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!!
