Fun Wrap to the Fishing Season

Those of us who enjoy competitive fishing were fortunate to get to fish a numbers of tournaments through September and into October to wrap up the fishing season here in NW Ontario.  I fished bass tournaments five weekends in a row and had a great time!  

After the win at Bassin' For Bucks, Shelby and I teamed up for the Crow Lake Classic which took place out of Hanson's Hideaway Lodge, in Nestor Falls.  We had a great weekend and ended squeaking out second!  We had a fun weekend staying at Hanson's place with a few of our friends.  

Crow Lake is full of fish and it's a beautiful lake, one of the nicest in Sunset Country.  We caught most of our fish out deep with umbrella rigs, tubes and drop-shots.  A fun weekend and great tournament I would recommend for anybody!  Crow Lake Classic

In between tournaments in September I did a little bit of guiding during the week which give me the chance to fish for other species.  Lake trout fishing on Lake of the Woods is excellent in September, they fight hard and are as pretty as any freshwater fish.  

The walleye fishing is always great in the fall with a good shot at both big fish and numbers.  In the fall most of the bigger fish in the lake focus on eating minnows like shiners, smelt and cisco so I almost exclusively use minnow-imitating baits like the 4" Northland Impulse Smelt Minnow that tricked this walleyes.  

My pal Dennis Favreau and I fished the Shoal Lake Last Chance tournament later in September and finished 6th.  We had a good weekend in some tough conditions...thankful for the top-notch Simms gear that kept us warm all weekend! 

My friend Ryan Sproule and his son Brock were out in September and we had a pretty good multi-species day catching pike, lake trout, bass, walleye and a few crappies...Brock landed the big fish of the day!  

At the end of September I got to team up with Mike Reid again for the Crawford's Camp Mega-Bowl.  We had over 18 pounds of smallmouths each day and finished 3rd so it was a good weekend!  We caught a bunch of big smallmouths over the two days on Lake of the Woods.  

The first weekend in October we had the annual Frank McClymont Memorial tournament on Lake of the Woods.  Shelby and I teamed up again and we captured an 18 pound bag of smallmouths but we landed in 7th, one spot out of the money!  Still it was a fun day of fishing, Shelbs is a trooper for grinding in out in the cold weather all day! 

Shelbs also caught her first lake trout during the tournament so we had to stop to get a photo of it!  Not a giant but still a beautiful fish!