Once in a Lifetime Smallmouth Bass Bite

May 31, 2012 was a day Joey Dougherty and John Peterson of Northland Fishing Tackle will never forget as long as they live. The stars were lined up creating potentially spectacular smallmouth fishing. Rainy Lakes ice went out in record fashion the first week of April. The ice had been out for fifty two days on their day of fishing. 

Smallmouth usually spawn between June 7-20^th depending on moon phases, water temperatures, and frontal conditions. The weather from May 25^th to May 30^th was not stable by any means. May 28^th was sunny then cloudy, May 29^th cloudy and cool, May 30^th was partly cloudy with a high of 57degrees, May 31 things changed drastically. Sunny skies, flat winds, and high temperatures.

Joe and John fished north shore bays. A few smallmouth were on beds right away in the morning. John had a braid line on with ten-pound test fluorocarbon leader and a 1/8 oz. Northland Tackle Bugaboo jig, in black (best), olive, and white colors. A smallmouth was spotted on a bed with the aid of polarized sunglasses with amber colored lenses.

John and Joe would cast the Bugaboo jigs across the bed and just swim  (slow reeling with the rod tip up) it slowly right through the bed.  John’s first cast was perfectly placed and the big female bass lambasted the jig. More beds were spotted and similar results happened at each spot. There was one huge deviation in the pattern. Most of the times bedding smallmouth bass are males not females. The males come in when the females are ready to drop eggs in the nest.  On May 31^st the beds and bedding areas had huge females cruising the areas.  Just after noon female bass moved into the spawning areas in large numbers almost like the bass had a meeting and said today is the day! What is crazy the bass normally do not want to eat or defend a nest during actual spawning. The females wanted to eat as the males had not arrived, and they had belly's full of eggs to nourish.

Normally bass move in in slower intervals, some areas water warms up quicker than others therefore the more spread out spawning time. 2012 the smallies moved in spawned on May 31^st, eggs were hatched and the large amounts of males were gone from the nests by June 6^th.

John and Joes day was one to put in the all time memory book. They caught fifty plus huge smallmouth. Every once in awhile all the needed conditions on the lake happen at the exact right time. Normally ice out is from May1- May 5^th making for twenty-five to thirty days of open water fishing.  We catch lots of big females during this time period. Smallmouth like to hang on points adjacent to the spawn beds, rock walls or drops close t the same areas during cold fronts and sometimes right in the bedding areas on warm sunny days.

 Smallmouth react almost immediately to warm and cold fronts, I have seen them swim up and off of spawning shallow areas in the same day, sometimes even twice. Polarized sunglasses are the single best purchase you can make for shallow water fishing. Fit Over polarized glasses work great for those that have prescription glasses.

Bugaboo Jigs are very effective jigs for smallmouth, in all but special circumstances they are a slow swimming, slow reeling jig. Use 1/8 oz. for 1-3 feet of water, ¼ oz. 4-7 feet of water. I have used 1/16 oz jigs but they have to be fished on 4-6 lbs. monofilament line, which makes casting accurately difficult. Braid will work but it is not very abrasion resistant. You get broke off often.

There are a few ways to use a Rainy Lake Houseboats for your smallmouth bass trip. Some guests stay on the Ontario side of the lake (Ontario is the north side of the lake. Many guests stay on the Minnesota side and go across in fishing boats. Travel varies from one to three miles across Rainy Lake to the fishing areas. The houseboat always puts you close to the action. One more advantage is rates are 20% off on both weekly and daily rates on the following houseboats Minnitaki, Voyageur, Tamarac, Saginaw, Kempton Cruiser, and Gold Rush Jacuzzi.

Certain areas on the Minnesota side are excellent also. We will point you in the right direction no matter where you want to go!

Smallmouth on bed to left of submerged rock.

        

Spring Time Mayhem Coming Soon!

Spring Time Mayhem Coming Soon!

Phones are ringing and emails are coming in droves! There is definite excitement for the 2013 season.  Many of the calls are touching almost to the point of emotional for us.  Usually the first words are “I have been waiting since I left last spring to get back to Rainy Lake”. I am fortunate to often hear in detail of each day or evening of our guests’ trip, they are in a zone recalling the special moments they experienced last spring.  It’s not all fishing; the camaraderie, campfire evenings, happenings with the group, the environment they are immersed in, all drive the close feelings developed on a Rainy Lake Houseboat spring trip.

 May and June trips inspire people for a variety of reasons. Spring is the time of year where you witness change everyday you are on the lake. Leaves appear on the different trees at different times, often you see the small green leaves barely showing in the morning but by afternoon they are large and look like they have been there for days. The bird migration is on many different kinds of ducks, geese, swans , loons, eagles and songbirds stop and visit Rainy Lake, and many spend the whole summer.

Nesting Loon

I believe spring fishing provides more satisfaction for fisherman than any other time of the year.  Opportunities are endless; smallmouth, walleye, huge pike, and crappies and crappies are using shallow water for an extended period of time.  Many fisherman are set in their ways and catch gobs of walleyes on a jig and minnow long lined behind the boat, others use a Lindy rig with a piece of live bait and catch all the fish they want day after day.  The recipe is pretty simple, fish the shorelines and points that the wind is blowing into in water from 4-8 feet deep, 1/8 oz. jig, or ¼ oz. Lindy and you are in business.

Bill does not smile when he is live bait fishing!

 Spring also offers the opportunity to step outside your comfort zone and experiment with plastics, stick baits, inline spinners, and other artificial baits. You don’t know what is going to hit; is it a huge walleye, northern pike, or a crazy smallmouth bass? You just don’t know, but I can tell you this much; I am entering my forty seventh year of guiding and I cannot wait for the open water season to come.

 I often like to divide the day up into sectors. I start by examining the weather, will it be cool or warming etc. Usually in the first part of the morning I will fish subtle plastics or a stick bait with a pretty tight wobble. As the day gets older I may switch to a bay that has a decent mud bottom with last years weeds and probe the side of the bay the wind is blowing in. Black bottom bays will warm up during the day and pike pile in to these areas in schools. Buzz baits, Glide Raps, spinnerbaits, Streamers on a fly rod all are great ways to catch these pike.

Smallmouth congregate on points adjacent to spawning areas.  Plastics, jerk-baits, sinko’s, inline spinners and even top water plugs are all great choices, read the weather and decide which bait to start with. Cool and cloudy go subtle; warming weather you can get more aggressive. Experimentation is the key.  I fished with a gentleman many years ago who has passed on; he was a very good fisherman. Our reels were Phlueger Supremes and Mitchell 300 spinning reels at that time, lures we used were Lazy Ike’s, L&S Bassmasters, Sonics, Sparkletails, and some that I am sure I have forgotten their names. A comment he made has forever stuck in my mind.  He had made a cast with an L&S Bassmaster and he said “you know most fisherman cast these baits out and think they are in a road race: he who gets back to the boat with the bait wins. He was stopping the bait jerking it forward picking up slack with the reel and bang he would get a strike and fish on. He then said “ He who gets back to the boat with a fish on wins”. Baits were harder to work then; you could not buy neutrally buoyant baits like the ones being sold everywhere today.

I am getting excited……….