East Grand Lake

Early season Smallies

I have been boatless for a couple of weeks and was definitely suffering from some serious fishing withdrawal. As soon as I got one of them back I called my neighbor Bill and we were headed for the lake. Our choice of water was beautiful East Grand Lake on the Maine – New Brunswick border. Most of our NB lakes are somewhat stained and it is a real treat to fish crystal clear East Grand. The only down side is no charts and lots of rocks so don’t run if you aren’t familiar with the water.

We stopped on a main lake point that has a mix of sand, gravel and small boulders. The water temperature was up to 59 degrees so I opted for a jerk bait. I rigged up a Jackall Squad Minnow 115SP in Chartreuse Shad which is a great colour on a cloudy day. I tied it on a Crucial CRS-X63M spinning rod with a  2500 Stradic filled with 8lb Suffix Siege green mono.

I had never used a Squad Minnow before and let me tell you, it casts like a bullet. Bill rigged up a number four silver Blue Fox and a small white crankbait and away we went. The Squad Minnow was awesome and I really hammered the fish on it. Bill commented that I was catching more because of the distance I was able to cast with it and covered twice as much water as he was.

The lake was in a period where we had pre spawn and spawning fish around us and the strikes could be pretty aggressive so it was great fun. It was really cloudy so this was not a sight fishing kind of day unless we got in very shallow. We figured that the shallow, easily seen fish had probably been hit by every boat that went by so we stayed well out off the banks and worked a large mixed rock flat that extends halfway into the cove. This is a very large area and it took us most of the morning to work through it. The bulk of the fish that we caught were in five to seven feet of water away from the banks and they were chunky. We probably had an average for the day just over three pounds which is very good in our end of the world.

We moved to another similar flat in the main lake in the afternoon and there was a Caddis hatch occurring. You could see the bass come up and take the flies off of the surface. My thought is when they show themselves they are inviting me to make a cast and I am only too happy to oblige. I dropped the Squad Minnow right in the rings and gave it one pull to get it under the surface. About three or four seconds later I would be into a fish. I think I caught every one that showed itself along that stretch.

Bill picked up a bunch of fish on the Blue Fox and a few on the crankbait but the jerk bait was the ticket for the day.  Seventy one fish to the boat in seven hours. Gotta love it when a plan comes together.