Practice Day 3

I haven't had a couple days of fishing this bad in a long time. Again today I wasn't able to catch a bass. Today was a little worse because I didn't even see one. On a positive side (at least I think this is positive) I saw a lot of boats today and didn't see anyone catch a fish. So at least that tells me things are tough, but I would still like to catch one.

I started off in Barrie this morning and fished a bunch of stuff I wanted to check out in the bay. Hit some deep drops, points, weedlines and didn't get anything but some perch. There were a ton of perch off the weedlines out there. Usually the bass will hand around the edges on the sand but if they were there today they weren't biting. Drop shotting a perch colored goby usually works well for smallmouth that are feeding on perch, but I wasn't able to have any success. I changed it up an threw a tube and some grubs for a while too and nothing.

At about 11am I felt like things weren't going my way in the bay so I decided to pull out and trailer over to the south shore of the lake where I caught those two fish last Saturday. I was back in the water just before 1pm and all my spots were packed. Most of the spots I wanted to fish had at least two tournament boats on them. This area was getting a lot of pressure. It is usually popular this time of year so I was expecting it. I idled around a lot this afternoon looking at my Lowrance most of the day for something just off the main structures. I found a lot of good looking stuff, just no fish on it.

They were calling for high winds on Saturday but that has changed and it looks like it will be a relatively calm day. However, it will be a wet one. Not something that is any fun when you aren't catching fish. Tomorrow is the last day I have to put something together. I plan to fish the south eastern side of the lake around Thorah and Georgina Islands. Hopefully there will be some biting fish around there.

Lawren

http://www.rapala.com

Practice Day 2

I made it to the ramp in Orillia at 7am this morning to find an inch or so of snow on the ground. I got some really strange looks from people in the park as I was putting the boat in the water. I can't blame them because after the day I had, I don't really know why I was out there. It was a tough, long, cold day...on the bright side I was able to eliminate a lot more water.

I started out around an area I am very familiar with where I found some awesome looking deep water structure this summer that I was hoping would produce this fall. I didn't mark a single fish out there. I fished and drove around until noon before seeing the first fish of the day. After fishing deep all morning and not catching or marking a fish I moved up on top of a main lake shoal. I was using a Rapala X-Rap with a custom tied feather treble hook on the rear. On my fifth cast or so with it I got a solid hit about 15 feet from the boat. It came off as soon as I set the hook. I got a look at it and it was a bass around 4 lbs. I messed around up shallow for another hour or so with nothing so I decided to move to another area of the lake.

This picture sums up my day. A lot of looking an no catching. I couldn't believe how many fish I was marking in this area of the lake, but nothing would bite. I highly doubt they were even bass based on the way they looked on my Lowrance LCX-38c.

Tomorrow I plan to launch out of Barrie and fish Kempenfelt Bay and some of the western shoreline. Hopefully it will be more productive and warmer.

Lawren

Practice Day 1

I was able to get out on Saturday for a day of prefishing and it was pretty successful. The fishing was extremely slow and I only caught 2 fish, but I took in a lot of information that should help me later on in the week. We launched out of Jackson's Point and fished a couple points near there for the first couple of hours. One lost fish after a few turns of the handle is all we had to show for it. The water was the clearest I have ever seen it. Visibity was 20 feet or more. We fished from 30 feet into about 12 or so on the first spot.

After no fish we moved down the lake and fished one of the few spots I had fished in the fall before. It took a couple minutes to find it as I didn't have the waypoint, but once we got on it, it looked a lot better than I remembered. Lots of rock and a significant depth change. Our first drift over it I caught this fish that was just around 5 lbs.

After unhooking this one, I cast my bait back out there and put away the scale and camera. When I picked up my rod there was weight on it. Checked it quickly to make sure it wasn't a snag and it wasn't! Set the hook and this fish actually felt a lot bigger than the last one. It was a longer fish, but not nearly as fat. This one came in at 4lbs 13 oz. Decent fish, but not really what will make a difference in this tournament. At best this is hopefully going to turn out to be a backup spot.

We made a couple more drifts on this spot with different lures and didn't get a bite. The water temp was 57°F which is around prime jerkbait temperature so we moved in shallow and fished some Rapala XRaps and XRap Shads for a while but didn't get any takers. All of the bites we had so far were in a very specific depth range so we focused on that for the majority of the day. On our way out to a deep water shoal the Lowrance lit up with arches over top of unmarked hump. We turned around and drove over it a couple of times and there were some specifically positioned fish on the structure. Fish like this are usually very easy to pick off with a drop shot rig. We fished it for a good while without a bite. Its frustrating when you can see them but they won't bite. That happens so much on Lake Simcoe!

For the rest of the day we moved around from 8-40 feet and didn't have much success. I don't think we even marked a fish on the Lowrance graph for the rest of the day. We ended up on Georgina Island to finish out the day and I caught my first Simcoe Goby.

I won't be able to get out until Wednesday again, but I don't think that is a bad thing. The weather is not looking good for Tuesday. Hard winds from the north, rain, and freezing temperatures. All week is not looking great weather wise, and tournament day looks like it will be a repeat of last year-Nasty. So I have 2 days this week to go over what I learned on Saturday and make a practice plan around that.

The wild card in this event will be if the lake turns over before Saturday. The odds of that are good if you ask me! Check back later in the week for more reports

Lawren

www.rapala.com

BPS Simcoe Open 2008

I just found out that my application to fish the 2008 Bass Pro Shops Simcoe Open was accepted. This tournament is going to be held on October 25th on Lake Simcoe out of Sibbalds Point Provinical park which is located on the south east end of the lake. I will be fishing this event with Greg Roth from Orono, ON. Greg and I teamed up to fish the Casey Cup this June which was held on Lake Simcoe out of Orillia. We came in 3rd place in that event weighing in 24.94lbs for our best 5 smallmouth bass.

In the Simcoe Open a limit of five pound smallmouth usually doesn't put you in the top 5. This late fall tournament usually takes a 5 1/2 to 6 pound average to win. The Canadian tournament record for a five bass limit was set in this tournament in 2006 at 29.90lbs. Last year it took 29.22lbs to win. There are some major bonus in this tournament should somebody set a new record of 5 bass weighing more than 30lbs. A $10000 bonus will be awarded to the team that can do that. Should one team break the Canadian record for the heaviest single smallmouth weighed in, which is currently at 9.84lbs, they will receive a $100000 boat and truck package from Toyota and Tracker Marine.

I will be able to get about 5 days of prefishing in for this event which hopefully will be enough to cover the entire lake. There is so much water on Lake Simcoe that looks good, but only small key spots will hold fish. I have never fished the lake this late in the year before so this is something that is new to me. I fish Simcoe a lot in the summer and that has hurt me so much in tournaments because I have so much water to choose from. Knowing a lot can hurt you! I am approaching this tournament with an open mind and that is usually when I am the most successful.

I have heard there is a good jerkbait bite on the lake right now in the shallows. I can't wait to try some of the XRaps and Husky Jerks on those fish. Jigging spoons are commonly used late in the year for deeper smallmouth and they could play a role. Rapala has come out with a new lipless lure called the Clackin Rap. This lure is basically a lipless crankbait with a chamber inside that produces a very unique clacking sound. I think this could be a good substitute for a jigging spoon.

Keep checking back next week for updates on how my prefish is going.

Lawren

http://www.rapala.com/