Off to the lake then. Pulled up to an empty parking lot and a smith ripple on the water. " this is gonna be a day I think buddy" so off we go... Decided to stop at a new spot on the lake ( mcgregor is what I'd call my "home" lake) that I have always looked at when passing by and for what ever reason have never stopped. Nice little bay with a boulder sticking out of the water between the two points making up the bay. "Too bad the wind isn't blowing in!" I mentioned as I notice the wind start to pick up. The bay was fairly shallow 4-5ft most of the way through with lots of scattered weed so we chucked spinner baits and wake baits through the bay as we covered water checking the place out.
Too bad the wind was coming from the back of the bay out to the lake. There were stumps here and there with a few boulders mixed in and the wind was blowing things away! So on the way out I decided to toss on a "walk the dog" type top water bait and started to throw at the last few little Lilly pad clusters. Side to side, side to side, side to side.... You all know the rest! I love top water
a decent pike decided that he wanted to destroy my top water by coming at it so hard and fast that it came out of the water entirely to do a back flip while sending my lure flying. Didn't catch him but who cares!!! With hits like that I'm having a Blast! So time to go check out the big boulder in the middle of the bays entrance. The wind is blowing nicely out of the bay to my advantage onto this boulder I'm thinking. So I pick up my favorite rod in the boat. The Drop Shot rig! I've got on one of my 4" paddle tail minnows. It's in a sweet new colour that I had a few extra of after a custom order from a fellow fish hawker. (You know who you are) So to the back side of the boulder. Toss out the rig into 20ft of water. After a few casts, and now an hour or so into the outing, finally I feel that distinct little tap-tap. I swing and my rod didn't move, just bent in half. "Oh that looks like it could be good" I hear from the back. " Oh I thinks so buddy!" I giggled. Funny how a little fish can turn a man into a child in an instant??? All right! I just boated the biggest smaillie I've caught on this lake. Lot of big largemouth but no giant smallies in this lake I've found.
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I would love to catch this fish again in another month. It's back was twice as thick as its very empty looking belly. I'm sure it will pack on a pound or two before winter. Turns out she was the only taker on the this boulder.
Down the lake we go
Time to head to our favourite spot k the lake. An open water hump that comes up from 30ft. "Hey let's try this dock on the way. It's close and has some deep water in front of it" Done! This really had to be the nicest looking dock I have ever seen. I'm 5 ft in front of it sitting in 30ft of water. It's maybe 20long with a little shallow on the left but a steep drop on the left. Not only is there a drop, the drop has a rock pile on it that comes back up to 5ft and drops back down to 30. Oh and did i forget the weed bed growing off the side of the rock pile. I had a hard time to decide what to throw at first. So flipped both a craw and a beaver to every nook and cranny I could see to no avail. Then I worked the bottom end of the rock pike and weed bed with my drop shot minnow and again nada. Hmmm?!?!? This really is the nicest looking thing I've seen all year and nothing??? Oh well, that's why it's called fishing and not catching.
So time to crank up the minn Kota and head over to the hump a few hundred feet out into the lake.
With a grin on my chin and my trusty drop shot rig in hand time drop down the minnow again and see if anybody's home. Sure enough not 30 goes and the first smaillie hits. Just a little guy. Couple little ones on the steep side of the hump. Time for the gradual slope side " last time I was here this is where the bigger largies were hanging out" and what do know
here they were. We caught few largies two and half and one over three on the steep side.
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Nice! Biggest largie of the day.
Now with a bigger grin "time to go" Off to the launch we go. Hit the main lake to discover the lake now had white caps on it as we head into the strong wind with my little 14ft tub. Well with the slow 9.9 mercury I was really happy to have my rain suit in the boat with me
At the end of the day we ended up with a few small fish and what would have been 9 keepers. They all went back home to feed up for my next trip to the lake
All our fish came form 18-25ft with most off the drop shot minnows (awesome colour) and a couple on a senko. Thanks Matt for coming out. We did alright for 4hrs on the water on the first day of a cold front.
