Fishing, fishing and more fishing

The past couple of months have been busy since we've had open water around home with a little bit of travel mixed in.  It's been a great season thus far, we're having fun and catching plenty of nice fish! 

My buddy Karl Engstrom and I won the annual Shoal Lake Big Bass Classic the first weekend of July...always fun when things come together!  

The last week of June I was down at Lake St. Clair for the final FLW Tour stop of the season.  After a great year I finished with a tough finish at St. Clair - 80th place but ended up 11th overall in the standings.  The fishing at St. Clair was excellent and while I caught a bunch of fish, I was not fishing in the right area because I just wasn't catching the big ones that guys were in other parts of the lake.  It was fun having my brother Ben join me for the three day practice, we had a great time! 

Back in June, Shelby and I spent a couple of days at a Simms photoshoot and she showed everybody how to catch a walleye...a few walleyes actually!  

In between tournaments I have been doing quite a bit of guiding and the fishing has been good, with plenty of good crappie, walleye and bass action!  

Here is the biggest walleye of the season so far, caught by Jenna - 30.5"!!!  GIANT, straight out of Lake of the Woods! 

The crappie fishing has been phenominal this season so far, great numbers and some big ones as well!  

Fishing with the gals from Ontario's Sunset Country

In late May I took out the gals from the Sunset Country office out fishing on Lake of the Woods and we had a great day, loaded with action!  Check out the video below...come and visit us if you want to have some fun in the boat!!!

Busy Spring on the Road

Since mid-April we have had three FLW Tour events so I have been on the road quite a bit with that.  I'm at home for a few weeks right now, which is nice, taking advantage of the AWESOME fishing that we have here in Sunset Country.  I'll post all about that in the next day or two.  

The first event took place at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky and it did not go as planned.  A horrible first day lead me to a 125th place finish, one of my worst ever but things went good for the next couple of events so I have no complaints.  

To top things off in Kentucky, after the tournament I ended up getting a bunch of gear - rods, reels, tackle and line - stolen out of the back of my truck through the window on the right side of my cap.  Fortunately, thanks to the help of Game Warden Jason Estes and the police in Burnside, Kentucky, most of my things were recovered so I'm very lucky!

After Cumberland we headed to Lewis Smith Lake in Northern Alabama and things went well there.  I had two pretty good days and was in 15th place heading into the weekend.  A tougher day three landed me in 29th place but it was good week.  I really, really enjoy fishing these lakes that have big spotted bass.  They are fun to fish for.  

I caught most my fish at Smith Lake on a wacky rigged Northland Impulse Dipstick (Green Pumpkin) with a nail weight in one end of it.  I also caught a few on a Jackall Rhythm Wave swimbait and a ned rig.  

After Smith we visited Kentucky Lake in mid-May, my third time fishing there.  I've always had fun there in the past so I was looking forward to it.  It is one of the most famous bass lakes in the U.S. with a lot of tournament history so it's always fun to fish there.  It has undergone a major invasion of Asian carp in the past few years so we'll see what happens with that.  The fishing was tougher this the than it's been in the past but I ended up grinding out my limit every day en route to a solid 7th place finish! 

My Dad has come to Kentucky Lake with me each time that I've been there because of the shot at catching several fish like this each day.  It was tougher fishing this time but the quality was still really good.  We didn't catch a lot of fish during the three practice days but most of them were good ones.  

I was really lucky at Kentucky Lake that I had one spot that kicked out most of my fish on days two and three when I had big catches.  Sometimes, that's the way it goes, I'm not going to complain!  I caught most of my fish at KY on a 3/4 oz football jig and a homemade bucktail jig.  

Heading into the last event of the season at Lake St. Clair in a couple of weeks, I am in ninth place in points, looking pretty good for qualifying for the Forrest Wood Cup in August.  The top 40 anglers qualify for the Cup.  I'm very excited about St. Clair, it is one of the best smallmouth lakes in the World so we can expect to see a bunch of big fish.  It's going to be fun!  

March Madness on the Ice

In between FLW Tour events I got to come home for a few weeks and I spent quite a bit of time on the ice across Sunset Country, chasing some of the fantastic ice fshing that we have here! 

Late ice is prime time for big pike and thanks to the lingering cold snap we've had here in NW Ontario over the past couple weeks, there is still plenty of time to catch a bunch of big pike!  All you need are a few Frabill tip-ups, Northland Predator Rigs and some dead ciscos and you're all set!  

I got to use one of the new Humminbird Helix 5 machines over the past couple weeks and I really liked it!  It's fast, bright and having the GPS and regular sonar options are nice to have.  

There are many years when the ice is on it's last leg by early April but not this year.  There is still plenty of ice out there and a bunch of snow to melt on top of it so you can still expect a few weeks of good fishing! Remember, the walleye season closes on April 16.  

The Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon is the greatest ice fishing lure of all time in my opinion...I have literally caught thousands of walleyes on them.  This one was tied on one of my rods since last year...and it shows!  It put a bunch of dinner on the table for me!  

This in an over-looked bait for crappies but it's one of my favourites - the Northland Eye-Dropper Spoon.  Tip it with a couple of scented plastic waxies or maggots and you have a bait you can get down to fish quickly and call them in from a distance...I always use red, these Sunset Country crappies love it!  

Check out the Ice Fishing Gallery for more photos from the past couple weeks on the ice. -Gussy

Good Times @ Lake Lanier!!!

The third stop of the 2018 FLW Tour season went down at Lake Lanier, GA in early March.  When the schedule was released last summer this event excited me because I love to fish for spotted bass and I knew I would be able to use some spinning gear and fish deep.  

It ended up being a great tournament and I was fortunate to score my second top ten finish in a row, ending up in 7th place.  I had a great practice at this event and a really fun week in general.  I would rank Lanier at the top of my list of favourite bodies of water that I have fished since I started fishing the FLW Tour in 2012.  

The third day of the event went really well and got me into the final day, here are some of my catches from that day!  I was catching my fish with a Ned Rig, using a new Jackall bait called the Yammy Fish, as well as some different Z-Man worms once I ran out of the Yammy Fish baits...I also caught some neko rigging a Northland Impulse Dip-Stick and a Jackall Flick-Shake Worm.  

The new Simms Pro-Dry suit was a life-saver this week, we had plenty of rain and cold weather.  These suits are high-end but they are amazing!  I LOVE catching these spotted bass as well!  

I didn't really get to use the Aqua-Vu Underwater Camera a lot when I was in Florida but I sure did at Lanier, to confirm that I was seeing bass on my electronics and to check out what was living in many of the brush piles found on the lake.  

Prior to getting out on Lanier I spent a couple days fishing a small lake about an hour away and it was a fun couple days with some friends from one of my sponsors - International Comfort Products.  My buddy Darrell Shull connected with a Georgia GIANT, an 8-12 monster largemouth!  

It was a good warm up for me as well because it was a super good spotted bass lake!  Those are two five pounders, including my personal best - a 5-8 monster!  

This was the biggest one I caught on Lanier, on the last afternoon of practice - it was over five pounds as well.  All I can say is it is a pretty special lake, one that I hope we visit again someday!