Road Trip- Aug 24-26 `11- Brown Bass Blast!

Was on another road trip last week from tuesday aug 23rd to august 26 looking for some hot- bite smallmouth and largemouth bass to film some shows for season 10 of Extreme Angler TV.
Was met with some high winds on tuesday on my practice day for largies, but boated some real nice fish and hooked some add`l chunkers to keep me interested in coming back to this particular lake again on wednesday to hit the "prime spots", but the wind was so wild and rough, I could not even launch my rig without adding even more bumps and bruises to the wrap. And then, got a call that a tornado warning was issued for the area I was in, was all I needed to load the boat back onto the trailer and head back to the safe land and re-tie, re-rig my gear for the next days film shoot.

At first I was a bit disappointed I didn`t get the opportunity to fish the prime locations for more or bigger largemouth, but that was quickly squashed when I launched the boat on another lake with film crew aboard and due to dropping water temps and fresh off a terrible storm with lots of lightning and thunder the night before I would put down the topwater sticks and temp these brown bass with Strike King Zero stick worms in everything possible from cane, lily pads, wild rice, cabbage and milfoil weed to rock and wood.

Started out with 2 nice fish in the 3 pound range in shallow cabbage weeds then had to plug away all day long to entice the bites I wanted from bigger smallies (of which I lost 3 real nice thick, wide fish) which bit so lightly, it felt like a blade of grass on my stick worm, but turned out to be a big brown bass. Surely but slowly I was fortunate set hook into some real nice brown bass to make a real informative show on fishing for smallmouth bass in shallow water after a severe storm.
My equipment choices for this day we`re a St.Croix legend xtreme rod - 6'6" medium heavy action- with a Ardent Fishouflage spinning reel and either 10 pound fluorocarbon or 15-20 lbs Spider thread micro braid in the heavier cover. Most productive zero worms we`re the pumpkin red flake and bama orange tones.

On friday, we launched the rig on another lake in the area and we`re met with severe fog and real cool a.m. temps that dropped the water down to 62 degrees. Decided once again to give the bass something they "had to eat" and not chase so I broke out the St.Croix legend xtreme drop shot rods (6' 9" light action models) matched with Ardent S2000 & S2500 Fishouflage spinning reels and 15-lbs Spider thread braid tied to a 10 pound fluorocarbon leader and Daiichi #1 fine wire hook and Strike King 3X Finesse worms in the 4" size in both watermelon/red flake and brown pumpkin with red.

First spot of the day produced 4 fish in the first half hour including some real beautiful brown bass from a rock ledge leading to the main lake basin and ultra deep water.
Once again the bite was painfully slow and thanks to my ultra sensitive legend xtreme rods, could I feel the slight "leaf-like" sensation of the fish eating the bait.

Plugged away until early afternoon in a variety of locations, but with the same characteristics (drop offs and ledges leading to deep water) and came away with another very informative show on semi-deep water smallies (on the edges and ledges) on cottage country lakes.

Parry Sound Bass

Just returned from a mini road trip today from the Parry Sound district of Ontario and filmed 2 great shows in 2 days! Thursday was largemouth day and flipped n` pitched Strike King rage craws to ultra shallow natural structure and cover (cane, arrowheads, stumps, logs and pads) with my Ardent fishouflage flip n pitch reel loaded up with 20 lb fluorocarbon, a 4/0 extra wide gap X-point hook and 3/16 oz Strike King tour grade tungsten worm weight (non pegged). The hot color for the day was California Craw with its dark pumpkin and red flake finish.

Boated 7 good fish in total with 5 toothy critter bite offs and 2 fish break offs rubbing against the sharp rocky subsurface structure.

Today (friday august 19th) was smallmouth day and WOW was it good! Didn`t land any giants but caught over 3 good limits of chunky hard fighting brown bass with Strike King KVD Finesse worms rigged with a split shot 12"-18" above the worm which was cast to weededges, rock piles, sharp dropping rocky points and rock piles anywhere from 8-25+ feet of water.

Todays hot color was double header red (green pumpkin and red fleck) with a #1 Daiichi hook and 8-10 lbs fluorocarbon line and St.Croix legend 6'6" medium action xtreme spinning rods and Ardent`s S2000 Fishouflage reels.

Despite the bright blue bird skies and ultra slick water conditions, I was really satisfied with the results and look forward to returning to this awesome region again in the very near future.

Spit N King Smallies

One of latest road trips included an action packed morning casting Strike King Spit N King topwater plugs to shallow rock piles for some high flying smallmouth bass. The fish we`re schooled up in tight packs with many back to back casts and Bass. I had to make longer casts to the spooky shallow fish, but once the bait landed on the right spot, these bass had no hesitation to smash the plugs hard! A lot of the fish spent more time airborn than in the water which made for some awesome footage. Once the sun got high and hot, the fish began to scatter to the deeper edges. They still bit, but the strikes we`re few and farthur between, but the size was still good. I had to use a follow up rod rigged with a zero stick worm to pick up a few more fish that slashed at the spit n king, but didn`t get hooked up.
As you can see by the close up image, these smallies hit the bait hard and scratched up my plugs pretty good, but they kept on catching all morning long