Up next in 10
The Canadian Smallmouth Bass Story
2K views
Mar 24, 2025
This Fish’n Canada episode features Angelo Viola giving an in-depth history lesson on one of Canada’s most popular fish species, the Smallmouth Bass. As he catches a couple fish, he shows how they got here “way back in the day”. He then joins up with Pete Bowman on one of Canada’s best Smallmouth Bass lakes, and they proceed to try different methods to catch their quarry… including a couple of bonus Walleye. ► Subscribe http://bit.ly/youtube-fishncanada Don't forget to leave a COMMENT and give us a LIKE if you enjoyed what you saw. SUBSCRIBE for new videos and episodes released weekly! CONNECT WITH US -------------------------------- ► WEBSITE http://fishncanada.com ► FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/FishnCanada/ ► INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/fishncanada... ► TWITTER https://twitter.com/angeloviolafnc/ One of Canada's longest-running fishing shows, Fish'n Canada travels from coast to coast in search of trophy fishing opportunities. First started by brothers Angelo and Reno Viola in 1986, The Fish’n Canada Show has been on the air for over 30 years. Today, Angelo is joined by lifelong fishing buddy, Peter Bowman, and the pair continue to travel across Canada educating anglers using the experience they’ve gained over the years
View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:05
see if we can get them on active stuff
0:08
using your brunswick smalling i love it
0:11
i love it
0:15
very short fish
0:16
i've got lots of weight on them
0:18
[Music]
0:27
the fish and canada show brought to you
0:29
in part by
0:31
yozuri fishing lures fish the best
0:34
mercury outboards go boldly
0:38
and outdoor canada canada's only
0:41
national fishing and hunting magazine
0:45
[Applause]
0:49
whoa
0:52
there it is boys hi everybody welcome to
0:54
today's fishing canada episode
0:56
in my honest and humble opinion i think
0:59
you're gonna really like this one we're
1:00
gonna go deep into one of my favorite
1:02
species the smallmouth bass yeah that
1:05
would be uh that would be a male for
1:06
sure now granted there are some canadian
1:09
provinces that don't have the luxury of
1:10
such a beastly little scrapper
1:13
[Music]
1:15
there are however quite a few provinces
1:17
that do
1:18
british columbia for instance has an
1:20
abundance of smallmouth both on the
1:22
island as well as the mainland
1:24
very short even saskatchewan has a small
1:27
population of smallies in specific
1:29
waters
1:31
[Music]
1:32
manitoba although known best for its big
1:34
walleye pike and lake trout
1:36
has lots of lakes and rivers just chock
1:39
full of smallmouth bass
1:41
ontario has smallie lakes from the far
1:44
reaches of the north all the way to the
1:45
southernmost portion of the province
1:48
quebec is another canadian smallmouth
1:50
hot spot that water's cold from the
1:52
mighty saint lawrence and well into the
1:54
north there's no shortage of these
1:56
feisty critters
1:58
smallmouth bass were first introduced to
2:00
nova scotia in 1942 and finally
2:03
brunswick smalling i love it province in
2:06
new brunswick has what just may be the
2:08
fastest growing population of smallmouth
2:10
in the nation you know it's amazing how
2:12
these fish have caught on
2:15
so the question is
2:17
how did they get there
2:19
well check out what i used to think
2:20
before i was enlightened read about them
2:22
they originated out of south africa they
2:24
were not native to anywhere here in
2:26
north america and they were brought over
2:28
by some wealthy sportsmen
2:31
who uh who enjoyed
2:33
fishing obviously in that part of the
2:34
world and thought wow what a great place
2:36
to bring smallmouth bass and that's how
2:39
they did it with the railway now in
2:41
doing some in-depth research i found
2:43
that the origin of smallmouth bass was
2:45
in fact north america without question
2:48
this whole cornwall area is incredible i
2:51
love it when that happens and looking
2:53
deeper i discovered the very first
2:54
canadian distribution of adult
2:56
smallmouth bass took place in 1873
3:00
restricted to ontario in the great lakes
3:02
and down through the st lawrence river
3:05
by 1884 in response to public demand and
3:08
right up to the late 1900s smallmouth
3:11
bass were being stocked throughout
3:13
ontario as well as other parts of canada
3:15
as a cost-effective method of providing
3:17
food for local fishermen while also
3:20
ensuring recreation for tourists
3:22
this was done via the railroad system
3:27
phew at least i had that part right
3:32
for this first segment of the show i'm
3:33
hitting a classic northern ontario body
3:36
of water which ironically or maybe
3:38
luckily is located directly adjacent to
3:41
the cn railway tracks
3:43
for the remainder of the show pete and i
3:45
will be hitting a much larger body of
3:47
water
3:48
first off however i wanted to fish here
3:50
to show you how easy it would have been
3:52
for these trains to make this almost
3:54
inaccessible spot a drop off or stocking
3:57
stock while in route to their final
3:59
destination
4:02
a little small mouth
4:05
a little small mouth on cranks this is a
4:07
lot of fun especially these uh
4:10
shallow oh
4:13
shallow little back lakes
4:15
yeah little smallmouth
4:21
that's tiny
4:26
there we go
4:28
i'm fishing about three feet of water or
4:30
so um it looks like
4:33
one of our cameramen said it looks like
4:35
a little uh
4:36
man-made lake and it might very well be
4:38
but it's just one of the many lakes
4:41
that have got smallmouth bass in the
4:43
northern part of the province
4:45
and mainly because of that and with that
4:48
is the cn railway that runs all along
4:51
this north shore of lake superior
4:54
it is the apparently the origin of
4:56
smallmouth bass in this part of the
4:58
world
4:59
and they use the story goes
5:02
that they use the railway to disperse
5:05
bass they brought them in these big
5:07
uh milk containers and they would just
5:10
dump them over the side of the
5:12
train bed as they approach these small
5:15
bodies of water and just dump the fish
5:17
and let them go and that's why to this
5:19
day if you look at a
5:21
map especially here in ontario and you
5:23
look at all the lakes that that are
5:25
intersected by the railway tracks they
5:27
all have smallmouth bass
5:30
yes baby
5:31
i think in some of these northern lakes
5:33
you could drop i don't know a piece of
5:35
tinfoil on the hook to catch them as a
5:37
place we can buy a lottery ticket
5:38
somewhere
5:41
in some cases the smallmouth bass has
5:43
been unfortunately considered an
5:45
invasive species due to its prolific
5:47
spawn and ability to take over a lake
5:50
it's nasty tenacious attitude and
5:53
voracious appetite certainly don't help
5:55
its cause
5:58
once introduced to a lake they can and
6:00
most often do become the dominant
6:02
predator
6:05
as you fast forward to this day and age
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when you find a strongly populated
6:09
smallmouth lake and you're a smallmouth
6:11
bassnet
6:12
well you feel like you're in heaven
6:15
come on up baby here we come yes baby
6:20
love smallmouth i just love them
6:22
come on let's get you in the boat and
6:24
back out again
6:26
nice nice
6:28
nice little bronze back
6:32
i'm mined whoops
6:35
perfect
6:36
that's the way you let it go
6:39
got that one a little dead yeah i think
6:41
in some of these northern lakes you
6:42
could drop i don't know a piece of tin
6:45
foil on the hook and catch them they're
6:47
just so plentiful and a little lakes
6:49
like this one in particular where it is
6:52
really off the beaten path uh they they
6:54
get so little pressure that anything
6:57
looks like food
6:58
especially something like ned
7:02
i love it
7:05
i'll bet you the viewing audience
7:07
believe that pete and i are the
7:08
consummate professional television
7:10
anglers hello
7:12
welcome to the fishing canada show you
7:14
know the type where rarely a mistake is
7:16
made you were coming yes
7:19
right in my bottle
7:21
wrong
7:23
in fact we've had more mishaps than most
7:26
it's not always action and that's a wrap
7:28
as you'll see here in this next piece
7:30
where we accidentally drop a rod and
7:32
reel combo into the drink so you know
7:34
what's going on here i dropped about a
7:36
500
7:37
uh rod and reel over the side of the
7:39
boat and we spent the last 45 minutes an
7:42
hour looking for it there it is right
7:43
there oops sorry you're locked in
7:46
right there we found it with the active
7:48
view then we used the the garmin
7:51
sonar put the boat right on top of it
7:53
literally on top of it in 22 20 22 feet
7:57
of water god i could have caught it oh
7:59
yeah i just saw your spoon you're right
8:00
close you are close to it bro then just
8:01
started dragging
8:03
big hooks
8:05
lo and behold we got it there it is
8:09
got it boys easy
8:11
here he comes
8:12
yes
8:17
don't ever do that again
8:20
oh my gosh that's excellent we were so
8:22
excited we sat at the camera we didn't
8:24
even put a weight point over here oh i
8:26
have the rods right catch and try and
8:27
catch it we said wait maybe a waypoint
8:29
just in case we don't get it that makes
8:31
the whole day worthwhile right there
8:32
that's it that's what fishing's all
8:34
about you can't do stuff like that
8:36
unless you're out fishing let's be
8:37
honest about it is there a place we
8:39
could buy a lottery ticket somewhere
8:41
i think we're on fire i think we need to
8:42
go find happy hour ted yes that i agree
8:45
with
8:47
wait a minute i take everything back
8:49
that i said earlier as you completely
8:51
see we are constipate professionals that
8:54
is right my good friend peter hey don't
8:57
go away we'll be right back
9:01
okay that's a good fish too another good
9:04
fish
9:06
cause you
9:15
through time thanks to good fish
9:17
management
9:18
as well as very strong smallmouth bass
9:20
hatcheries this scrappy game fish has
9:23
become prolific cool
9:25
we've got two of them we're playing with
9:26
here
9:27
smallmouth bass is now one of the
9:29
strongest fisheries in the province
9:33
how cool is that
9:35
smallie yep smelly
9:37
on a swim eh on a swimbait that's a good
9:39
fish too another good fish
9:42
that's a good one he ate it look at he
9:44
ate it it's gone isn't it
9:46
does he got it in him
9:49
i don't see it bud
9:52
he's got it in it he ate that swim bait
9:54
it's not a big swim bait but it's
9:56
it's a chunk of plastic that's a big now
9:58
is that just crawling on the bottom i
10:00
was slowly dr yeah slowly reeling it in
10:03
yeah the tail was still working yeah
10:07
let's get a look at this guy that is
10:09
hilarious i want to see that it's a nice
10:10
fish look at that look at this ice cream
10:12
fish look at the swing bait bud gone
10:15
gone
10:16
look at this he ate it
10:18
look at this
10:20
just inhaled it that was just so awesome
10:22
because it
10:24
tells you that these fish are
10:25
so think about it
10:26
with baits like that not big no but it's
10:29
different and it works when these fish
10:31
are busting shad like we've seen these
10:34
fish busting the last couple of days
10:36
what better bait than a swim bait
10:38
kidding it's pretty much of a
10:40
a good little indication
10:42
i mean sure the bait fish is probably
10:44
some of the bait's probably bigger than
10:45
this but a lot of you're going to think
10:46
about all the minnows out there too
10:47
right yeah that's fish are opportunistic
10:49
perfect now yeah nice
10:53
yeah man yeah it takes forever to get
10:55
down without a light head i should go to
10:56
a heavier one but yeah we're just
10:58
experimenting just getting started
11:00
experimenting
11:02
yeah i'm throwing this big uh
11:05
this big this glider i guess it's called
11:07
a light bait yeah fly bait
11:10
big in europe uh
11:12
they're starting to catch on here in
11:14
north america but
11:16
no bill no lip it's a sinking bait
11:20
big heavy sinking bait
11:22
and uh
11:23
we're hoping that these big smallies are
11:25
on these these shoals and ledges that
11:26
we're picking off are are feeding on big
11:30
fat food as opposed to long slim
11:33
slender
11:34
shad type
11:36
and this could be i mean this could be a
11:38
perch could be a walleye it could be
11:39
just i mean the profile is perfect i
11:41
think for the other small game fish that
11:43
are in this body of water
11:45
and uh that's it that's that's something
11:48
we're doing when you look at this what
11:49
i'm interested about the fat
11:51
so this is where if i get five fish on
11:53
this and he gets none on that we're
11:55
gonna we're gonna go all profile like
11:56
this exactly he starts popping them on
11:58
heavy duty like that bye-bye to this guy
12:00
and we're gonna go fat bait like that
12:01
too so we're just trying to experiment
12:02
now to get things going here first and
12:04
we don't want to do the typical if we
12:05
don't have to do the drop shotting and
12:07
all that stuff we will if we have to but
12:09
if we can get them on other stuff we
12:10
want to have some fun too so we'll try
12:12
some carolina rigging we're going to try
12:13
and do a bunch of stuff over here so
12:16
bear with us
12:17
we're in experimental mode exactly i
12:20
love it it's fun
12:22
[Music]
12:25
oh a little smallie pete adam yeah
12:28
it's nice nether balls don't edible i
12:30
just saw a flash
12:33
that might be inedible
12:46
oh he's off good all right he's off
12:49
oh my god that's funny through your shad
12:51
shape you're well from some right yeah
12:54
hey what can i say
12:56
the smallmouth bass is also one of the
12:58
ultimate masters of escape
13:00
you'll never vote them all folks
13:06
[Music]
13:12
this episode's hot spot is a
13:13
medium-sized hump or sole on beautiful
13:15
rainy lake the waypoint on your screen
13:17
will get you there
13:18
rainey lake is a fantastic multi-species
13:21
lake however the smallmouth bass
13:23
population here is second to none and
13:25
the fish seem to be getting bigger and
13:27
bigger
13:28
this hot spot is among a series of humps
13:30
although smallies can and will use the
13:32
smaller adjacent humps this waypoint is
13:34
on the largest of the complex it pretty
13:36
much always has small mouth on it
13:38
dragging shad body plastics bucktail
13:41
jigs tube jigs or of course drop
13:43
shotting will all produce here use our
13:45
waypoint to get started be patient use
13:48
your electronics and move around to find
13:49
out exactly where the fish are located
13:52
for more hot spots like this one check
13:53
out
13:58
[Music]
14:00
fishingcanada.com walleye
14:03
you know that huge jig that i was
14:05
playing with this morning
14:07
yeah
14:08
that's my god look at this that is cool
14:13
walleye a little
14:14
walleye nice
14:20
on the swim bait on the swim bait like
14:22
he should be yeah that's so cool
14:24
think i can crank them i think so i
14:27
think so there he is do you got another
14:29
walleye let's lock it yeah lock that
14:34
maybe the walleye move he did
14:36
that'd be cool this is on that big jig
14:38
you know that huge jig that i was
14:40
playing with this morning the buck down
14:42
yeah no way yeah with a great
14:45
swim bait on the back of it
14:48
that's awesome oh this is nuts i want to
14:51
see what whatever eats that thing
14:54
i'm locked up smalley
14:59
that's my god look at this thing that is
15:02
cool
15:03
right back out there we're both at the
15:04
same area wow all eyes are smallies
15:07
we're setting that there
15:09
yep
15:10
is he pretty big oh he's a big
15:12
swallowing buddy hey he must be to eat
15:14
that mouthful
15:16
let's see i can't i haven't seen him yet
15:20
nice
15:22
nice
15:23
look at that bright orange in his face
15:30
oh
15:31
i just wanted to see what would eat that
15:33
bait yeah no kidding
15:36
look at him there
15:37
look at the way you see this load of
15:39
this mouth
15:41
yeah how cool is that
15:45
that's a mouthful of bright food right
15:47
there
15:49
i just put that together because like i
15:51
said earlier we're experimenting
15:53
i wanted to see what would hit
15:55
something this gotti
15:57
that is a huge that's a three quarter
16:00
ounce
16:01
lead jig head
16:02
with a
16:04
four maybe a five inch swim bait
16:07
attached to it it's a bucktail jig
16:08
basically
16:10
and look his smallmouth are hitting it
16:14
oh that is so cool
16:15
that is awesome i love it
16:17
did he clunk it did he smash it oh he
16:20
smashed it there was no and not only did
16:22
he smash it but he came back two or
16:23
three times oh really yeah he didn't
16:25
like it he you know what he probably was
16:28
mad at it yeah it could be you know that
16:30
is such a nasty looking bait
16:33
look at this thing
16:37
well as you can see smallmouth and
16:39
walleye have adapted very well together
16:41
in fact there are so many combination
16:44
smally walleye lakes in ontario then i'm
16:47
pretty sure it would be impossible to
16:49
count them all
16:51
and of course mr bowen he has to be
16:54
different
16:55
just kidding buddy
16:57
you got one in
16:59
oh a little deeper oh
17:02
oh it feels good
17:05
feels all right you know that that's now
17:06
with the wind
17:07
the wind the the drift the whole thing
17:09
could be a
17:11
but it's better than not having that big
17:13
pull
17:14
i i'm liking what i what i'm feeling
17:17
right now
17:19
look at the fish out here wow
17:21
there's stuff away it's almost like
17:23
they're sitting here waiting for
17:24
something to happen maybe
17:26
they're waiting for us yeah maybe
17:28
see ned is over there
17:30
let me know if you need it oh i think
17:32
i'm gonna need it for this fish by the
17:33
feel of things he's coming in inch he's
17:35
coming now he feels good i mean he's got
17:37
some fight to him oh he's there look at
17:39
that that's a lot of fish down there
17:40
buddy it's oh it's it's a walleye it's a
17:42
walleye oh my god
17:44
here he
17:45
[Music]
17:48
[Laughter]
17:54
nice work on a swim bait and a hook i
17:56
said i didn't even like this
17:58
macro
18:01
wow what a bonus this is cool man oh my
18:04
god buddy
18:05
yeah you need players probably to get
18:07
that
18:08
look at his cut
18:09
there we go got him
18:12
oh beautiful look at that
18:14
that's a perfect food for him right yeah
18:17
nice little minnow just oh yes sir
18:21
okay buddy what a great
18:27
at bonus
18:28
and
18:32
see you later brother
18:34
oh yeah power down
18:36
you powered down brother
18:38
ah nice how cool is that that wow and
18:42
that's northern lakes right that's
18:43
northern lakes you never know you never
18:45
know i hope you learned a thing or two
18:47
about the history of smallmouth bass in
18:49
canada as well as here in ontario i know
18:51
i sure did
18:54
we truly are blessed
19:01
to get to some of ontario's best
19:03
smallmouth bass and walleye fishing we
19:05
highly recommend sunset country
19:07
outfitters on campfire island on rainy
19:09
lake in the northwest portion of the
19:11
province to get there we drive north on
19:13
highway 400 to highway 69 and then head
19:16
northwest on highway 17. we stay on 17
19:19
at the highway 11 17 split and then turn
19:21
onto highway 102 at thunder bay we then
19:24
head west on highway 11 all the way to
19:26
sorting gap marina in the town of fort
19:28
francis there's also an alternative
19:30
launching or pickup point called five
19:32
mile boat launch
19:34
once at either launching area you can be
19:35
picked up by a camp boat or launch your
19:37
own rig and take a short boat ride to
19:39
sunset country outfitters on beautiful
19:41
rainy lake
19:43
the fish in canada show brought to you
19:46
in part by
19:47
ram trucks built to
19:50
serve princecraft votes dominate the
19:54
waters
19:55
garmin plot your paradise reel him in
19:59
and ontario canada in partnership with
20:02
destination ontario
20:04
[Music]
20:05
closed captioning not available
20:11
[Music]
20:18
[Music]
20:26
in canada
20:27
[Applause]
20:28
[Music]
20:40
you
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