Well I got back from another awesome trip to Olive Lake. If you caught last season's Olive episodes, you'll know what I was in for! Day one was our bass episode - Olive is loaded with scrappy, good sized smallmouth. Drop-shot and shakey worm were the most productive, but like usual pretty much all our presentations caught fish. Karl caught two really nice walleye dropshotting a new prototype bait that I will be introducing at the spring fishing show. A lot of our fish were caught while spotting them on the Lowrance HDS unit, even in shallow water. Good electronics can certainly up your catch!

On the second day we went out for walleye, and it was a blast. We caught some really nice keeper-sized eyes, but the hightlight of my day was hooking into a nice 7-pounder! Walleye get a bad rep when it comes to fighting, but on the right tackle they put up a good scrap. I used my 6'3" St.Croix Legend Elite medium action with an Ardent 2500 spinning reel with 10 lb Spiderthread braid. I could feel even the lightest bite! Small 3 inch grubs worked really well, although several of the guests had good success with live bait.

After our experience on Olive last year, I couldn't wait to get there again. It's such a nice scenic and relaxing place. And the food! Mellissa had outdone herself again! Gourmet breakfast and then the best burger in the world - the Olive Burger! Thanks to Bruce MacDonald and his wonderful family for some more awesome hospitality!

I have two tournaments coming up this weekend - one on Glouster Pool, and one on Georgian bay in Midland. I had a really good pre-fish with smallmouth up to 4 pounds. Drop-shotting Slammers was the key. One of the fish I caught had a bait in its throat, and as I looked closer it was another Slammer! Another angler had hooked the fish deep and cut his line to increase the fish's survival. Goes to show you - live release works!

Until next week, tight-lines and remember live release!