Bas Report

[Scott McKee]

Bass fishing on the Niagara River was amazing when Bruce and I started spending some real time doing do years back. We would typically catch 50 to 100 fish during the course of a full day. It didn't matter what time of day we went or what the weather. Conditions were,; we would hammer them, both small and largemouth. Yesterday, we caught zero. The only action we had in five hours yesterday was something pulled briefly on my spinnerbait and Bruce had a few silver bass attack his spook. Rough day to day the least. What happened to the zillions of bass!? I use to think I was good at bass fishing. Now, for numbers, I'm better off fishing for Muskies.

[John Pensyl]

Numbers were definitely way down the 5 or 6 trips I did this spring. Almost nothing on the beds and jerk bait fishing was slow to say the least. Tons of bait but no bass. I'm sure the bass masters tournament this week didn't help your efforts.

[Scott McKee]

We watched a bass honcho with a camera crew and about 3 boats following him around the river for awhile. He didn't catch squat either.

[Josh Ketry]

I believe numbers are down but I did pretty well on bass last week.  I found two really big schools of them (when muskie fishing) and went back and just sat on them.  Once we got one to go the whole school went nutty for a while.  Chucking slash baits in like 12 feet of water.   

I will say that the average size was way down.  Lots of 2-3 lbers and none over 4.  

[Scott McKee]

Kevin VanDam, arguably the best tournament bass angler ever, only caught 11 keeper (12 inches) bass today. Dear God, Bruce and I are doomed.

[John Jarosz]

Good article in this a.m.'s BN.  KVD made a nice $10K for his win.  Just think, it could have been yours, Scott.  Well, you'd have to split it with Bruce (maybe).

New to the competition was an observer/judge on board each competitor's boat to weigh, enter and immediately release the entrant's catch.  The contest was also confined to the Upper Niagara's east river.  Will E will write a more detailed article in next Sunday's Outdoor's page.

[Stephen Glassic]

Wow. I wonder how they would deal with trying to get a steady reading if they are bouncing on the waves. Maybe the scale is equipped with software give an average between the high and low peaks?

[Scott McKee]

On the videos I watched they just eyeballed the measurements. Search Buffalo bassmasters...