The first outing was a trip up to Coin Lavigne, to fish for rainbow trout and speckled brook trout. We arrived at Lac en Coeur around 9 AM, by which time the small lake already had 7-8 boats fishing on it. Talk about crowded conditions, but with kids in school, weekends are the only option.
Despite the high volume of boat traffic causing "elbow to elbow" conditions on the tiny lake, fishing was very productive. Rainbow trout were aggressively hitting our lines up near the surface, whether we fished deep or shallow. Trolling a Silver lake flasher spoon followed by 1/2 a worm on baitholder hook rigged about 3 feet behind the spoon, accounted for most of the trout we caught, but we managed to get some trolling a #2 mepps spinner in gold color.
Took less than 2 hours to get out 10 trout bag limit, which we kept for the table.
The following day, I finally got out onto Lac St Louis only the second time this season. This time it was with my friend (and veteran fishing guide) Mark. With moderate winds in the morning steadily increasing throughout the day, we started off anchoring deep to fish for lake sturgeon.
Didn't take long, and I boated my first sturgeon of the season after a nice fight that had it jump a few times.
The next sturgeon was significantly bigger, and put up the best fight I've had all season. It had the downrigger rod I was using bent to the point where I thought it was going to explode on me, but the rod held up just fine.
I released the big sturgeon, but strangely enough, it turned around and headed right back to the boat, to where I was able to actually pet it's snout. It turned again and did the same thing for a second time, before finally swimming down to the depths it came from.
After not catching any more sturgeon of the spot, we moved a bit deeper, and were quickly rewarded with another nice sturgeon.
By now, the winds were gusting strong, the waves increasingly getting bigger, and boat control was getting increasingly difficult. We opted to changed our target species to smallmouth bass, in an area sheltered from the high wind.
Not having had much time to target smallmouth bass this season, I was excited to have Mark show me a yet another new technique. Twitching flukes over weed patches, were were able to get into a couple hours of solid bass fishing, with a few of the smallmouth bass over the 4 lbs range.
Mark never ceases to amaze me with his unparalleled knowledge of the St Lawrence River, and his vast arsenal of tactics, specific to each spot and it's current flow, weather condition, etc. Along with his big Ranger boat fully equipped with the latest electronics and new 250 HP 4 stroke engine, his experience is sure to put anyone from beginners to seasoned pro's onto some of the best multi species fishing Montreal has to offer.
Mark can be contacted by clicking here.
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