Last day of spring, sunny skies and moderate winds. Was hoping to head back to the lake where I caught some giant smallmouth bass last week, but didn't have enough time. Instead, I opted for a shorter half day outing closer to Montreal. This smaller lake still offers some decent smallmouth bass fishing, and was hoping to see if I could top my biggest smallie on that lake since starting to have fished it last summer, which stood at 17 inches.
Launched the float tube shortly after 10 am, and started off throwing the only topwater lure I had on board, namely, the Pop R. Didn't take long for me to land my first smallmouth bass of the day, I nice 16 incher.
Turned out that the first fish of the morning a few minutes into the outing, was my second biggest on that lake up to that point.
A few casts later, another good bass exploded on my lure. Another nice fight, and smallmouth bass landed.
At 17 inches, this one tied my previous best for the lake, and with sizes increasing, we seemed to be in the right direction.
After another smaller bass, I hooked into another big smallie. Probably the best fight of the day, this slender 19 inch bass only weighed 3.25 lbs, as most of the bass on this lake seem a bit leaner than normal. Probably spawned out females.
No matter, a new personal lake record for me is always more than welcome!
The next bass was a bit smaller, but as I was bringing it in, I noticed a small school of bass chasing it around during the fight, possibly waiting for it to spit it's "meal".
Wasn't able to get them to hit on subsequent casts after releasing this bass. After a few more missed hits further down the bank, I ended up losing my Pop R in a tree, due to bad cast caught by a wind gust. Being the only topwater lure I had with me, I was forced to switch things up. A small spinner didn't produce anything, so I eventually went with a small jointed floating Rapala, which dives shallow on retrieve. The bite was still kind of slow, until I eventually headed back to where I had seen the school off bass chasing one of my previous fish.
A couple casts, and another solid bass in the 16 inch range hit the Rapala. Decided to get some shots of the fight, ended up catching the tail end of a couple jumps on camera.
Last pass of the day produced a couple more smallmouth bass, and a few small rock bass.
All in all, another great day on the water, with 10 of 13 smallmouth bass landed from the float tube in about 5 hours of fishing. Great way to the end of spring 2022, as summer rolls in tonight. Looking forward to exploring a couple new lakes on my radar over the next month or so. Stay tuned...
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