A Clear Bright But Chilly Morning on the Oromocto River New Brunswick

We saw a lot of fog on the water we passed on the way to Oromocto from Moncton and Hopewell Cape. The Saint John river was mostly hidden by the fog but the Oromocto didn’t have any fog, just a little mist about an inch or two above the water.

Blessed With A Great Day Weather Wise

We were fortunate to have a really nice day. It was a little nippy when we launched at 7am. I believe it was just 4 degrees but no wind, well until Casey opened up the motor and headed up river.

Sure glad I packed gloves, a toque and several layers of clothing with me so I was comfortable all day long. I was also glad I was sitting with my back to the bow of the boat when he took off as the breeze created was just a tad chilly on the face.

I think when Jamie and I were fish the Oromocto river on October 22 we took 3 roundabouts to get to the launch. Not sure how Casey got us to the same launch point with just one roundabout.

Okay Jamie what’s with the making us go around in circles so much.

The water was down even more than when Jamie and I were there last. and a few of the spots we were catching bass we actually dried up.

I Managed To Catch The First Pickerel

I have to say that I love it when I catch the first fish although it would be a nice gesture to let someone else get the first fish considering they had the boat and did all the driving. Thanks Casey.

I decided to start the day with a Red Devil as it had done me well on my last trip out. The last day out they were swallowing that thing, not just smacking at it.

Early on I turned a couple of what I thought were smallmouth bass but I’m never really sure until I see more of there body. They didn’t take, only looking I guess. Maybe I should have been retrieving a bit slower as the water temp was only 38C.

After a bit I caught the first pickerel of the day. This year the fishing was so hot and it was always a good feeling to get that first one so as not to be skunked, which we narrowly avoided with just 2 fish each for the entire day.

My first pickerel was about 20 inches but when Casey asked if I wanted a pictures I said no and released it, thinking we were going to get a whole lot more of them.

Casey wasn’t far behind. Soon after he landed his first pickerel of the day which was just a bit smaller than mine. How generous of him.

We didn’t have any further luck in the Oromocto but when we reached French lake we stopped in hooked our two biggest fish of the day. Mine was a 23 inch monster while Casey’s was just 22 inches, one inch shy of a monster.

All too soon it was time to go home so we headed back towards Oromocto and another year of fishing for myself has ended. I have lots of great memories and pictures to last the next six months while I get ready for next year. Thanks to both Casey and Jamie for getting me there.

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• Fished The Oromocto River Again October 22nd (thejoyofflyfishing.com)
• First Time Fishing Oromocto, New Brunswick (thejoyofflyfishing.com)
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• Casey Had Better Luck Fishing The Oromocto River (thejoyofflyfishing.com)

Even though we wear life-vests we still don’t care to be swamped. It happened once with my canoe and it wasn’t a fun thing at all. Not to mention the gear we lost.

Our plan is usually to check the weather and if it’s little to no wind we will head to the Jemseg bridge and launch from there if the river is calm. Just like it was on Saturday morning about 7am.

We had fun and caught a few smallmouth bass as well as one chubby Chub however once those recreational boaters came on the scene it was time to pack up and move to a less traveled area, like Salmon river bays and coves.

We headed back to Salmon river to a few spots we knew we’d be able to get out of the wind.

The action in these spots have not been so good this year. The only reason I can come up with is the fact we have so much extra water for the fish to disperse in making them fewer and further between.

Saturday on the other had was a reminder of years past with plenty of action.

I cast into one spot and had nice strike but I it was gone as quickly as it had struck and didn’t seem to want my bait on a second attempt. Jamie attracted a nice pickerel on the other side of the canoe.

This guy wanted Jamie’s bait and wanted everyone to know it by jumping clear of the water and coming down on top of his bait. What an explosion.

Jamie now had the biggest pickerel of the day. I still had the first and the most fish for the day so I could still hold my head up.

Then as we were coming around a point heading back to the car I made a few casts to the point but nothing. Just before we hit the bank where the car was parked I turned and gave another cast from the opposite direction.

I made a couple of turns on the reel then something to my left caught my eye. I turned away for just a second and of course I had the strike of the day. Jamie got to see this pickerel come flying out of the water and smacked my bait.

Sure glad I had checked the drag on my reel. I immediately had visions of taking first place for the day.

The fight was on and Jamie was quick to grab his new rubber net and was ready but it wasn’t going to be as simple as that as the sun was directly in Jamie’s face and to make it worse it was glaring off the water as well.

I didn’t think we were going to land this guy and he looked bigger than Jamie’s last fish. I was both excited and nervous as it was the last cast of the day and I saw first place slipping away.

Then the pickerel made one last jump and Jamie got the net under it and it was in the boat.

I think that’s when Jamie asked me how long I thought it would take to walk home from there.

Oh I almost forgot to mention I didn’t have any red worms left plus the sun was now lower in the sky so I had changed to a black senko worm and was having a lot more reactions from hungry pickerel.

My winning pickerel came in at 24 1/4” which is exactly what Jamie said it was before we even landed it. Smart guy eh?

I was ordering my red senko worms from eBay and then Casey and Jamie started ordering them as well. We were throwing those red worms at every blade of grass and lily pads we could find.

The last time I checked the person selling the 5” red senko worms stopped selling them.

Well both Jamie and Casey bought the last of them I guess because they had them and I didn’t have any.

The last two times I was out, once with Casey and once with both Casey and Jamie I was borrowing their red worms. I don’t really like borrowing things I can lose as easy as a red worm or lure but the pickerel seem to love them so much.

Well on Friday Casey took me back to the Saint John river at Jemseg and we fished from there up to Swam Creek and into Swan Creek Lake.

I was using a black senko worm as I didn’t want to ask Casey for any more of his red worms, especially now that we can’t find any at the moment.

We fished from just after day break all the to supper time and not a single strike on the 5” red senko worm. Casey’s little red worm didn’t have a mark on it. That’s unbelievable in my mind.

It kind of looks like no one catches bass or pickerel on the red senko if I don’t have any.

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Here is an underwater video from Underwater-Ireland.com Youtube channel. I imagine pike live and hunt pretty much the same way chain pickerel do.

Some of the water I fish for chain pickerel in is very merky water and I’m not sure how far I’d be able to see underwater.

I was thinking about putting my rather inexpensive camera in a clear plastic bag and trying to get some video over the side of the boat. Maybe I’ll give it a try the next time I’m out on the water.

Enjoy the video.

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First, just incase you’re not aware, but bass are fish and fish are cold blooded which means the colder the water gets the slower the bass’ metabolism.

This means that in the early spring the bass may be slow to respond even though they may be getting hungry early spring they are still rather lethargic and slow to respond.

Where I live in eastern Canada we see the bass starting to move a bit more during May and from there they just get faster and hungrier the more the water warms up, until about mid June when they are ready to go wild.

As the ice starts leaving and back bays and streams are warming up first the bass start moving in to prepare for the spawn.

The Bass Spawn

The bass spawn is a great time to catch some early season bass as they aggressively protect their nests. For this reason it’s also necessary to be wise and take care of any bass you may catch.

Without the protection of the male bass their eggs and off-spring are open to attact by other fish, even other bass. So be sure you return them to the nest area quickly so as not to over stress them, remember they haven’t fed much at all during the winter.

Where I Usually Find Bass

Once the spawn is over the bass will spread out throughout the system meaning you will need to find them.

Finding them isn’t all that tough most of the time as bass have habits you can learn making it easier to locate them and thus catch more bass.

Fishing Bass Off-Shore

If you are fishing off shore you should have a fish finder so you can find place bass frequent like ledges and dropoffs, especially submerged structure like trees and logs.

Just about anything can be structure for bass so look for edges. Weed edges are some of my favourite places to find big hungry bass and they can be totally under the water so if you don’t know they are there you may just be missing out a whole lot of fun bass fishing.

So be sure you have a fish finder and you can be catching fish you didn’t even know were there.

A good choice for fishfinders is Humminbird. I’ve always used Humminbird for my fish finders.

Take a look at the Humminbird 586c HD Sonar Fishfinder

Fishing Bass Close To Shore

Bass are predators and love to use as little energy as possible so they will sit in ambush close to shore but also close to a drop off or structure for hiding in.

Now don’t think the bass needs a big piece of structure because they don’t. They can use a weed and stay in the shadow of that weed to break up their body shape in the water making it harder to see them.

Bass will use a rock sticking out of the bottom of a river, lake or pond as an ambush point.

I’d have to say weeds and lily pads are my favourite bass fishing spots.

If I can position myself so that I can cast along the edge of a weed bed from the side that leads to deeper water I will do it every single time as I have hooked into my biggest bass doing just that. I also love to get the first cast as it’s usually the one that gets the biggest fish, which also ticks off my fishing buddies.

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Image via Wikipedia

What a great way to start off summer. A great day of fishing with a friend.

Casey picked me up and we headed off to New Horton Lake for some smallmouth bass fishing.

The weather was pretty much perfect. Lots of sun for vitamin D, almost no wind at all for the entire day. Heck there were even a few fish to keep our interest up.

Oh yeah, and no one came home sunburned, this time.

New Horton Lake

Actually New Horton Lake reminds me of a couple of lakes I’ve been on in Ontario that were left behind after the last ice age backed off, leaving huge rocky gouges in the landscape that filled with water and today hold plenty of hard fighting fish.

New Horton Lake, New Brunswick on Google Maps

We Headed To An Island, Or Was It

Here is a photo I took while we were going down the lake on my first trip there with Casey. I thought we were headed to an island however it was a point of land that come way out into the lake. I think it’s about a half mile long or more.

No Jim That’s Not An Island

If you look at the bottom left of the Google map above you will see the strip of land that comes out into the lake. Lots of fishing area along the shore line here.

You can see just how calm the water was from in the image above.

Casey was saying the wind can quickly whip up waves but no problems this day.

Casey Catches First Fish

Casey didn’t waste any time catching the first fish. I think he may have brought it with him but then again if he was going to do that I’m sure it would have been a bigger one. Ha Ha.

Not A Huge Fish, But The First Fish, Congrats

We didn’t get much action trolling but as were got close to weeds and banks I was casting. As soon as the water warmed up along the shore they started taking baits.

They were hanging around the shore where the water was a degree or two warmer and where they could stay in the sun or move into shade.

We started hitting the shore line where there was a definite line between the sun and shade. I love being able to pop a lure up on the bank and then pull it into the water.

It’s amazing just how fast those bass can strike. Sometimes it seems that the lure would have to land in their open mouth to be so fast.

At one point Casey said he was changing to a spinner bait. I agreed but had given all my spinners to my son Steve for trout fishing.

Casey pulled out a tackle box with dozens and let me take the first pick.

I choose the little #4 Mepps with a nice floresent blade. It’s the one on the left and worked great as I caught the first smallie in about a half minute. First cast to the shore in a shady spot.

I had never fished smallmouth using a Mepps. I have used them on pike, pickerel and trout but now it’s a new confidence bait for bass as well.

The only reason I caught the first bass using the spinner is because Casey let me pick first and in about 4 seconds it was on my line and I had that first cast to the bank.

Look At That Lure Fly

I bought a new shrimp/perch pattern Rapal. I’m no good at names of lures, I just buy em and use it. Anyways I put on this new lure, lined up a spot to cast to and let her fly.

There was a little knot in my line and it snagged after about 6 feet of line went out and that lure straightened the swivel snap and that lure fly so far.

I told Casey it was a floating lure so we headed in the direction I made the cast. I thought it was long gone and probably somewhere out in the bush somewhere.

Just before I gave up looking I saw the sun reflect off the top of the lure which had about a square inch showing about the surface.

It had hit the water a couple of feet from shore. Very lucky.

What’s really funny is that last year I lost the original lure in New Horton Lake and I’m sure it did land somewhere in the bush. That was the reason I had a new one this year.

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I’m planning on giving the new KickTail XL lure a try this coming fishing season. I have seen a few ads and videos, from what I have seen it looks so life-like that smallmouth bass as well as pickerel or pike have a hard time NOT biting it. So much so that the claim is that the KickTail XL lure will increase my catches as much as 3 times.

I’m certainly up for giving the KickTail a try.

The KickTail XL has:

• steel-hard construction
• more life-like scales
• better swimming action
• dazzling colors

I have fished a lot of minnow lures and have a few that I have confidence with but I am always looking for new and better lures that can give me the same confidence.

Watch this video I found on Youtube. I makes me want to head south and give it a try as our fishing season doesn’t open for another 2 months here in New Brunswick.

Watching it move through the water, it looks like a real minnow, no wonder that fish can’t seem to resist it.

Checkout the patented KickTail XL Series Lure @ NGC Worldwide Inc. today and get your new confidence bait.

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I will cast to the shallows close to weeds and bring it back to the deeper water. And if the water drops off quickly I will pull it right along the edge of the weeds for really explosive strikes.

It wasn’t until I moved to New Brunswick that I experienced smallmouth bass fishing and later chain pickerel fishing. Before that it was strickly trout and salmon.

That’s when I started buying a few crank-baits, spinner-baits and plastic worms.

Fishing Crankbaits

My fishing buddy Roland and I were in my boat on Lake George just past Fredericton, it was really windy, so the top water baits weren’t doing much so I switched to one of my brand new crankbait.

Fishing A Brown Shrimp Crankbait

I remember it was brown with some darker brown stripes going down the sides. It cast a country mile and would float until I started cranking on it. Then it would dive anywhere from 3-7 feet depending on how hard I cranked it.

On my first cast the crank-bait was smacked hard and then again on my second and then it seemed like I couldn’t use it without getting strikes.

Guess how many of those I purchased?? Just one because I bought a variety of lures that day and just one of each. Roland didn’t buy one of this particular crankbait and I didn’t have one to loan him.

I kicked his bass fishing butt royally that day.

The crankbait quickly became one of my confidence baits and still is today. I went and bought another two, one for the tackle box and one I just in case Roland didn’t get a chance to buy one.

I used that crankbait until all the finish was worn off, leaving it a matte silver colour and it was still caught bass, which I found strange because I had a silver one that didn’t catch anything much at all.

Then one day I made a very long cast, probably the longest cast I ever made. It went straight across the water and into the trees on the bank somewhere. Never did find it. Guess I didn’t tie that knot as well as I thought.

That crankbait had hooked hundreds and hundreds of bass and pickerel and lasted for a few years before I lost it.

The second crankbait lasted for many years as well until one day Casey and I were bass fishing Lake Petit and on the very last cast of the day I lost it, the same way I lost the first one. The line snapped and it went so far I couldn’t find it. Bummer

A couple of years after I started bass fishing we gave chain pickerel a go and I used the same crankbait in open water along weed banks and found that they love that crankbait as much as the smallies do.

Check out the Rapala Crankbaits on FishUSA.com

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I have looked for a nice portable fish finder since but never saw anything that I really liked, until this morning.

It’s getting close to Christmas so I was looking through Amazon to see what was there and found this cool little wrist mounted fish finder, perfect for float tube fishing adventures.

Humminbird Smartcast Wrist Mount

I remember fishing Lake George New Brunswick, along with a few other larger lakes in the area, from both my canoe and boat. It was nice to have a fishfinder so we could located active spots we could come back to. We must have fished Lake George a hundred times and always seemed to hook into a lot of smallmouth bass.

I’d say it was mostly because of the Humminbird fish-finder keeping us on the right locations.

I remember so many times I wished I had a fishfinder for my float tube so I could find those great spots again.

Here are a few specs for the Humminbird Smartcast RF 35 fish finder.

First, Humminbird is using wireless technologies to the Smartcaster rf35 so you don’t require a wire going to the sensor. Just attach a length of fishing line and give it a toss out on the water and you’re ready to go fish finding.

The Remote Sonar Sensor has a separate, lithium battery that is non-replaceable , that has a lifespan of three years and will work for somewhere around five-hundred hours in the water.

Note: It’s always good advice to clean your equipment after a day on the water and it goes the same for your remote sensor. Keep it cleaned and it will keep going on keeping on.

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I love catching big fish, but then again don’t we all. But, using a light action rod and reel setup and I don’t mind catching smaller fish. Heck I fish brook trout about 8 to 13 inches long using my light action fly rod or spinning rod.

Smallmouth bass are no different. I love catching the big ones explode on my baits but the little guys of about 16 inches, are great fun on light action gear as well. It’s so cool to be able to watch them dart around your float tube or canoe so fast it’s unbelievable.

My son Steve caught the little guy in the picture below with just a little yellow head jigg and a plastic grub. He was catching them all day long and never changed his bait, other than to replace the grub once it was munched up too much to stay on the jigg.

Steve With His First Bass From His Float Tube

Keep Your Secret Spots Secret

The little spot I took my son is full of smallmouth up to about 15 or 16 inches. I like going here when fishing conditions elsewhere suck. I can usually fish and catch and release dozens of these little smallies all day long.

I have friends that never release fish and friends who practice catch and release like I do and for this spot I only ever take my catch and release friends. I certainly wouldn’t give up this location to any of my catch em and eat friends, I have lots of other places to take them.

Tricked And Treated To A Happy Surprise

The first time at this place was when a friend I worked with took me. He really didn’t tell me anything about it as we were fishing somewhere else and it just got too windy for our float tubes.

It was funny because he only showed me one small pond first and trust me I wasn’t overly impressed as it was so small I could almost cast to any point without moving my feet.

I did see a beaver and her hut and hooked into a little bass about 8 inches long. After fishing for a few minutes I noticed my friend was not to be seen. I figured he was taking a leak behind a tree but after a few minutes I called his name and then followed his voice.

As I came up over the ridge behind the little pond I was fishing he was snickering away with a 15 inch bass dangling from his fishing rod. He was standing on the edge of a pond that was, at first glance, about 3 or 4 times as large as the first pond. What a funny guy, eh?

We fished there for a long time and cast after cast after cast we were getting strikes, almost every cast was a bass on.

Then he started walking and in just a few minutes came to a channel that led to yet another section of water and then another. We fished all day and I still didn’t get to see all the water there. It wasn’t until the next time we came that I got to see the entire body of water.

By this time I was impressed.

So, the second time we brought our float tubes and that’s when I got to see all the water that was seldom seen by anyone on foot.

Being Prepared With Little Tackle

I can easily carry all the tackle I use for these ponds in just one little tackle box, small enough to fit in my fly fishing vest. Just a few small baits, crankbaits, tubes, top water, jiggs and grubs.

For fly fishing for these bass I use all small top water dry flies and my favourite are brown, anything brown.

When I am not fly fishing for these little smallmouth’s I prefer to use a small jigg and a pumpkin coloured grub like the BearPaw Fat Bear Grub. It has been the setup that has landed me the most fish here, other than the fly rod of course.

BearPaws Fat Bear Grub $ 3.69
The Grub (12 per bag) is a very powerful bait in the world of bass fishing, or any type of fishing for that matter. The grubs outstanding natural action makes it one of the best baits in the water. Fish are attracted to grubs under all fishing conditions making it a sure bait throughout all seasons. The 3″ Bear Claw Grub is exceptional within it’s own right. This grub has a soft texture for a lifelike feel and action along with a special blend of seasonings and scents, just like all our other Bearpaws baits.

All Terrain Tackle Jim Moynagh Rock Jig – Undressed $ 2.49
We build the Rock Jig on a heavy, black-nickel, Mustad UltraPoint hook.

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