Touchdown with the Football Jig

What a day we had today filming a show for season 10 of Extreme Angler TV.
Weather man actually kept his promise of NO RAIN and low winds so, called my buddy Jay to rig up some rods and meet me at my place in the a.m., we`re going fishing for smallies...big smallies!

The early a.m. was met with fog, but slick water conditions in the 46 degree range.
Not another boat in sight!!
Here we we`re at a very very popular cottage country destination in the north eastern range of the Kawartha Lakes District, and not another boat or angler in sight, incredible.
Made us feel as "extreme" as it gets.

Putted out to the first spot of the day, on a rock bluff with an inside weed line approx 10 feet from shore with thick green millfoil and cabbage weed mix tapering off to deep water basin.
Not five casts in with my Strike King Tour Grade Football jig and baby rage craw trailer in summer craw tones, I felt the familar sponge weight on my St.Croix Legend Xtreme casting rod and 20-lbs fluorocarbon, set hook and was met with 5+ lbs of brute force of brown bass.

Despite the cold temps, these fish fought very hard and didn`t want to come into the boat no matter how much I pulled.

Stuck the fish into the livewell for safe keeping a few photos before being released and got right back on the trolling motor and on the weedline-rock bluff edge and made 3 more pitches before the same, sensation was felt, bamm, hookset and smallie #2 was flopping on the deck of my boat.
A nice 3+ pounder this time.

Checked my bait for any rips or tears, it was still perfect so started again on the bluff edge.
I wasn`t making long casts on the weed edge, but rather short underhand pitches approx 20+ feet ahead of the boat and watched as the bait fell to the bottom in case any of the fish struck the bait on the fall.
They NEVER ate it on the fall all day, rather, each fish picked up the bait as it lay on bottom and was felt when we went to lift the bait off bottom.

We worked our way up and around the rock bluff, inside weedline with 3 more smallies in the 3-4 pound range until the bite slowed down and decided to move on and find similar locations on this lake which has many rock bluffs and shoals with weed surrounding the deeper edges, perfect conditions and locations for big smallies on the feed in fall.
We hit some bonus largemouth and walleye on some of the deeper edges, but our goal was to continue locating the bigger brown bass.
After approx 2 hours of scouting several different locations, we found yet another sharp dropping rock bluff with even thicker, healthy green weeds forming an awesome inside weed edge.

Not a dozen casts in, Jay hits a big smallie that fought like it was July and then I hit another brute brown bass not 10 feet ahead of his, this spot had more and bigger bass grouped up even thicker....what a bonus!
When all was said and done, we boated over 90% of the bites we had, took some photos of the better fish and released them to live and fight another day.