By Pete Bowman
I love fishing in the fall, even if it’s a snotty overcast windy day. Reason being, Hawgs are for the taking. With that said I recently headed out on a quest for a big Largemouth. There is nothing like a big green monster with perfect markings and my thumb in its mouth!
I wanted to travel north in order to avoid other anglers and fish in clear water conditions. The Haliburton area is perfect for this. It makes for a nice Sunday morning drive.
As I arrived the weather was stable but still quite overcast (the day before had quite a bit of rain) with little wind. The water started out at around 62.7 degrees, not bad at all.
It didn’t take long to hit into my first Largemouth, a nice fish on a SquareBill crankbait. I love throwing these in waters in the 60’s. The slow wobble seems to drive fish nuts.
As the day progressed I could see a definitive pattern, lots of fish hitting the crank but none hitting a Jig & Pig (my favourite for big fall Largemouth) so I knew I had to change up.
Now fortunately I found the right plastic bait but unfortunately the big girls wouldn’t commit to it. Going back a couple of weeks Angelo and I tried some new Megastrike http://www.megastrike.com/ product on the St Lawrence Smallmouth bass (Mega Tube & Mega Bug) and they worked great. My bait of choice for this outing was a Mega Tube (I figured I would need a small profile since the Jig wasn’t working)… a scent loaded solid headed tube bait with distinctive crayfish features. The owner of the company Bobby Urig is a lure making machine and always puts out good product. This tube is no exception. I went from no bites on the jig to tons of bites on the Mega Tube. In fact I had a giant that bit the tube but for some reason I didn’t hook it… that kills me.
As with all fishing excursions there always seems to be a minus to the day. My minus for this day was after pulling the boat out of the water, I discovered a lovely wrap of braided fishing line around my prop. I just went through that same crap last year and it cost me over 400 bucks to fix it… not cool!
This is a definite downfall to Braided fishing line
C’mon people, pick up that fishing line!!!
All in all, even with no big fish and hopefully no cracked or damaged propshaft seal, this was a great fall fishing day. Not only did I get to work on my Crankbait execution but we definitely have a new Tube Bait in our arsenal here at Fish’n Canada and that my friends, is a good thing!