Bitsy Bounty On Bass Opener
Happy Southern Ontario bass opener! I hope everyone was able to get out fishing this weekend, at least for a little bit.
With bass now open we couldn’t help but take all our new toys collected over the winter as we got ready to hit the water. The boat was looking pretty full with 12 rods and many flat boxes packed inside as we headed out today on the Grand River.
Instead of hitting an area we knew, we decided to hit a stretch of the river neither of us had done much fishing in before. The water was murky and very slow, with a water temp of about 66F (which rose to 69F before the end of the day).
We started by trolling crankbaits as we made our way up river and quickly found that to be a problem with all the ground weed and clumps of floating weed that left us picking salad off our lures.
When I finally got tired of the salad bar, I tossed out a white Mini-King and continued to troll along. I was busy watching a family in another boat – the father was tying a hook on for his son – when I felt my rod bend.
I went fishing for bass and ended up with a crappie
It turned out to be a nice-sized crappie that put up quite the fight. The Mini-King was tied on to my least favorite of our fishing rods, but the rod and I made up our differences after I caught another couple of crappie, a bass and some sunfish on it. It was a pretty hot combo today.
We finally hooked into some bass a little further up river. The first one I saw turned out to be just a follow but I had to admire it’s spunk – it was only a little bigger then my lure.
For the next couple of hours, Darrell and I drifted along the river, casting a variety of lures and trying a mix of techniques. This section of river did not contain a lot of great structure, so when we came to rocky sections along shore, areas where cooler water was trickling in, we made sure to slow down and work the area thoroughly.
Lots of itsy-bitsy bass today
We ended up reeling in a good number of bass, but none of them were a great size. There was a stretch where it felt like I was reeling in a bass on every other cast, but, fight as they did, they were tiny. It never fails to amaze me just how ambitious smallmouth bass are. They don’t care if the lure is the same size as them, they’re still going to try and bite it!
I did get a chance to use my new G. Loomis GLX drop-shot rod, paired with a Shimano Stradic CI4. Wow! What a great combo! Have you ever heard the phrase “so sensitive you could feel a minnow fart’? Well it certainly applies in this case! I felt every little piece of weed the weight ripped through and even the tiniest nibble from the smallest sunfish came through loud and clear. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best place to use the combo today and my only catch on it was a very tiny crappie.
Eventually the bite shut down and we packed up and headed for shore. Despite the lack of a big fish it was a wonderful day on the water and great way to open bass season!
argosgirl
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Sounds like a fun day. Last winter, around December, I was drop shotting for bass in one of my favorite rivers. I had a 4″ white/silver fleck senko on the hook and I kept getting hits, but could never hook up. It was starting to aggravating until I finally managed to drive a hook in that fishes mouth! It turned out to be a crappie – a nice 12″ crappie to boot. This was astonishing because I had never seen, or heard of, crappie in this part of the river. On top of that, this crappie just inhaled a 4″ senko.
You really do have to love those little fish. That sense of largeness they seem to have is quite funny – another example is the 4″ bluegill that I caught on a 1/4oz spinner the other day. What the heck was he thinking?!
It’s nice to catch big fish but it really is the little guys that make me laugh and brighten-up my day. I watched an itty-bitty perch zoom after a 3/4oz spinner, intent on biting!