Rene Pelletier and I hit the water for some mid summer smallmouth action. Rene is a well known Hook and Paddle Kayak series competitor and he is very good at it. It was interesting talking with him about the multi species approach the Kayak tour uses for scoring and kayaks can be a lot nicer equipped than they used to be.
We worked hard for our fish in the 30C weather and managed to put some decent smallies in the boat. It was a mixed bag of presentations as we tried to figure out what they would hit. Top waters, jerk baits, spinnerbaits and Ned rigs were all put to use during the day. The biggest fish of the day came on a topwater in the middle of the afternoon and she just smashed it...

I was short a guest the other day due to an incorrect weather forecast and Wendy bailed me out by jumping in the boat with Shawn and I for a day on the water. The big bite was much harder than I anticipated but we did get a few to the boat with a few more cutting us off in the rocks. There is a really healthy population of fat 14 and 15 inch fish which keeps you busy.
We were fishing in extreme heat and high winds in the afternoon and we had to really mix it up to stay on fish. In this lake the old saying “find the grass-find the bass” did not hold up to well. Some fish were on sharp breaks into 25 ft of water-no grass but lots of rock. I tossed a drop shot on a 7′ medium Zodias and Wendy was walking a ned rig down the break. We both caught fish.
The next stop was a shallow rocky flat that...

Backwater Casting made the trip to the Miramichi yesterday to tackle some Stripers. Fishing was a little tougher than we expected but we ended up putting some decent fish in the boat. As you can see from the pictures it was a beautiful day to be out on the water. Our highlight for the day was Rob hooking into a decent fish and Ron grabbed the net. When he scooped up the fish he had two of them in the net as per the pic, only one was hooked. I have been fishing for a very long time and I have never seen that before. That puts Ron up there in the category of “great net man” for sure. He sure did lay on the sunscreen as well. We also had the pleasure of running into Oscar LeBlanc and Dave Chong on the water while they were checking things out for the Striper Cup this weekend...

New Brunswick Sport Fishing takeoff in Nackawic plowing through the boat wakes of the 29 boats in front of us. Phil can drive with the best of them and that big Merc helped us pass almost everyone in front of us. We were in forth place on Saturday with an even 17 pounds and Sunday we had fourteen pounds for a 5th place finish. We caught lots of fish both days but could not find the big girls on Sunday. I caught most of my fish on both days with a Jackall ReRange 110 jerkbaitl, Stradic 2500 spooled with 10lb mono and a Zodias 7′ medium rod. Phil mixed it up a bit going back and forth between a jerkbait and a topwater. We had a lot of fun over the weekend and continue to be impressed with the overall quality of the upper Saint John River fishery. With only 2...

We started off our show season with a trip to one of everyone’s favourite fishing spots, Woodstock, New Brunswick. Our guest to kick the season off is Steve Delaney from EastCoastAngler.ca. Steve is a muti-species guide but I think he leans a lot towards those big Saint John River Striped Bass. Steve also does some custom baits and I particularly like his drop shot weights.
We started our day right under the town bridge in Woodstock and both of us nailed a beauty Smallmouth on our first cast. I was fishing a Jackall ReRange 110 to start and Steve picked up some on one of his own hand made underspins with a boot tail swimbait on the back. Something to keep in mind for another day.
We fished different spots in the Keg and out into the main river...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg8OhSQz4IY&t=39s

Our guest today is Blair Cox, we had a great day on the water catching Smallies and talking about his FishKids project.

Rick

We had the pleasure of fishing with Chris Brown for this show. In the photos are his first Smallmouth Bass, first Chain Pickerel and first Largemouth Bass. It was a warm, breezy, bluebird sky kind of day and the fish made us work hard for our bites. We mixed it up quite a bit with baits and presentations and Chris settled on an underspin Jackall Rhythm Wave swimbait on a 7″ Zodias with a 2500 Sahara reel and 20 lb Power Pro for a big chunk of the afternoon. I tried everything but the kitchen sink. As always on these unmarked lakes our Lowrance HDS Live helped us navigate through the rock minefield with saved trails and GPS marked rocks. This was my first time meeting Chris but it turns out I have been a happy customer of his business...

I can sure pick some great days to film on. We hit the water this morning with Amanda from the Minnow Tackle Shop in Fredericton. Our forecast west wind for the morning was straight out of the north and stayed that way all day and built in intensity to the point that we killed a 36v trolling motor by 330. We, I mean Amanda, started the day off by catching a ton of juvenile bass while I beat the water to a froth with almost nothing to show for it. She also picked up her first ever Largemouth bass first thing in the morning. We bit the bullet and took a bumpy ride up the lake and although we never got any big fish we did get a bunch of average size smallies which are always fun to catch. Amanda got to try out some different baits on a Shimano Zodias Med...

Ron and I were not able to get even close to the number of fish we caught on the same day last year. However we had lots of fish over the slot size which makes for some crazy action. Soft jerk baits ruled the day for us as we put 63 beautiful Miramichi Stripers in the boat. The water temperature at the Enclosure bridge was 59f at 4pm this afternoon. We were using seven inch soft jerk baits on a quarter ounce swimbait hook with the screw locks. The spawn has begun up towards Red Bank. Shimano 7′ MH rods, 2500 Stradics and 20 lb Power Pro did the heavy lifting. Ron and I both commented on the clarity of the screen with the new Lowrance HDS Live I installed last night...

For our second show of the year we invited Mike Holland, Minister of Natural Resources to jump in the boat with us. We had a lot of fun and caught some fish putting 44 in the boat from 730 am to 330 pm. We caught them on Sand Eels, flukes and a bunch on JerkZ’s from EastCoastAngler.ca. Make sure to get some big hooks for the JerkZ’s, they have some bulk and need at least a 7/0 .The Lowrance was great for showing us the fish and schools of them were swimming up river. It was tough to get them to bite but we got our share of them. Check out the show this fall and hear Minister Holland talk about some of the initiatives he is involved in this year. Our gear today was 7′ MH Shimano rods, 2500 & 4000 Shimano Stradic reels and 20lb Power Pro braided line and a 20 lb flourocarbon learder...