Largemouth bass fishing at Mijocama outfitter

For the 14th season in a row, I headed up to Mijocama outfitter for some early summer fishing for big largemouth bass. Giles lake is the main lake where the camp is located, and that is the lake we fished for 5 days. During that period, we landed over 50 largemouth bass between 2-4 lbs, as well as countless smaller ones, and hundreds of sunfish.

As I already have many blog posts regarding the largemouth bass fishing techniques and hot spots at Mijocama, I figured I'll make this post more about the pictures that are worth a thousand words.

15 year old Avi was captain of his own boat for the second season in a row, as Ari is out of the country and didn't come along. I partnered him with his 14 year old brother Levi for most of the trip. They fished hard, and hit my best hot spots on the lake many times, with some very good results.

 

 

  

Levi did well on Avi's boat, less numbers, but he caught the 2 biggest fish of the trip at 4.75 lbs, 3.9 lbs, in the mid 3.5 to 3.75 lbs range.

 

 

Eli and Chaya were on my boat for most of the trip, as we prospected for new hot spots on the lake, using our usual worm/bobber rigs. Results were good.

  

Not to be outdone, my 7 year old Chaya caught her share of big Largemouth bass with some help from dad, although she's getting a lot better at controlling the fish on her own.

We gave up the late evening bite on worms to try landing some on topwater lures. Possibly a bit selfish on my part, but there is nothing better than getting a nice topwater bite on a calm lake at sunset, and I was hoping to share the experience with my kids. Very few topwater lures have the slow / finesse presentation required for Giles lake, and over the year, the Rebel Pop R has outperformed every other lure we've tried. We landed one on the first night, nothing big, but way better than none.

The second and third nights of the trip didn't produce any topwater hits, but the bite turned on late the 4th night, and into the following day, with a few more smaller ones landed.

Finally, on the last evening of the trip they came on strong. Jst in time, as Chaya spent the afternoon practising her casting and retrieving technique for the Pop R.

 

With a perfect fairy tale ending, the last fish of the trip was a nice largemouth bass just under 3 lbs landed on the Pop R by Chaya. She was ecstatic, grinning from ear to ear and laughing out loud as the fish jumped and thrashed all the way back to the boat putting up a tremendous fight, with Chaya holding on for dear life. She did a surprisingly good job of muscling the big bass on my light topwater rod, and I landed it at boat side for her. As you can see, that bass was agressive, swallowed the entire lure with ease.

Aside from largemouth bass, we landed a few other species. Some small pike, all landed by Eli.

 

They also landed some giant pumpkinseed sunfish we caught sight fishing:

And last but not least, for the first time in 14 season at Mijocama, we caught a couple bullhead catfish, very rare to see them in Giles lake. They were circling in the shallows in front of our cabin on the last day of the trip, protecting their school of fry, and made for easy picking and lot's of fun on light tackle.

 

All in all, another great trip to Mijocama outfitter with my kids. There is good reason we look forward to returning every season.

Surprisingly, Mijocama has lot's of available space for both July and August this year, due to some cancellations. For more information on Mijocama or to contact them, click here.