Conditions: Sunny skies, 60’s into 70’s air temperatures, 78-80 degree water temperatures, light breeze for the wind
Couldn’t make up my mind as to where I was going to fish on this day so opted to stay very close to home and hit a small pond up. Typically I will run the shorelines and just try and catch the bank runners and typically these fish are on the small side. I wanted to catch fish in deep water on the structure that the lake offers. So watching the electronics as I idled around a half of the lake that I haven’t mapped yet, I came across a long underwater point that had some rock on top of it. There were definitely fish on this structure but you could feel that they were mainly panfish as they would nip and tug on the plastic worm I was fishing. After not catching any bass here, off to the side there was another underwater hump that came up to 4 feet of water from 12 feet on the deeper sides. Didn’t take long and I was catching bass after bass but they all were in the 10-12 inch length range. After catching a number of fish here I figured that there were no big fish mixed in and moved onto another location. The next location is another shallow hump that is covered in sand, rock, reed and lily pads on the outer edges. Caught a couple of small bass on one side and the other side there is a narrow ridge that runs out from it and drops off on either side into deep water. Hit one area of this ridge and was catching fish after fish but the same size as all of the other locations. As I moved further out on this ridge, I came to a spot that was still catching the smaller fish but then there was a solid fish on and the battle commenced. After running all around the front and to the back of the boat, finally was able to land a nice 2.5 pound largemouth bass. I was catching all of these fish on a 4 inch French fry style worm in a dark watermelon purple color pattern. Took a couple of pictures and released it back into the water. A few casts later once again I set the hook into another solid fish and this one was a bit bigger but was very thin with a big head and had many war scars on it as well as you could see it has been around for quite some time. This fish fought just as hard as the previous one and now I was getting very excited as it has been a while since I have been able to locate quality fish on this lake. Another few casts went by and bam, another huge fish was on my line and this one was definitely a lot bigger than the previous ones. This one would come to the surface but was so big that it couldn’t get itself out of the water to try and shake the hook. Once I finally was able to handle the fish, it was this biggest one of my season so far. Not sure it would have gone 5 pounds but it was a short and fat toad. After catching these three fish in the last 15 minutes, it was getting a bit exhausting. I fished the area for a while longer but there were getting to be a lot of boat traffic and the bite, even the small fish, seemed to shutdown at this point. It was getting late morning and I only wanted to fish for a few hours so with three good fish out of the 30 or so caught, my day was quite fulfilled. The one thing that I did notice was that none of these fish were aggressively attacking the plastic worm. Instead, they were just there when you went to move it and you would sweep the rod and set the hook. It was a great trip out and I am really working my electronics this year and I am learning a lot more about the bodies of waters that I am fishing. Everything is getting marked on the electronics and this winter this information will be transferred to a hand held gps unit and will put us into the right areas for the coming ice fishing season.
Our next trip we don’t know yet where you will find us but where ever it may be I hope that the fish are in the biting mood...so until next time may your lines are TIGHT and you have a…FISH ON....
Conditions: Sunny skies, upper 70’s air temperatures, water temperatures ranged from 74-77 degrees and little wind to speak of
This particular lake we generally fish only in the spring and fall as it gets very busy from the pleasure boaters and water skiers. By fishing in the spring we are able to find the fish getting ready to do their spawning activity and allowing you to catch a better quality fish. Fishing here in the fall it is the opposite situation and these fish are feeding heavily for the upcoming winter and you are still able to catch a better quality type of fish as well. Plus with the Lowrance electronics that we are running now it is allowing us to search and locate fish much differently and this is giving us better opportunities at catching fish in locations that we didn’t even know existed. Wasn’t on the water very long and the water skiers were already running all over the lake. As we would idle around and watch the locator we would mark locations that fish were stacked on and come back to the a bit later to fish. Was having a similar problem that would go back and fish those marked locations but wasn’t able to get the fish to bite. They were there but there was no aggressive feeding going on at all. So ended up going back to the old reliable shallow running crankbait and cast to the shoreline weeds in search of fish. Fishing the shoreline weeds produced fish in a variety of locations and was catching largemouth bass, perch, sunfish and pickerel as well. Never was able to find any large fish but all in all the day didn’t turn out to bad. By noon though there were getting so many boaters and skiers on the lake that we just needed to get off.
The last two days didn’t really turn out the way that I had hoped they would but was still able to put fish into the boat…have a number of days on the water coming soon and may find us way up into New Hampshire again on a lake that we haven’t been to since giving up tournament fishing…so until next time may your lines be TIGHT and may you have a FISH ON….
Conditions: Sunny skies, mid 80’s air temperatures, water temperatures ranged from 69-75 degrees and winds got breezier as the day went along
Decided to head for New Hampshire and fish a lake that we have never seen or fished before. Located one on the map that is supposed to have a good population of largemouth and smallmouth bass and the trip was planned. Looking over this body of water it is a damned reservoir that has some good flow going through it. Near the dam the water is deep and can get to 50 feet deep but on the opposite end where the river comes in, there is a lot of shallow water with and without weed cover. So headed to that end and use the electronics to try and find some active biting fish. Was different type of fishing as either it is deep or very shallow and haven’t fished in this kind of water before. On the Lowrance Elite 7 HDI I was marking fish and coming back to those locations to try and get them going but for all of the places that we were marking them, I was not able to get anything to bite. Plastic worms didn’t seem to be the ticket as well as they were fished deep and shallow and didn’t get a bite on them as well. So stuck to the shallow running crankbait and covered as much water as I could and that did produce crappie and largemouth bass. Not the numbers that we were looking for but at least we were catching some fish. I was able to take the boat up into the incoming river and look for some smallmouth bass as the water temperatures were 5-8 degrees color and there was a good flow rate of water happening. Worked both sides shorelines and also in the eddies from where the river met the reservoir but was only able to catch perch and pickerel. After being disappointed not finding the fish where I thought they would be, went back down the reservoir on the opposite side and tried the same thing for marking fish on the electronics but it just wasn’t happening. The pleasure boaters were starting to come out more in force and since there were not a lot of shallower waters to fish, decided to call it a trip.
Was really hoping to find some good fish at this lake but that happens when searching new lakes and that is always the fun part about trying to figure out new water…tomorrow will find us back in Massachusetts at a local lake and typically only fish here in the spring and fall so will see what can be caught…until next time may your lines be TIGHT and may you have a FISH ON….
