I can still remember the look on my cousins face that early July morning as he stepped
onto the dock for another early outing for our favorite largemouth bass, Knee deep in the
water I smiled as I asked him if my coffee was ready. A late night of walleye fishing
had left me craving for my java fix before heading off onto the crisp clear water of
this now smooth Muskoka lake. 'What the heck are you doing?' he asked as I moved some
brush in the water lying close to shore. 'Experimenting' I replied as we headed back into
the cabin to fix my much needed double double. Without any more questions from him I had
gathered all I needed for the morning and started gearing up the boat.

Heading out twenty minutes later to one of our favorite coves we were already discussing which
type of lure each of us would use first in search of a trophy lunker. In the back of my
mind I had already formulated my game plan for the morning and said little about my
choice of tactics. I pulled a pumpkinseed skirted jig with a weedguard from my tackle box as my
cousin opted for a brightly coloured spinnerbait with a chartreuse skirt. Slowly moving
into the cove we dropped the trolling motor and positioned ourselves along a huge bank
of lillypads. After 20 minutes of casting and trolling the bank both of us were still
without a fish in the boat. My cousin reasoned that the lack of bass activity might be
due to a cold front that had moved in 48 hours earlier which didn't affect the previous
nights walleye fishing. Grabbing my lure from the water I rummaged through my tackle box
to find a white and silver flecked skirt for my jig. I carefully replaced it on my lure
and flipped it back into a patch of lillypads letting it sink to the bottom. The experiment
had started. With some slow cranks and a few twitches on the rod I commenced an erratic
retrieve when I had the first 'thump' of the day less than 8 feet from where I dropped
the lure. In less than a minute I had my first 6lb largemouth of the morning. "How the
heck did you do that?" asked my cousin. "Simple" I replied. I had done my homework that morning.

What I accomplshed that morning before setting out was to poke around the shore looking
for any baitfish or crayfish, anything that might be bass food to a hungry largemouth.
What I found under an overhanging bush was a dead cisco with weeds stuck in its gills.
A simple colour change of my lure skirt to mimick the same hues of this cisco was all
it took to put a smile on my face and a dumbfounded look on my cousins,

Do your homework, explore the shorelines before you go out on the water and don't be
afraid to experiment with different colours and stray off the beaten path with lure
selections. If you can find what the fish are eating then match your lure colours to
that baitfish or other source of food.