Well, with Bass season now in full swing for 2020, the long wait through another cold, Canadian winter is all but a memory. With the pandemic hitting us square in the ass, a day on the water during the warmer months is a relief. I went out for both the Ontario Zone 17 and 15 openers, and man did it feel good to set some hooks.
Zone 17 opened on June 20th. I use this first date as a “soft opener”—nothing too serious, just something to get the cobwebs out of my melon and make sure all the rods and reels were functioning properly.
The town of Bewdley is a very fishing oriented place that is not too far from the GTA
I went to Rice Lake because of its close access. Upon arrival in the town of Bewdley, I couldn’t believe the line up of vehicles towing boats at the launch. I soon found out that a bass club from Toronto was having a “COVID-friendly” hands-off event. (I didn’t get the club name nor the results.)
First Casts of the Bass Season
I figured I’d throw a topwater bait just to see if it was happening and, of course, for the fun factor. I quickly missed a hit and followed that up with a decent fish that flipped off the treble hook at the side of the boat. Not to worry—it was a good start. Unfortunately, since the lineup put close to an hour delay on my day, the sun popped up and the topwater bite slowed down.
On To Plastics
One of my absolute favourite ways of catching any bass is on plastic baits. I think it’s about the hook set—feeling the pick-up, reeling down and drilling the hook home while having the bend of the rod “bottom out”. If I had a plastic bait choice, it would be beaver-style baits. But soft stickbaits, worms, creatures, etc. all have a close place to my heart. If you told me I could only bass fish one way for the rest of all time, I would choose plastics. Since that’s hypothetical, however, I’ll load the boat with everything known to bass anglers.
The original beaver style bait. It will still hold its own against all newcomers
With a beaver-style bait tied on, I started pitching and casting weed pockets. Again, it didn’t take long to connect. This was a better quality fish but far from big—just a nice way to start the plastic-throwing season. After hitting a massive amount of weedbeds and popping a couple of additional little Largemouth, I made another move.
A half-decent fish on a Beaver style bait rigged Texas-style.
Working Hard on a Fish (or Two)
I stuck with my weed-hole, beaver pattern, but it was slowing down (much like the topwater). I came upon a huge fry-ball of Largemouth and instinctively knew a fish would be close by. Sure enough, he showed himself (I think there may have been two there, but I never saw them together).
Sight fishing is a great way to learn about fish behaviour for that day. I started by throwing my beaver to and around that fish, but nothing was happening. Next, I threw a weedless rigged tube in there, thinking it was a sure thing. I did get bit, but it was a weird bite. Almost panfish-like, but not quite. I figured I’d set the hook anyway but came up empty.
Next was a weighted Neko rig (see my previous blog about this rig). I tied up a four-inch finesse Neko worm and inserted the smallest nose-weight that I had. I quickly determined it was way too heavy. By watching a fish’s reactions to various presentations, often, an angler can ultimately figure out how to catch a single fish. This fish blatantly ignored my Neko rig.
As a last resort, I pulled the nail weight out of the worm and essentially now had a four-inch wacky rig. The slow fall of that small worm was enough to drive that bass crazy—crazy enough to strike. Thankfully, I had a GoPro strapped to my chest to capture some of the action. (See this video on the next page!)
I stuck with the wacky rig for the remainder of the day and ultimately caught a few more—lots of fun and a good dusting off of the cobwebs day. I pulled out early, anticipating all the tournament boys waiting at the launch. Twice in one day would be a bit much for me.
My little 4” unweighted wacky did the trick
Continue to Page 2 for more information on Pete’s Opening Day including specifics on what baits/presentations worked the best—and over twenty minutes of footage from his day!
Zone 15
Zone 15 is the area where a few buddies and I try and have an annual bass opener get-together. This Bass season, however, it was a bit different due to the” ‘rona disease.” We normally fish with two boats—me and my two buddies Seaner and Jimmer in one, and Ben and David (sons of the aforementioned) in the old Fish’n Canada Princecraft. But this year, we went with three boats to separate and keep safe. That put me in my rig alone; kind of weird for this outing, but I had no problem with it. We were on “Sean’s Swamp” as we call it, his tiny cottage lake with private access only.
Where to Start
On this day, we went to a big shallow bay that sets up well for post-spawn Largemouth. Unfortunately, we could only muster up a few Largemouth—with only one hitting around the three-pound mark. Sean caught the biggest on his favourite Spinnerbait while Jim beat up a bunch on a Senko. I was throwing my beaver bait again, but only caught a small number of Largemouth. I did, however, fluke a nice three-pound-plus Smallmouth—a great bonus.
Lunch Break/Supper Break
We all headed in at various times for a break. Sean and Jim had a couple of cold ones down before I could even spell break. After a quick patio-style bite on the cottage deck, I headed back out to give it another shot.
I dropped my trolling motor right at the dock, hit some nice shallow cover and was soon into a gorgeous three-and-a-half pound Largemouth. Of course, it came on the Beave. Why change now? I actually caught it as I pitched to a newly fallen tree in the water, still full of green leaves (don’t believe people when they say bass don’t like newly fallen trees that haven’t completely died yet). I can say with all honesty that there was still a bit of winter rust on my brain; when I pitched that bait into the tree, it didn’t sink as it should have, and I thought for an instant that my plastic got caught on a leaf or a branch. Nope! Luckily, I had the instinct to think, “Maybe, just maybe, this is a fish.” With a lucky hookset, that beauty was in the net.
Here are some other “Animal” baits that will put bass (and walleye, muskie, pike etc.) in your boat
The Rest of the Fishing
I made a stop at a rock-weed transition that I know holds all fish species in the lake. It’s a good spot. With beaver in hand, I worked the small area quickly and, lo and behold, multiple hooksets and into a small muskie. This bait-stealer didn’t get the best of me, though. I did have to re-tie, however, as it nicked my line above the sinker. Nasty critters, they are!
I thought I was into money, Instead, I went in debt! When my buddies and I are Bass fishing, muskies under 40 inches get negative points (and Rock Bass, well, you get bonus points if said muskie eats the “rocky” on the way in).
I figured I’d try another back bay to see if there were any shallow fish around. I stopped at the outside deep weed edge before working my way in and caught a little largie rather quickly. After that, though, it was extremely, painfully slow.
It wasn’t until I worked my way back out the mouth of the bay that I started hooking fish again. They were all okay at best—no hawgs. If I didn’t catch them on my Sweet Beaver, I’d back it up with a Senko. Often, that does the trick.
I worked some more main lake cover but didn’t get much to go (broke off on a muskie under a dock—a perfect tick! followed by a perfect swish of broken fluorocarbon).
I was running my GoPro but ran out of card space (128 gigabytes filled up quickly!) at this time, of course! A camera operator, I am not! I’ll need to learn that kind of stuff too.
End of the Day
My final destination for the day was the deep edge of a weed bed that I’ve fished before. It didn’t take long to see a fish on the Garmin LiveScope and bang! A great three-pound Smallmouth bit, but threw my hook at the side of the boat. That’s okay—as it was quick. I scoured the weed lines after that and caught another Smallie that pushed the four-pound mark.
I moved to another weedbed and popped a great 24” Walleye (yes, on the beaver again!).
A nice pair of opening day fish… even if a Largemouth is missing and that yeller feller is taking its place.
I finished my day by setting hard into a solid fish. Unfortunately, I lost it. I knew it was big because it pretty much stopped my rod. I thought, “Why not throw back in?” Tick went my line, set went my rod and pop went my bait—dirty ol’ muskie gave me not one, but two chances. That one got the best of me.
Broken Beavers. Remnants of a good day of fishing.
By the end of the day, I had a bunch of ripped up beavers on the deck of my boat, indicating a decent outing. (Remember not to throw your broken plastic baits into the water. Here’s why.) I looped my broken line around my reel handle and headed home.
No giants for either opener, but I finally got a chance to set the hook into some green and brown fish again.
Video From Pete’s Bass Season Opening Day
Pete fishes Rice Lake in Ontario’s Zone 17. With a little trial and error, Pete gets his bass season off to a fantastic start.
Now in Ontario’s Zone 15, Pete fishes a lake with private access only and demonstrates “the good, the bad and the ugly” of various types of bass cover, structure and techniques.
Follow these links to some of my choice baits:
- https://amzn.to/38lh78p The Original Beaver
- https://amzn.to/3eXoG7B Rodent
- https://amzn.to/31AyDnL Otter