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[Kacordy]

Good Evening. I'm very excited I found your forum. I have 25 years of bass fishing experience here in California. I have fished for multiple other species including catfish, bluegill, trout and some saltwater. I will be fishing Northern Ontario for 5 days during the middle of August this year.

I will floatplane into some unknown lakes somewhere North of Minaki. Can you gentleman help me with the appropriate lures to catch Smallmouths and Pike? I will take a spinning rod, 2 bait casters with 10 and 20 pound mono, and an 8 weight fly rod. During August, I would assume that I can catch both species on top water early and late? During the day I was thinking fishing pretty aggressively with spinnerbaits, swimbaits and crankbaits? I'm not sure of the baitfish in August in this region. I'm not sure of the smallies and pikes preferred location and structure during the Summer? My thoughts are from my years of California bass fishing.

Can you help me with the top 10 lures and colors that I need to carry to be successful?
Looking forward to seeing your beautiful country. Pictures of lures would be very helpful.

Thanks, Allen

 

[flowerjohn]

Fly your float plane really close to the water and take pictures of the baitfish. You don't need lures here. Just paint your hand that color and they will jump into your hand. True. It works for me all the time.

 

[Kacordy]

????? Oh really??? I was hoping for some serious advice from a seasoned veteran Canadian Angler. My goal is to have a fun time and catch some really nice Canadian Smallmouth and Pike.

Thanks, Allen

 

[ChromeAddict]

Inline spinners, topwaters, smaller crankbaits, senkos and crawfish imitating plastics work great for smallmouth. Dark colored streamers and bass bugs for the fly rod. Natural colors like black, brown and green work good for bass.

For pike, large spinners, jerkbaits, topwaters, paddle tail swimbaits and larger streamers are good. I find that brighter colors, like firetiger work good for pike, as well as silver.

If you find rocky shoreline, you will most likely find bass. You are spot on with topwaters during low light conditions and power fishing during the day. If there is a cold front, fish slower with the plastics. Otherwise use spinners and crankbaits.

For pike, shallow bays are good producers for small to medium size pike. Fish them with jerkbaits, spinners, and paddle tails during the day, and topwaters during low light. They fight really well on the fly as well. If you want really big pike, look for isolated weed patches in slightly deeper water and fish them with paddle tails or grind a spinnerbait through the weeds. Use wire leaders or heavy (30lb minimum) fluorocarbon leaders to prevent bite-offs.

I'm far from an expert, but that should be a good starting point, and what I have most of my success on.

Good luck!

 

[[email protected]]

Inline spinners, topwaters, smaller crankbaits, senkos and crawfish imitating plastics work great for smallmouth. Dark colored streamers and bass bugs for the fly rod. Natural colors like black, brown and green work good for bass.

For pike, large spinners, jerkbaits, topwaters, paddle tail swimbaits and larger streamers are good. I find that brighter colors, like firetiger work good for pike, as well as silver.

If you find rocky shoreline, you will most likely find bass. You are spot on with topwaters during low light conditions and power fishing during the day. If there is a cold front, fish slower with the plastics. Otherwise use spinners and crankbaits.

For pike, shallow bays are good producers for small to medium size pike. Fish them with jerkbaits, spinners, and paddle tails during the day, and topwaters during low light. They fight really well on the fly as well. If you want really big pike, look for isolated weed patches in slightly deeper water and fish them with paddle tails or grind a spinnerbait through the weeds. Use wire leaders or heavy (30lb minimum) fluorocarbon leaders to prevent bite-offs.

I'm far from an expert, but that should be a good starting point, and what I have most of my success on.

Good luck!

I'll second this, and add in top water frogs and mice from LiveTarget, for flies, large woolly buggers size 6-4 will work well for bass as well, top water poppers

 

[flowerjohn]

????? Oh really??? I was hoping for some serious advice from a seasoned veteran Canadian Angler. My goal is to have a fun time and catch some really nice Canadian Smallmouth and Pike.

Thanks, Allen

Hi Allen. clearly you are not into the Canadian version of hillbilly hand fishing so I will be happy to help you glean some local knowledge.

Clearly chrome and frequent have you on the right track with lures and locations. i differ in one respect in that i do not use leaders. I find thirty or forty pound braid to be plenty. i simply attach a swivel and then my lure. i find that my lures present better this way. if you simply cut off a few feet of line when you see it beginning to fray you should have no problems with getting bit off.


your first consideration when selecting lures is water clarity. will you be fishing crystal waters or stained? when fishing crystal waters i favour a more stealthy approach. I amp colors down and rely more on movement since i figure that the fish have no problem seeing my bait, i just have to sell it to them. in these conditions i find myself varying things like retrieval speed, cadence etc...in stained waters i amp up color and movement. lots of color and accentuated erratic movement to make up for the lack of water clarity is, in my opinion, one key to success in our stained lakes of which there are many.


on colors. there is an issue with color availability for the ontario angler in my opinion. most baits available to us are manufactured with the american angler in mind and i find that up here we are constantly trying to pound square pegs into round holes when it comes to finding appropriate patterns. this is why i began making my own baits years ago. i just was never satisfied with the availability of specific patterns that are useful in our waters.


I find perch, crappie, pike, pickerel, bass and silver shiner colors to be the most useful here. that boils down to orange, black, blue, red, green, yellow, brown and white in specific combinations. black orange, for instance, is a hot combo here as is blue white or blue silver. out of the box, a larger jointed canadian wiggler in perch or silver blue are deadly in our waters. it makes sense that they work since they are some of the few lures made with our waters in mind.

on size. many sizes in the 3/8 to 1/2 work well. number 4 inline is a commonly used size. please do yourself a favour and buy some larger presentations when you are here. i cannot tell you how many really good sized pike and bass opportunities are missed by using small lures. go get some honking number six to eight inline spinners in the colors specified above and you just may be pleasantly surprised by what comes in the boat. I'm not saying just go big exclusively I'm saying just try some. i make one ounce jigs with number 5/0 hooks and they bring the big devils out..

You mention that you are flying in to the lake. this is a great opportunity for you to do some recon. download an avionics app to your smartphone with canadian maps before you leave. prior to your flight, arrange with the pilot to fly you around the lake a few times. once you get over the lake open the avionics app and enable the gps. now you have a rare opportunity to mark as waypoints things like riverbeds, ledges, humps and structure of all kinds in just a few minutes. this gives you a great feel for the lake before you even land and makes an instant gameplan possible. it also makes up for a lack of sonar imaging which is often the case when we fish in rented boats.


Hopefully this gives you a bit more to go on and if you see an idiot hanging out of a plane with a printed hand that will be me!! cheers.

 

[ChromeAddict]

^^^
I would also recommend Navionics, its a great app.

 

[Kacordy]

Hi Allen. clearly you are not into the Canadian version of hillbilly hand fishing so I will be happy to help you glean some local knowledge.

Clearly chrome and frequent have you on the right track with lures and locations. i differ in one respect in that i do not use leaders. I find thirty or forty pound braid to be plenty. i simply attach a swivel and then my lure. i find that my lures present better this way. if you simply cut off a few feet of line when you see it beginning to fray you should have no problems with getting bit off.


your first consideration when selecting lures is water clarity. will you be fishing crystal waters or stained? when fishing crystal waters i favour a more stealthy approach. I amp colors down and rely more on movement since i figure that the fish have no problem seeing my bait, i just have to sell it to them. in these conditions i find myself varying things like retrieval speed, cadence etc...in stained waters i amp up color and movement. lots of color and accentuated erratic movement to make up for the lack of water clarity is, in my opinion, one key to success in our stained lakes of which there are many.


on colors. there is an issue with color availability for the ontario angler in my opinion. most baits available to us are manufactured with the american angler in mind and i find that up here we are constantly trying to pound square pegs into round holes when it comes to finding appropriate patterns. this is why i began making my own baits years ago. i just was never satisfied with the availability of specific patterns that are useful in our waters.


I find perch, crappie, pike, pickerel, bass and silver shiner colors to be the most useful here. that boils down to orange, black, blue, red, green, yellow, brown and white in specific combinations. black orange, for instance, is a hot combo here as is blue white or blue silver. out of the box, a larger jointed canadian wiggler in perch or silver blue are deadly in our waters. it makes sense that they work since they are some of the few lures made with our waters in mind.

on size. many sizes in the 3/8 to 1/2 work well. number 4 inline is a commonly used size. please do yourself a favour and buy some larger presentations when you are here. i cannot tell you how many really good sized pike and bass opportunities are missed by using small lures. go get some honking number six to eight inline spinners in the colors specified above and you just may be pleasantly surprised by what comes in the boat. I'm not saying just go big exclusively I'm saying just try some. i make one ounce jigs with number 5/0 hooks and they bring the big devils out..

You mention that you are flying in to the lake. this is a great opportunity for you to do some recon. download an avionics app to your smartphone with canadian maps before you leave. prior to your flight, arrange with the pilot to fly you around the lake a few times. once you get over the lake open the avionics app and enable the gps. now you have a rare opportunity to mark as waypoints things like riverbeds, ledges, humps and structure of all kinds in just a few minutes. this gives you a great feel for the lake before you even land and makes an instant gameplan possible. it also makes up for a lack of sonar imaging which is often the case when we fish in rented boats.


Hopefully this gives you a bit more to go on and if you see an idiot hanging out of a plane with a printed hand that will be me!! cheers.

Hi Allen. clearly you are not into the Canadian version of hillbilly hand fishing so I will be happy to help you glean some local knowledge.

Clearly chrome and frequent have you on the right track with lures and locations. i differ in one respect in that i do not use leaders. I find thirty or forty pound braid to be plenty. i simply attach a swivel and then my lure. i find that my lures present better this way. if you simply cut off a few feet of line when you see it beginning to fray you should have no problems with getting bit off.


your first consideration when selecting lures is water clarity. will you be fishing crystal waters or stained? when fishing crystal waters i favour a more stealthy approach. I amp colors down and rely more on movement since i figure that the fish have no problem seeing my bait, i just have to sell it to them. in these conditions i find myself varying things like retrieval speed, cadence etc...in stained waters i amp up color and movement. lots of color and accentuated erratic movement to make up for the lack of water clarity is, in my opinion, one key to success in our stained lakes of which there are many.


on colors. there is an issue with color availability for the ontario angler in my opinion. most baits available to us are manufactured with the american angler in mind and i find that up here we are constantly trying to pound square pegs into round holes when it comes to finding appropriate patterns. this is why i began making my own baits years ago. i just was never satisfied with the availability of specific patterns that are useful in our waters.


I find perch, crappie, pike, pickerel, bass and silver shiner colors to be the most useful here. that boils down to orange, black, blue, red, green, yellow, brown and white in specific combinations. black orange, for instance, is a hot combo here as is blue white or blue silver. out of the box, a larger jointed canadian wiggler in perch or silver blue are deadly in our waters. it makes sense that they work since they are some of the few lures made with our waters in mind.

on size. many sizes in the 3/8 to 1/2 work well. number 4 inline is a commonly used size. please do yourself a favour and buy some larger presentations when you are here. i cannot tell you how many really good sized pike and bass opportunities are missed by using small lures. go get some honking number six to eight inline spinners in the colors specified above and you just may be pleasantly surprised by what comes in the boat. I'm not saying just go big exclusively I'm saying just try some. i make one ounce jigs with number 5/0 hooks and they bring the big devils out..

You mention that you are flying in to the lake. this is a great opportunity for you to do some recon. download an avionics app to your smartphone with canadian maps before you leave. prior to your flight, arrange with the pilot to fly you around the lake a few times. once you get over the lake open the avionics app and enable the gps. now you have a rare opportunity to mark as waypoints things like riverbeds, ledges, humps and structure of all kinds in just a few minutes. this gives you a great feel for the lake before you even land and makes an instant gameplan possible. it also makes up for a lack of sonar imaging which is often the case when we fish in rented boats.


Hopefully this gives you a bit more to go on and if you see an idiot hanging out of a plane with a printed hand that will be me!! cheers.

flowerjohn, I really appreciate the great information and detail. I will fly out of Minaki August 15th and spend 5 days fishing north of Minaki. I will study everyone's suggestion and stock tackle accordingly. I will post my observations and results when I get back.

Allen

 

[flowerjohn]

Have a great trip and send lots of photos. Cheers.