Bass legend tests our waters

It’s early June. The waters in Rainy Lake are beginning to warm up, creeping toward the 16-degree C mark and spawning time for smallmouth bass. A good time to go after this sport fish.
Meanwhile, in another part of the lake, the warming trend has brought large northern pike from the cool murky depths and into the more temperate shallows looking for a spring snack.
Both are on Jimmy Houston’s hit list.
“It’s the first time I’ve fished this lake,” said Houston, host of the ESPN show “Jimmy Houston’s Sportsman Digest,” while here last month.
Houston was at Campfire Island—owned by Dean, Wayne, and Pat Howard—taping two shows. One show was to highlight the prime trophy pike waters here and the other to expose his audience to big bass caught in a cool Canadian Shield lake.
He had friends who told him about the superb bass fishing in Rainy Lake.
“I love to catch smallmouth,” Houston said, adding he had come to this area in the past to fish, just not Rainy Lake. He’d made the trip right past to Lake of the Woods and points north.
“It’s amazing to me there’s not too many people fishing this lake,” he remarked. “A lot of people have done what I did over the years—gone right past it north.
“And it’s handy,” he said of the lake’s proximity to the U.S., “though it doesn’t seem like it from Oklahoma!”
It was a 16-hour drive to get here from his home in Oklahoma.
While here, Houston tested the great fishing Rainy Lake has to offer—and wasn’t disappointed. Of three days fishing, Houston had more than two days of success.
“Rainy Lake is good. . . the quality of fishing is good here,” he noted.
While taping, his crew got some wonderful underwater footage of bass and Houston tied in to some 36- to 40-inch pike.
“The thing that really surprised me is the size of the northern pike,” he said. “That’s big northern pike, that’s all there is to it. Fish here grow slower than in the south, so that’s an impressive fish.”
He attributed the great fishing to several factors.
“It’s a combination of the fact the lake is big and has a healthy population,” Houston said, adding the rocky environment is good for the bass.
“There’s a lot for the fish to eat out there.”
But Houston said the best thing is the protected slot size for pike starting at 27 inches on Rainy Lake.
“That’s an accomplishment,” he remarked. “Once the pike reaches 27 inches, he’s home-free. When you introduce a fish to hot grease, they won’t get that big.
“It’s a tribute to the regulations,” he added. “It’s one of the big advantages of fishing here.
“In this lake, you could probably catch a bass any time of year on a tube bait,” Houston continued, though admitted he wasn’t sure the idea of ice fishing appealed to him.
“You fish through the ice here,” he acknowledged. “That makes absolutely no sense to me at all.
“Get in your truck and drive a thousand miles south,” he joked, relaying his solution to huddling up in an ice shack.
Houston, who has been filming a fishing show going on 27 years now and who owns six boat stores, the production company, and two travel agencies, lives for fishing. And he had some strong feelings regarding its future.
“I’d like to see barbless hooks. I’m a big proponent of barbless hooks,” he noted.
“We don’t fish barbless in tournaments, but I’d like to see it that way.
“I’d like them to become a staple on a lot of lakes and in tournaments,” he added. “We fish 100 percent barbless [at home].”
A side benefit of going barbless, Houston said, is that when you hook yourself, it comes right back out. And he added that with today’s chemically-sharpened hooks, the barb is needed less.
Houston has fished the B.A.S.S. tournament circuit for many years, though he does so less frequently these days. First and foremost, he has less time to fish tournaments with his businesses, filming 52 episodes of his show a year, and making more than 100 personal appearances.
However, he did allude to the fact he doesn’t fish more than the first six B.A.S.S. tournaments because after that, participation is on points. And because he won’t abide by the regulation of displaying a sponsor’s logo on his boat and person, he garners no points.
The circuit sponsor, Anheuser-Busch, requires that an angler wear a patch promoting the beer company on their jacket and have a decal on their boat to garner points for the year-end BASSMASTER classic tournament and Angler of the Year honours, worth more than $1 million.
Houston has a moral problem with that, but added that despite his issues with the beer-maker, they it has helped to increase the popularity of the sport. He merely won’t have anything to do with them.
But does that mean Houston will take in the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship?
“Well, we talked about it,” he said, not committing to anything. “I have trouble finding time to fish too many tournaments.”
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.