Fishing season here in New Brunswick was quickly drawing to a close, a time of year that always brings a tear to my eye. As dedicated fishers Jamie and I weren’t willing to let the season end without getting out just one more time.I am semi-retired, our son is in his 20s and lives on his own, I work from home and my wife has always been the best when it comes to me going fishing so I can pretty much go fishing at the drop of a hat. Most of the time my clients give me plenty of notice when they want me to do something for them and time isn’t usually an issue at all so I am always ready to go fishing, especially for Chain Pickerel.

Now Jamie on the other hand is a husband, father of twin girls, a school teacher and a hockey coach so he is more than just a busy guy which can make it rather tough to find an entire day to dedicate to fishing.

The last day we were fishing we planned one more day out but it hindged on whether Jamie could fit it into his schedule. It would be tough as the Thanksgiving weekend seemed to be the only slot available before the season closed.

I hadn’t heard from Jamie and time was running out. I knew he was busy and didn’t want to bother him especially if he wasn’t going to be able to go, why torment him, right. I even put all my fishing gear away for the year and tried not to think about it.

On the Thursday the 9th I got an email from Jamie asking if I was still interested in going fishing. I laughed out loud when I read that as I am always interested in going fishing. He either thought that was funny or he just hasn’t known  me long enough to know just how fanatical I am about fishing.

Fishing In The Wind

Over the years fishing pickerel here in New Brunswick I have found that when fishing the weeds for pickerel the slightest breeze can put them off and make an otherwise beautiful day non-productive. It also makes it a lot tougher to fish from a canoe and maintain your position out from the weeds.

Most days here start out very calm and as the day progresses the wind tends to pick up and then just before dark it usually calms again.

I was sure hoping Saturday wasn’t going to be like Friday as Friday started windy and just got more and more windy as the day progressed.

Well I woke up Saturday at 5am and immediately looked out the window to see if it was calm but it wasn’t. I could already see the branches moving when they are usually dead still at that time of the morning.

It was a bit depressing but our backup plan was to fish for smallmouth bass if it was too windy for the pickerel.

Jamie picked me up and we headed to Chipman. I spent the entire time watching the tree tops to see how the wind was doing, hoping the closer we got the less wind. We arrived and saw that there was a little ripple on the water.

I know we could fish the open water all day and catch pickerel but we both love the action in the weeds. When you cast to the weeds and the water explodes or you see a huge wake coming at your bait, well there is something about that that makes pickerel fishing in the weeds so darn exciting.

Over the years I have noticed that the slightest breeze can bring the action in the weeds to halt, immediately. Even though the water in the weeds can remain calm, if the breeze isn’t too strong, it still move the weeds enough to turn them off. As soon as the breeze stops the action starts again.

The wind also plays havoc with the canoe and even using an anchor you can’t keep the canoe facing the way you want. Well I can’t seem to get it to any ways, so I like those really calm days for ease of canoe control and plenty of top water action.

The wind picked up and died down over and over but every once in a while it would get windy enough to make it really tough fishing the weeds and maintain control of the canoe, even with an anchor. A number of times I suggested we leave and head to our bass fishing spot, but then the wind would die down and the pickerel would go nuts again.

Eventually the wind stopped and the water became like glass. Perfect for fishing the weeds and the pickerel didn’t disappoint us, the action was none stop all the way to dark.

We spent 10 hours in Jamie’s canoe and a great day. It did take me about 10 minutes to stand up straight after getting out of the canoe.

I am already looking forward to and planning for next year’s fishing season.

I think Jamie and his twin girls had a great day of fishing Smallmouth bass. Here is another little post from Jamie.

After talking to James and sharing the day I had with my girls I asked him if he would like to go fishing for the day. I know it is hard to believe but he said yes.

I strapped my canoe on my car and picked James up early in the morning and we were off to try to catch some pickerel and bass. I went to Cassidy Lake earlier this summer and caught a few small pickerel so I was excited to go to some water that had pickerel that would be more plentiful and larger in size.

We arrived at the location and of course we were both excited to get fishing that we fished off shore for a few minutes. James had one follow his lure after just a few casts which got my heart pumping. We put the canoe in the water and made our way to where James said he normally fishes.

I had an excellent time trying to catch these fish. It was great fun watching them chase after the lures in the water. I quickly realized that they are quite a predator. We caught a few, but that did not matter, as I told James it was just as much fun watching them chase and hit the baits. If not by the end of this fishing season, I am truly hoping that James and I will be back to try for some more pickerel very soon.

The day was actually very winding and it came to a point where we decided to leave and try for some bass. We loaded up our gear and the canoe and in a short time we were fishing bass. This was non-stop action for about three hours, I would say we caught and released about sixty bass. They were not monsters but that made no difference to me at all as I am someone who just has a great time catching fish no matter the size.

James was a great help teaching me how to fish in the weeds for pickerel. I am hoping to practice lots more very soon. I am very thankful that an evening surfing the internet led me to James’ fishing site. It led to a great day with my girls and also to another great day fishing for pickerel and bass with a new fishing buddy!

Image via WikipediaWhile I and my buddies were in northern Quebec on our fly-in fishing trip there were Lake trout in the shallow bays but my buddies, well except Kerry, were blind to their presence.

The proper sunglasses was made the difference. Kerry and I could look out over the water and see the Lake trout swimming around, just below the surface.

I was out on my own using my Hummingbird fish finder to finds some big Lake trout when I thought I saw a splash in a little bay. Thinking it was a brook trout I headed in to make a few casts with my flyrod.

BAM!! The first cast. It wasn’t a brook trout at all, as it turned out it was a Lake trout at about 6 or 8 pounds. As I was fighting this little surprise I was looking around and saw that he wasn’t alone, there were dozens of them in this little bay.

I had to make a decision, keep fishing and tell my buddies later or stop fishing and take the 20 minute boat ride back to the camp to tell them. Well I love fishing with friends so I stopped, after two more fish, and headed back. Would have been a great time to have a two-way radio.

When we returned I was the only one with a flyrod but both Kerry and I had on polarized sunglasses. Unfortunately the other 3 guys didn’t. But like I said I like to fish with friends and I like us all to be catching fish.

I told Kerry it was time for him to migrate to one of the other boats and we would fish three to a boat for a while. That way I could direct those casting from my boat and Kerry could do the same in his boat.

I little trick we both tried was to switch glasses with a buddy that didn’t have a fish on. That way they could see where they were while we were fighting our fish.

It is so important to have the right gear when you go out on the water.

The five of us were beside ourselves with excitement. None of us had been on a real fishing trip let alone a fly-in fishing trip to northern Quebec. Heck only two of us were experience fishers while the other three we kind of behind the house stream fishermen and maybe a little Mackerel fishing.

We had about 4 months to prepare which probably cost me hundreds more than was necessary but it was a once in a lifetime trip so it was going to be worth it. I wanted all new fishing equipment and so did my buddy Kerry.

My job didn’t give me spending money after all the bills were paid so I had to come up with something else that would help me buy new fishing equipment. But what could I do, I was far too busy at the one job I had to think about a second job, even if it were only temporary. Then it came to me…

I was spending about $10.00 a day on unnecessary things like coffee, muffins and pop. I decided I would give up those things until after our fishing trip. Kerry worked with me and was in the same boat so he decided he would give up the coffee, muffins and pop as well.

Our three other partners in this fishing trip didn’t need the extra money as they didn’t care what they took with them as long as it was beer. I think we had more weight in beer than all our other gear.

Note: I don’t drink and fish and I don’t let any one else either so even though we had a ton of beer it was for after a long hard day of fishing.

I was really blown away by how much I had been spending on food at work when I could have been bringing from home as part of our grocery bill. Live and learn and save.

$10.00 a day, five days a week equals $50.00, man what a waste. It didn’t take very long to start buying new fishing gear. Both Kerry and I bought exactly the same things.

New fishing vests, boots, waders, rods, reels, lures and flies… We looked like twins, well I was about 60 pounds over weight and Kerry wasn’t but other than that we looked a lot a like all decked out in our new gear. The only thing I bought that Kerry didn’t was a fish finder which came in handy for those huge Lake Trout.

The place we were flying out of gave us a pretty detailed list of what we should take. After all we were going into a place so far north it took a couple of hours to fly there so any problems would result in a two hour flight both ways. We didn’t want to spoil our trip so we followed the list as close as we could.

More about our fly in fishing trip in another post.