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!

Checking things out on St-Louis

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

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

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

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.