Opening Day - Bass Bonanza

With opening day being a week earlier on the Kawartha Lakes region this year, the bass were scattered through various stages of the spawn; pre and post spawn. The weather conditions on Saturday were changing throughout the day as were the fish. One thing for certain was that the bass were eating...big time! Catching close to 50 bass with best 5 going close to 20lbs, the key to our success was adapting to the changing weather & wind conditions. In the morning, the lake was flat calm & the fish were a little spooky if you got too close to them. As long we stayed a good distance away from the bass then we were able to sight-fish them & put them in the boat as they were definitely hungry. Most of the sight-fish we caught were post-spawn smallmouth feeding up shallow, mixed in were a few pre-spawn largemouth that were buried under docks, but were destroying the jig when they saw it. As the wind picked up and changed direction the morning shallow water bite slowed down. It was time to change gears, so in the afternoon we changed tactics & started fishing in and around the cane, grass & pads (aka "the junk"). We caught a good number of largemouth using various top-water 'frogs' as well as catching quite a few down in "the junk' using the Berkley Havoc Rocket Craw. All in all it was a great opening day with a few 4lbers thrown into the mix. Couldn't have asked for a better way to break in the new Fenwick Aetos rods, the Abu Garcia Revo STX's & the Phlueger Supreme XT reels. The lesson for the day is don't get too attached to one style of fishing or one bait as the weather & the fish can & will change throughout the day.