Big Bronze, Bucketmouths in Store for Canadian Tour
Canada’s top pros make predictions for the 2016 FLW Canada season
Last fall, FLW Canada had the opportunity to host the first-ever FLW-sanctioned international tournament. That event – the 2015 FLW Canada Championship on Big Rideau Lake – was a resounding success and produced the first International Division qualifiers to the 2016 Costa FLW Series Championship on Table Rock Lake. Fern Campeau and Carl Boileau will fish on Table Rock this fall as boaters with a chance to qualify for the 2017 Forrest Wood Cup, while Ed MacPherson and Todd Waters will compete as co-anglers.
The excitement from the championship event has carried over into the first full season of FLW Canada in 2016, and a new crop of anglers is preparing for a shot at Cup.
To get to the top will require navigating a challenging road, beginning with three regular-season qualifying events and then the year-end championship. The two anglers on the winning team at the 2016 FLW Canada Championship qualify to fish separately as boaters at the 2017 Costa FLW Series Championship. Two co-angler slots in the FLW Series Championship will be filled by the members of the team that catches the biggest bass at the Canadian championship.
To break down the 2016 FLW Canada battlefields, I reached out to several of the anglers already signed up to fish this season. As for the championship, I’ll provide my own expertise on what to expect there.
Tournament No. 1: Tri-Lakes – Buckhorn, Ontario – June 25-26
by Spiro Agouros, Walmart FLW Tour co-angler and FLW Canada pro
Ontario is truly blessed to have so many beautiful lakes, but none is as unique as what you’ll find in the Tri-Lakes group of lakes.
The Tri-Lakes system includes Buckhorn, Pigeon and Chemong lakes, which are connected without a dam or lock system, making navigation from lake to lake very easy. This chain is also part of the Trent-Severn Waterway, a series of man-made canals, locks and dams, and natural lakes connecting Lake Ontario in Trenton, Ontario, with Georgian Bay and Lake Huron to the north. The system connects more than a dozen lakes in between.
Tri-Lakes’ proximity to Toronto makes it an optimal location to have the leadoff event of the FLW Canada season, as there are many anglers in Toronto willing to make the short trip to compete.
The community of Buckhorn will be hosting this event with festivities for young and old alike. Buckhorn is a special place. The people there want fishing events brought to the town’s waterfront, and folks there are going above and beyond to make FLW Canada and its anglers feel welcome.
Fishing on Tri-Lakes is pretty amazing, with the average fish weighing about 2 1/2 pounds. Of course, many fish weighing more than 4 pounds – both largemouths and smallmouths – could factor into the tournament too. I bet it will most likely be won with largemouths at this time of year, with a five-fish weight of more than 20 pounds needed to secure a win.
Each of the lakes in the system is filled with vegetation, wood, rocks and docks. Because of the variety of structure and cover to fish and sheer size of the system, Tri-Lakes will play well for both shallow-water patterns in 2 to 5 feet of water and deep-water patterns in 5 to 12 feet.
Tournament No. 2: Rice Lake – Bewdley, Ontario – July 23-24
by Ian West, FLW Canada pro
Rice Lake is located an hour east of Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolitan area. Love it or hate it, Rice Lake is a staple on the Canadian bass fishing tournament scene. The lake draws huge numbers of tournament boats every season and is one of those lakes where it really means something in your career to achieve a win.
Rice offers something for every style of angler, from the crankbait artist to power fisherman. It has it all.
Smallmouth bass have really taken over as the target for tournament anglers because five-fish limits of smallies can reach 25 pounds. But don’t kid yourself; when the smallies are off it’s a race to catch largemouth bass, and Rice holds many kicker bucketmouths that weigh more than 6 pounds.
Come July, the best anglers in Canada are going to have the chance to battle it out on one of the country’s premier fisheries. Will huge bags of smallmouths win it? Or will good old toad largemouths take the crown because of their more consistent willingness to bite? These will be the questions for anglers to answer if they want to take home the hardware at the second stop of the FLW Canada season.
Tournament No. 3: Lake St. Francis – Cornwall, Ontario – Aug. 27-28
by Scott Acheson, FLW Canada pro
Lake St. Francis is a huge body of water that is also part of the St. Lawrence Seaway system. It borders the provinces of Ontario and Quebec plus New York State.
With almost every species of freshwater fish, Lake St. Francis is also one of the best fisheries in Canada. In fact, as of a few years ago, the Canadian record for the biggest five-fish tournament weight was held by Lake St. Francis with a limit of more than 30 pounds. That record has since been re-established at Lake Simcoe, which produced a 31 1/2-pound limit.
Multiple techniques and patterns work here, the most common being drop-shotting with heavy weights in current, sight-fishing smallmouths on flats or fishing cane for huge largemouths. I believe that it will take close to 50 pounds for two days to finish first in this event.
I’m really excited for the upcoming FLW Canada season, with some of the best bodies of water in Canada on the schedule. This event out of Cornwall is going to be the deciding tournament for anglers hoping to make the championship.
A body of water this large can reward even the newest of angler with days that are only dreamed of, but it can also spit out the most veteran angler so fast that he’ll never see it coming.
The Championship
Big Rideau Lake – Smiths Falls, Ontario – Sept. 16-18
By Cory Banford, FLW Canada chief of operations
As it did in 2015, Big Rideau Lake will host the 2016 FLW Canada Championship.
It was at Big Rideau that I was born and raised. I’ve won many events there but have also been heartbroken by it so many times. It's almost hard to speak about.
This lake is like no other in the world. Any bait and any pattern could win on Big Rideau. It could be won fishing in 6 inches or 60 feet of water. It could be won by ripping or dead-sticking jerkbaits, or anything from topwater to a drop-shot.
Big Rideau truly rewards the angler that figures out the pattern as the tournament progresses. Just when you figure it out, for no reason it changes. Just when you think you’re skunked, five minutes later you could have 20 pounds in the tank. You might say it’s a lake that everybody hates to love and loves to hate, but I say that makes it a fantastic destination for a year-end championship.
Everyone in the field will be challenged, as they should be when the title is on the line. Four anglers will earn berths in the 2017 Costa FLW Series Championship.
Good luck to all FLW Canada anglers in 2016. This is the year of change and opportunity.
For more information, email [email protected] or visit FLWCanada.com.
