Buckets n` Bronzebacks Galore!

Amazing is the only way to describe my most recent road trip fishing/filming shows for season 10 of Extreme Angler TV.
Visited some popular cottage lakes in Bracebridge ON and with the extreme heat wave, came some extremely aggressive Bass, both green and brown ones.

Filmed a show on thursday Sept. 1st for largemouth on a bright sunny day and had to dissect the smallest of spots to entice the bigger bass to come out to play.

Fished with Strike King rodents in Blue Craw & Amistad tones in ultra shallow water with St.Croix Legend Tournament Bass 7' 3" Big Jig- heavy action casting rods and Ardent F700 Flip n Pitch reels loaded with 25 pound fluorocarbon line. The rodents we`re rigged on X-Point extra wide gap 4/0 hooks and strike king tour grade tungsten worm weights in the 1/8 to 3/16 oz sizes.
Had to use a stealth-like approach in the clear water conditions and make longer pitches to the small dark holes along shallow docks, lily pads, moored boats and downed trees.

Put in some long stretches between bites, but when the bigger bass we`re located, they ate the bait real good and hard and fought like wild bulls, splashing, jumping and putting up a real good "tug of war" but my ultra strong fluorocarbon held up to the challenge.
Had to re-tie constantly due to zebra mussels and submerged rocks mixed in with the shallow weed and man made structure I was fishing.

Concept of this show was "locating and catching bigger than average bass on bright sunny days"...and truth be told, it turned out real good!! Don`t miss this one on WFN this fall during season 10 of Extreme Angler TV.

Then on friday sept 2nd I fished/filmed another cottage lake except for smallies on top with Strike King spit n kings and walking style baits on sharp dropping rocky points leading to mainlake deep water. WOW...is the only way to describe this day!!

Hit two smaller points first thing in the a.m. with only a few smaller bass to show for my efforts, then went to deeper water points and hit the "motherload of brown bass"!
First cast produced a 4+ pound hard scrapping smallie that just would not come to net.
Boated that one and felt pretty good...checked my equipment, made cast number #2 and hooked an even bigger smallie...this gal fought like she was 10 pounds!....bulldogged and pulled line until she got netted and placed in the livewell for a later release and some photos of course.

Now I was really stroked, 2 big smallies on the first 2 casts!

Cast #3 on the exact same spot...pop, twitch, pause, pop, twitch, pause...bamm, another 4+ pound smallmouth eats my bait...incredible action and all caught on camera...awesome...only problem was, this brown beast spits the bait after the first jump! Oh well, can`t complain...my heart rate was already peaking.

Fished with St.Croix  Legend Xtreme 6'6" medium action casting rods with Ardent Fishouflage casting reels and 12 pound monofilament lines tied to a tiny cross lock snap and Strike King Spit `n Kings poppers.

Fished this point for another 20 mintues and switched up to both Zero stick worm and drop shot with zero results...moved to my next location...a weed flat dropping off to another main lake edge.
First cast, a 3+ pounder jumps over my bait...had to put down the popper and pick up the zero stick to catch this one.
Fished the sloping weed edge for another 1/2 hour and caught several 1-2-1/2 pounders but wanted more big ones so I moved to location #3.

Nothing on the first dozen casts, but hit another gang of smallies 15 mintues in, a bit further out on the point. Hooked a 3 pounder and had 3 other ones try to take the spit n king out of its mouth while I was fighting it beside the boat...incredible stuff!
Caught one more from that gang then headed back to my deep point to see what might be lurking that I didn`t raise before.
Fished the topwaters for 20 mintues then decided to pick up the drop shot rig and fish the end of the point in 28+ feet of water and felt a sponge bite, set hook and felft my heart pound!
This fish did`nt move...it bulldogged down in the depths...my mind was racing...was it a potential Canadian record smallmouth bass or what?

After five or so minutes of bull dogging back and forth and slowly bringing this beast to the surface, I caught a glimpse of the huge head and wide thick shoulders of a 20+ pound Northern pike witch settled my nerves a bit, because I sure didn`t want to lose this fish without seeing it first. Was about to grab her, when she thrashed her head and cut the line and sank back to the depths...easy catch and release but thankfully it was all caught on camera once again.

Was off the water by one- o`clock in the aft with another action packed, informative show for season 10 viewers.
Got rained out this a.m....but will be back at it this week.
thanks for checking out my report, later.