We wrapped up season four in Fredericton on the Saint John River. The city has a nice launch area and lots of parking on the North side of the river and we were one of only two boats on the water. It doesn’t hurt to go fishing on a weekday and have the river to yourself.
My guest today is fellow tournament angler Jeff Wilson who made the trip up from Saint John to fish with us today. As a vice president of the StonCor Group of companies, Jeff is a busy guy and I was fortunate to be able to get out with him.
Despite some hard work { fishing } our first stop didn’t pan out. The river is still unusually high for this time of year and the fish were not where they normally are because of the change in water height and current. We had to go looking for them and Jeff took the first fish, on a white Fluke, off of a laydown log that was just out of the current. I got the next one on a Silver Blue Fox, again on an area just out of the current. We worked our way down half a mile of shoreline and picked up fish on the slack water spots all the way down. Most of them came on the Zoom Fluke and the Blue Fox but Jeff picked up a couple on a tube as well. None of them were monsters but when you combine a tough river fish with high current they sure can put up a fight.
We decided to go down river a little bit to get into an area that had less current to see if the fish had started the move to their fall hangouts and I immediately got into one on a Firetiger DT6 Rapala. The fish were not stacked up yet but they were here. Over the next couple of hours we picked up a bunch of fish on the crankbait and Jeff’s Smoke / Melon Orange tube. Pretty darn close in colour to my favourite one as well. Most of our fish came from just off of the weedline that was about seven feet deep out to about eleven feet. Jeff picked up most of the inside fish on the tube and I worked a little bit further out with the DT6. Although I wasn’t hitting bottom with it they were coming up and smacking it pretty darn good. One of the things that surprised us was the health of the weeds. Still nice and green and a lot of the fish hanging in pretty close to them.
The day was not without incident with Jeff setting on a fish and the reel breaking in half leaving him holding the handle in one hand and the now unattached rod in the other. The fish was hand lined into the boat. I fixed him up with one of my Stradics and he was back in business.
We spent the day within sight of downtown Fredericton and with the exception of one boat trolling for Muskies we had the water to ourselves. No cost to launch the boat and almost no gas burned, it doesn’t get a lot better than that.
I was throwing the Blue Fox on a 6’6” medium action Crucial with a 2500 Stradic rigged with 15LB Power Pro. I like the medium action for throwing this light bait and the Power Pro gives me a solid hookset.
I was using one of my older V-Rods in a 7’ Flats model to throw the DT6. I find it has a soft enough action to throw the bait a long distance and still has the backbone to set the hook solidly. I was using a 2500 Stradic with 20lb Super 8 Slick Power Pro. The six pound diameter and smooth finish of the line let you really lay it out there.
With the shows done for the year and the tournament season over I get to go fishing without any pressure to perform. The fall is one of my favourite times of year to fish and with our extended season I will be out there as long as the weather allows. Hope you all had a fantastic summer and created some great memories on the water.
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