Ice Fishing 2021

It was a much shorter ice fishing season than normal for me, essentially only getting the first part of the winter in. I left for Florida to start my bass tournament season late January and that was about it for me this year. I love ice fishing so that is a little bit disappointing but we had some fun when we went out! 

Most of the time when we got we get after the walleyes and perch on Lake of the Woods because the action is so good but I got on a couple of crappie hunts and had fun with them as well. This was a 15", biggest one I pulled up this season. Caught on a Northland Eye Dropper Spoon - my favourite crappie bait. I'll usually tip it with a couple of soft plastic maggots.

In addition to the great walleye fishing we are starting to see more and more quality perch out there on LOTW. They are excellent eating and provide some good action so I'm happy about it! I just use the 1/4 oz Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon that I use for walleye and perch hammer them just fine, especially the bigger ones that we want to catch. Tip the spoon with a minnow head and you're good to go. 
The new G. Loomis IMX PRO ice rods that made their debut this winter are beautiful works of art...Very sensitive, good actions and extremely light - if you are serious about fishing, you need to check these out! 

In addition to the Buck-Shot Spoons, Northland Tackle also has a new Glo-Shot Fire-Belly Spoon, that has a glowing capsule in the center of the bait, instead of a rattle chamber. It gives the bait some colour in the dark water beneath the ice and provides a slightly different action. We caught a bunch of fish on them as well. 
For full details on all of the new G. Loomis IMX PRO rods you can check them out here at the G. Loomis website. 

Many anglers change out the hooks on their hard baits for sharper, stronger trebles, or maybe we want a slightly larger or smaller size to better match the fish that we're targeting. I have been using the Gamakatsu G-Finesse Trebles for the past couple of years on all of my ice spoons and they are a game changer. They are so sharp, if a walleye breathes on your spoon you will snatch it. They are also strong for their thin diameter and come in handy if a large lake trout or pike grabs your spoon. Check out all of the different hooks that Gamakatsu offers at their website.

Elite Series Fall Run

Because of postponed events earlier in our crazy 2020 year, we had the final four Bassmaster Elite Series events of the 2020 season in October and November at Guntersville, Santee Cooper, Chickamauga and Lake Fork. Typically our season is done in the summer so I had not had a lot of experience fishing down south in the fall. 

Fortunately, things went pretty well overall on this trip and I have qualified for the 2021 Bassmaster Classic which will take place in March at Ray Roberts Lake in Texas. I ended up finishing 28th at Guntersville, 9th at Santee, 21st at Chickamauga before throwing down a bomb at Lake Fork, finishing 83rd, probably the worst finish of my career. 

At Guntersville, a frog was a key bait for me...also caught a few at Chickamauga on it as well. The new Z-Man Leap FrogZ and the Jackall Kaera both put fish in the boat. I was throwing them on a G. Loomis IMX-PRO Frog Rod, 65 lb Power Pro with a Shimano Curado reel - all available at LOTW Sports Headquarters.

The fishing at all of these fall events was tough. At Santee I was fortunate to catch my biggest bass of the year - a 9-7 giant that won big bass of the tournament. It also helped carry me into the top ten. It really went a long way! This lake is full of big fish, fall is just a tough time to fish this place. 

My good friend Carl Jocumsen finished 2nd at Santee and really helped me out a lot as far as getting on the right program to catch a few fish. I caught all of my fish punching heavy mats with a Z-Man Palmetto BugZ, rigged with a Gamakatsu Extra Heavy Flipping Hook, 65 lb Power Pro, fished on a G. Loomis GLX 894 rod. Here are Carl and I comparing notes in the bag line before weigh-in. 

Lake Fork was kind of a disaster for me, I caught one small bass each day, pretty hard to believe but I just didn't get on a program there and what I thought was going to work for me, just didn't. It's crazy because I had a great tournament at Lake Fork the year before but that's fishing. We're hitting Fork again in 2021 so I'm looking forward to turning it around at that place. 

A big thanks to Bassmaster for making it possible for us to fish our entire schedule this year! I'm grateful that we got the opportunity and that I was able to get over the border to fish. Competing in these events is my main source of income and not being able to guide a whole lot because of the Covid restrictions we had, I would have been in big trouble.

Huge thank you to all of my sponsors and supporters as well! I'm a regular guy and all of the help is greatly appreciated! See you all in 2021! 

September in Sunset Country

Before I hit the road in late September for the final stretch of Bassmaster Elite Series events, I took advantage of getting in the boat every chance I could around home. I'm biased but I think we have the best fishing opportunities in the World. I was able to fish a couple of tournaments and have some fun. Looking forward to some ice fishing now and already can't wait to put the boat back in the water in the spring! 

The highlight of the month was winning the Crow Lake Classic tournament with my wife Shelby. It was our third time fishing the tournament and a weekend we look forward to every year. The lake is loaded with bass and a lot of fun to fish. Thanks to the Hanson family for putting on this fun event year after year!

I also got to fish the annual Bassin' For Bucks tournament with my good pal Mike Reid. We had a great few days in the boat together and managed a fourth place finish. Another tournament that I look forward to year after year! Big thank you to the organizers of all of the events that took place this past summer around home, your hard work is apprecaited by all of the anglers!

The walleye fishing is excellent all year round - I'll be catching them through the ice in a couple of weeks - usually I'm more interested in catching a bunch of smaller ones to eat but we all love to catch these bigger ones too! This one was caught on a Z-Man Scented Jerk Shad rigged up on a jig head. 

We catch a bunch of lake trout too! 

This photo of Shelby was taken while we were prefishing for the Crow Lake tournament, it's just shows the beauty of our part of the World. We love living in NW Ontario! 

More walleye!!! 

Hopefully this Covid-19 pandemic that we've all been dealing with through 2020 will be over soon. Across Sunset Country we can't wait to see our friends from the U.S. return. Their visits are so vital to our economy here, we need to get past this virus and get that border opened back up! Stay safe everybody!

2020 Catch-Up

Man, where does the time go!  I have not been doing a great job keeping up with getting some content up here but I'll try and keep things up to date a little better moving forward.  Like everybody, we've been trying to get through 2020 and navigate the Covid-19 issues as best we can.  Luckily we have been able to fish some bass tournaments and Bassmaster has us fishing our entire schedule for the Elite Series, with several events yet to take place later this fall.

Earlier in July, Shelby and I fished a tournament together on Shoal Lake and took a 2nd place.  We had a great day of fishing and brought in a mixed bag of nice fish.  

In July we visited New York for tournaments at the St. Lawrence River and Lake Champlain.  It was a fun couple of weeks and the highlight of the summer for me.  I had a pair of good tournaments landing a 12th at the River and a 15th at Champlain.  I had a challenging first day at both events and finished strong so I am happy I made some adjustments that allowed me have good finishes.  

One of the key tools on my boat during that run out to New York was an Aqua-Vu underwater camera.  It's such a great aid in prefishing and scouting, fun to explore with.  This photo is of a couple of smallmouths I found on Lake of the Woods. 

I actually caught a bunch of my fish at these NY events with a home made marabou jig which was pretty cool...one of my favourtite ways to catch fish for sure! 

Earlier this spring Shelby and I did a bunch of shed hunting and while the deer numbers are not what they once were, we did okay and managed to find a few sheds!  It's a great activity to get a person outside and get some great exercise...and I use it as a scouting tool to look for hunting areas.  

Check out the video we put together from a couple of our adventures...

First Bassmaster Classic!!!

Back in March I was fortuante to compete in my first Bassmaster Classic, the Superbowl event of professional bass fishing, at Lake Guntersville, Alabama.  

It was an incredible experience and truly a dream come true for me.  I've followed this event since I was a little kid so it was great to compete.  I had a tough tournament, finishing in 31st place but I did manage to catch the big bass of day two with this 7 pounder!

It was awesome to have my whole family attend the event...especially since it was right before this Covid-19 disaster hit.  I'm very thankful that they all made the effort to attend!

The number of spectators and media that attend the Classic is second to none, which really makes it so special to be a part of it.  This was the 50th Classic as well, which was another milestone in the long Bassmaster history.

The day before the tournament all of the anglers participated in "Media Day", which was a lot of fun as well.  Getting some time in with my pal Fat Cat Newton right here.  If you don't follow him on social media, you should...the guy is hilarious!

This was my big bass right after I caught it...It came off the end of a shallow tree on a 1/2 oz Z-Man SlingBladeZ Spinnerbait.
THANK YOU to Bassmaster for putting on a great event!