40 fish boated between 8am and 2. Average size high 2’s and 3’s. Spent the high sun period site fishing in 7<fow watching schools of smallies seek and destroy our ned and whacky rigs. 

Gonna try for some largies in the pads just to shake things up this evening.

I will never get tired of catching Smallmouth that size Akri. I find they fight harder than a 5 plus pounder. One Smallie fight = 10 Walleye being tugged ib like a rubber boot. But they sure taste good, and not like chicken like Walleye. They want 18 bucks now at the Lake Erie tourist traps for 3 Pickerel Tacos and the fish in each is the size of your thumb. Almost 10 bucks for a footlong death dog. 

I kept 6 Greenies, Smallies about 12 to 15 inches, emerald green fish, maybe year old class. Flesh is rock solid. Fish Tacos tonight. 

Edited June 22, 2019 by Old Ironmaker