Bass fishing tips are great for any beginner as knowledge is power. Knowing a few details about the metabolism of a bass can make the difference between fishing and catching.

The temperature of the water you fish needs to be within a specific range to have your best days. I have gone when it’s a bit too early here and the water temperature was too low and it was as if there were no bass in the water at all.

A day or two later and the temperature of the water raised enough to make those bass extremely active. So pay attention to the water temperature and you will have better days.

A great bass fishing tip is, when the water is too cold for bass to be very active move to shallower water if possible, where the sun warms it up faster. It can be dyn-o-might fishing.

I have been fishing smallmouth bass here in New Brunswick and at the start of each new fishing season I head to the spots that warm up first and very seldom get skunked. Although last year I took a friend to spot I thought was going to be perfect but the water was considerably colder than any other year I have fished there in the spring.

Water temperatures for optimal smallmouth bass fishing conditions are between 10 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius. Get above 25 or below 10, approx, and they will tend to shut down, so find the water that is between these two values and you should be catching fish if they are there.

I say ‘if they are there’ because I was fishing a spot hoping for a few smallies and this little ole lady came up to me laughing at me and telling me that pond never had fish in it and then she walked away laughing. You never know until you try.

Fish tend to school or travel in groups of similar sized fish so you can use this as an indicator of whether you should choose to move on if all you are catching are small smallies. Although I have caught some big bass after a number of little guys were caught, so take this piece of advice any way you would like.

As a rule if I go too long with the same size fish I will move on.

After saying all this it still comes down to going with my gut because some days all the conditions seem right yet nothing is happening. That’s the time I start thinking about what they eat and find a location where their source of food is more plentiful.

That might mean to start checking out the little bays and coves where the wind may have forced the bait fish into.

Get the first few tips right and you should be having a good time smallmouth bass fishing.

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• Fly Fishing For Smallmouth Bass in New Brunswick (thejoyofflyfishing.com)

After years of fly fishing Atlantic salmon and Brook trout in New Brunswick, every chance I got, I was introduced to smallmouth bass fishing and decided to give my fly rod a try on some smallies. That’s a day I will not soon forget as it was an experience that was completely different from any other fly fishing experience I had to that point.

Fly fishing for salmon and trout has a specific feel when the strike comes but nothing even close to a smallmouth strike on a fly. It was a powerful strike and the fight was spectacular with so many jumps and spins I was dizzy. Oh yeah, plus that fact that they spin your float tube around and around if you can’t lock your feet to the bottom some how. Great fun.

I can thank my friend Kerry for that experience although he never tried the fly rod so he doesn’t know what he missed. It was completely different that fishing smallies with a spinning rod, as much fun as that is.

Even the water I fished was different than the brooks, ponds and rivers I fished for salmon and trout. Now I was fly fishing lakes looking for lily pads and weeds more than open water.

Smallmouth bass on the fly is heart stopping action and I can’t get enough of it. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time to do all the fishing I want to do, bummer. Maybe we need to move to a more southern climate, eh? Not really though, I love New Brunswick.

I guess, for now, I will just have keep dreaming about fly fishing for smallmouth bass in New Brunswick, well at least until spring arrives once again.

When I started fly fishing more than 30 years ago the sport of fly fishing seemed to be all about catching salmon and trout.

Today the list of fish to fly fish for has become almost endless, whether it’s casting those artificial flies for fresh water fly fishing or saltwater.

Now fly fishing for smallmouth and largemuth bass has become extremely popular all over the world. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the quality of the fight a bass gives you.

I have fought bass on the fly that fought harder than salmon double their size. Bass just think they are bigger than they are. It’s a great sport and releasing them back into their home makes for better fishing in the future, so our kids will thank us.

I think because the bass body is more flat on the sides than round they have a lot of drag in the water and really hold their own.

Smallmouth Bass Fly Fishing Technique

Smallmouth bass are found in rivers and streams. With fishing rivers and streams, quite often there are trees and bush lining the river or stream, and therefore not enough room behind you to make a full overhead cast. Therefore learning to roll cast is recommended. Take a look at the following fly fishing casting techniques introduction for more information on roll casting. Another option is wading deep into the stream or river which would provide you with sufficient room for overhead casting.

When fly fishing rivers and streams its also important to know how to mend the line. The different speeds of the various currents within a river or stream may push the fly line ahead of the fly, or may push the fly ahead of the line. A bass may detect this unnatural drift of the line, and may be scared away. The process of lifting and moving a part of the line to re-align it with the drift of the fly is called mending. Smallmouth bass mostly sit and wait for prey in the small pools in the river which are formed by submerged rocks, trees, or other objects. Target these pools when casting for smallmouth bass. With smallmouth bass fly fishing, using streamers that look like crayfish or small baitfish often produce good results.

Largemouth Bass Fly Fishing Technique

Largemouth bass are found mostly in ponds and lakes. Flies used for largemouth bass fly fishing tend to be quite large. Poppers are commonly used, and deer hair flies are extremely popular. Terrestrial flies (flies which resemble land based insects that land on the water by accident) are also quite effective. When casting dry flies for largemouth bass, its a good idea to land your fly near to weeds, rocks, lilies or other underwater objects where largemouth bass love to hide when stalking prey. Let the dry fly float on top of the water for a few minutes after casting. Make the fly twitch on the water, then slowly retrieve the line. Often the bass will strike the fly as it hits the water.

Bass Fly Fishing Equipment

You can use the same equipment for bass fly fishing that you would use for trout fly fishing. With bass fly fishing a 6 to 9 weight fly fishing rod is normally used, along with a fly line with a matching weight. It’s not necessary to have an expensive rod and reel for bass fly fishing, and a good fly rod for someone starting out in the sport of bass fly fishing is the fairly priced St Croix Triumph Fly Fishing Rod. You can use the same double-tapered line used for trout fly fishing, but its recommended that you use a weight-forward line for bass fly fishing. Although you can catch bass with normal trout flies, you will have more success with bass specific flies.

Additional flt fishing information, tips, techniques, and fly fishing equipment reviews can be found at the Feedage.com Fly Fishing Elite news feed.

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• Fly Fishing For Pickerel in New Brunswick (thejoyofflyfishing.com)
• Fishing For The Best Fly Fishing Gear (thejoyofflyfishing.com)

If you have been following this blog you might remember that the first three times Casey and I went smallmouth bass fishing in Lake Petit you know we had problems with strong winds the first three times out.

Well yesterday we went out with Casey’s new boat. He is already fixing it up so that everything is exactly where it should be so he can concentrate on fishing and not fiddling with the boat.

Of course due to the fact that Casey came and picked me up at my house and after all it’s his boat, so I let him catch the first few bass and even the biggest bass of the day. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

The wind has been so strong over the past week or so that even though the wind was almost gone the water was still pretty stirred up so my polarized sunglasses didn’t help me see more than a foot into the water.

Mother Nature Getting Artistic

The colours in the leaves of so many trees are just starting to change from green to oranges, yellows and reds. They get so vivid and beautiful that it can be hard to concentrate of fishing so I was fumbling around trying to keep my fishing rod in the water, keep it reeling and take a few pictures all at the same time.

It’s really cool how the trees change colours here and there while the rest of the tree stays green a while longer.

We fished the base of the tree but I think the bass were admiring it while we were there and just ignored us, so we had to move on.

Like I said Casey caught the most and the biggest bass while I just tried to keep one on my line long enough to get one in the boat. A few small ones stayed on the line. I think they just felt sorry for me.

I used Casey’s camera to take a couple of pictures and only managed to snap one with my camera but it still looks good.

Casey measured it at 16 inches but it fought like it was 20 inches.

I grabbed Casey’s net and tried my best to knock it off the hook but the hooks got caught up in the net and I accidently landed it for him. Maybe next time.

Seriously though it hit like a freight train as it bolted from the water and then it was doing everything in it’s power to keep from boarding the boat.

Now I am sure that I had a bigger fish but I don’t like to hurt them so I don’t use hooks, which means I don’t always see how big they are but I know they were bigger than Casey’s little 16 incher.

As the afternoon was drawing to a close and the sun was going down we headed up a little creek which Casey had never gone up before because it was so shallow.

Once we started into this little spot it immediately went from just over 2 feet deep to more than 8 feet deep and it went back quite a ways, all the way to Salisbury road.

Casey had a dinner engagement with his wife for about 6pm and the wind was starting to pick up again so we decided to call it a day and headed back out to the main river and home. But just before we were out the sun came out from the clouds and gave us the shot above. A great ending to another great day on the water.

Thanks again Casey.

Testimonials are great to have and word of mouth can be like gold if the experience is good. I could tell the fella who introduced us to Chipman Waterfront Campground was certainly happy with his experience.

I have been fishing the Chipman area for pickerel for more than 10 years and love it. The only thing is that we always end up driving back home at the end of the day.

Now that I know there is a campground and a well kept campground I might add we will be able to stay over night and get two days fishing in before heading back to Moncton.

As the guy was telling us about camping over night he told us about the fishing and how the campground owner, Bruce, had some canoes, lifejackets and even a couple of paddle boats.

He was saying how they had gone out from the camp site and had a lot of fun catching pickerel right there.

Well he immediately had my attention. I asked him for directions and found that I have driven past this place many times in the past 3 years and never saw it.

When I get fishing on the brain I don`t see anything else.

It was a very windy day and we had been working hard to keep fishing the weeds but we needed a break, well our arms and back needed a break.

So we headed back to Chipman from Redbank and turned right at the train tressel. Coming from highway 2 we would have made a left just before going under the train tressel.

We drove across the bridge, up to the school which is less than a minute and took a left. I think it was about 2 minutes from there. Easy to find and it has a nice big Canada Flag to get your attention.

Looking in from the road you can only see the lane in and not the campground which makes it more private. I didn`t hear any car or truck noises while we were in there either.

As we drove in and turned a little corner there it was and the first thing I saw of course was the water and the weed beds across the river. I wanted to jump right out and start casting.

The owner Bruce came out, with a big smile, to greet us.

We talked for about 15 minutes and he told us about his campground. You can tell it is something he has a passion for, just like me and fishing.

I was impressed and instantly liked Bruce. I think the fact that everything was so well kept and clean helped with that first impression and I feel strongly about those first impressions.

I was a little distracted by the river and the weed beds I could see. I hope Bruce didn`t think I was ignoring him or being rude.

I could tell you what I saw there but because Bruce has a web site about his campground I would like to let him tell you about it. So take a minute or two and check it out. Chipman Waterfront Campground.

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• Fly Fishing Pickerel In The Weeds (thejoyofflyfishing.com)

It was cloudy, it was windy and it was very foggy and the forecast was possible rain until noon. A great day for fishing but then isn’t any day a great day for fishing.

When we are taking a canoe with us we don’t care much for the wind. It just makes handling the canoe a chore and that’s exactly what it did but we still had a great day, because we were fishing of course.

We could see by the movement of the tree tops that the wind was not calming down the further we got from home. So as we were driving the discussion was about where we would fish.

When we have days that are windy we pay attention to wind direction and then head for a cove or bay that is protected from the wind.

We stopped at our first fishing spot and looked at the water. It was a bit choppy but we thought we would be able to get to a protected spot to fish for a while from there so we launched the canoe.

You can see Jamie hiding in the trunk I am sure he was tying on a secret weapon, so I was planning how I could accidentally cut his line when he turned his back for a minute.

You can see the fog has pretty much lifted by the time we arrived but the wind wasn’t about to let up though.

Beauty Hiding In The Most Unlikely Spots

As we were carrying Jamie’s canoe down to the water I noticed a pink colour in the bush to my right so when we got to the water and put the canoe down I went back to take a look.

It was a wild rose bush. I was amazed that it could survive as it was surrounded by taller vegetation.

There is beauty every where in nature, you just have to have your eyes open.

We did a lot of moving around as the wind seemed to keep changing direction on us. Just as you thought you were in control the wind would spin us around.

It’s kind of funny how the wind can turn you directly opposite of where the fish are. You make a cast, the water explodes and then you are facing the other way.

We still managed to have a great day despite the windy conditions.

Why I Like Fishing With Friends

It’s always exciting when a friend catches an unexpected catch.

We shoved off from shore and headed to a spot that was out of the wind where. It’s always a great place to start as we usually catch two or three fish there and today was no different.

Well okay it was different but Jamie will have to tell you about that as he was the first to catch a fish. Here is a link to Jamie’s fun fishing blog, you will be able to read all about it.

Image via Wikipedia

I am a polite guy and treat people the way I like to be treated. It allows me to sleep better at night and I very seldom piss people off. But not all people are like this, even on the water.

I like to bass fish on Lake George and I usually do from my trusty float tube. So I keep fairly close to shore, just incase something happens to my float tube. I had one spring a leak once and even though I made it to shore with lots of time to spare I was pretty nervous, so I don’t go too far out.

I have a places that are hot spots. They are not close together and I had a much easier time getting from place to place when I had my boat. So I like to be sure to pick my spots so that I don’t have to kick my way around the lake.

At one end of Lake George it’s really rocky, a great place for smallmouth bass. I don’t think I have ever been skunked there.

Jerks on the Water

All people don’t live life like I do and they will come right up and get in your face when your fishing, even if they have a bass boat could take them to any spot in minutes.

Well this moron decide I was having too much fun and came flying across the lake as fast as he could get that boat going and didn’t slow down until he was right on top of me.

Then he started casting exactly where I was fisihg. I can’t believe people like that.

Well he cast a couple of times, right on top of my lure so I pitched my lure right at his head and pulled it back just before it hit him. It dropped in the water right at his boat and BAM. FISH ON.

I caught a smallie that went about 3 pounds right under his big ass boat. I yelled fish on and laughed all the time I was reeling it in.

All though he was trying not to look at me I held that bass up high and yelled at the guy. ‘Would you like to catch one like that?’

He started up his boat and was gone. I wish I had a camera so I could have take a picture of the bass with that jerk in the background.