I recently returned from a two week adventure to the north, only to do laundry, produce a few videos, watch the Blackhawks win, and catch up on a few unimportant work related tasks. Other than the hockey and videos, it’s been a real pointless week in my opinion. Since I don’t have much time to write my usual daily summaries these next few days, as I leave for my next two week trip in a little over 48hrs from now, I will lay it all on the line for you guys in this post…. I’ll eventually catch up to the daily summaries in the next week, and post them at a later date. I always like to revisit my old words during the future.
I fished May 12-25, covering 17 different lakes and other waterbodies. The first week was bad, while the second week as the best bass fishing I’ve ever had in my life. Wait until you watch my videos, documenting four straight days of fishing. No joke.
Most of the first week was forgettable. My friend Jacob Saylor took a week vacation to join me on this fourth spring trip in a row. The fishing was super slow and poor for all species as ice out occurred the week before. Throughout the week water temperatures on most lakes were only in the high 40’s and barely reaching the low 50’s by the week’s end. Most of the bass were still hibernating, the panfish hadn’t moved in, and whatever walleyes and their depleted fisheries that didn’t get speared out by indians were few and far between. In addition to this lousy fishing, all of the rivers were flooded and still somewhat are. This was the first spring in my life that I could not wade or fish any river by boat. Remember that new pimped out river jon boat I rebuilt in March and April? It hasn’t gotten wet yet…… Maybe this weekend….. Then to add insult to injury, I almost wrecked my boat’s lower unit driving over an unmarked rock bar but luckily disaster was avoided as only the skeg broke off, thus leaking oil near the boat landing. The gears and shaft didn’t break, which would have been a nightmare. Luckily a $200 fix (replaced skeg) at a nearby marina got me back on the water within a few hours later.
Thankfully the fishing improved tremendously for us after my lower unit repair, and that’s when the fun began.
Throughout the first week of fishing, we worked a lot of different largemouth water only to find satisfactory results. We fished a lot of smaller backwoods lakes and even more places that fare well for me during early season for their warming water. We explored lots of new water and made the effort to get back into them only to get minimal results. Here’s a few of the better ones we caught.
Swim jigs, swimbaits, and jig & creatures did much of the damage on LMB’s.
First bass of 2013. May 13th. That’s a joke, right? Ice out was only 5 days ago on this lake I fished.
Confused…… why was the fishing this week so bad?
Somewhere around May 18th, the smallmouth bass turned on. The light switch went on and there was no looking back!
For the smallies, I fished the TFF (two days before it got flooded bad) and a dozen large lakes that are known to kick out big fish. Not a single fish all week was caught on a soft plastic bait. We caught 95% of our smallmouth bass on jerkbaits (Rapala Xraps, Matzuo Phantom Minnows…. anything else suspending and with rattles). Luckily Jacob was able to enjoy two days of smallie fishing with me before he returned to Chicago. The places we fished those two days were nowhere near their best or at peak, but enough fish were moving in to make things interesting. They were lethargic, so spending lots of time on one body of water and a single spot was key. We couldn’t cover water nor lake hop with such frequency as I normally do. Fish slow, fish patiently, have confidence in the jerkbait technique, work the warm water areas of lake (follow the wind), and work the outside areas of known spawning sites. Feeding windows were between the hours of 1130am till 6pm. Morning fish and evening fishing was worthless.
Here’s a few nice ones we caught with Jacob. About 95% of the bass we caught were 16″or greater.
Day 1 are TFF specimens and our first smallies of 2013. A 30 fish day was had. Day two are fish from one of my underfished local lakes. A 40 fish afternoon was had at that one.
Meanwhile Day 2 with Jacob was a lot better. In our first four hours of fishing this first lake, we only caught four smallies and two walleyes. We were contemplating leaving this lake and going elsewhere but once the clock struck noon, the fish turned on in a hurry and a 40 fish afternoon was had. We had to find them however as certain areas of the lake were dead. We found them using sandbars, sand flats, north ends of the lake, windblown ends of the lake, and any structure exposed to the sun. Below are a few from that day.
Cyclops the one-eyed smallmouth bass.
During those two days with Jacob, I experienced all the action I wanted. During the next five days fishing solo, I focused on big bass. But guess what? I was still catching them in numbers. But numbers of big smallmouth bass! Real big ones. I went through so many big bass, it was silly. It probably took me one afternoon to catch the amount of big bass it takes some folks to do within a year. Simply amazing. I’ve got video of all four days and these will be posted separately shortly.
For instance…..
On Monday May 20th, I had a 60 fish afternoon fishing a 300 acre lake not many folks know about. Dozens of smallies in the 16-19 inch range were caught from this infertile oligotrophic lake. Rapala Xrap was the hot lure.
This is what an 18.5″ looks like from a slow growing infertile lake.
On Tuesday May 21st, I fished one of my big trophy fish lakes. I fished this thousand acre lake from 10am until 8pm, catching another 60 smallmouth bass. Average size fish on this day was a whopping 19 inches with the largest going at 21 inches, 6 pounds. Rapala Xrap was the hot lure. The smallies were all over this lake but most of the big ones were found in main lake areas not far away from the deep open basin.
Two days after I fished here, they were already on their nests, spawning. I fished here at the right time.
On Wednesday May 22nd, the plan was to fish the TFF again because a coldfront of epic proportions invaded the region. However it rained a lot in this area during the previous day, thus the flowage rose three feet over night! (For those who are about to make vacation plans, it’s unfishable for at least another week, possibly longer – according to my high standards). It was flooded and I didn’t want to take any chances dumping the boat in, nor fishing black water clarity. So I fished my way back home, and fished a brand new 700 acre lake I had never been on before. In four hours I caught 30 smallies, all from one spot. They were stacked. Hot bait was a 4 inch Matzuo Phantom minnow (jerkbait). I only fished this lake due to circumstance, and had zero clue of its bass fishery. I know now, and this place will be revisited again next week.
On Thursday the 23rd, the coldfront that came was awful. I never imaged seeing myself catching giant smallmouth wearing bibs, layers of clothing and winter gloves. This was my typical fall musky weather, but for big bass? Please….. I purposely slept in until 9am. I launched at 10am to find the lake had dropped six degrees in two days, from 57 to 51. The bass didn’t mind however, as I found them stacked in a few minor areas such as rock ledges, shallow rock bars, and sand flats – all of these areas which were exposed to the sun had numbers of big bass on them. The same bait I used the previous day worked again. One rod, one lure all day long. Best part about these last four days was I was the only boat on each lake I fished!
Those four days of fishing were the best bass fishing I’ve had in my life. If there is a certain technique I am proficient with, it’s the suspending jerkbait. I’ve worked the system down to a science and I was rewarded. It made me wonder if smallmouth bass ever held underwater conferences to talk about that Andrew Ragas guy. I think they should.
I eventually stopped taking pictures of anything that was less than 19 inches. Just ridiculous.
By the end of the week, bass were observed spawning on some lakes. I left those guys alone as I was bassed-out for the week. Before I came back for these few days I focused on panfish and caught several crappies up to 12″. I selectively harvested 8, so I’ve got a few delicious dinners awaiting me. The fishing for them should still be hot and I’m looking forward to revisiting them and looking for the really big ones for cool pictures.
My week off to heal the beat up hands and bass thumbs is nearly over. I depart for the north again during the wee hours of Saturday morning to search for more northwoods bronze. My goal is to catch one surpassing seven pounds but the game is going to be different this time around. Fish will be spawning on most lakes while some will still be in pre-spawn cold water mode like last week was. Plastics and other diverse lures will finally come into play, and I will have to cover water. It will be interesting to examine. I’ve already got my list of lakes in mind.
Besides bass, I will put my visiting friends on some muskies. I will be fishing solo the first four days, and then friend Brian Malack will join me for a few, and then longtime buddy Christopher Stolarski will join me for a full week. It’s been a real slow season for muskies thus far but it’s still in its infancy. They’ve spawned, and the rivers are in recovery and receding. I’ll definitely get to use the new boat finally, and I’ll get to catch some muskies. I’ve got until June 16th to make it happen. My goal for this year is to catch 40.
Until then, I won’t be on the internet much. I made my e-mail off-limits for two weeks and it was extremely enjoyable. I plan on doing the same again once Saturday comes. It’s just refreshing to get away from everything, you know.
If anyone wants information on lakes or has questions for me concerning the north, I’ll be more than happy to help anyone out. Give me a shout anytime through my site at www.ragasfishing.com
Videos will be posted tomorrow.
