Jon Belanger

Number 13 : Luck or bad luck?

2011-08-31T21:06:00.011-04:00

August 13th, 2011

Caro and I will remember this day for a looonnng time! For once, the lake was nice with a reasonable SW wind.... it's wasn't dead calm but there was a nice ripple that wasn't going to bother the basscat one bit.

I'm not really superstitious but Caro couldn't help to notice that we had 13 rods rigged and we were August 13th.... To make things even weirder I picked #13 to launch in the morning. I didn't make anything of it but about 100 yards from my first spot I heard a noise that nobody wants to hear coming from my engine.... I slowed down and tried giving it a bit of gas once again but the noise was back and even louder. That's when I told Caro it was the end of our season.... thinking my motor had just "died". We were almost on a spot so we made a phone call to the tournament director and asked if there was anyway we could still fish and they said that I could find someone to transport my fish in a seperate livewell or get someone to tow me back to the launch (which I ended up doing).

While I was on the phone, another angler (not in the tournament) was catching big smallies less then 30ft from me and although I was a bit dissapointed I was surprise to see that the fish were "on" in this area. When I got everything confirmed with the tournament director I started fishing the area thoroughly as I had no where else to go. The first fish to hit my wacky worm was my biggest fish of the year at 5.4lbs.... A beautiful smallmouth that made me forget about my motor for a few minutes.... Moving around with my trolling motor only, Caro and I were able to boat 3 more quality smallies in the 3 to 4lbs range. It was around 10am when my dad gave me a call to tell me he was on it's way to pick me up. Now I started thinking that I should've called him later but I didn't think I had a chance to win an event with no motor. With my dad waiting for me on shore at 11:30am I put the trolling motor to 100% and put those Demone batteries to the test. On our way back to meet my dad, I had a waypoint marked on the GPS and we just had to give it a try to catch our 5th and last fish. On the first pass, I got a nice "thump" on the drop shot but never managed to set the hook.... I wasn't going to miss it twice! The 2nd pass produced the fish we needed to at least have a shot at a top 5.

We got back to the launch at 1:00PM but we weren't aloud to fish after being towed so we had to wait 2 hours to weigh our fish. Unfortunately, we had a fish die at the weigh-in and lost half a pound for a total weight of 19.30. To my surprise, nobody was able to beat us today and we won the event for a second year in a row with #1 lunker on top of that.

I'd like to thank all my sponsors today but especially Demone batteries who didn't slow down one bit even after 1 hour of 100% power on my Minnkota. I was able to fight the current and make my way back to the dock safely.

St-Francis practice time!

2011-08-31T20:40:00.002-04:00

August 6-7, 2011

With Econobass next weekend and the Berkley B1 in september it's obvious I will be spending a lot of time on lake St-Francis for the next 2 months. It's no secret that I love this body of water but I would like to find some BIG fish this year in order to defend my Econobass title from last year and do another top 10 at the Berkley B1 2011.

I was able to put in 2 days of practice with Caro and my brother Raph but it wasn't a big success to say the least. The objective was to find new big fish area and validate other spots from previous years. My stuff from previous years is still very good but finding new big fish is quite the challenge. I find the weed has grown differently in most places and some of my prime areas don't produce quite as good as last year but fortunatly the deeper water smallies are still locked down on my GPS and biting well!

I tried looking for largies has a "Plan B" and found a nice deep weedline that produced some decent size. I don't think I will be needing them but I can't wait to go back to check it out before the B1.

Overall, practice wasn't very good in the sense that I couldn't find any new stuff that I am confident to fish at the tournament next weekend but there is a lot of time left to figure it out before the B1.

Econobass - Lac des Deux-Montagnes

2011-08-29T21:22:00.002-04:00

July 30th, 2011

I've had such a hard time on this lake in the summer that Caro and I had a simple objective : Catch 5 fish. I don't know if it's because we put the bar so low but we were able to get 5 smallmouth in 20 mins on our first spot. We were pretty happy about that because we knew that a lot of teams were going to struggle to get 5 fish in the livewell today. We stayed there awhile hoping to get one of the decent size smallies when had seen in practice but couldn't get anything much bigger then 2.5lbs. It's too bad because the fish were feeding heavily on minnows and were jumping on our Dumz sticks on almost every cast.

We then went upstream to fish another area for both largies and smallies and only got short bites... From there it was spot hopping until we decided to hit a main bay for largies and lost some more time there... I believe I was in the right area but probably too late when I saw how many boats had fished the area already. We decided to hit our main area once more before the end of the day and caught some other fish but could never upgrade any of our fish.

We finished our day with a mediocre weight of 8.95lbs good enough for 18th place. I can't say we are satisfied but it's an improvement over last years results nonetheless.

Vacation fishing!

2011-08-10T19:39:00.004-04:00

July 18 - 22nd, 2011

It's no surprise that Caro and I spent most of our vacation fishing again this year. We spent 2 hard days of practice looking for smallmouth and largemouth on lake 2 Mountains. I know this lake has good smallies but it's also the most dangerous lake we have around here and I don't like risking losing my lower unit every time I'm out there looking for them. I was able to fish some new water but again the conditions made it difficult and the reward was somewhat interesting but too risky for the tournament, unless we get very little wind. I really wanted to concentrate on finding new smallies and put very little time on the largies.... Most of the largies are all in the same area and a lot of boats are fighting for the same spots. Practice ended up not being so good but we did find a few interesting stuff on the last day just before getting off the water that was promising for the tournament.

We were also on lake St-Louis, St-Francis and other local lakes for some fun fishing.

Here are a few pics from our vacation:

First time out on St-Francis

2011-07-11T12:55:00.002-04:00

July 11th, 2011

I was back on the water today with Caro and my friend Aaron for what felt like a revenge for our awful day on the water yesterday. We had NW wind blowing at around 10kmh which picked up to about 20km/h in the afternoon.

We started fishing fairly shallow and Caro caught the first 3 fish with the biggest one around 3lbs. We looked at new and old spots but the shallow bite was not really working for us so we decided to go deep. I caught a nice 4.5lbs smallmouth in about 25ft of water on our 3rd deep water spot but we had a few good hits in the 20-30ft range. We moved quite a bit today and didn't have a huge bag at the end of the day but it was my first time out on St-Francis and it seems like the vegetation was much different from last year. I should be fishing it a few more times over the next few weeks and hopefully do better then today. Aaron caught one shallow in the afternoon on the spinnerbait and I missed 2 more on the tube. Caro caught the majority of the fish today as usual and we would've probably had a little over 16lbs which is not bad at all... but we could've done better!

Econobass on the Ottawa River

2011-07-11T12:12:00.002-04:00

July 9th, 2011

I was fishing the Ottawa river for the 3rd time this year and I was confident we could get a similar weight then the two previous trips but I was wrong. Again, July seems to be a tough month on this river as we were only able to bring back 2 fish to the weigh-in. Conditions didn't seem to bad in the morning with a NW wind of about 5-10km/h which made for a nice boat ride to our first spot.

The first area we stopped at had a few laydowns that were holding quality largies in practice but after trying to convince them for over 30 mins we decided to move on to another area close by where they had been hitting the frog pretty good a few days before. Unfortunatly, the frog bite was completly off and seemed to attract only pike. We missed a few bites flipping isolated patches of lily pads but it was no easy task when the wind picked up. We had to move quite a bit before I finally hooked a small largemouth that ended up being the only largie of the day.

It was about noon when we decided to give the smallies a try. After only a few minutes I got bit with what seem to be a decent size smallmouth but it came off very quickly and we didn't get to see it. We fished a very shallow rock flat and a nearby drop off when Caro hooked her first smallmouth of the day but like me, it didn't stay on for very long. Caro still managed to get a tiny smallmouth for what was going to be our last fish of day. We tried maybe 3-4 more spots but couldn't get another fish in the livewell. We even tried some new areas in hope to find a place that hadn't been hit so hard by the last 3-4 tournaments over the last few weeks and eventhough we found nice stuff and saw some fish, we weren't able to convince them to bite.

The ride back to the weigh-in was simply brutal with all the pleasure craft out on the water. I wish I could practice more often on this river but it's a bit of a drive from where I live and to be honest, I can't say I love the fishing there. Regardless, I will have to go back and figure it out once and for all!

First win of the season!

2011-07-06T12:37:00.003-04:00

July 1st, 2011

I was fishing a charity Pro/Am event from Fishin-Canada.net today with Christian Grenier. Christian had been the observer in my boat on day 1 last year at the Berkley B1 and he was happy to be able to fish and not only "observe" today.

We started fishing a few shallow areas for smallies and couldn't get a fish to bite for the first hour or so... The 2nd area was a spot closer to the main lake and had a lot of fish on it. We drifted a few times over it and both had our limit quickly. Christian had a 4lbs + smallmouth jump out the water and spit his tube back at him..... It was there that he learned to put his rod tip down when the fish is about to jump! We then proceeded to a main lake sand flat that I was checking out for the 2nd time... we had a few fish follow and bump our baits but they wouldn't take it fully. I tried throwing plastics for awhile but seeing as I didn't really know the area I decided it was time to go hunt for a largemouth kicker!

The first area we did had decent largies swimming around us but no matter what bait we threw, they didn't care one bit. We tried all kinds of baits and techniques for about 30 mins and couldn't get a fish to bite. That's when I realized I had to try Caro's favorite bait.... To my surprise, I caught a 3lbs largemouth on my first cast and a smallie on the next one. Seeing as I had already about 9 lbs in the livewell... I gave Christian a hook and the special bait for him to start catching. He started catching fish immediatly but not the size we were hoping for. We moved around a little bit and tried tossing the frog hoping to catch a big largemouth at the end of the day but couldn't really upgrade what we already had.

My 3 fish weighed-in at 9.85lbs good for 1st place on the pro side and Christian's fish got him 4th place I think. All in all we had a very fun day on the water. I always have a blast fishing with new people and I hope they have this event again next year.

Lefaivre Lions 2011

2011-06-28T16:40:00.004-04:00

June 25th, 2011

Ben Woo and I left friday night for a motel in Plantagenet for the Lions tourney. We did not practice at all for this event but with the high water levels, we were confident to find the fish quickly compare to last years conditions.

We had a strong East wind in the morning but it died down a lot in the first hour of fishing. We started fishing for smallies and managed to put 2 fish in the box quickly and missed maybe 2 more. They were taking the bait very lightly and it was hard to get a good hookset on them. After about 45 mins we decided it was time to go look for largies. We had to move fast and figure out a pattern quickly... with no practice we had to try a few different patterns in order to see what the fish were doing. We spent about 15 mins on an main river outside weedline but the water was so high and dirty that we didn't think the fish were there yet. The next move was to go deep into a bay and see if we got more action there. I was tossing the frog as far as I could and Ben was flipping different type of covers until I got the first fish on the frog. This fish wasn't holding tight to any cover and was kind of just roaming so I decided to continue casting the frog around and started getting more and more bites. It wasn't long before Ben decided to do the same and we were able to put a decent limit together very quickly. We probably had around 13lbs with a few hours left to fish when we decided to go back to the smallies hoping to cull 1 or 2 smaller largies that we had.

It was a bad choice since we weren't able to find even one smallie... We then headed back into another bay close by to find a kicker fish but it was too late... Too late too even get back at the launch in time for weigh-in apparently! We didn't calculate the run back properly and got back 8 mins late good for a DQ....

Our final weight would've put us in 25th place with 13.25lbs which is a considerable improvement over last year (without the DQ obviously).

Lesson learned I guess.... Now we know exactly how long that run takes! Overall we had a very fun day though and caught a lot more fish then we usually catch on the Ottawa River... All we needed was last year's 5lbs + kicker to have a shot at a top 10.

Online store for bass fishing in Canada! Finally!

2011-06-22T20:47:00.003-04:00

June 22nd, 2011

Tired of paying for crazy brokerage fees to UPS, Fedex, Purolator, etc... The bassnerdz fishing team decided it was time to launch the first (that I know of) online bass fishing store in Canada. These guys are die hard bass fishing freaks who know their baits. They are up to date with the latest trends in bass fishing and they make sure to carry all the hottest baits out there. They also carry the dumz sticks that I have been using lately for most of my fish in a variety of crazy colors. Go check 'em out at www.bassnerdz.com!

Froggin for largies

2011-06-21T22:29:00.004-04:00

June 21st, 2011

I was back on the water today with Caro and my dad for what was suppose to be a practice for The Lions of Lefaivre tournament next weekend but bass is not open in zone 10 until Thursday so we decided to hit Lake 2 Mountains instead. We had a light 10+km/h NW wind with air temps in the 20's.

We started by fishing a small river in the morning so I can get a feel of what the fish are currently doing... The mouth of the river was interesting and I wish we had spend more time there but we went in immediatly. Only to find incredibly dirty water less then 6 inches visibility ... We spent about 30 mins and were just about to leave when Caro hooked into something that bent her flipping stick in half. A 10lbs + blue catfish hammered her swimbait and gave her a fight that she will not forget. I've never been a fan of catfish or carp fishing but this catfish had me casted a few times to see if I couldn't get one of my own. Caro obviously didn't mind taking a picture of this ugly beast to say the least.

We then went for some more familiar areas to see what was going on this year with the high water. It only took about 5 mins for Caro to start putting on a froggin clinic (yes, again Caro outfishes everyone in the boat). She caught 3 decent largies in less then 20 cast before my dad and I decided it was time to do the same. We must of caught another 7 or 8 largies moving around on the trolling motor in the same area when I suddently got a brutal headache that had me put the rod down a few times.... It's a good thing I didn't stop because a big largemouth missed my frog only a few feet away from the boat.... I might of missed my frog, but I knew it was going to hit my jig. One flip and the fight was on! We took a picture and didn't think to weigh her but she looked like a solid 4lbs+. We fished an hour more and caught 1 or 2 fish but I couldn't take it anymore... 2 days of fishing with almost no sleep got the best of me.

Overall we had a nice day and I got to see the lake a bit. In my opinion some fish are still close to beds and slowly entering post-spawn patterns. Next stop is Lions of Lefaivre tourney next weekend. I will be fishing it with Ben Woo and since bass season is not open yet we are literally going to have no practice for it! We placed in 53rd out of 116 last year with a 5lbs largie caught by Ben less then a hour before weigh-in. Even without any practice I'm confident we can do better this year.

1 down - 3 to go!

2011-06-21T21:33:00.004-04:00

June 18th, 2011

I was fishing with Caro today for our first Econobass tournament of the season. With the water being much higher then last year, I decided to take a gamble and make a bit of a run in the morning to an area where I was very confident we could get at least 3 good fish. Caro was quick to put a limit in the boat but it was a very small one with 5 fish in the 1-2lbs range. We were getting short bites and the water was so stained that we couldn't be sure they were bass and had planned to spend 2 hours max. I missed what looked like a heavy 3lbs smallmouth before we left for some more popular areas of the lake.... Something I should've done from the start, like I had originally planned. Tournament fishing is all about making decisions and that was a bad one..... Live and learn!

We still managed to cull many times with smallies and largies in the afternoon but we had to change one more fish to be have a chance at a top 10. We finished in 20th place out of 54 teams with a total weight of 13.35lbs... only 3lbs away from a top 5. Caro caught all her fish on her usual yamamoto secret weapon and mine came off a jig and a pig and a wacky rigged dumz sticks. I had the opportunity to test my new Demone batteries today with the strong wind and I have to say I am very impressed. I have not been fishing any big current but I have yet to see a diminution of power in a full day of fishing with them so far.

Bass season is finally here!

2011-06-21T20:14:00.007-04:00

June 17th, 2011

It feels good to finally be back on the water hunting for some big bass!! Although the fishing season started over a month ago... The REAL season only started today!. My dad had to cancel Econobass this year due to health issues. It's nothing serious and we'll be fishing plenty of times together this season but tournament fishing can be extreme at times. I will be fishing Econobass with Caro, the Lions the Lefaivre with Ben Woo and the Berkley B1 with Marc-André Barretti along with a few Fishin-Canada.net ripples mixed in.

Unfortunately, I don't have any reports from my earlier trips to Lake Champlain but I was there twice in the spring and fishing was very interesting with the ridiculously high water. We fished the north side and didn't really hooked any big fish but it's always fun to fish this lake. It's unfortunate that the conditions were that bad... I would've loved to go a few more times.

I was also out for a few pike and walleye trips and we caught some nice ones! I caught my biggest pike on a small lake up north and Caro caught an 7lbs walleye on Lac St-Louis.

Here are a few spring fishing pics :

Take a bite of DUMZ lures!!

2011-04-03T20:10:00.002-04:00

April 3rd, 2011

Another sponsorship agreement for 2011 with Dumz lures! I have been using Dumz lures for a few years now and I must say that they are some high quality baits. His tubes and sticks are second to none.... I won the Econobass St-Francis tournament using a 4" Dumz tube in Brown gold flakes and they caught most of my fish at the Berkley B1 2010. He has a new drop shot bait called the X-Tail Shad that I can't wait to try this season!

Go check him out at : http://www.dumzlures.com/

or on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=255204261750&ref=ts

Demone Batteries

2011-03-24T21:36:00.007-04:00

March 24th, 2011

I am very happy to say I have a new sponsor this year with Demone Batteries. I have been hearing great things about them from guys who are currently using them and I am looking forward to try them next season! You can find them at any SAIL/Baron and perhaps your local marina. They have a model for all your needs, go check 'em out!

I'M BACK!!

2011-03-24T20:56:00.014-04:00

March 21st, 2011

After a few months of "hibernation" I decided it was time to start preparing for next season. I believe 2010 was a good year with 2 wins and a 6th place at the Berkley B1 but I want MORE! I will be fishing Econ-o-Bass again this year with my dad and we'll be trying hard for another top 10 overall. I will also be fishing the Berkley B1, the Lions de Lefaivre Tournament along with a few Fishin-Canada Ripples.

Last few weeks have been dedicated to organizing my equipment for the upcoming season. I spent countless hours cleaning my reels, rods, baits and hooks to make sure everything runs as smooth as possible in order to maximize my time spent on the water. I have learned the hard way over the years of the importance of keeping everything cleaned and organized. I was a bit concerned at first since I had never openned a fishing reel but all it takes is someone that knows how to do it to show you the proper way. Once you know how to do it it's just a matter of practicing and after a few reels it becomes really easy. You end up saving some money and it's somewhat rewarding knowing you cleaned and lubed your own reels.

Berkley B1 - 6th place finish!!!

2010-10-05T20:46:00.008-04:00

October 3rd, 2010

Day 2 was a bit different as the wind completely switched from W to E.... It wasn't blowing hard but it made our drifting a little more challenging. Again, our first spot produced a 4lbs that was lost on the first jump... Seems like I have to lose at least one good fish every tournament and I was hoping that was the last lost fish of the day.

Our 2nd spot did not produce a single fish but we didn't let it affect us because we had plenty of other areas to check out and we were keeping our best area for later. I went back to my deep water weedline and we managed to catch 1 or 2 fish in the 2.5lbs range. At that point the Berkley B1 boat came and exchanged our observer for a camera man for the rest of the day. I tried to not being affected by the camera but Bar and I got a little distracted.... We had never been filmed before and even if we tried to ignore him, it still felt different then usual. We moved to a plan "B" spot that had produced well in practice and I hooked into an 7-8lbs drum that almost gave me a hard attack. For a few seconds Bar and I thought we had a enormous smallie on the line but soon got very disappointed when it finally came to the surface.

We had kept our best drift from day 1 for last and it was a big mistake.... Doug Brownridge and Dave Chong were on it when we got there I knew it had been hit hard and properly.... Those guys are some of the top bass anglers in Canada but we gave it a shot anyways. We still caught 1 or 2 fish on it that help us a little bit but we had only around 15lbs and were desperatly trying to get rid of a 2.7lbs.

We were running out of time and had to make a big decision... I looked at Bar and said : "Where can we get a big fish". We had the same spot in mind so we left our main area for this spot which was closer to the weigh-in. In the first pass Bar caught a 3+ and we were finally able to get rid of that smaller fish. According to Bar, we had a little over 16lbs and not a lot of time to get back to the weigh-in... We were also concerned with the NE winds that can make the lake very nasty. To our surprise the lake was fairly calm for the basscat but apparently very rough for the camera man that had never been in a bassboat before. We must of passed over 10 boats on the way back and got back to the dock with about 30 mins to spare.

The drive by weigh-in was simply amazing.... It was so nice to see our families and friends in the crowd cheering for us as well as the bass fishing fans that came to see the show. The weights were coming in slowly and most of them were not very big... We were almost at the stage when we heard it took about 34lbs to be in the hot seat. I knew we had no chance to win it with the big teams coming behind us but I started believing we had a chance at a top 10.

We weighed our fish for a total of 16.58lbs which was good enough for 6th place overall!! Our day 2 weight was enough to bump us one spot higher in the standings and put a HUGE smile on our face. We had officially surpassed our expectations with a top 10 in the biggest bass fishing tournament in Canada. Needless to say were happy about our result.... Talk about a way to end the 2010 tournament season. Bar and I have been looking up to people like Bob and Wayne Izumi, Mike Desforges, Dave Chong, J-M Landry, Gary Gaussiran, Mark Currie, Charles Sim to name a few and to be able to beat some of them in the most important event of the year on a body of water they know very well is beyond satisfying. We knew we couldn't bring bags in the 25lbs range but we were very confident to be able to bring 16 to 18lbs any day of the week and we did.

Congratulations to Jacques and Stéphane Chopin for their impressive win. I had Mark Currie to win it and he came in 2nd place less then a pound from 1st place.

Thanks to Ben Woo, Mike Boudreau and their team for putting together such a quality event that some qualified just as good or better then FLW and B.A.S.S events in the US.

Also, big thanks to my sponsors especially St.Croix rods for giving the opportunity to fish with higher quality rods. They have played a major role in my success his year. My favorite rod for this body of water is by far the Legend Tournament Bass - Tube model. I will be looking at getting a similar rod but in the Legend Extreme series for next season.

Few pictures of day 2 :

Berkley B1 - Day 1

2010-10-05T20:12:00.003-04:00

October 2nd, 2010

What can I say.... I'm still on cloud nine. Marc-André aka Bar and I sticked to the game plan and it paid off. We started our day battling our first spot with Mike Desforges and I tried to not be intimidated but couldn't help looking at who I believe is arguably the best smallmouth angler in Canada with so many wins under his belt. We raced to a tiny area on a sand flat with the trolling motor but probably ended up spooking any fish that was there. The 60-80mm of rain had made the shallow water REALLY muddy and I was starting to wonder if my fish were going to be there at all. I didn't want to waste time fishing shallow in that muddy water so we moved to a nearby drop off and missed a 4+ at the boat. At that point I was VERY upset and tried real hard to focus on my next fish instead of the one I had just missed.

It wasn't until our 2nd spot that I was able to put a decent 3lbs+ fish in the livewell. We then proceeded to a few deep water drifts that didn't really pay off as we had expected. At that point, I decided to move to a safer spot on a deep weedline where I can usually catch a limit quickly but ended up catching a 4lbs on the first pass. We tried the same drift again and lost a good fish that cut my line. Lesson learned... I will now fish with heavier fluoro leaders and check my line way more often. I also lost another decent fish when my leader broke... another thing that never happens.

By noon we only had 3 fish in the boat and needed to adjust and make another major decision. There were a lot more boats then I had expected in the part of the lake I was fishing and Bar had noticed that one of our drifts had been untouched since the beginning of the day. The wind was also perfect for this drift so we decided to give it a shot. On the first pass Bar caught a 4.13lbs smallie and from that point it was getting very interesting. We drifted that spot a few times and managed to get 2 more good fish from it. We figured we probably had 17+ lbs being very conservative.

We headed back towards the weigh in early knowing we had a decent bag and I also wanted to make sure to be one of the first team to weigh-in. Having lost a few fish this year I didn't want to take the chance of losing one at the biggest event of the year. We got there way earlier then we thought so we stopped on a spot that had produced many 5lbs smallie in the past but the fish were no where to be found. All our fish on day 1 came off tubes in about 12-25ft of water.

Our 5 fish for day 1 weighed in at 18.51 and kept us in first place for quite awhile. We couldn't believe the amount of zero that came in. Guys that usually come in with nothing else but 20lbs+ bags couldn't even find 5 fish..... Bar and I started to get really nervous and then a few bags over 20 started to come in but nothing in between. To our surprise we were sitting in 7th place after day 1. We went back home early to prerig some tubes and come up with the final game plan for day 2.

Berkley B1 Practice

2010-10-05T19:32:00.004-04:00

Sept 2010

I was able to put in a few days of practice mostly on weekends for the Berkley B1 but I've fished the St-Francis enough and I know that my fish are going to be where they are suppose to be. I checked out a few new things hoping to find new areas that would hold fish over 4lbs and we did every time we were out. Practice pretty much went just as planned with bags between 15 and 18lbs. I know its going to come down to the type of weather conditions we are going to have to face come tournament day and I'm somewhat confident having fished so many different conditions on this lake before. Big winds, rain and cold is what I need because I know most of my fish won't be affected by it. Marc-André and I are so pumped about this event and I really hope we can not only fish the second day but do well and perhaps even dream of a top 30.

We will see what happens! Time to clean and prep the boat to make sure everything is safe and tight for the tournament.

Few pics of decent fish caught in practice

Payback!

2010-10-05T18:49:00.003-04:00

Sept 13th, 2010

Marc-André, my dad and I really needed to hook a fish over 2lbs after our miserable weekend in Val des Bois. We headed to a nearby basin to hook some monsters and we did!! It didn't take long before I hooked the first fish of the day and it was well over 4lbs... My dad missed a few fish and it wasn't Marc-André's best day but I caught a few more fish over 4lbs on hard and soft jerkbaits. Can't wait to go back there in the fall to see if I can get a crankbait bite going.

Econ-O-Bass Classic

2010-10-05T18:20:00.004-04:00

Sept 11-12, 2010

My dad, Caro and I headed to the Econobass Classic with a bunch of friends without any practice and we had never even been on that body of water. From what I was told, the place was packed with tiny fish and 2lbs bass were what we were looking for.

Day 1 was a disaster as we were only able to get 4 fish for a total of 5.26lbs. We caught tons of fish but all under 12" .. It was hard to put a pattern together since everywhere we went it looked like the perfect bass habitat. On day 2 the condition changed we needed to fish much slower to get bit. Again I wasn't able to figure out a "big" fish pattern and we brought back a disappointing bag of 5.23lbs for a 26th place.

Looking back at things I would probably fish this place differently. I definitely learned a lot about this body of water and I should do better next time.

The fishing sucked for us but we had a blast at the hotel and my good buddies Julien and Simon aka The Bassnerds put on quite a show on day one with a whopping 14.54lbs. An amazing bag for this river if you look at the past results from other trails. It was also very exciting to see Daniel Cousineau win his first classic with 2 consistant days of 11.99 and 11.84lbs.

More BIG smallies!

2010-09-08T15:19:00.005-04:00

Sept 6th, 2010

Caro, Eric and I got on the water on a mission this morning and we were looking for big fish only! Shallow, power fishing was the plan to start the day and we were to adjust if things didn't work out but it paid off right away. About 30 mins after we put the boat in the water, a big smallie hit my jerkbait hard! About 300ft down the bank,Caro also hooked into another big smallie also on the jerkbait. I immediatly started looking for some similiar areas trying to reproduce the scenario but the strong west winds made things difficult.

It took an a little over an hour before we could find another school but by the time we found them they had already seen us and were way too spooky. Perhaps next time, with a stealth approach we'll be able to catch one or 2 out of that school. They were all over 3lbs roaming around a shallow sand/rock area.

The wind was slowly becoming stronger and stronger and made boat positioning kind of challenging but not impossible. We headed for an off-shore rock pile and kept on throwing all kinds of different presentation but it was the jerkbait that seemed to be the ticket today. On my first cast back with the jerkbait, a big smallie just crushed it and gave me one HELL of a fight. I don't know what the fish had been eating but they were fighting a lot harder then what I'm use to. The rest of the day was difficult with a few fish missed and battling the wind to find new areas. On our way back to the dock we decided to do a little pit stop on the sand flat again and I hooked another decent sized smallie on a wacky worm that had just missed my jerkbait.

Not a lot of fish today but only quality smallies well over 4lbs were caught. It felt good to fish for fun and I look forward to this fall... A lot more of those football smallies will visit my livewells that's for sure!

Another unexpected win!

2010-09-08T13:16:00.008-04:00

Sept 5th, 2010

Caro and I signed up for this fun ripple organized by Jason Gramada on the basin behind his new house in Les Cèdres. Ben and I had been there 2 weeks before to see what the place was like and hammered TONS of smallies but no size really. I was hoping for a similiar day with less fish due to the bad weather and strong winds but it turned out to be better then I expected. We have been getting some strong west winds over the last few weeks and today was no different.

It started off pretty good, catching a 4lbs on my first cast litterally. Someone had stole my net right out of my boat the night before and we found out only when I hooked the first fish... We had to lip and boat swing 'em all day... Some people are so pathetic. I never leave anything in my boat besides a few pliars, scissors and the net... I can't believe i'll have to bring that inside as well from now on.

For my second area, I was looking for a place to be protected from the wind because I knew I was going to run out of battery way too early. It was there that Caro hooked a GIANT. As usual, she doesn't say a word and I see this big smallies leap out of the water about 10 feet infront of me. I look at where the fish jumped and Caro back and forth trying to figure out if she has the fish on or not. The fish was gunning toward the boat and Caro had some slack in the line so I wasn't sure if it was still hooked or not but apparently it was because it didn't take long for that drag to start singing. Without a net, it was nerve-wrecking to bring it in the boat and let's just say that both of us were happy when it was finally in the livewell. Now we only needed to change a 2lbs fish and had plenty of time to do so seeing as it wasn't even 12:00. We probably caught over 10 bass in the afternoon but all of them were around the same size or smaller. We tried new areas hoping to find at least a 3lbs but couldn't do it in time.

Back at the launch I started hearing a few reports and was surprised to hear most that most teams had had a hard time and thought maybe we had a chance at a top 3 and maybe lunker. It was nice because we weighed in last and won it by about half a pound and took the lunker prize as well. I know I say this a lot but I have the best girlfriend in the world. I'm really fortunate to have a girlfriend that share this passion with me at the fullest. Congrats honey for that big smallie! You finally got your 2010 nickel smallmouth! :)

Our bag weighed in at 11lbs for 3 smallies, good for 1st place out of 12 teams (I think). We had a little get together in Jason's backyard and I thought it was a great idea... It's always nice to talk about our day after a tournament and even better if there's beer and good food in the mix!

Next up is the Econobass Classic, the FC.net Rumble in Rockland and the Berkley B1.

First tournament win!!

2010-09-08T12:18:00.006-04:00

August 28th, 2010

It had to happen eventually but I didn't expect it so soon, especially not on Lake St-Francis with the quality of anglers I was up against. I knew the conditions were going to awful right from the start... West winds were howling at 25+ kmh with gusts over 40 at times. I knew the areas I was going to fish were protected from all the wind but getting there safely was the issue. I've been in some horrible conditions in my boat before, just never with my dad or for that long of a ride. It was nice to see I wasn't the only one stuggling in the giant waves and it felt good to pass a few 20ft rangers on the way to my first spot. GO Basscat!! ;)

We finally got on my first area and the wind was blowing perfectly on it. I knew some fish were going to be there but I was dissapointed to see the big ones werent at the rendez-vous. I had told my dad the night before that I was not going to wait for them today. If the fish were not there after a few cast I was out of there! We had to move quite a bit before we were able to find some smallies that wanted to play. To my surprise the first area to produce was in more then 3mph current both in 2 and 25ft of water. I was working the shallow bank and my dad was working the deeper part with a tube and we both got hit on the first pass. I decided to move around the area to reproduce the same kind of scenario and we were able to quickly get our limit which was right around 16lbs. We kept on moving and redoing some drifts and found fish as deeep as 40ft of water but not the size I was looking for. At the end of the day we probably had around 17.5lbs and although it was a decent sized bag I was disspapointed. I was missing at least one big fish and I knew it wasn't far!

About an hour before the weigh in we stopped on a shallow sand flat just to see if some fish had moved in and on my first cast I hooked a 4.86lbs bruiser that was definitely in feeding mode as it crushed my soft jerkbait without even thinking about it. With about 45 mins to get back to the launch and close to 20lbs in the livewell we had to leave to make sure to get back in time. It's too bad because I have a feeling we could've caught at least another big fish on this flat.

We made it back to the launch in time and even had a few minutes to check on our fish. The ride back didn't feel that bad but the fish seemed to think otherwise as I had a good sized fish dying... I knew we had a decent bag probably good for a top 10 but I had no idea we had a chance at winning it. I've been paying close attention to ALL the results over the years and it usually takes well over 20lbs to win it on this lake but apparently it was harder then I thought for everybody that day. Even with a dead fish we ended up with 19.03lbs and took first place with almost a 2lbs lead on the 2nd place. We were also able to get the 3rd lunker with my big fish. It felt good to win an event, especially on a lake where I have put A LOT work... Many days were spent looking for big fish and coming back without a single one but I guess it finally paid off.

Next stop is a friendly tourney on the Les Cèdres basin. Should be lots of fish caught but size is another story. I'm hoping for a 9-10lbs bag (3 fish) of smallies. Maybe Caro will catch that monster she's been looking for.

2010-08-27T12:41:00.004-04:00

August 2010,

Almost a month since my last update... There has been a few fishing trips since and 2 tournaments. The Econobass Ottawa river tournament did not go well at all... I had all kinds of issues with my trolling motor and was only able to fish for a few hours. I was so upset at the end of the day that I didn't even weigh in the only fish we had caught. Fishing was hard for most teams as only one bag over 15lbs was brougth to the scales.... Congrats to Gary Girard for his first place!

With the help of my sponsor Fishin-Canada.net, I also organized my first friendly "ripple" ever and ended up with 19 teams for the first annual "Smackdown on Louis" which took place August 15th on beautiful lake St-Louis. Caro and I finished in 10th place with a limit of 3 bass weighing exactly 9.00lbs. Congrats to André Ouellet and Claude Joannette who won it with amazing 12.50lbs. I believe the event was a succes and look forward to organizing it again next year.

Ben and I also had an amazing day on the Les Cèdres basin where we caught over 80 bass... That place is a fish factory and is loaded with 2-3lbs smallies. There is also a good amount of largemouth with decent size as well. I will be participating in a friendly ripple there on Sept 5th.

Next tournament is on my favorite body of water, lake St-Francis in St-Zotique. I've been looking forward to this one and I really hope I can bring in a decent bag... From what I hear, practice has been hard for everyone so it'll be interesting to see what kind of weights will be needed to win. The lake has potential for multiple bags over 20lbs but fishing has been tough lately and I would be surprised to see more then 2-3 bags over the 20lbs mark.

Photos will be uploaded soon!

Hard day on St-Francis

2010-07-28T12:54:00.002-04:00

July 25th, 2010

Our quest continued today on Lake St-Francis for a 6lbs bronzeback. Caro and I started with a little bit of powerfishing on a rock/sand flat with weed transition. I was throwing a jerkbait and she was covering water with a spinnerbait. I got 3 decent fish on the jerkbait and unfortunatly for Caro, they didn't seem to want the spinnerbait. Since we didn't get any real big fish I decided to move a bit and try deeper water. It was a lot slower then last week and the wind was picking up to a steady 25-30km/h which made it difficult to drift properly. We caught some 3lbs but it wasn't what we were looking for.... AGAIN, the biggest fish of the day, a nice 4+ smallmouth, came unpinned after she jumped out of the water completely. Every time I think I have a big one they end up being 2lbs and when I think I have a tiny fish, they end up being 4lbs... From now on, I’m not giving them any chance! Whether they seem like 1 or 5lbs I will fight them properly do my best to get them in the boat.

Hookset 101 on the Ottawa

2010-07-28T12:36:00.002-04:00

July 25th, 2010

I was fishing a completely new area with Caro today on the Ottawa River hoping to find something different for the upcoming Econobass tournament. The conditions were perfect to practice with little wind and almost no clouds in the sky. We started by flipping an outside weedline and got bit almost instantly on the frog. The fish missed the frog and never went for it again... We tried a few other baits but there were no takers. We then continued flipping the weedline and got bit almost every 5-10 mins but couldn't get them in the boat. We were flipping deep into the vegetation and for some reason.... we couldn't get the big fish to the boat. I missed a real giant largie on the jig and I was able to see her completely before she spit my jig out.... It felt good to fish a new area and being able to find fish almost right away but it was such a disappointment that we were not able to get them in the boat. This year has been my worst year in terms of landing big fish... Let's hope that my landing ratio gets better for the remainder of the season.

Before going home I decided we would give the smallies a try for an hour and we found some good ones right away. No giant by any means but some 3lbs+ on our first area is always nice.

I'm happy with how our day went but I’m definitely going back there at least once before the tournament.

Fun fishing on Francis!

2010-07-23T08:44:00.002-04:00

July 18th, 2010

Caro and I decided to fish for fun today and went to our favorite lake for some smallmouth action! We slept a little longer then usual and slowly made our way to Lake St-Francis. We mostly tried areas that I knew already just to see if the fish were there and they were! Having fished this lake a lot last fall, it didn't take me long to realize that things were very different in the summer. Water level is a little lower but most importantly the vegetation is in full bloom... The shallow bite was hard with all the weeds so we decided to move deeper. On my first cast I hooked (and missed) a BIG smallie that came unpinned in mid-air. I guess I forgot how strong these "river" smallies were! We continued drifting in 20 - 32ft of water and hooked a 3lbs+ smallies almost every 2-3 mins. No giants were caught but plenty of quality fish were boated and the biggest ones were missed...

I can't wait to go back to this lake... so many different things to fish and so many different ways to fish them... Did I mention this was my favorite lake? ;)

Econ-O-Bass - Lake St-Louis

2010-07-23T08:29:00.002-04:00

July 17th, 2010

Another somewhat dissapointing day for Team Belanger on lake St-Louis today.. We started off with largies and instead of moving back to smallies like we had planned, we stayed and lost a lot of time trying to catch a 4,5lbs largemouth. I had her on for about 3-4 secs and she came unpinned... that's when we should've went for smallies but I though I would've been able to catch her again.. it didn't happen.

It was about noon when I took the decision to go for smallies and that's when we started catching fish. We caught A LOT of smallies but as I had predicted, we had to go through a lot of small ones to eventually get a decent fish in the boat. My dad caught a nice 3lbs + smallie but forgot to set the hook and the fish actually managed to swallow the whole tube and eventually died before the weight in. We lost half a pound and ended up with a mediocre 11.91lbs.

We are currently sitting in 14th place overall and the next tournament should be an interesting one to say the least. Lefaivre was my toughest tournament last year and i'm really hoping to do better this year.

Congrats to Larry Lafleur and Gaétan Robitaille for a nice winning weight of 18.58lbs.

Practice for Econobass St-Louis Tournament

2010-07-15T10:42:00.004-04:00

July 2010,

I was able to practice for almost 3 days for the Econobass tourney next weekend (July 17th). Practice has been good but I was hoping for better... I was able to get about 15lbs of smallies almost everytime I was out and I know I can get one or 2 largies of 3-4lbs as well. It will depends on a 2 factors, one being the weather and the other will be if others know my spots! I have enough areas for smallies and although I have not found any concentrations of big ones, we were still able to see and miss 2 fish well over 4lbs. No real big fish were caugt in practice, therefore I have no pictures to show you!

The Minnkota 101lbs is finally back on the boat and and i'm sure it will serve me well on saturday! Forecast for saturday is 20km/h W winds with mostly sunny skies. Can't wait for this tournament! The weights will definitely be higher then 2 mountains.

Tight lines!

Econ-O-Bass - Lake Two Mountains

2010-07-05T08:36:00.005-04:00

July 3rd, 2010

Today was our first official Econobass tournament of the season and it was hard for everybody. Since we were able to get there first, we decided to fish a very popular shallow bay where we had caught some good fish the previous year. My dad caught a fish as soon as we got to our spot and I followed with another one shortly after. Unfortunatly, both of them were very small but it was a start. We stayed in that bay until the W wind picked up to a brutal 20-30kmh. I decided to go see if maybe we could catch a few smallies on the main lake and what a mistake that was! We ended up losing over an hour only to come back right where we had started. I was able to catch 2 more fish flipping a jig in isolated cover but again, not the size we were looking for. I had 2 more good areas to check out before the end of the tournament but the trim on my motor stopped working... I had to ask another team to help me out seeing as I had no clue how to bring my motor down manually. We finally managed to bring the motor down in time for the ride back to the weigh in but we only had 4 fish in the livewell....

I knew it was going to be a hard day for everyone but I had no idea our mediocre 6lbs + bag was going to put us in 15th place out of 45 teams...

Huge congrats to team young guns who finished in 7th place and to my good friends Felix and Marc who caught the biggest smallies of the day for a 6th place finish! Also, way to go Brian and Lyse for an amazing weight of 21lbs..... It's going to take awhile for someone to beat that kind of weight on 2 mountains... especially with only largies!!

Someone caught a few cool pics of my while I was flipping.. Next up is Lake St-Louis!

Checking things out on St-Louis

2010-06-30T10:44:00.002-04:00

June 27th, 2010

Caro and I had enough of the ottawa river and lake two mountains so we decided to go check out lake St-Louis for a change. We got on the water just before noon and headed straight for largemouths. The water is abnormaly low for this time of year but the fish are still there and biting! The first area we tried had deeper, ultra clear water and some very interesting cover. After about 30 mins and only a 2.5lbs we decided to go check some other areas that had produced some good fish in the passed. This proved to be the right decision because in less then an hour I had over 15lbs with only 4 fish!! It was fun to finally catch some decent fish... especially since most of them were caught sight fishing where I had to convince them to bite for at least 5 mins! The largies have no problem adapting to the low water levels.... Some healthy fish as you can see!

I should be back on St-Louis with my good friend Mark on thursday trying to see what the smallies are doing! :)

Tournament Day - Lion de Lefaivre

2010-06-30T10:11:00.003-04:00

June 26th, 2010

We got there early hoping we could test a new prop seeing as the last one didn't get us out of the hole quickly enough... Sadly, the new prop didn't help. We thought that maybe it was the motor that had to be raised so we took the boat out of the water 10 minutes before blast off. We figured we didn't care to get to our spot 10 mins late if it was going to help us get out of the hole faster... We ended up losing 20 minutes for nothing since no matter what we did, it seemed to make things worse. The prop ended up being too small and was spinning to fast and didn't pick up water properly causing the motor to overheat... We couldn't go over 45mph all day on top of not being able to get out of the hole!! Hopefully everything will be setup properly for Ben's next tournament on two mountains.

We started flipping a weedline and only managed to get one small largemouth in the livewell... After about an hour we decided it was time to fill that livewell with smallies but when we got to our spots... nobody was home. We spend about an hour in an area that usually always holds a few good smallies and only caught a pike. We decided to go back to largies to see if we could find some post-spawn females that were in transition areas. Again, we caught some small fish that didn't help the cause but filled our limit... At around 2pm, Ben hooked into a monster largemouth of 5.40lbs that got us all excited but unfortunatly, we coudn't get another decent fish. We thought we might of had a chance at a lunker prize but the biggest fish of the tournament came in at a whooping 6.83lbs!!! Our total weight for 5 bass was 11 and change for a dissapointing result...

Even with all the problems we had that day we still had a lot of fun.. It was nice to see everyone and I will be attending the event again next year with hopefully better results!!

Next up is two moutains and it's going to hard!!

Practice for Lions de Lefaivre

2010-06-30T09:20:00.002-04:00

June 23rd & 25th, 2010

Caro, my dad and I practiced on the Ottawa River for 2 days while Ben, my partner for the event, spent 2 days there as well with his boat. I spent 1 day fishing familiar water and it was hard.... We caught some fish but nothing of the size I was looking for... We spent the second day of practice trying to to find new areas that I had never been before hoping to find something but ended up eliminating water instead... Ben was confident we could bring a decent bag of smallies and then hunt for a kicker largemouth.

Nothing picture worthy!

Practice on Two Mountains for Econ-O-Bass

2010-06-21T14:11:00.003-04:00

June 20th, 2010

I was on Two mountains today with Caro practicing for our first Econ-O-Bass tournament... The water levels are beyond low... Most places I usually fish for largies have less then 2 foot of water. We started out flipping jigs and beaver tails and Caro hooked a near 4lbs largemouth and I followed immediately with a 2.5lbs. We had only been on the water for about 30 mins and already had 2 fish.... Unfortunatly, no other fish came after that except a few walleyes... We had a W wind today at about 10-15km/h.

We then tried to go for smallies on the main river but the boat traffic was very intense and I couldn't find anything I liked... We fished rocky drop offs and shallow rocks without a single bite... I should be back on 2 mountains this week with my dad but this time we will try to fish the main lake and see if we can find some big smallies.

Season Opener and 5th place finish

2010-06-21T13:45:00.004-04:00

June 19th, 2010

Bass fishing is finally open in QC and what a good way to start the season with a tournament! I fished my first tourney with Ben today and even though we aren't completely satisfied with our overall weight we still managed to finish 5th out of 35 teams. We knew that most of the largies had been pressured in practice so we decided to go for smallies. We knew that with the right conditions our pattern could get us around 17-18lbs. Winds were howling at 30km/h with gusts over 40 but we stuck with our plan and managed to get a little over 14lbs in a few hours. We were on Ben's new Bullet and it was only it's second time out on the water and still needs a bit of fine tuning with the motor... I can assure that once everything is finally setup.. this thing will FLY!

With 2 hours before weigh in and very little battery remaining we decided to see if maybe we could find a kicker to up our weight a little. Unfortunatly, the wind made things complicated and the batteries quickly gave up.... We had to stop fishing almost an hour before weigh in but we were confident that our 14lbs bag was going to be somewhat decent considering the strong winds everybody had to deal with.

Biggest bag that day was 17lbs of largies and we finished in 5th with 14.22lbs... Not bad for the first tourney of the year.

Now it's time to practice for the Lions the Lefaivre next weekend.

Champlain at it's best!

2010-05-18T14:30:00.002-04:00

May 15th, 2010

I was back on Lake Champlain this weekend with Marc for another shot at these big green fish often referred as largies! Before we even got there, I told Marc that if the water temp was under 50 we would go for smallies.... We were both very surprised to see that the water temps had climbed to 54. Needless to say we started flipping right away and we were hooking fish almost instantly. Wind was blowing quite a bit at 20km/h coming from the NW and made it very difficult to position the boat properly but the fish were biting well so we just sticked with the pattern we had. By noon, we had around 15lbs of largemouth caught and released but I knew we could do better then that. By then the water temps had climbed 57 so I decided to try another area and I started hooking some very decent fish. Marc was a bit rusty with his flipping but still managed to boat a few decent looking bass.

At the end of the day we had at least 22lbs of largemouth and decided that since the wind had died down it was time to try to get a few nice smallies. On our first 2 casts we both had a fish on with Marc's fish being a better one. We caught a few more but nothing over 3lbs...

I'm starting see how tremendous this fishery is... I'm used to fish river systems and I like not having to fight with current for once! We will definitely have a few more trips to champlain this season.

First time on Lake Champlain

2010-05-12T11:47:00.004-04:00

May 11th, 2010

I was out with Ben today for my first time on Champlain. Coming off a big cold front we knew it was going to be a hard day on the water. The water had dropped down to 47 compared to 57 the week before... We started flipping anyways and although it was a slow bite we still managed to get a few largies in the boat. We moved around looking for warmer water but it wasn't until the afternoon that we were able to finally get temps over 50. The fish were very tight to cover and they were not going to chase anything... we really had to put it in their faces if we wanted to get a bite. We explored the lake a bit for smallies just to see if maybe they would've been more cooperative. We were able to locate a nice flat where I caught a small one and Ben had a giant follow his jerkbait but nothing more. Seeing as the water was warming up we decided to go back to see if the largemouths were more active.

It was nice to finally be able to fish lake Champlain... Conditions were tough but I got to see the huge potential this lake has. I am looking forward to my next trip there and hopefully we'll get higher water temps and better results!

What a start for 2010!

2010-05-03T09:35:00.005-04:00

May 1st, 2010

Marc, Caro and I were on Lake Massawippi for not only our first trip of the year but it was also our first attempt to catch a lake trout. Water temps were ranging from 46 to 50 depending on where we fished and we had a no wind in the morning and maybe a 5km/h S wind in the afternoon. We casted hair jigs, crankbaits and jerkbaits for most of the day but only found bass so we relocated often. I got tired of casting my jerbait so I decided to troll a bit seeing as it was a very popular technique. After only about 5 mins, I hooked this big laker and the fight was on! It took a few minutes before we were able to see her but I knew I had a decent fish on the line. We forgot the net but thanks to Marc we were able to bring her in anyways. She weighed in just under 10lbs and she was back in the water after a few pictures. We will definitely be going back to this beautiful lake this season and I will be there next year again for the opener.

Almost ready for 2010!

2010-04-26T08:00:00.003-04:00

April 26th, 2010

It's been over 2 months since my last update.. I spent a lot of time and money on the boat to make sure the upcoming season will be problem free. Finally got the boat back for good this weekend but there is still a bit of work to be done on it. I had the obvious tune up done, a little repair on the hull, got a new trolling motor and a new set of tires for the trailer. I still have some minor work to do with my electronics and I should have new seats in a few weeks. Hopefully everything will be ready by the time bass is open in QC!

I managed to get a test drive yesterday and everything ran smooth!! I really wanted to try the new Minnkota and what a difference! It's obviously more powerful being a 101lbs thrust but it's also much quieter then my motorguide was. I'm confident it will help me a lot when i'm fishing thick vegetation this summer.

I have also completed my "rod collection" for this season and it's one hell of an upgrade compared to last year. I'm happy to say I will be fishing exclusively with St.Croix rods this season. I have 11 technique specific rods ready to catch some big bass!!

Nothing is planned so far for the next few weeks but I might be able to squeeze in a trip to Champlain or Massawipi before I get my new seats.

Water temps on Louis were ranging from 53 to 57 yesterday!! We should be way passed the spawn by the time bass opens in late June.

Econ-O-Bass Registration day!

2010-02-23T14:21:00.003-05:00

Feb 21st, 2010

We had a blast at the Econ-O-Bass meeting today. It was nice to see everybody again and talk about fishing. We were already at 40 teams by the end of the day with some very good teams registered this year. The competition should be very interesting even if the best anglers will be fishing with either their son or their wifes. The season should start very soon with some walleye fishing in March and some Bass and Trout in April. CAN'T WAIT!

You can see pics of the meeting on fishin-Canada.net (http://www.fishin-canada.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3053&PN=1)

Part of the Fishin-Canada Pro-Staff team

2010-02-08T12:01:00.008-05:00

Feb 7th, 2010

I am now officially part of the Fishin-Canada.net Pro-Staff. I would like to thank Mike and the fishin-canada crew for letting me be part of the team. Fishin-Canada is one of the few good Canadian fishing website with a quality forum where people can exchange and talk about fishing. We just created a new french section on the forum and I will try to be as active as possible and maybe even recruit a few guys to get it going!

I am looking forward to representing Fishin-Canada both in french and in english for 2010!!

B1 Registration & Fishin-Canada Swap and Sell

2010-02-08T11:34:00.003-05:00

Feb 6th, 2010

Although there was no fishing involve, this was kinda of a big weekend for me. It started saturday morning at 5:45am for my B1 registration. I wanted to send my registration as soon as possible to secure a spot in the top 50. I ended up with #4 which is not bad considering at least 30 people were up trying to the same thing!! Now I know I will be launching with the first wave. For more info about the Berkley B1 visit Fishin-Canada.net .

I then proceeded to the first ever Fishin-Canada Swap & Sell at the anglers club in Lachine. It was nice to see the guys and finally be able to talk about fishing. I was also there to pick up a few orders I had placed for next season. I don't think I've ever bought this many lures before but at least they are all the same color now... or almost! I think I won't have to buy any tubes for the next 2 years with this order.

A few pics of the meeting:

More gear!

2010-01-13T09:09:00.008-05:00

Jan 13th, 2010

After adding a few new rods to my arsenal, I decided it was time a little upgrade for my reels as well. Thanks to some buddies, I was able to find a few good deals on some pretty decent reels!

For baitcast, I will be mostly using Revo's next season. I now have 2 Revo Premiers, 1 Revo STX, a Shimano Curado, a Daiwa Zillion and a Pflueger Summit. I'm looking at maybe adding a Revo Winch to the line up but I think I could probably start the season with what I already have.

Now for spinning I was very impressed with the Pflueger Supreme XT... I honestly think that for the price those reels are hard to beat! I just purchased 2 of them and I can't wait to see how they will handle those mean brown fish! I have a feeling I might add 2 more of those yellow reels to match my new St-Croix's!!

I've also added 2 new rods to the collection. A 7'3" MH St.Croix Avid series that I will be using for pitching and a 7' H (Slop n' Frog) St.Croix Legend Tournament which i'm still debating if i'm going to use for froggin or flipping... Perhaps both, only time will tell!

My next acquisition should be 1 or 2 finesse rods for wacky, drop-shot and tubing. Yes... I need to have multiple tube rods!!

St.Croix Rods Pro-Staff

2010-01-12T09:21:00.003-05:00

Jan 12th, 2010

I did it!! It was a lot of work putting my sponsorship proposal together but thanks to M. Ben Woo for all the tips and advice I was able to officially seal the deal last night. I look forward to represent St.Croix on and off the water for 2010!

Thanks to Jean-Martin Landry for giving me the opportunity to join the St.Croix Team. I was already a big fan of those rods but this sponsorship deal will allow me take it to the next level for 2010!

New gear for 2010!

2009-12-16T13:00:00.004-05:00

Dec 16th, 2009

It came to my attention this fall that my equipement (mostly rods) might have to be upgrated if I ever want to take bass fishing to the "next level". I've already started shopping and added a 7' M (Tube) St.Croix Legend Tournament to my arsenal. I haven't caught a fish on it yet but it's by FAR the most sensitive rod I have ever had.

I couldn't wait till Christmas and I decided to give Caro her gift in advance. A brand new St.Croix Avid Pearl Series. She is so happy about it that she's already been practicing her flipping skills in the basement. By next season she should be ready to flip some thick mats with me and hopefully catch as many largemouths as possible!

If my budget allows me, I should be adding a few more "blue rods" in my rod locker for next season. I just can't believe how light and sensitive these rods are... I can only imagine how sensitive the St.Croix Legend Extreme series rods must be. I will also be looking to upgrade my trolling motor and perhaps my electronics as well. I have also added a few new revos (premier and stx's) and if everything goes well, I should have a new Stradic CI4 for my St.Croix.

Soon I will start going through all my fishing gear and sell a lot of it. I should have a few rods and reel for sale and tons of baits as well.

New rods and more fall fishing pics!

2009 Season Wrap-up!

2009-12-16T12:30:00.003-05:00

Dec 16th, 2009

I have been slacking off big time on the blog.... The end of the season was so exciting I didn't even get the chance to sit down and update my blog. Thanks to some friends I was finally able to break the 20lbs mark not once but twice this fall. We had a 20.7lbs bag and another close to 23lbs with a 6lbs lunker. Late fall has been has been simply awsome... To my surprise most smallies were caught fairly shallow and they were quite active for the water temps we had. Last fishing trip this year was on Dec 5th with Caro.

I was fortunate enough to meet some very experienced anglers this season and they have helped me improve my game big time! I still have a lot to learn especially about largemouth but i'm confident that next season will be even more amazing.

Plans for 2010 was to fish Superbass, Econobass, Berkley B1 and most of the local tournaments I can find. Superbass has been put on hold for now so the plan is to get familiar with new bodies of water such as Massawipi, Ottawa River, Morrisburg, Champlain, Richelieu, 2 mountains and Memphremagog for a possible 2011 Probass Canada Series.

Here are a few pics from our last few fishing trips this fall :

Battling the NE winds!

2009-10-19T21:53:00.002-04:00

October 18th, 2009

We were out again a bit later then usual today with Dave and Caro for another try at some fall smallies. Water temps are still in the low 50's in most areas we fished but the fish are still biting well with a slower approach. We started shallow on two spots and I was the only to get a bite on the tube. Dave and I tried moving baits for a while in shallower water and I only got one follow.... I knew right away that we had to switch to a slower presentation. It wasn't until we tried drifting in deeper water that I hooked a good 4lbs smallmouth on the drop shot. Caro followed with a nice one just as big shorty after. I knew this drift was hot so I decided to do it over a few times while they were biting. Caro and I were catching them but Dave was having a hard time and he was feeling the pressure!! Guys hate to see someone else catch fish when they are not.... and now... he was being outfish by a girl!! :P He finally caught his first fish and it was good one but not as big as the two momma's Caro and I had caught.

We decided to try the same pattern in a few similiar areas and caught fish here and there but nothing big enough... We stopped fishing it was past 6pm and the sun was almost out! We must of caught over 20 smallies today and some really decent fish but we were still missing one or two giants! I know they are there somewhere and it's only a matter of time before I find at least one.

You gotta hate those NE Winds!!

2009-10-19T21:06:00.005-04:00

October 17th, 2009

I was suppose to take a kid fishing today on St-Louis but they were announcing strong NE Winds and cold weather... I had to postpone my trip on Lake St-Louis with Gabriel but I promised him we were going to get a decent day before the end of the season! Caro and I decided to try a calmer area on a different lake where I knew the wind wouldn't be that bad. We felt a bit lazy this morning and decided to trade a few hours of fishing for a bit more sleep!! We've been having a few cold nights recently so i'm pretty sure the morning fishing is not as good anyways (yeah right.. who am I kidding?). Water temps are now in the low 50's in most areas.

I decided to try a few areas I had marked on my GPS that could potentially hold some good smallies. Caro hates it when I try new spots because she wants to catch fish and she wants to catch them NOW!! It was a good thing I tried though because I caught the biggest fish of the day on this new spot!! It's always nice when you mark a spot on the GPS before actually going and when you get there you catch a 4lbs+ ..

We drifted for the remainder of the day all the way till 6pm and caught some fish but it wasn't a very productive day afterall. The NE winds coming at 15-20kmh is really making it hard to drift properly over my good spots and I wasn't able to make the right ajustments before the end of the day.

More fall footballs!

2009-10-19T19:20:00.010-04:00

October 12th, 2009

I was back on the water again with Marc-André today to try to find more spots for next year. Marc and I decided we are going to do the SUPERBASS trail (superbass.ca) so we are trying to find as many spots as possible for next season. Water temps were still in the mid 50's and we had a 10kmh W wind for most of the day.

We started shallow as usual and caught a few smallmouths in the 2.5lbs range. It didn't take long before we decided to go find some new drifts in deeper water... The first few drifts didn't really pay off.. I was trying to explore the areas I had fish with my dad 2 days before but it seemed like the fish had moved a bit. We finally managed to get one or two fish over 3+ and made sure to mark them on the GPS... We continued on with our drifts picking up fish here and there when I finally hooked something that felt more then decent. She was fighting more then any other fish this season.... After a hard fought battle, Marc was able to net her for me and we both couldn't believe how big it was. Not long after my big fish, Marc also hooked another good one in close to 30fow. At that point we thought we might have a chance at a 20lbs bag for our 5 biggest if we could catch one or two other 3-4 pounders.

Unfortunately, we had to call it a day and I knew we were around the same weight as usual... I was really anxious to see how much my big fish weight though. After having another good look at her I was quiet sure she was over 5lbs and I usually guess too light that way i'm always happily surprised if it's heavier. My dad and I had lost the scale at the fall tournament so this was a brand new scale (the same berkley TEC). The weight showed 4.10lbs.... We weighed it 3 times just to make sure and that's pretty much what it was give or take an ounce every time. Now that I think of it, we should've at least measure her because she felt and looked much bigger then the 4lbs i've been catching lately. I will try to test the scale with some sort of weight to see if maybe it's off?!

Overall, it was a very nice day for Team Belanger-Barretti with another bag of about 18lbs. We've been catching so many nice fish lately and i'm pretty sure the huge ones will come soon!

Friendly fall tourney Chez Grand-Man

2009-10-15T20:01:00.006-04:00

October 10th, 2009

I fished this tournament last year with my dad and we had a lot of fun so we decided to do it again this year. Although we had a decent day last year I decided to fish another area of the lake this year. Water temps were in the mid 50's and we had a small breeze in the morning with stronger West winds in the afternoon.

We started our day shallow hoping to find some active fish and we did! On my first cast I caught a 2.5lbs smallie on the jerkbait but it was barely hooked. After seeing a few follow I decided to see if they would bite the crankbait better and they did... I hooked 2 other in the same size and lost a 4lbs+ when she went airborne. I knew they were there so I decided to try a goby immitation. The goby worked really well but for some reason I had a really hard time getting a good hookset. I lost 3 good fish in a row and I decided to give the tube a try since all my tubes are rigged on braid I though maybe I would get a better hookup ratio. Apparently this was the right choice because I didn't lose another fish after that. My dad was also throwing a tube but he wasn't getting nearly as many bites as I was. I usually don't think the color matters much when fishing tubes but apparently my color made the difference because I was catching all the fish!

We switched from shallow to deep almost all day but the better fish came from deep water at a specific dept. We caught our 2 biggest fish at the same time!! I really didn't want to lose any of them so I netted mine and then helped my dad with his. We caught close to 40 smallies today and we had a decent bag but we were missing another good one to have a chance at a top 3. I knew the guys would show up with at least 16-17lbs for 3 smallies...

We weighed in a respectable 11.11lbs and it was good for a 5th place. We finished in 7th place last year so I guess were slowly going up!!

Full results and pictures can be found here : http://www.econobass.com

Stuck at 18lbs

2009-10-07T21:34:00.004-04:00

Oct 5th, 2009

After having 2 not so great days on the water this weekend, Caro and I decided to head back to lake St-Francis to catch some nice smallmouths and to find a few new spots for my tournament next weekend. We drove all the way the area where we were going to fish instead of taking the boat for the ride.. We had a lot of West winds and the forecast was calling for rain but we were lucky enough to stay dry all day. We started shallow with jerkbaits, cranbaits, tubes and gobies and couldn't convince them to bite. We saw a few very good fish that I marked on the GPS.. i'm not sure if we spooked them but they just wouldn't bite and the strong current made it very hard to control the boat.

I decided to try another shallow area with the jerkbait and I caught a very good 3lbs+ smallmouth. Caro also caught a few smaller fish with the tube. I had a few follow on the jerkbait so I decided to try a crankbait with a slower retrieve. The next 5 fish were decent size and they were hitting that crankbait very hard!!! I missed a fish that would've been easily over 4lbs on a shallow rock pile... The shallow bite slowed down a bit so I figured we would try to fish deeper water. We caught 1 or 2 fish on almost every drift and some of them were good ones in the 3lbs range. One of the fish I caught today was not the biggest fish but it was definitely that fattest fish I have ever caught. They are feeding heavily now and it shows!

We had to cut our day short with the storm approaching... It was too bad because we had a good bite going and I had a few more areas I wanted to try. We stopped for pictures and i'm pretty confident we had around 16-18lbs again. No big fish today but I know this area will produce some big fish for me soon! I have a good feeling for our tournament next weekend.

Bad day on the St-Lawrence..

2009-10-07T21:25:00.004-04:00

Oct 4th, 2009

My friend Marc-André was organizing a friendly tournament on the St-Lawrence today and I decided to do it with Caro. It was our 2nd time there this year so I didn't really know what to expect. I know this place is usually very good in the fall so I was hoping it was going to be a good day. Water temp is still in the high 50's in most areas and the wind was manageable. We got to the launch only to find out we were only 3 boats and I was the only one willing to do the tournament anyways... We ended up fishing for fun finally and I guess it was a good thing because we couldn't find any fish over 2.5lbs... We must of caught over 20 smallmouth today and they were a lot of fun to catch, but we are usually able to find a 3 or 4lbs fish at this time of the year. I'm assuming we were a bit too early and it should be better later this fall. Only time will tell!

Cranking for some smallies!

2009-10-07T21:10:00.003-04:00

October 3rd, 2009

After all those fishing trips on Francis I decided to go see what was going on on the St-Louis today with Caro. Water temps are in the high 50's now and I decided it was time to give the crankbaits a try. I have stupid amount them, a nice crankbait rod and yet I never fish with crankbaits. It only took a few cast before I hooked a good smallmouth on the good ol' Cotton Cordell Big O. It only hit the rear treble so I wasn't sure if they were telling me to try a slower and more subtle approach. Caro was fishing with a tube so I sticked with my crankbait and caught a few more decent fish. It wasn't one fish after the other but we were still catching fish and it was fun to finally catch them on a crankbait.

We didn't fish for a very long time but I was able to mark at least 2-3 new spots on the GPS. I've told myself that I need to find at least one new spot everytime i'm on the water and I think it helped it a whole lot this year.

Figuring out the puzzle, one piece at a time

2009-10-07T20:58:00.002-04:00

Sept 27th, 2009

After seeing all those big smallmouths yesterday I decided to go back on Francis in order to try to find a few of them. I keep hearing about a pattern and it seems to be way to catch those big bass so I headed out with Caro hoping to figure it out. The weather was suppose to be awful with East winds and rain but they were dead wrong.... We got there and it was almost perfect to find new spots.. the only thing we were missing was the sun. We didn't fish for a very long time but I was able to mark a few spots on the GPS where I would like to try in the future. I tried looking for more active fish with the jerkbait but I was only able to get one small bass with it. Knowing they were a bit sluggish I knew the right approach was probably the tube or a slower presentation with a weightless worm but I was looking for spots and let's just say the tube doesn't really cover a lot of water. Looking for new spots is not always the most exciting thing but it's the only way to find new fish and eliminate water at the same time.

No fish worthy pictures today!

Fishin-Canada friendly tourney makes history!

2009-10-07T19:16:00.003-04:00

Sept 26th, 2009

I was fishing a "Ripple" from http://fishin-canada.net today with Marc-André on Francis. When we signed up for this tourney we had no idea so many people would show up. Not only were there a lot of people but all the best anglers in QC were there. Everyone was talking about a potential 30lbs bag of smallies!! I kept telling myself it was impossible... How can anyone have an average of 6lbs per fish?!? Forget average... I have never even caught one in the 6lbs range. I know Francis holds a good amount of 6lbs+ fish but to get 5 in a day seemed nearly impossible to me.

Knowing the competition was as tough as it gets we still went and gave everything we had. We fished an area where I was confident we could get at least 16-18lbs and I was hoping for a big one to help us get closer to 20lbs. Even with 20lbs I knew we had no chance with all the bags that had been brought to the scale recently on this lake.

We started off shallow hoping to find a few active fish but we were quickly disappointed.... We didn't even get a fish to follow our baits. We tried for a little less then an hour and decided to try another pattern in deeper water. We started catching a lot of fish and had to cull a few of them when we were done with this drift. We mostly drifted in different areas where I had caught some good fish in the past and that's basically how we caught all our fish. At the end of the day I knew we were missing one kicker fish to have a decent bag so I headed out to an area where I usually can catch a 4+ but we got there too late. We only had about 20 mins to fish and wasn't enough...

I though we had about 16lbs but I always guess less that way i'm not disappointed when I see the final weight. I was happy to hear that we had over 17lbs even if I knew it wasn't good enough for a top 10. Full results can been seen here

Just like the week before at the classic, guys were showing up at the scale with ridiculous weights... A few over 25lbs and finally... the magic number came up : 30.35lbs!! Nigel Toughey and Charles Sim not only broke the 30lbs barrier but they also broke the Canadian Record for 5 bass without a single largemouth. They're biggest fish tipped the scale at 7.15lbs.... It was just awesome to be able to see all those huge smallmouths in person.

Francis is officially the best smallmouth fishery in my book and I live only 30mins away!

Just learning, no fishing!

2009-10-07T18:20:00.003-04:00

Sept 19, 2009

I was invited by a friend to participate at the ProBass Canada Classic as an observer today. I always say the best way to learn is to watch how other more experienced anglers catch fish. Eventhough I have been fishing mostly for bass in the last few years I always learn TONS when i'm fishing with someone I've never fished with before. There was a draw before the blast off and I was lucky to get a team of experienced anglers... They knew the lake pretty well since they both lived in Cornwall and they were fishing an area where I had already been in the past. It was really nice to see the way they fished as it was very different from what I'm used to. It was nothing out of the ordinary but they were using crankbaits and zara's in the morning and even though I have all those lures, I don't usually have enough confidence to use them long enough to catch a fish. I was also surprised to see they were mostly using braid for everything... from crankbaits to drop shot. I usually like to put a fluorocarbon leader on everything when I fish clear water but they showed me it didn't matter one bit since they were catching fish after fish. The shallow bite wasn't that great so they decided to try a little deeper and apparently it was the ticket because most of their fish if not all came from 30+ fow.

I was really impressed with what they had in the livewell... I honestly though they had close to 20lbs at one point but I didn't realize that all the fish were all filled with air since they hadn't been fizzed.

They finally weighed in a bag of 17lbs and some change.... Not a bad day but far from enough in order to cut a cheque at the classic... especially on Francis!

I was lucky to witnessed some crazy weights... 7 teams came in with over 24lbs with the biggest one at nearly 28lbs!! Those are just insane weights for smallies... I can't even think of another lake that would produce so many 5lbs+ smallouths. I had heard about some big bags on Erie and Simcoe but never as big as this.

I had a lot of fun today and I will definitely take some and leave some from what I saw and i'm sure it will help me catch more fish in the future. One thing is for sure I will get my crankbaits out and give them an honest chance this time.

Going for 20lbs!

2009-09-14T13:08:00.006-04:00

Sept 12, 2009

I was fishing St-Francis again with Caro and Marc-André and we were out to get the big ones today! We almost had no wind but whatever wind we had was from the NE so we still had a bit of a chop on the water. Water temps were still in the high 60's in most areas we fished. We started off on a shallow rocky shoal where I had caught decent fish in the past but no one was home so we quickly opted for another area. I didn't take long before I hooked a decent 4lbs smallmouth but this spot was only a one fish spot. We were to leave for deeper water tube dragging and drop shot fishing when I decided to try the same pattern in different areas and it was the right decision. Shortly after my 4lbs, Caro hooked a 4.5lbs smallie in less then 3 ft of water in the same conditions as the first one. I made sure to mark that spot on my GPS since those spots are hard to find and whenever you do find them, you usually end up spooking the fish.

We looked for similiar areas and managed to hook another 3lbs smallmouth but the hook ups were hard to come by so we decided to try an another area nearby. We drifted a bit and caught some 2.5lbs+ smallies in 10-30ft of water but we wanted more big fish to go with our 2 nice smallies! We really wanted to break the 20lbs mark and we knew the day was perfect for it to happen.

While drifting Caro noticed a nice lilypad patch and she wanted to try it so I handed her my frog rod and she started firing! It didn't take 2 seconds before she had a nice largemouth attack the frog. Needless to say we all got our flipping rods and frog rods out and tried going for largemouth for a few hours. At one point I noticed a big wave behind my frog and I knew something big was following it... BAM! A 5lbs largemouth just came out and annihilated the frog!! Thank god for this new stiff rod and 50lbs braided line because this fish could've easily gotten away. We fished for largemouth a little more and missed a few on the frog but we decided to relocate in order to find some deep water smallies. With another fish in the 4lbs range we would've probably been able to break the 20lbs barrier! When we got to the spot, we started catching 2-2.5lbs smallies and although they were a lot of fun to catch they weren't the size we were hoping for... With SO MANY wasps in this area it was getting simply ridiculous and we decided to call it a day. We took pictures and weighed all our fish for a total of 18.5lbs. Not a bad day at all afterall!

Sharing spots!

2009-09-12T22:13:00.003-04:00

Sept 7th, 2009

Caro and I were fishing Lake St-Louis today. Marc-André and his girlfriend were going to fish with us but on his boat. I had a few smallmouth spots I wanted to show him and he had a few largemouth spots of his own that we wanted to check out in the afternoon. Weather was nice and we had almost no wind.

We caught a few small fish around 2lbs on my first spot on tubes, spidergrubs and gobies and Marc-André missed a 3lbs. We tried another of my spot where I had caught a few nice largemouths in the past and Marc-André missed 2 nice fish flipping a worm and I spooked a largemouth that looked decent.

We left for his spots in the beginning of the afternoon and Caro missed a nice fish on the frog and so did I. We tried following up with the worm but couldn't get her to bite. Before going home I decided one of my spots and caught a good 4lbs largemouth flipping a worm in the pads...

We decided to try to catch a walleye for dinner but after 40 mins and no fish we decided to head home and have some nice t-bones on the bbq instead!

The study on Francis continues...

2009-09-12T21:24:00.003-04:00

Sept 6th, 2009

I was fishing with my brother and Caro today on Lake St-Francis exploring the same area i've been fishing recently but trying new spots. Drop shot, tubes and gobies were on the menu for the smallies today and the plan was to fish from 20 to 45ft for most of the day. We had a light NE wind that slowed down our drifts just a bit too much but I made a few ajustements and we started catching them.

We must of caught around 35 smallies today. We were catching a lot of fish but we couldn't get anything over 3lbs really... We tried shallower water but the sun was intense and although we could see a lot of nice fish on the sand it seemed like they had already seen us and wanted nothing to do with our lures.

We had an "ok" day today and would've probably had around 15lbs which is not nearly enough for this lake! If I continu to fish this lake this often I can't imagine the amount of spots i'll have in 5 years!

A nice little tournament on the Ottawa

2009-09-12T20:49:00.004-04:00

Sept 5th, 2009

I was fishing a 2 fish tournament from http://www.fishin-canada.net/ today with Caro on the Ottawa river. I am really not a big fan of this place and I don't fish it nearly enough... We caught our biggest bass of the year (5.11lbs) on the Ottawa but I find it's a hard place to fish. I always struggle to make a limit but I'm usually able to find at least one big fish.

Water conditions were bad as usual... very murky on the river with some clear water in protected bays. I started immediatly where we caught our huge largemouth earlier this summer but couldn't even get a bite... I was flipping a jig and throwing a frog and Caro was throwing a worm and her favorite yamamoto bait. We eventually found a nice place where there was a little more current caused by the light wind and Caro started catching smallies. She caught 3 in about 10 mins but they were all just over 2lbs.

We decided to try a completely new area in a very shallow bay. It looked like a frog fishing paradise. I finally hooked a decent fish over 2.5lbs on a frog and Caro managed to catch a largemouth just a bit bigger then her smallmouth so we had to switch them. About 45 mins before the end of the tournament, I missed a 4lbs largemouth TWICE! She was in stick weeds in less then 2ft of water and attacked my frog on 2 consecutive casts. I followed back with the worm but could never conviced her into biting again... We continued fishing the bay for the rest of the tournament and Caro managed 2 other fish over 2lbs that didn't helped our cause..

We ended up with a mediocre 5lbs bag but still had a blast and I was glad to have a few new waypoints on my GPS.

Deep water St-Francis Smallies - Part 2

2009-08-30T20:32:00.005-04:00

August 30th, 2009

I was out on Francis again today with Caro and Marc-André to look for more deep water smallies. The winds were strong again but they were from W and SW and what a different it makes!! The ride there was very smooth compared to yesterday and even if I forgot my rain suit I didn't have to get wet. We went to the exact same deep water spot we tried yesterday to see if the opposite wind would have positive or negative effect on the fish. The result were quite the same... a lot of fish in the 2.5lbs range with a few near 3lbs. On our first spot, Caro got stung by a wasp on the neck... Those wasp have been all over the place recently and I hate them!! Caro continued fishing like a champ and even had the lunker smallmouth for most of day.

We relocated a few times and everytime the fish were getting bigger. Water temperature is around 71 in most areas we fished. The last area we fished was not as deep (20-35ft) and this time, the tube outfished the drop shot. I don't know if they were on crayfish but they were definitely looking down and not up! Marc-André shorten his leader a few times but the tubes were still catching more fish. We tried the drift sock to slow down our drift but the trolling motor ended up being the only way to slow us down enough. I wanted to try a few cast in shallower water close to a point that had been bugging me on every drift and I caught a big walleye on the tube!! We didn't weight it but it was over 6lbs for sure. For a minute I thought I had a huge smallmouth... For a walleye it gave me good fight. Before we left I caught a nice 4lbs+ smallie on the tube and on a new color... It's nice to be able to find new spots, new fishing technique, new baits and new colors all in the same weekend!

Overall, i'm really happy with what we learned this weeekend. We didn't catch any giants but I think were on the good track.

HELL on Francis!!

2009-08-30T20:01:00.004-04:00

August 29th, 2009

They were announcing 25+ km/h East winds with gusts over 40... AND 15mm of rain but it was not enough to spot Marc-André and I from going on Francis for a Deep Fishing smallmouth study! We were obviously not going to fish the main lake with those conditions but we figured it wasn't going to be so bad around the islands. We were launching from a protected bay and it didn't look so bad so we decided to go see a bit further. I can honestly say I witnessed my biggest waves today.... Some of them had to be over 6ft.... The mustang suit was in order and I was really happy I had it on!! It's probably my best purchase over the last few years. It wasn't so much of the 25+ that was the problem but it was the fact that it was coming from the East.... Those E and NE winds are devastating on Francis.. We speared a few waves that got us soaked in less then a second but the ride wasn't so bad afterall. Thank god for all those FLW events on Lake Erie I was able to see on WFN I had a little idea on how to take those waves.

We finally got to an area where we were protected from the big winds and started looking for some nice rock piles. It took a while but we started catching a lot of fish in 15-30 ft of water on tubes and drop shots. When the wind settled down a little we decided to try another new area we had marked in 35+ ft of water. To my surprise ( I never catch fish in more then 25ft) we came across a good school a smallmouth. Most of them were a little over 2.5lbs but a lot of them couldn't resist our drop shots. The bite was so good we got to try all kind of baits and see which one worked better. One thing for sure the drop shot bite was better then the tube bite and a longer leader was in order. The drift speed was also perfect since the wind was pushing us against the current. The biggest fish was around 18inch and was a blast to fight!! We fished as deep as 47ft and still caught some decent fish.. It's a relief for me because i've been trying to find those deep smallies for quite some time now and I think I can only go from there and make it even better.

The ride back was not nearly as bad.. in fact I was able to gun it most of the way. More St-Francis tomorrow!!

Bite it already!!!

2009-08-30T19:24:00.002-04:00

August 23rd, 2009

I was on Francis today with Caro and Dave trying some new spots in an area I had never been before.... After all the crazy bags i've been seeing this year I figured I would try a completely new area of the lake. We had very little wind so it was awsome to see the fish but we simply coudn't get them to bite.. We caught a few decent smallmouths drifting along a channel edge and in 15+ ft of water. While looking for some rock piles we noticed a nice patch of lilipads that we couldn't resist. It didn't take long before a small largemouth hit my frog... We spent about 45 mins trying for largemouth and missed a BIG one.. Those damn frogs!!

The search for new smallmouth spots was not working so well, so we decided to go back to some known good spots closer to the launch and I saw something I had never seen... I mean we always see fish in this area... but this time was just nuts! We came across a school of at least 30 smallmouths on a sand flat it was unbeliable. The smallest one must of been over 3lbs and there were several over 4lbs. They had obviously saw us so we decided to drift down for awhile to come back later with a better approach. We caught a few average sized ones on the drift but no big ones.. Just before leaving I wanted to try the smallest and most natural looking lures I had... We tried leeches, 3 and 4 inch worms, 3" gulp alive minnows, gulp alive crawfish.. All on superlight line and tiny hooks... The best we got was a follow but none of them would actually commit!! We tried for over 30 mins with everything we had but no takers.... Considering the location and the amount of fishermen in the area i'm assuming they have seen their share of lures.

I might have a tourney next weekend but if I can I am definitely going back on Francis to find those huge brown ones everyone are talking about!!

Disapointing tournament...

2009-08-22T17:42:00.004-04:00

August 22nd, 2009

We started out the day pretty well fishing for smallies off a shallow shoal.. In fact, we had 5 smallies in the livewell by 9:30 and had the rest of the day to switch them for bigger ones and maybe a few largemouths. I missed 2 smallies over 3lbs that got my really upset... and then our spot got crowed pretty quickly (the bass boat attracts all kinds of fishermen apparently) and we couldn't even fish it in the end... We even had a guy from our trail fishing 10 feet away from us!! I thought that was a bit disrespectul but it was bound to happen eventually.. They even caught a decent fish right infront of us!! At around 10:30 we decided to go see if the largies would co-operate but all my good spots were empty... Did I get there too early? Too late? Since we couldn't catch a largemouth we decided to go back to smallmouths and we managed to change a few fish but only to gain a few ounces..

At the end of the day, we get to the weight in to find out we had been DISQUALIFED because we were caught idling without our life vests.... I'm actually still a bit shocked!! Someone took a picture of us in the tournament to prove we didn't have 'em on. I found out who it was and frankly i'm not even surprised... It's amazing what some people would do to gain a spot on the final ranking of Team of the year standings. I saw people going full speed without their life vest today and others were fishing 10 feet away from me and I didn't complain to anyone... I thought this trail was mainly for fun and I had no idea some people took it this seriously. What can I say.. We did brake a rule and I respect the decision that was taken.

St-Zotique Channel Tournament

2009-08-22T17:37:00.005-04:00

August 15th, 2009

I was fishing a fun tournament today with Caro, Marc-André and the other Caro. It was a one bass per person tournament and only largemouths were aloud. We were also limited to fish the channel on St-Francis. We did the tournament last year and had fun so we decided to bring the girls along this year. It was a VERY hot day to be on the water with no wind and the good fish were hard to find in those channels.. especially with all the warm temperature we've been having... I'm pretty sure big ones are all gone. We caught a few a fish but they were tiny and we decided to put them back in the water only to find out they had "surprise" prizes for random weights... I will managed to win a nice Husquavarna weed wacker!!

All in all it was a fun day on the water but it's hard to stay in the channels when you know there are monster smallmouth nearby...

Practicing on St-Louis for Econobass

2009-08-22T16:56:00.002-04:00

August 14th, 2009

I was practicing with my friend Dave today for our next tournament. We will be fishing against each other come tournament day but we decided to try some new spots that way we could keep our spots... On our first spot I caught a nice 4lbs+ largemouth on a slug and that was the only one we caught... We only had a few hours of fishing and I wanted to try a few smallmouth spots that had been good in the past... We caught a few small ones and I missed a 4lbs+ that went airborn twice before spitting my tube. The sun goes down pretty quickly now so we had to call it a day. I have a picture of the largemouth but the camera died this weekend and i'm not sure I will be able to save it... Oh well!

Local Tournament on St-Louis

2009-08-22T16:36:00.003-04:00

August 8th, 2009

I was fishing a local tournament today with my girlfriend on lake St-Louis. There was about 15 teams registered in total... We started fishing for largemouth since one of our spots was really close to the launch and I immediatly hooked a nice 4.7lbs bucket! It must of been 7:03 when I caught it... What a nice way to start the day... especially for a 3 fish tourny! We continued fishing for largemouths for another hour or so but we couldn't find another one...... On our second spot we caught 2 tiny smallmouth and Caro lost a good one on the tube.... We didn't stay there much longer since we were right in the middle of a very busy area and boat traffic was getting ridiculous. I decided to try a few one bass spot quickly and none of my fish were there so we headed to another area where I know we could catch some decent smallies. In about an hour we switched our 2 smallies about 3 times... We had to get rid of 3 smallies that were 2.10lbs+.

We ended up with 3rd place and missed the lunker only by a few ounces... We had a lot of fun and we'll make sure to do it again next year!

For more info : http://www.karlvilleneuve.com/

Tough fishing on the Ottawa

2009-08-20T13:22:00.002-04:00

August 1st, 2009

It was a tough day on the Ottawa river... The huge largemouth we had caught in practice was no where to be found unfortunatly... As a matter of fact there was only one fish over 4lbs caught during the tournament... We caught a 3lbs largemouth at around 9:30am and then it tooks the rest of the day to get another bite. It was hard for everybody but apparently it was harder for us!!! We couldn't even get 5 in the boat... We lost a few fish that would've probably helped our cause. Boat traffic was awful and it made it really hard to catch the smallmouths I wanted to get... What can I say.. We learn everyday and I will fish this place different next time i'm there that's for sure!

Biggest Bass of the season in practice!

2009-07-30T15:05:00.003-04:00

July 26th, 2009

I was fishing with Caro and Marc-André today and we were trying to establish a plan for my next tournament on the Ottawa River in Lefaivre. I wanted to make sure to cover a lot of water with different baits to see where and what the fish were after. As usual.. Caro was hammering them but with a worm this time and on light line... I was actually surprised that she was able to boat them with a spinning outfit. The water is still very dirty from all the wind and rain we've been having but the fish were still biting... Caro caught 2 good largemouth and 1 very nice smallmouth in less then 1 hour of fishing. I was mostly throwing a frog and Marc-André was flipping a jig. I wasn't getting any attacks on the frog.. I think the wind might of been a bit too strong for the frog so I switched to a worm for awhile but I wasn't getting bit either.. We finally got to a tiny bay that was covered from the wind and Marc-André decided to give the frog another try and got a hit almost instantly but missed it. He threw the frog back and that's when a GIANT largemouth came out of the water and smashed it! It was probably the biggest largemouth I had ever seen... I couldn't believe that it measured only 19"... It's back was so wide it was impossible to be under 5lbs... In fact we weighed it twice and it was 5lbs11oz!! She wasn't fat, but she was as thick as a linebacker. I would've love to see her in full spawn!

I marked the area and decided to go fish for smallies for the rest of the day. We caught a few smallies but nothing huge so I think I will concentrate on largemouth for my tournament next saturday... The water was around 68-69 celcius and we had mild east wind for most of the day.

I think we could've had about 13-15 lbs today and considering the results I've seen this year for the Ottawa river I think it was a good day.

Fishing with a guide on Lake St-Louis

2009-07-30T14:52:00.002-04:00

July 25th, 2009

My friend Jack invited me today to fish with a guide on Lac St-Louis for some bass and walleye. We were meeting him at the dock in Lachine at 6am. We started the day fishing a shoal for smallmouth bass but we couldn't get one to bite... we had a few follow our baits but none of them would commit. We relocated a few times but the same thing was happening... We decided to go fish for walleye to see if they would cooperate a little more. On the first spot we caught 3-4 small ones and a few tiny bass as well. The guide finally missed a nice sized walleye and caught another decent one. We were drifting and jigging on a 200 yards stretch and it seemed like it was a good spot for walleye but for some reason, I think I would've fished it differently.... I'll make sure to try it again some other day to see if I can get some decent walleye. The area we fished was nice because we had nice walleye and bass spots really close to each other. About mid day we decided to try for smallmouth again and he brought us on a spot that had a lot of nice smallmouth but it took a lot of work to convince them to take our baits... I finally caught 2 good sized smallies and missed a few more.

At the end of the day the guide said he wasn't satisfied with his day and that he was going to bring us back for free in the fall. Apparently he catches monster after monster in the fall so i'm looking forward to this!

Top Water smallies

2009-07-22T09:03:00.003-04:00

July 21st, 2009

I was on Lake St-Louis tonight with Caro and I wanted to see if we could catch 'em on top water baits since the wind was down. We had less then 2 hours on the water so I wanted to find a spot quickly where we could throw pop'rs and sammys. Our first spot was nice but I think I approached it wrong and I might of spooked a few fish... Caro missed a fish before we decided to try another area nearby. It ended up being the right decision since I got a nice smallie on my first cast with the pop'r. Caro also missed a nice one on the jerkbait and I caught a few small ones on tubes... The wind picked up all of a sudden and we had a bit of a chop that prevented us from throwing top water lures. I'm pretty happy about our little outing tonight since I was able to catch some nice smallies and I now have a few more waypoints on my GPS.

Tournament fishing

2009-07-20T12:46:00.007-04:00

July 18th, 2009

Our day wasn't as good as I had anticipated but we still managed to finish in 8th place with a bag of 13.124lbs... We started the day by throwing moving bait for our smallies and by 9:30 we had our limit in the boat. We started culling on our second spot when I caught a near 3lbs smallie on a jerkbait. We didn't stay there very long though.. there was a spot where we had caught many 4-5lbs fish in the past that I wanted to try so we headed there around 10:45am. We dragged tubes and senkos for about an hour and managed to switch almost all of our fish but only by a few onces... We decided to try a shallower area and that's when we came across some giant smallies... We spooked about 3-4 very big fish before I managed to get our lunker of 4.728lbs in the boat.. She was in less then 2 feet of water.

From there we decided go try for some largemouth since the wind was becoming stronger and stronger. I missed 2 very big largies on the frog (as usual) and I wasn't able to convince her to bite on the worm or the jig... It was hard to get the boat in the proper position without spooking them with the trolling motor... That's when a power pole comes in handy...

My dad also caught his biggest walleye to date. A 8lbs 2oz monster that bit on his tube in about 10 feet of water. We obviously released him after a few pictures.

Next weekend I will be practicing for our tourny on the Ottawa river and I should be fishing with a guide on Lake St-Louis for bass and walleye.

Practice with Quebec's elite!!

2009-07-15T13:16:00.006-04:00

July 12th, 2009

I was fishing with no other then Brian Attwood today for a little practice/learning session on Francis. Brian is a great guy and I learned tons of new things today. Not only did I learn a lot of new fishing tips but also with the boat, GPS, rods, lines, lures, etc...

For those who care... Brian did not "give" me all his spots.. We fished some new areas using his techniques and not only did we catch some nice bass we also saw some nice ones just cruising around or following our baits. Brian is a real pro when it comes to power fishing.. He keeps things very simple and he gave me one hell of a wake up call. I need to get back to basics and stop trying to make things complicated. For one, I now know that I have WAY too many baits... He basically throws the same thing over and over and it works!!! One thing I learned is that even if you spook a fish.. you can catch him a few minutes if not seconds later. He sure put my trolling motor to the test with his extreme driving!!! No push pole for him that's for sure.

We must of caught around 10-15 bass but no giants... We saw a lot of 3lbs+ fish that I hope to convince next time I'm on the water! I have a good idea of where i'll be fishing for my tournament next weekend with today and last week's practice.

St-Francis Practice

2009-07-15T12:55:00.002-04:00

July 5th, 2009

Even with today's wind my girlfriend really wanted to go fishing (yes I know.. I have the best girlfriend in the world!!). I figured we could go practice for my next tournament on Francis. I did the mistake of trying a spot I knew had fish... but I just wanted to catch a decent smallmouth!! I actually missed one on my first cast and it felt heavy!! On my second cast I caught a perfect eating size walleye which ended up in my livewell! We drifted a bit over a spot in about 15-20 feet of water and I hooked a 4lbs+ smallie but the line broke at the boat... It was too bad because she was about 3 inches away from going in the net... I lost another fish that felt like a 3lbs+ smallmouth not long after that and I hooked another walleye... We had never caught walleye in this area so I was surprise to catch 2 in the same hour...

We left that spot to go try for some largemouth nearby and Caro missed a nice one with the frog... She tried setting the hook way to early but she was fishing the frog for the first time... I told her to either wait for the frog to dissapear or simply count to 3 before setting the hook... You should've seen her face when the bass jumped on the frog.. She got scared and screamed as if she was being attacked!! haha! I think it got her hooked on topwater fishing.. She might give a break to her favorite yamamoto bait afterall.

I'm a bit dissapointed that we didn't try more new spots... We tried maybe 2 new spots and spent the rest of the day fishing areas that I knew had fish... From now on I will try to maximize my practice time so I can find new spots.

All in all it was a fun day on the water... We missed a lot of good fish but at least I know where i'll be fishing for my tournament in 2 weeks. I should practice again next weekend and i'll make sure to try completely new areas.. At least we have some nice walleye for diner!

Tournament day!

2009-07-15T12:38:00.002-04:00

July 4th, 2009

I was fishing my first Econ-O-Bass tournament today with my dad. I had a good idea of where I wanted to start fishing but when we got there there were already 6-7 teams there. We started throwing frogs and senkos and it wasn't long before we started hooking some largemouths but most of them were in the 1lbs to 2lbs range.. Nothing that was going to help us win the tournament. We stayed there for a while and caught a limit early but we needed bigger fish if we wanted to make a top 10... We decided to go try a for smallmouth around noon but the wind made things complicated... It didn't take long before we decided to go back to our original spot. We were finally able to hook a decent fish which was close to 3lbs but that was it...

We finished 12th with just a little over 8lbs... I am really not happy with the outcome but next tournament should be better..... I have fished St-Francis quite a bit and i'm confident we can do way better then 8lbs! Congrats to Alain and Carole who took first place with over 16lbs of largemouth! Funny thing is that they were fishing about 100m from me almost all day and we were throwing something very similiar... Oh well!! I guess I was on the wrong side of the bay!!

You can check Econobass.com for pictures of the event.

Beat the storm!

2009-07-07T20:35:00.003-04:00

July 3rd, 2009

I was fishing with my friend Jack today for smallmouth on a local lake and a big storm was chasing us around... We were able to find a few fish in areas of the lake I had never been before. In fact, I think I found a GREAT spot for smallmouth... I can't wait to try this spot again. I am convinced it holds plenty of quality smallies. Jack was fishing a berkley grub on a drop shot and he was hammering them!! I am getting more and more confidence in the drop shot but I had never thought of fishing it with a grub... Seeing as he was getting so many smallies in the boat I will definitely give it a shot on my next trip. We finally ended up having to face the storm but it was more rain and wind then anything else.... It only lasted for about 15 minutes but it rained so much the bilge pump actually came on!! I caught a good 18 incher and Jack took a picture of it but we think the rain killed his camera so I don't know if we'll ever see this picture..

The ride back was a bit rough since I couldn't hit the waves properly and they were at least 4 footers... We tried another spot before calling it a day where Jack had caught some good 3 and 4 pounders but only caught some small ones. We got hit by heavy rain again on the way back to the launch and we were sooked by the time we got in the car...

It was a good day on the lake but I could've done it without the rain today... Next stop is my first trail tournament for Econ-O-Bass.. I hope we'll do better then what we did in practice!

Largemouth hunting!

2009-07-07T20:18:00.001-04:00

July 1st, 2009

I was fishing with my girlfriend and my cousin Martin today trying some new spots for some good largemouth. We stopped for a few cast before heading to my new spot to see if we could tempt a few smallies to bite and only Caro was able to catch one with her favorite yamamoto bait! A storm was coming our way pretty quickly so we decided to hurry up and headed for a weedy bay where I knew we would find some decent largemouth. When we got there there were already a few bassboat but they were fishing a sandbar closer to the main lake. I headed for the thick stuff and I was not careful enough and I think we scared a few fish.... Caro missed a decent largemouth on her favorite bait twice.... At least I know this area holds quality fish now.... Of course I had to catch a pike there. I don't think I have gone on the water this year without catching at least one pike... go figure. We didn't catch any big fish today but at least I got to try new areas and I have a few new waypoints on my GPS for upcoming trips on this lake.

Vacation Fishing!

2009-07-07T20:04:00.003-04:00

June 30th, 2009

I was fishing a local lake with my friend Mat today hoping to connect with some nice smallies. We didn't fish for a long time but I still managed to hook a few fish. Water is still reletivaly cold and I managed to find a few smallmouths but no giants!!! Pikes seem to be everywhere this year... I don't think I have ever caught that many pikes fishing for bass... At least they are not cutting me off everytime! We had a good time on the water today even if Mat didn't catch a single fish... Instead of fishing areas that I knew I decided to try all kinds of new spots and even if most of them didn't pay off, a few of them did and I made sure to mark them on my GPS! Here is a nice smallie I caugth today with only one eye!!

Damn musky!! Where is the bass?!

2009-07-07T19:48:00.004-04:00

June 28th, 2009

I was practicing with my girlfriend for my first trail tournament on the Ottawa River in Rigaud today and it didn't really go like I had planned... I don't think I had ever seen water this muddy before.. I tried using large, bright and noisy lures but all I got were ferocious attacks of pikes and musky!!! I did manage to catch a few largemouths but nothing big enough for my upcoming tournament... We fished a bay where we can usually do 15lbs + no problems but we barely got a bite there. We had to relocate a few times before we could get a bite and even if the water was like coffee it was a dark worm that did the job....

At least I caught my first musky and boy did it give me a good fight!!! It's really not the type of fish I was looking for but it was well worth the battle!!

Fishing Paradise!!

2009-06-27T16:54:00.006-04:00

June 24, 25, 26th, 2009

We were up north for a few days with friends in St-Aimé-Du-Lac-Des-Iles on a lake I had never been before... Lac Des Iles is definitely one of the nicest place I have ever been bass fishing. The amount of bass you can catch in a day is unbelievable.... It would've been impossible to keep count of how many bass we caugh. Both smallies and largies are EVERYWHERE... You get bit at least every 2nd cast. Granted we caught our share of small bass but everyone single one of them were a blast to fight back to the boat. You catch so many fish that you start looking for big ones quickly and we found a few chunky fish on our first day. Actually, Caro was on fire and she caught ALL the big fish on her favorite yamamoto bait. She caught 2x 19"+ and lost another one in less then 15 mins...

Water temps were anywhere between 75 and 80 as the day went on and slightly warmer in isolated bays. Water is very clear and we had very little wind the whole time we were there which made sight fishing a lot of fun. The weather was mostly sunny with clear skys and we have the sunburns that came with it!!

It was a very relaxing trip with a lot of time spent on the bass boat. I will definitely make this a yearly trip and try to book the same cottage. Enjoy the pictures!

Berkley B1

2009-06-22T21:34:00.005-04:00

June 18-21st, 2009

Well... It's been a very busy but awsome week with the B1 event. I didn't get to practice nearly enough eventhough it's my home lake.... The fish were a lot shallower then I though and my spots didn't produce as well as usual... It was my first big event and eventhough we didn't make the cut i'm satisfied with my weekend in general. We missed 2 very good fish that would've easily helped us make the cut for sunday.... We missed it by less then 2lbs... It was nice to fish against real pros like Kalonka, Kulik, Sim, Attwood, Izumi, Desforges, Gaussiran, Landry, Cousineau, etc..

Congrats to André Laforce and Michel Gramina on the win!! Over 35lbs with an amazing largemouth lunker of 7.2lbs!!!

It was a great event and I'm definitely doing it again next year!! Ben and his team worked hard for this event and it showed! I think they will take all the feedbacks and make it even better for next year.

Next tournament is Lac Des Deux Montagnes for the first event of Econ O Bass. I cannot wait for this... Practice is in order though... I almost never fish this lake but I know there are some awsome smallies there!!

I'm off to Lac Des Iles for a few days. First time on this lake but I hear bass fishing there is amazing!! Looking forward to this trip!!

Pictures of the B1:

Finally paying off!

2009-06-11T23:35:00.003-04:00

June 7th, 2009

I was out with my friend Marc and the girlfriends today trying to catch a nice walleye dinner.

I've been trying all kinds of new lures that I have never used before but I think we found something pretty effective today... I'm also new to the concept of jigging..I don't usually fish vertically for bass but I think i'm slowly getting the hang of it. I tried a few lines and fireline is definately my favorite type of line for this type of fishing. Keeping a tight line is critical to feel those tiny bites and fluorocarbon or mono just don't have enough sensivity in my opinion.

We started fishing late in the afternoon at a spot where I usually catch a few small ones and Marc caugh the first one which ended being perfect eating size. We stayed there a bit and missed a few fish until we decided to try another area nearby that was a bit shallower but with a fair amount of current.

Changing spot ended up being the right decision.. It took less then 10 cast before Marc hooked the biggest walleye I had ever seen in about 10 feet of water. We even had a hard time fitting it in the net!!

It was a thrill to see a walleye of this size.. It only weighed in under 8lbs but it looked like it could've been way heavier then that... I can only imagine how big a quinte 15lbs walleye must be..

All in all it was a fun day with the girlfriends on the water and we caught fish for diner!

Walleye Fishing 101

2009-05-14T12:08:00.002-04:00

May 14th, 2009

I was on the water with my friend Jack for a few hours of walleye fishing today and learned a thing or two! We tried a few spots before we could finally hook a few fish... On the last spot we tried we came across my old boat! The guy who bought my old boat is a walleye angler and he told me what he was catching them with! I didn't take long before we finally started to catch fish. Jack hooked up the first walleye and I caught one as well not long after.. Unfortunatly they were too small to keep but at least I learned how to jig properly. I have to say; jigging for walleye is really not the most exciting way to fish but it does catch fish...

Considering we still have a month to go before the season starts, I guess I will be "jigging" for walleye again soon! We were catching fish in anywhere from 8 to 40 feet of water but I think what was important is the current close by. We were fishing close to strong current and I believe the walley was staying close by to feed. We had almost no wind and water temp was around 50-52F.

SPRING 2009.. FINALLY!!

2009-04-21T20:12:00.005-04:00

Another season is on the way and I cannot wait to go fishing!!! The season only opens in June in Quebec so I will be fishing in Vermont until then... I have never fished Lake Champlain and apparently it's bass paradise so I am really anxious to see! Apparently, both largemouth and smallmouth are everywhere.... If everything goes as planned I should be there this weekend for the first trip of the year.

I did my first boat test this past weekend and everything seems to good to go.. I only have a few things to fix but all and all I think the boat is ready for the season!!

Also.. I will be doing a new Trail this year called Econobass (http://www.econobass.com/). I will also fish the B1 tournament and maybe a few walk on in other trails as well.

Have a good season!!

The JohnnyFisher Challenge

2008-10-27T13:36:00.010-04:00

October 26th, 2008

I was back on the water today with my dad for a friendly tournament against Marc and Felix. We left the boat launch at around 9 am for what was going to be an awesome day to catch giant smallies! Water temperature was around 50 in the morning and warmed up to 54 in the afternoon with a light wind from the S. The day started a lot slower then last week and we had to relocate a few times before we finally found a few fish. The first fish we caught was a tiny walleye that was way too small to eat! I didn't have any fish following my jerkbait so I quickly switched to tubes and gobies and it paid off!! I recently bought some new gobies on the internet and I was anxious to see if there were going to be good here... On my 3rd cast with my new lure I caught a 5lbs smallmouth!! In less then 15 minutes I had 3 other bass eat the goby!! Thank god I bought a big bag!! I have a feeling I'll have a rod rigged with them at all time from now on! When I noticed the water had warmed up by almost 4 degrees I decided to go back to a spot where we usually catch a lot of fish. We began catching fish on almost every cast but nothing bigger then 2lbs...

At one point Marc called me up to see if I could take a picture of a nice sturgeon he caught by mistake so we met up for a little photoshoot. I had never seen a sturgeon in person before. It's pretty impressive!

I think seeking for warm water got us our last 2 quality fish... The next spot we tried had water temp over 54 and my dad caught a nice 4lbs 10oz smallmouth and I caught another keeper of about 2.5lbs. We met up with Marc and Felix for a few pictures and the official weigh in but when we took our bass out of the livewell they didn't even want to weigh they're fish!! Overall we had a great day, not only did we catch about 20 bass but we caught 2 very nice ones! The season is NOT over yet!

The new boat is insane!

2008-10-27T10:44:00.003-04:00

October 25th, 2008

They were announcing a lot of wind today with an insane amount of rain but it didn't stop us from going fishing!! There are only a few fishing weekends left and I have to take advantage of every single one of them before winter gets here! The wind was blowing at 25-30 km/h but from the SE... We had a 2-3 footers most of the time with a few 4 footers but nothing the boat couldn't handle!! Let's just say we were the ONLY one on the lake!

We only fished for about 3 hours and caught nada! Not a single fish, not even a bite! The strong SE wind made it very difficult to drift... Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit calmer!

Fall Feeding FRENZY!!!

2008-10-23T11:47:00.009-04:00

October 19th, 2008

I was on the water today with my brother Raph and his friend Paul. Water temperature on this body of water has finally reached 55ish and I think it's the magic number because the smallies were completely nuts. We had very little wind and it gave me the chance to see my fishing spots a lot better then usual. The water was clear for this area.. usually it's never this clear. I saw things I didn't even know where there before.. It took about 3 casts for my brother to hook is first smallmouth and maybe 5 more for his second one... I really don't know what happened but the bass were feeding HEAVILY. We could seem them chase bait fish right in front of us sometimes even jumping out of the water. I was casting a jerkbait and I had a bass following it to the boat 9 cast out of 10. It was almost like we were fishing for starving pikes... I've seen pikes follow lures like that but never smallmouth bass. It's almost like they didn't care about the boat or us... Looking back at things I should've tried more lures seeing as they were biting almost everything. Today was by far the most productive day I've had fishing for smallmouths. A few times we no only had 2 fish at the same time but even 3! I can't wait to see if it's going to be this good next weekend. Overall we caught close to 40 smallmouth if not more and we missed quite a few as well. Most were in the 2 - 2.5lbs range with the biggest ones being close to 4lbs.

New fishing spots!

2008-10-23T11:30:00.004-04:00

October 18th, 2008

I was fishing with my Caro and my dad today and we were looking for new fishing spots for future tournaments on a local lake near my house. With the new boat I can now try areas of the lake that seemed way to far before... Water temperature was about 57-58 and we had almost no wind. We started casting tubes, worms and jerkbaits but go no bites. We found a few promising rock piles and I made sure to mark them on GPS. I'm sure I'll find fish there in the future... it has all the ingredients for a great smallmouth habitat! We tried a few areas nearby but couldn't hook a fish so we finally decided to try a known good spot to at least hook one bass. It didn't take long before we hooked our first fish but it was pretty small... I had a good strike from what seemed to be a good sized smallie but she never made it to the boat... We caught a few more bass but nothing big so we decided to try another area closer to the boat launch. When we got there we saw a few roaming smallies in about 2-3 feet of water but as soon as they saw us they were gone.... I marked that one on the GPS as well!!! I'll get them next time! Overall it wasn't the best day but at least I got to find new spots.

Tournament Day!

2008-10-14T10:13:00.005-04:00

October 12, 2008

I was doing my first tournament today with my dad. It wasn't part of any trail but most of the best bass guys in QC were there. Since practice had been awful I decided to try an area where I had caught good size smallmouth in the past and it paid off!! Water temp was in the mid 50's in the morning with a 10km/h wind from the South. It was the perfect weather for jerkbaits and it took about 10 casts to get my first hook up and it was a NICE one. I was soo nervous being in a tournament and knowing I had a 5lbs + bass at the end of my line so early in the day... I didn't want to lose it. Call it luck or whatever you want but I had my biggest smallmouth of the summer on my first tournament 15 mins after the launch! It weighed in at 5.25 and was the second biggest fish of the day. Pro Marc Levac came in with a hawg of 5.85lbs to win the lunker. Marc was fishing with one of the best musky guide in the world, Mike Lazarus.

After my big fish I was really pumped because I knew I had a good chance at winning the lunker but since it was a 3 fish tournament I only needed 2 other quality fish to win the tournament. I tried 2 other nearby area where we had caught decent smallies in the past but we got nothing so I decided to move a little further to another good spot. The jerkbait paid off once again... I had left my line in the water for at least 2 mins and I guess a smallmouth had seen it and couldn't take it anymore so it bit the last treble hook and got hooked. It ended up being very close to 5lbs so there we were at 11am with more then 10lbs with 2 fish in the livewells. I couldn't believe it... I don't think my dad had seen me this happy before... I was totally FREAKING OUT. We fished the same area for about 45 mins and got our last fish but it was tiny!! It was about 1.5 lbs and we needed more then that to win it. I knew we needed at least 12-13lbs to win it. We caught a few more fish on the same spot but nothing bigger then that last one.... At 1pm I decided to give a shot at largemouth hoping to get that kicker fish... Again, we caught a few of them but only small ones so we headed for the weigh in with a decent bag afterall.

We got to the weigh in and one team had already weighed in over 12lbs so I knew we weren't going to win it but I was still hoping for a top 3. Our bag came in at 11.23lbs and we had the lunker at that point. Levac and Lezarus came in first with a bag of 13.94 followed by Brian Attwood with 13.54. We finished 7th and still managed to beat a few pros like Daniel Cousineau and other known veterans so I was very pleased afterall. We got to meet a lot of people and it was nice to talk about fishing with people who share the same passion.

I should do at least 7 or 8 tourney next year maybe even more.. who knows!

Lockjaw Smallies

2008-10-14T10:01:00.002-04:00

October 11th, 2008

I was on a local lake today with my brother and a my friend Mounir. I decided to try the same area as last week where I had seen so many giant smallies. Water temperature was in the high 50's and the wind was very light from the SW. We were throwing tubes, jerkbaits, drop-shots and gobees but they were simply not biting. The water was so clear we were able to drop our baits right infront of them and they would simply move a few feet and stay there. We drifted all day in this area hoping to get a bite eventually but we got nothing! It was a bit dissapointing since Mounir had never caught a bass in his life and I wanted him to at least catch one... We only fished for a few hours because I wanted to be back early to prepare for the tournament the next day. I was able to remove most of the stickers on my boat so I snapped a few pics.

Where did they go?!

2008-10-08T13:35:00.003-04:00

October 5th, 2008

I was back on the water today with my dad and Marc hoping to find some smallies in deeper water. Water temperature was 56 to 61 most places we fished and we had a light wind from SW. Aside from the recent water temperature drop we had over the last few days everything was in order for a good day. We started the day by trying out a new promising spot but we didn't even get one hit... We moved on to try a known spot where we usually catch a lot of fish and we didn't even get a hit there either. We tried fishing deeper with drop-shot, tubes, gobees, etc... and got NADA! We tried more new areas hoping to find a some spots for next weeks tournament but we couldn't even catch ONE BASS. We tried every possible dept with every lures we had and it just wouldn't work. Looking back on our day I realized we are going to have to make a few adjustments for the tourney or we're going to show up at the weigh in with an empty bag. At least the weather should be in our favor for next weekend and from what I hear the bass are starting to feed heavily so I'm still confident we are going to do good.

Tough fishing

2008-10-08T13:23:00.003-04:00

October 4th, 2008

I was on a local lake today with Marc and Felix for both smallmouth and largemouth. I had a feeling fishing was going to be tough with the water temp dropping by almost 10 degrees since last weekend. Add to this the INTENSE 25+km/h wind and the result was pretty much what I had expected.... I have to say that I was hoping for at least one or two bass but we caught NOTHING! Actually, I caught a 15lbs+ catfish that gave me a hell of a fight... I don't know what's going on lately but I'm catching everything except bass!! At least I got to try out my new boat in 3-4 footers and I was more then impressed with the ride. Who said bassboats are not good in waves? I was going 40-50 mph in those waves and the boat was taking it just fine! Needless to say my friends were VERY impressed with the boat. I missed a good size largemouth but that was the only action we had besides the catfish. I should be back on the water tomorrow to practice for a tournament next weekend.

I caught a whale!

2008-09-29T14:29:00.004-04:00

September 28th, 2008

I was on the water again today with my new boat. Caro decided to join me again for some largemouth fishing. Water temperature is still 67-68 in most places and we had a very light NE wind. We missed a few nice fish on top water but I hooked a respectable one eventually with a sizmo frog. I decided to try deeper water since the water level dropped by about 2-3 feet in the last week or so. I was flipping isolated cover with a flipping tube and a half ounce weight and I wasn't getting any bites so I decided to pitch on the other side of the boat in open water. That's when I felt a HUGE hit.... The weight felt like it was a musky and I was sure my line was going to break since I didn't have a leader on but it didn't... The fish was peeling line off my reel so easy it was scary!! I had to follow the fish for awhile with the trolling motor because it was about to empty my spool... When it came to the surface I saw right away that it was a freshwater drum.. but a HUGE one! Nothing like the other one I caught before. This one was gigantic! When Caro saw the fish she didn't want to have anything to do with it. She said :"There is no way you are bringing this in the boat!" After a good 5 minutes of fighting the fish and convincing Caro to grab the net we managed to boat the fish safely. My scale was out of batteries and I didn't have a tape to measure it but it had to be over 20lbs.... I would bet anything that it was even closer to 25... Either way it's the biggest freshwater fish I have ever caught and it was a blast! We released it and when I got home I looked up the net to find out it might of been the Canadian Record!!! The biggest Fresh Water Drum recorded in Canada was 20.60lbs... Had I know I was close to the record I would've asked someone nearby to weigh and measure the fish for me! This fish made my day that's for sure. I can't wait for next weekend as we're approaching the turnover!

First trip on the new boat!

2008-09-29T14:21:00.002-04:00

September 27th, 2008

It didn't take much time before I put this thing in the water!! I took a shower and I was on the water right away with Caro to try it... There is no way I was going to sleep even if I needed it badly from all the driving... The boat runs great and it's FAST. I wasn't even at full throttle and we hit 65mph in no time. I'm not sure i'll even try to go faster.... it's fast enough! We didn't fish a lot as I was trying everything on the boat but we managed to catch a few smallmouths... I had a giant follow my topwater all the way to the boat but she didn't go for it... We both missed a few fish but I knew I was going back on the water the next day so it didn't matter! No pictures today.

I HAVE A BASSBOAT!

2008-09-29T14:11:00.002-04:00

September 26-27th, 2008

I decided to sell my aluminum boat for a bassboat about 2 months ago and I had been shopping for bassboats since then. After looking at thousands of ads and talking with several bassboat owners I decided to drive down to Ladoga, Indiana with my dad to pick up a 1998 19" BassCat with a 1999 Merci EFI 200hp. We were blown away when we saw the condition of the boat in person... it was even better then the pictures I had received by email! It took us 15 hours to go and about 18 hours to come back but it was well worth the drive.... I had been waiting for this for such a long time and it's now finally in my driveway!! Not sure if it's going to improve my fishing at all but at least I'll be able to try new spots that seemed to far with my 50hp. I can't wait to try it on our lakes here.

Fall turnover is almost here

2008-09-29T13:49:00.004-04:00

September 20th, 2008

I was on the water today with Felix and Marc on his bassboat and we decided to try the same area as last weekend hoping to find some nice smallmouth but it wasn't the case... Instead we caught a few small ones again.... Most of them are in the 1-2lbs range and are definitely not what were looking for! There wasn't much wind today and water temp is still around 68. It took us most of the day to realize we had to try something different in order to catch some decent smallmouths... We decided to try a completely new spot and it finally paid off!! I managed to get a near 3lbs bronzeback almost right away. Today wasn't the greatest fishing day but at least we found a new spot and we'll have to try it again this fall!

Disappointing fall fishing

2008-09-15T12:22:00.002-04:00

September 13th, 2008

Caro and I decided decided to try an area where I usually go for some quality fall fishing but it ended up being a disappointing trip especially in terms of size. We had a very light NE wind and water temperature was around 68 in most places. We started by casting tubes and Caro caught a 2lbs smallie on her 2nd cast. It was pretty small but it's fun to finally see some smallmouth after our largemouth trip last weekend. I was anxious to try my new jigheads and they were definitely worth buying!! I caught most, if not all, my smallies on them. All in all, we caught about 15 smallies and the biggest one was about 2.5lbs... If I had to go back I would do things differently like try different depths and maybe try to find warmer water for more active fish. Hey.. you learn every time you're on the water! Pictures should be up tonight!

Local Multi-Species Tournament

2008-09-08T12:38:00.006-04:00

September 7, 2008

My friend Marc invited me for a small local tournament today for bass, pike and perch. The lake we fished is usually closed to boats and is only used for the beach. I had NO IDEA this place had bass. Not only is it the smallest lake it's filled with GIANT smallmouth AND largemouth. Believe it or not the largemouth lunker was 6.73lbs!!!! Had I caught this bass I think I could've retired happy. Another near 5lbs largemouth was caught and several other 3lbs+. The tournament rules weren't in our favor thought. It was one fish per person instead of a 5 fish limit so someone whose lucky could win it with only one fish and that's what happened. It's too bad because we would've had a very decent bag of bass! Marc caught the biggest pike which I though was very close to 10lbs but ended up weighing only 7.1lbs. That same pike stole 2 frogs from me before Marc finally hooked it just on the side of the mouth! We were about 15 bass boats overall and we had a lot of fun. I got to meet people who share the same passion I have for bass fishing and we might have something cooking for next year! Stay tune for more info! I forgot to take a picture of the pike but I have a few pictures of the ALL ELECTRIC MOTOR launch! lol

Largemouth Fishing Vacation!

2008-09-08T12:18:00.006-04:00

September 3-6, 2008

My girlfriend and I rented a cottage up north on a lake I've been fishing for the past 5-6 years. The largemouth fishing there is just ridiculous... Several 5lbs+ were caught over the years and the amount of fish we catch every year is just phenomenal.

It didn't take long before Caro caught her first largemouth. What's fun about this place is that you can really improve you hook set with the amount of hits you get in a day... Bite after bite Caro was improving her hook sets and the way she was casting and working her lure. She caught about 4-5 bass the first day, 7-8 on the 2nd day and over 20 on the third day. Her hook sets are now so impressive I couldn't believe it! Both hands on the rods and she uses her whole weight to set the hook. Just like a pro! Let's just say she decided to be more careful after losing a near 5lbs bass at the boat! She got her revenge with a 19", 4lbs+ largemouth the next day! She got the fish away from a sunken tree just in time before it could wrap her line in the branches. I can't tell you how happy I am when someones catches a lunker in my boat... That bass gave her a fight she'll remember for the rest of her life!

I always like to "guesstimate" the weight of a 5 fish bag when I go fishing. That way it gives me a good idea of how good the day went and it's also the same way in real tournaments. For those who care, we had a 17lbs bag the first day, 18lbs the 2nd day and probably very close to 19lbs on our 3rd day. We caught well over 130 laremouths in 3.5 days and 1 smallmouth! The owner of the outfitter has a little contest going on so I registered Caro and her 19". I know the biggest fish caught there was 22"... her chances to win are slim to none but the owner insisted. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the 5lbs I've been looking for this year but many 3's and 4's were caught. I will post pictures of the trip soon!

Fun Family Fishing

2008-09-08T11:57:00.005-04:00

August 31st, 2008

My uncle Jean came down from Quebec city to fish for bass with my dad and I so I couldn't dissapointed him! He usually fishes for trout and he had a hard time believing a fresh water fish could fight more then a trout. He was in for a surprise! He actually caught the first smallmouth on a brown tube and didn't say a word!! He just started laughing so we both looked at him wondering what was going on... Needless to say he was having a blast fighthing his first smallmouth! The wind picked up as the day went on so it made it a bit difficult to achieve a good drift but they still managed to catch a few fish. My uncle caught the biggest bass dragging a tube again and this time it gave him one hell of a fight! I think he'll remember this one for awhile! It only weighed in a little over 2.5 lbs but the smallmouths we catch in current always seem to fight more. My dad caught a few over 2lbs as well and we lost quite a bit as well. I think it's the first time I don't reel in a bass this year but the important thing is that my uncle and my dad did! I think they had a blast and I hope we can do it again soon and catch a 4lbs+ this time! I will post pictures tonight.