Working the Shallows for Lake St. Francis Bass

If you’re a regular visitor here you’ll know that there are many pictures of walleyes on this blog. To some this might seem strange because Lake St. Francis is, after all, known for its fantastic world-class bass fishing. I do fish bass from time to time and I was lucky enough to receive an invite from my friend Simon a few weeks ago. Fishing from a 20 foot bass boat is ideal for working spots slowly because these boats have a lower profile and are built with fiberglass rather than aluminum. The result of course being a much heavier boat. I absolutely love bass fishing from these boats (of course the 70mph ride to your spots is fun too). The platform in the stern area is huge and provides you with the feeling of almost walking on the water. You have tons of room and it’s as stable as a dock. The most noticeable benefit of these boats in my opinion is that the wind pushes you around a lot less. Even though I do have a great trolling motor with plenty of tork I feel like a dry leaf on the water in my 16′ Lund on windy days. Trolling or drifting sometimes become the only options.

Simon and I worked rats deep in cover that day but it was early in the season so the matted floating weeds hadn’t settled in yet. It made it a little challenging to find largemouth but I did manage to fool this hog with a soft plastic jerkbait, largely thanks to Simon who spotted him from the front of the boat. I thought it was very nice of him to take me out AND let me catch the biggest fish of the day. 😉

For the most part fishing was a bit slow that afternoon and I ended up crawling into one of his storage compartments to avoid the rain (Always bring your rainsuits kids!). It was still a great day. Although the fish were smaller than we would have liked Simon caught close to his limit of smallies and I had fun watching. All in all, a pleasant change from trolling and definitely something I need to do more often.

See you on the water! Jigger.