Smallmouth bass fishing on Ontario’s Rice Lake with the Outdoor Canada crew

When you have beautiful fall days here in southern Ontario like we did yesterday, there’s only one smart thing to do: get outdoors. So it was that my fellow Outdoor Canada editors, Bob Sexton and Scott Gardner, and I decided to get our KingFisher nice and wet on Rice Lake.

As mentioned in a previous blog, I wasn’t too familiar with Rice until last month when I went fishing there with National Pro Staff’s Dan Miguel and Rapala Canada/Normark’s Tom McMurray. We put a pile of smallmouth bass in the boat that day, as well as an incidental walleye and a 43-inch tiger muskie.

Of course, that one visit did not make me a Rice Lake expert, but I did learn a few great spots from Dan. And I’m determined to explore the lake even further. That said, when Bob, Scott and I headed out yesterday, you can bet we bee-lined straight to the spots that produced best my last time out. We were not disappointed.

Again, the magic bait for the smallies was the humble tube jig, although I also nabbed one late in the afternoon on a drop-shot rig. Funny, though, the fish were not as big as they were on my last visit, but they were sure scrappy and good fun on the end of the line. I also had two bite-offs, no doubt from prowling muskies.

All in all, it was a great day to take the office outside with the guys to take some photos for the magazine and practice what we preach in the pages of Outdoor Canada.