Despite being very busy working two jobs, I manage to fish at least 3-4 time a week. Granted, I rarely have the chance to fish for more then an hour. I get an hour long lunch and I work right beside a good size lake that has a healthy population of bass and trout so I really have no excuse not to fish regularly. With an 11 month old baby boy nearing his first steps, I try to spend ever minute I’m not working hanging out with him. Luckily he takes long naps, and goes to bed at 7pm, so I sneak in a couple of hours of fishing before sunset on most weekends. Last weekend I introduced my buddy Adrian to a new lake called Long Lake. We have fished several local lakes in the Halifax and Dartmouth area and I think we can both agree that Long Lake is our new favorite.
It takes me about 10 minutes to get to Long Lake from my apartment in Halifax and is an ideal lake for a shore fisherman. The lake is full of good size bass too. We didn’t catch any huge fish, but the fish we did catch were consistently larger then the fish we’ve caught in any of the other nearby lakes. The key to finding bass was to look for deeper areas near large rocks. The south side of the lake had the deepest spots and produced our biggest fish. We both fished with spinner baits, Adrian going with the old reliable Mepps Black Fury, while I used a silver mini Rockstar spinner. We each caught 8-9 bass and called it a day.
Adrian’s bass may not look very big, but that only because he is a big guy - 6′2″ - 225lbs +
Well, another birthday has come and gone. I went fishing on my birthday, keeping the yearly tradition alive. Sadly, much like past birthdays, not big fish were caught. I did however get to explore a couple of new lakes, both of which I’ll be revising soon I’m sure.
Our first stop of the day was at Lewis Lake Provincial Park which is a great little area. The park has two small lakes and designated fishing areas. After speaking with another fisherman, I learned that the lake is stocked with trout, and despite is small size is actually quite deep. I fished with my spinner baits while he fished with worms. Neither of us caught anything.
Later that evening I headed out to Long Lake Provincial park. I had been there once before in the fall, and the lake looked beautiful. I can drive to the lake in about 10 minutes, so there really was no excuse to to fish there at least once. I’m glad I went because I caught a dozen smallmouth bass in about an hour and a half. Granted none were very big, but they were bigger then the ones I’ve been catching at other nearby lakes. I lost a good size bass that could have been pushing 2lbs, but the most interesting catch I had all day was actually the smallest bass I’ve ever caught…
Another quality birthday spent with the family.
I’ve been fishing 3-4 times a week for most of the season here in Nova Scotia. I’ve got plenty of fish, at least 50 bass by my count (they make you track that here on your license). Yet, after all of those bass, I haven’t caught one over a pound. My buddy Dominic from work, just got himself a new fishing rod a few weeks back and took me out to a lake he’s been fishing recently. Right away he catches a nice bass, and then another later that afternoon. Meanwhile I kept catching baby bass after baby bass. I even put on a bigger lure, and still got little fish. I’m gonna chalk it up to beginners luck, but he out fished me bad.
I offered to land this smallmouth for him since it’s been so long since I’ve handled a good size fish
As of today, the world record for smallmouth bass has stood for 53 years. The record was caught by David Hayes at Dale Hollow Lake. The record bass weighed in at 11 pounds, 15 ounces, more than a pound heavier then its closest competitor. Much like the record largemouth, a trail of controversy has followed this fish, but it remains a record recognized the the IGFA.
July 1955
Our good friend Martin wrote in yesterday to let us know how his York Bassmasters tournament on Sturgeon Lake went, and much to our surprise given the crazy weather we continue to have here. Martin pulled out a huge win, and some huge bass!
I was privileged enough to draw 2 time angler of the year Don Mahar of York Bassmasters. We started the day heading out to a well known rocky shoal on Sturgeon, while most of the rest stuck to the river leading out to Sturgeon from Lindsay. We landed our limit within the first 20 minutes, a nice hand full of smallies, but nothing large. We kept fishing those rock piles, landing and culling our catches still in search of a few big boys. Eventually, Don had a nice 2.5 lbs largemouth which meant we were in business. Soon after we headed across to the other side of the bay and Don comes up big with a 4 lbs smallie. We had a few more culls along that end and we had ourselves a pretty good bag for the day. There was heavy heavy rain all morning , we were absolutely soaked from the rain. On our way back to the weigh in , we made one last stop along the river, 2 casts in Don lands yet another big largemouth around 3.5 and we headed in for weigh in. We turned out to have 14 lbs and big fish at around 4lbs which gave us 1st place and big fish award.
Second place was 11.5 , with a 3.25 lbs largemouth.
Congratulations on the win Martin, those are beautiful bass.
I’ve had an old fly fishing setup lying around for a couple months collecting dust. I’ve been out fishing several times, but never for more then an hour or two, so I didn’t bother bringing the fly gear. This morning I got up super early just so I’d have an extra hour or two on the water and figure it was the perfect time to try something new.
Let me start by saying this: Fly fishing is not as easy as it looks.
I’m not entirely sure what I was doing wrong, but my fly wouldn’t go any further then 20 feet. Before I head out again I plan to watch a few videos on youtube to sort things out. I think my biggest problem is that I was moving my arm too much. I didn’t catch any fish on the fly, but I did manage to get about 10 small bass on my spinner baits. I spent half the Morning at Albro Lake, and the second half at Lake Micmac.
I’ve been planning on taking my son Ash fishing for some, but the weather here hasn’t been very good until recently. He thinks my fishing reels are his toys, and messes with them constantly. I even have a couple of old reels that I don’t use anymore sitting in his toy box. Today was a beautiful warm day, so I decided it would be a perfect day for our first fishing trip together. We headed down to Albro Lake, which has been producing lots of small bass recently.
We got to the lake at two in the afternoon and I put Ash into a sling so I had my hands free to cast. He was able to sit comfortably in front of me and keep an eye out for jumping fish. We fished for about 25 minutes and I was able to catch 2 little bass, and lost one. Ash was very curious and was happy to handle the fish. He got upset every time I let the fish go because he wanted to play with them. I tried to explain to him that they needed to go back in the water to live, but explaining anything to a 9 month old is pretty difficult.
