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[BobNWeave]

Hi guys:

New member here, looks like a great board and very helpful.

I am planning some spring smallmouth bass fishing on Vancouver Island and Saltspring Island. When is the fishing the hottest in springÉ

I was thinking of late May at St. Mary Lake on Saltspring Is.

Any advice for spring smallies would be greatly appreciated. Pre-spawn, spawn, suggested lakes and tactics.

Thanks to all!

[Rodney]

BobNWeave, welcome. In the past, we have done trips to St Mary's Lake on Salt Spring Island between mid June and mid July with good fishing result. The magnitude of our success is hard to be determined as we have never done trips during April and May when larger fish are known to occupy the top water column as they go through the spawning phase. Our success is mainly based on numbers, with a couple hundred fish caught per day, more if we really wanted to but at some point boredom does set in after so many fish. The fish are generally between 14 and 18/19 inches, caught mostly by dragging a tubebait near the bottom. If a school of fish is present, usually they would grab the bait as soon as it reaches the bottom. Topwater action in June and July exists, but most of the fish are small. I would think May is a good month to go if you intend to target fish on the surface. For more information, I would talk to Terry at Reaction Fly and Tackle in Abbotsford. He also carries tubebaits, etc that you would need for this fishery. Also, this is pretty relevant to this topic:

http://www.fishingwithrod.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=14170.0

Good luck.

Rod

[keithr]

This past May fishing was very good for small mouth in St. Mary Lake.  I caught a lot on flies, and on lures as well.  Fish shallow water.  When I was there in late June with a group Rodney (#1) mentions, I caught most of my fish on the surface then too:  baits meant to imitate a dead minnow, other things that floated and wiggled.  There are big bass in that lake.
There is a pretty extensive report I wrote on fishing there in May, in the Fishing Reports part of this site.

[Rodney]

http://www.fishingwithrod.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=10590.0