This past weekend my long time good buddy Shawn Johnson of Milaca, Mn was kind enough to invite Dave Koonce and I up to his cabin in Canada for a long weekend of fun and sun on some of Canada’s remote drive to lakes. Our target the entire weekend was to catch as many smallies as humanly possibly…and boy did we ever!
Day one Shawn hopped in with Dave and I as we fished one of his long time honey hole producers for smallies. For Shawn, this lake was well known for out standing numbers of smallies but the size was overall a little lower for what Canada is expected of producing. Going in with that in mind, we all grabbed our ultra-lights and heaved in about 200 smalllies that ranged widely from 6” to 18” taking top honors for the day. What a blast these fish are to fight for starters, but on ultra-light rod actions…even better! YUM Dingers and BFT’s Paddle tails seemed to be the best producer for the day with just about every color offered in these two designs catching fish.
Day two we decided to venture out to a new “virgin” lake just down the road from Day one’s lake. Never being on this much bigger lake, we decided to take a little boat ride to get a lay of the land a bit. Upon our arrival to the lake we realized that the water was ultra clear and there were lots and lots of fishy looking water for these spring time Canadian smallies. After the first hour or so of fishing and catching a handful of smaller males, we quickly realized that these females were in a pre-spawn state and they were positioned much shallower than we originally anticipated. So we shifted gears a bit and we proceeded to have some of the best smallie fishing than all 3 of us have ever experienced and these fish were MUCH bigger than the day prior. Sight fishing 21” smallies in 2-3 foot of super clear water was about as much fun as a guy could have without it being illegal! Together we boated yet another banner day for numbers of fish right around the 200 count, but many of these were much bigger! We tallied Day two with 3-21”+ monsters, 8 20”+ fish and plenty of 16”-18” to keep your fill. YUM Dingers and BFT’s paddletails and ringworms produced fish but as the heat of the day arrived, Jimmy D’s 1/16th black Riverbugs became a solid producer for those bigger females.
Day 3…..Without too much persuasion, we returned to the “virgin” lake. With overnight low’s in the low 30’s, the bigger females were a little sluggish as expected and took a few hours to get a little more active. By 2:00pm or so the bigger females had shifted gears and started to get aggressive and chase our offerings out of the area of their nearby haunts. With the bite not quite what it was the day prior, it gave us some time to take a break and have a shore lunch fulfilled with good company, great eats and even a few cold ones! By Days end we tallied close to 100 smallies with a handful of big bruisers once again!
What a trip…500 smallies in 3 days of fishing. For a guy that absolutely lives to catch these fish, I was on cloud “9” for the entire weekend.
I would just like to thank Shawn for inviting Dave and I to spend this spectacular weekend up on his family’s land. Truly a great weekend and I had some of the most fin fishing in a long time. Great fishing+great company+fabulous weather= Memories of a lifetime! Thanks again guys for great time!
Look for several pictures to follow.
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This last one is of us three taking a break for a candid shot of the afternoon shore lunch of brats and cold ones!
Oopps…. a couple more.
Dave with yet another nice one!
Another of Dave and a close up of a BFT’s precision jig and a ringworm doing the dirty work.
Man…thats as close to heaven as you can get Steve!
Glad to see Dave up there getting some R&R…If he wasn’t hooked on Bronzebacks by now he is! 
I am looking forward to hooking up with you later this year…How about a little info on the gear you used? I had a real tough time sticking big Brown Girls with Spin gear up on Chequamegon with YumDingers…but they LOVE EM!
Great Pics!!!
Awesome report Steve. It does sound and look like heaven to a smallie guy. Love2Fish.
Its just not fair!!!!
Nice Bronzies guys !!! Your getting me more pumped, I head to northern Manitoba thursday night for Eyes and Monster Pike !!! Hope we have your luck.
big g
Beautiful pictures! I wish I owned some land up there!
Great report!
Awesome! I agree with everyone else, it Does look like Heaven! Nice to see so much undeveloped shoreline, in addition to all those huge smallies.
Not enough lakes like that left that a guy can drive to.
Those are some brutes, those bronzies eat hormone induced crayfish or something?
Super!
I’m sure the memories will last for years 
It looks like nearly every pic has a Hugmongus Bronzeback
dave
The only way it could have been better is to have Koonce stay at home.
Nice report Steve and way to drop the 
on those big girls. Man I’m getting excited to boat a piggie like those. 
I am still in awe of the fish we got into. Alot of times pictures do not do justice for the size of these big smallies. I cannot wait to go back.
This is one of those lakes that I truly believe could produce a 22″-24″ beast in a week long vacation visit. Looks like I got some planning to do!
Tom,
Forgot to get to this…..
As for us, we got so used to playing the fish with the light action rods, we kept on using it for the bigger fish due to the fun factor. As for the Dingers….We were rigging them on a 1/0 and 2/0 bigger Gammie worm hook and rigging them either wacky style or with a split shot rig. We opted for the 6’6″ St. Croix Avid series spinning rod and medium sized spinning reel. I have been having lots of good success with the Shimano Stradic and Symetre reels for this approach. I jumped down to 6# mono versus the 8# that I was using in the river the week prior. My fishing this year has been much more finesse and have got away from the baitcasting rigs until the spinnerbait and topwater bite turns full swing up this way..(which I am told it is time!) I guess I enjoy finesse fishing so much that I prefer to catch these fish on lighter tackle versus broomsticking them out of the deeper timber.
I am a sucker for sight fishing shallow spooky finessed
smallies!
Steve,
Super FISH, WOW.
Jack..
Is it true Koonce put you into a Stone Cold Stunner until you gave up the last your beer supply to him?
After the swift knee chop to his left knee BrianK threw down on him last winter…..he had second thoughts on steeling the last of the Ol Labatt’s Blue’s!
Wow, that there looks about as good as it gets. Nice fish guys
Darn nice fishees…You suck…lol..KT
Nice fish Steve! Sounds like you guys had a awesome weekend. Last weekend will probally be filed in the front of your mental rolodex for awhile.
Nice Fish Guys.
Looks like a fantastic trip.
Well Honey nuts and Beer heck I have never tried that approach.
Looks like it worked well north of the border.
Slugfest sure sounds like fun.
Great report Steve. Memories for a lifetime.
Awesome fish..
Great fish Steve!
that one in the bottom left on the main post looks like a grouper it’s so big.
where in canada were you guys and are these lakes public??
we drive by a lot of beautiful lakes going to the english river every year and i want to jump in and fish some of them.
thanks!
Andy,
I have been sworn to secrecy on this one…All I can tell you that it was a drive to lake in Canada! Once you hit canada, you cannot miss it!!!!
I am sorry, both my legs would be broken within minutes if I said a word about this.
Fortunately there are so many good smallie lakes that virtually go untouched from what I have seen. First off not alot of people fish them in Canada compared to the walleyes and secondly there are so many lakes availible.
can you even say “ontario”? or is that too specific?
thanks anyway. i just need to give it a shot this year.
I wish I had a bucnh of time where a guy could go and experiment with all these lakes that are avail. What a treat that would be. Someday when I retire, I would love to take a month or two and fish a different lake every couple days.
Ha! Now you just gone and did it. I think your next trip to the Miss will be in Cement Shoes, you better hang low now. Shawn will be after your
You guys got any skin left on your thumbs!!! That is all I can remember from my bassin’ days on the BWCA. Big fish and no skin.
Great trip and pics!!!
Mark
Man Steve, lay off the details. sounds like your gonna get it.
Awesome!
your killing us normal people man…killing me
nice fish steve