With the Northern Swing just around the corner, I’m thinking about fishing in very different environments than my home state, and I have to say I love it. It’s hot down here in East Texas, so every year when we gear up and get ready to go up north, I enjoy a break from the heat wave and the fishing is good too.
This time of year, it’s 100 degrees every day where I live. It can get hot up north too, but it’s not the same. I wear a hoody and flip flops early in the morning, and it’s mostly pleasant the rest of the day.
Of course the most significant difference is the assortment of tackle I take up north. For Lake Champlain, there’s a little bit of crossover with my southern tackle, but not much.
I recently went to my storage and took 80% of my southern tackle out of my boat. I’m always going to have a Snagproof Frog, flipping/punching gear, jerkbaits and some kind of crankbaits. Like, for St. Clair, I still throw a lot of big crankbaits like a 6th Sense C-15.
As far as mentally shifting gears, I can summarize my northern mindset by saying: There’s no taking your foot off the grass up north. There’s no “I’m gonna stop catching them because I have this much weight.”
I catch as many and as much as I can every day up north. Whether I have 20 pounds or 28 pounds, I’m still going to try to catch the next one.
For one thing, those smallmouth are really bad about moving on you. Especially on places like Lake St. Clair where they’re really nomadic. They can be thick as can be one day, and then the wind shifts and they’re completely gone. They swim off with the bait somewhere into the abyss.
Knowing that they can disappear like that, I want to catch them while I can. Second of all, it’s so good up there you just enjoy catching them. Last year on the St. Lawrence River, I came in with 24 pounds and no one even clapped.
You just have to catch them so good up there. You never know how much it’s gong to take to make the cut or to win the event. That’s why I catch as much as I can during the Northern Swing.
The good thing is I’m just as comfortable up north as I am anywhere else. After fishing the Northern Swing for four years, I’m feel right at home on these fisheries.
If I had to pick a northern favorite, it would be Lake Champlain. The mix of smallmouth and largemouth gives you a lot of options so you can catch them just about anywhere on anything you want to throw.
I’m heading into the Northern Swing in good position. I’m currently in the Bassmaster Classic cut, but I definitely want to improve my position as much as possible.
I want to win one up there, but my main objectives will be to stay consistent — get a check in each event and move up in the Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings.
And, of course, catch as many smallmouth as I can.
