Late fall means iffy weather but if you like fresh air and big fish, it sure is a great time to be on the water. There aren’t many years when my boat is put away before the middle of November. Recently Hooked publisher Kevin Stobbe and I met with contributor Jeff Gustafson for a day on Lake of the Woods.
Jeff makes his home just outside of Keewatin, Ontario. It’s been an extremely busy year for Gussy, what with a move from the FLW to the Bassmaster Elite Series. Recent events make that move like a stroke of genius. Major League Fishing recently purchased the FLW and nobody really knows how that is going to shake out.
THREE CANADIANS QUALIFY FOR BASSMASTER CLASSIC
Meantime, Jeff got his big chance this year to join the Elite Tour without having to qualify. Also along for the ride were two other top Canadian pro’s, Chris and Cory Johnson. All three had great years, qualifying for the Bassmaster Classic in Birmingham, Alabama. This will be held the second week in March for the 54 anglers that qualified through various events.
Gussy finished 28th on the year over the course of nine Elite Series events spread across the United States. Jeff almost won at Cayuga Lake in New York State, coming up one big fish short of the $100,000 first place price. The money he received for second place, $25,000, went a long way towards making the Classic. Jeff says he put on 5500 kilometres in his travels, making about $95,000 in total money. Still, he says it is a tough slug, with close to $43,000 in tournament entry fees plus his travel expenses.
On this day we were looking forward to hearing about his adventures, catching some fish along the way. Our first stop was for black crappies. After two hours and just one fish, it was time to change gears.
LARGEMOUTH EXPERT
Switching over to largemouth, Jeff moved us to a shoreline point that had some weed growth. Gussy says this is becoming more and more difficult to find as the rusty crayfish in the lake continue to destroy habitat. While good for the smallmouth, for largemouth their fry don’t have places to hide after they are born, making predation so much easier for other fish. He says this has seriously impacted the population in the lake. Now most anglers just fish for the abundant smallmouth.
He’s on
As we pulled up to the weed line Jeff cast out a wacky rigged worm close to shore. He let it sink on a slack line, leaving the bait in one spot. After a pause, he twitched it a couple of times. Bang, fish on! Leaning into the fish, he got the largemouth over the top of the weeds and into the boat. Man, what a way to start, a nice plump two-kilogram fish to be held up for a quick photo and release. Meantime, Kevin had a fish on of his own, a smaller largemouth caught on a Ned Rig. For Jeff, these were to the baits of choice at this time of year. It showed as in the next hour we landed several fish from the same shoreline.
JUMBO SMALLIES LIKE NED RIGS
Next on the agenda were some jumbo smallmouth. To find these Gussy headed out to some deep humps. He said most of the fish at this time of year are in six to nine meters of water. For these deeper smallmouth Jeff started with a dropshot rig. Meantime he gave Kevin a small white swimbait, with a Mimic Minnow Jig head made by Northland Tackle. I was given a Ned Rig to use, which consists of a black jighead rigged with a ZMan Hula StickZ.
Because the Z-Man plastic floats and stands up in the water, it makes a great crayfish imitation. Gussy likes to use a 1/6 ounce jig, which is fairly heavy but will go lighter if the bottom is really snaggy. He most often uses a Z-Man Hula StickZ cut down about a half inch but Z-Man also makes the TRD CrawZ and the Finesse TRD, which is the original “Ned” bait. Gussy likes to fish these small jigs on a seven-foot medium action G. Loomis spinning rod, a 2500 sized Shimano reel, eight-pound Power Pro braided line with an eight-pound fluorocarbon leader attached. For largemouth, cast near shallow rocks or boulders and bounce the jig along the bottom. These baits can also be used for fishing deeper water by dropping it under the boat to fish you spot on your electronics, which is what we did for the walleye and bass on this day. Gussy ended up catching a trophy walleye on a swimbait..
KEVIN MAKES BASS DIZZY!
All in all another great day on the water with Gussy showing a variety of ways to catch these fish. He had eight rods ready to go with different baits. They included one with a big silver spoon that he uses for big bass in deep water. He caught three bass on this bait to our amazement. The most effective lure on this day was a white swimbait. Kevin caught 12 bass off one spot by just swimming the lure just off the bottom in a circular motion. Must of got the bass dizzy!