Fall is one of my favourite times to fish as the jet skis are in hibernation, the water skiers are long gone and the fish are big and hungry.
Last weekend I competed in one of our local club bass tournaments on Lower Buckhorn Lake. This lake is fun to fish as the numbers of fish is phenomenal, but the big ones are tough to come by. My plan that day was to catch smallmouth bass in the morning and target big largemouth bass in the afternoon. In the morning we caught lots of smallies, but nothing bigger than 2 lbs. In the afternoon the big largies we were hoping for were nonexistent, so our five fish limit we ended up with was pretty light at 6.5 lbs. When I reached the weigh-in dock it sounded as if the other boats had an even tougher day so I was hopeful our light limit might work out. Long story short, we squeaked into third place and won a few bucks for our efforts; not a bad way to spend a cool and blustery autumn afternoon. Congrats to Mark Bennett and Dave Horn for landing an impressive 15.8 lb bag of largemouth bass, impressive for sure!
Winning Bag on Lower Buckhorn
This weekend coming up I have two tournaments; one is possibly the biggest and best tournament in Canada the other is a small 8-10 boat club tournament on a fantastic small Haliburton lake. I’m really looking forward to both.
On Saturday I am fishing in the Bass Pro Shops Lake Simcoe Open. This is one of the best one-day tournaments, not only because it is well run and on a great body of water but also because there is so much sponsorship support the prize list is like no other tournament in Canada. If the stars align for one team and they get really lucky, the winners could walk away with almost $100,000 in cash and prizes! Nothing even comes close anywhere else in Canada. I have been getting out once a week to check out the conditions on Lake Simcoe and up until yesterday my pre-fish has been pretty disappointing. Fortunately my luck turned around on Monday I found a mother load of big smallies. Catching them will be the problem on Saturday as Simcoe smallmouth bass have a unique personality. At times you might even think they are smart little creatures. I have rigged up a few unorthodox lures that should work and fingers crossed the smallies cooperate on Saturday.
On Sunday I’m fishing a small club tournament on a great little lake in Haliburton (which shall remain nameless, sorry!). This lake is a gem with lots of smallmouth bass and some very big largemouth. To win in 2009 it took 20 lbs, and in 2008 the big fish was a 6.4 lb monster bucket mouth. I don’t fish this little lake often enough, but I look forward to it every year.
There are two whole months of fishing left in the open-water Kawartha season and that includes some slime time for muskies late November to mid December. Don’t put your tackle away yet, and get out and enjoy some great fall fishing action; weather permitting of course!
Tight lines,
Andrew
What worked (on Lower Buckhorn)?
Lure – Strike Zone Slammers and BPS Tungsten Jigging Spoons
Depths – 20 to 30 feet of rock
Rods – 6’ 10” Shimano Cumulus rod medium-light power, extra fast action
Reels – Shimano Stradic CI4 2500 6.0:1 gear ratio
Line – 20 lb Phantom Red Power Pro braided fishing line
Weather Conditions:
Cloudy with Sunny periods
Winds – northwest 20-25 km/h
Surface water temperatures 51-52 Fahrenheit
Air temperatures reached a high of 12 Celsius