Around 3 weeks ago, my twin, sister,sister's friend and my twin's and I's friend all went on a 5 day sea kayaking trip in Georgian Bay. We launched out of Britt. We all had some experience camping but never for this long and having to kayak as well. What we ended up doing was creating a home base and then going for day kayaking trips. I didn't get as much time to fish as I wanted to, as I could find no way to troll while kayaking during day, but I did manage to get around 2 to 3 hours a day in casting before breakfast at lunch and after dinner. The rod I used as a Abu Garcia Veritas with a Pfluger president reel in the 6935 size. I was mainly targeting smallmouth bass and pike. Since all of our gear had to fit in the kayaks I could in no means bring my usual amount of gear. I was limited to 2 plano boxes, one for my terminal tackle and one for my lures as well as a few soft plastics. I decided to bring mainly crankbaits and jerkbaits with a few topwater lures such a Rebel pop-r in bone white and some spinnerbaits. All in all I was only able to hook and land one smallie and concluded that my lack of results is partly due to lack of experience fishing big water and not being able to cover enough water from shore. I caught the smallie on a white and chartreuse spinnerbait with some red and a willow and Colorado style blade in gold and silver respectively. The fish was caught while casting over a weed bed about 4 feet under the surface of water and just ticking the tops of the weeds with the grub trailer. Although it was the only fish caught and a small one at that I learned a lot about big water tactics and how crucial it is to target structure. This was the second smallie I've ever caught because largies are much more prevalent in my area.
Here is the smallie that I caught.
When I casting around for a bit after diner, I saw this little guy fishing! I am not sure if he is a mink or a weasel but he was much more successful then me. I saw him catch a 5 inch sunfish and then go back for a smallie around 10 inches! I was amazing. He totally ignored me and you can see he is looking into the water for his next meal. I wasn't able to take a photo, but he had a friend with him who I think might be his partner.
After catching the fish, he would run to this crevice between two big boulders. I would whistle and he would stick his head up through the crack to take a look making for an awesome shot.
I know the pictures are quite grainy but that is because they are taken with an iphone in a waterproof case, so there is a covering over the lense and I had to zoom in quite a bit to not scare him away...
Overall, I can't wait to get back and try to land more fish! I definitely think trolling would have increased my odds as well as having an underwater topographic map would have increased my odds at locating fish because I could identify drop offs and other structure.
Cheers.
URGHHHHH I messed up the urls but you get the idea and can probably figure it out...
