A bass opener to remember! Pam Stewart and I teamed up once again to fish Big Bass Megabucks held on Big Rideau Lake in Eastern Ontario, which pays out for the top 3 biggest largemouth or smallmouth brought to the scale each hour. We fished this event out of my new boat, the SeaArk Flex 21 powered by Yamaha! This was only my second time having this boat on the water, having only previously gotten out the day prior to complete a couple of hours of break-in. I’m loving this boat already, it’s an absolute dream rig!
We decided to go for largemouth and opted to fish new water to see what we could find. On our way to our first spot, we ran into battery issues which completely cut power to my trolling motor. We tried to troubleshoot the issue for some time but it was already well past the official start time of 8am. We stayed optimistic and decided to just roll with it. I was able to salvage our day by driving us from spot to spot with my outboard and then dropping my Power-Poles to hold us in place! Pam picked up the first fish, a small largemouth which we released. Shortly after, she hooked into something BIG while throwing a stick worm along an outside weedline. After a brief tussle, a BIG largemouth jumped clean out of the water and managed to spit the hook! It was a tough loss, but exciting to see nonetheless! We kept the positive energy going and fished the area a little longer before making a slight move. I spotted a laydown along shore and poled down close by. I fished all around the tree without a bite but before moving on, I decided to pitch my jig into a nearby patch of lily pads. On the third lift, I felt the bite and set the hook into my first bass of the season and first fish aboard my new boat! In the video below, you’ll see the raw outburst of excitement when that fish came aboard! We ran the fish to the scales and it ended up weighing 5.10 pounds which secured us 1st place in the 5th hour and earned us $1,200!!
Thank you to Pam for another memorable tournament and day on the water together, as well as Rob and Kimberly Jackson who host this amazing event each year for us all! It was a heck of a way to kick off bass season and christen my new rig!
