More BIG smallies!

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!

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!!

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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!