nhbassin

I got on the water with a buddy yesterday in Southern NH and fished for about 3 hours. It was very cloudy with light wind and the water temp was 63. The first hour and a half we fished spinnerbaits, top waters, senkos and soft plastics on drop offs and rocky structure. With only 2 fish to show for our efforts, we decided to go to the opposite side of the lake and fish a large shallow flat that is covered in lilly pads and various vegetation. We ended up with over 30 largemouth in the last hour and a half, most coming on a chatterbait with rage craw trailer. Most were 11-13 inches long and none of the fish were over a pound and a half, but it was still good to catch a bunch. Has anyone got on fall patterns and caught any picture worthy fish lately?

The Nashua River may be one of your best options for a big fish in the Nashua area, and this is one of the best times of the year to catch large bass. I have had great luck with largemouth in the fall by throwing a chatterbait with a rage craw trailer (pictured below), on days that have some wind and clouds. That may help entice some of the larger fish for you. If you give it a try, make sure to vary your retrieve. Most of my good fish on this combo have come when reeling in then pausing to let the bait fall a few feet. Good luck.

I got out with a few friends on Sunapee last week for 3 hours of evening fishing one night and 4 hours of morning fishing the following day. Tubes and Senkos got us half a dozen smallmouth between 3 people, all of which were under 1 pound. Top waters, spinnerbaits and crankbaits were unproductive. We fished from 5'- 20' deep on main lake points, drop offs and some coves. It was painfully slow and I would not recommend for anyone to fish Sunapee without quality electronics. Even despite the lack of fishing success, Sunapee is still a beautiful lake worth visiting.

Thanks for the replies NHBull and Keiran. My buddies have only landed one smallie (on a strike king coffee tube) in the first few days they have been at Sunapee and I will be joining tomorrow to see if we can find a few fish.

I am joining a few friends on Lake Sunapee this week and hope to target some largemouth. The friends have rented a pontoon for the week, so it is not an ideal fishing set up and has no electronics. I am not looking for any waypoints or specific pieces of structure, but can anyone direct me to a cove/portion of the lake that is most likely to hold largemouth? Any help is appreciated and thank you ahead of time!

There is good access to the Charles river at the esplanade. Google it for directions and you will see that its easy to walk to and you can hook into multiple species there. If your a little west of downtown, Crystal Lake in Newton or the Brookline Reservoir are easy to fish as well, but you would need a short Uber ride to get there. Good luck.

Now that most of the bass in southern NH are done with the spawn, has anyone been catching them on deeper summer patterns yet?

I got after some largemouth on beds last week and managed a 4 pounder and this 6.6 pounder on a whopper plopper. It was over 21 inches long and had a mean belly! All of the beds I found were in 1-2 feet of water so it was pretty fun to hit them with a top water first for the aggressive ones, then picked off the finicky ones with a senko after. On Saturday I took a trip out on Lake Champlain with my buddy and despite multiple hours of heavy rain, we managed to get 7 solid bass each. Most fish were pre-spawn in the 7-14 foot range and we caught the bigger ones on tubes in current. The one pictured below is my new personal best smallmouth and weighed in at 4.1 pounds. If you ever get a chance to fish Champlain, I highly recommend it.

My 2nd (7.1 pounds) and 3rd (6.81 pounds) biggest largemouth in New Hampshire came from designated trout ponds. I would highly recommend giving it a shot, even though I am not sure about the rules for night fishing. Good luck!

Good to hear that they are on beds everywhere. I found a few good ones on beds yesterday and they wanted nothing to do with a green pumpkin senko, but were aggressively trying to push a black senko off of their beds. Ended up with one just under 4 pounds and lost a few others that were slightly larger.

Yesterday the water temp was 64-66 at a lake in southern NH and largemouth were on beds, so the spawn is on! I will be searching for big females after work today, which brings me to a question for everyone. Smallmouth will eat anything that touches their bed, but largemouth can be much tougher to entice. What are your go to baits for bed-fishing largemouth?

Over the next few weeks, it will be tough to beat the productivity of a jerkbait in NH! I purchased a few yo zuri suspending jerkbaits and the prism perch pattern and they look perfect in the water! Here is a link to them at Tackle Warehouse if anyone is interested. (http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Yo-Zuri_3DB_Series_Jerkbait/descpage-YZ3J.html?from=Google&gclid=Cj0KCQjw8YXXBRDXARIsAMzsQuUfMbHgiL07rx48_2DIH93d2YkDatcG3nm0EP1mK2ipwHXJUB7WNhUaAigfEALw_wcB)

Wow! That would be a heck of a bag in a tourney. Just curious, were the fish all on deeper structure still?

Hey NH guys, It is still going to be a few more weeks, but the ponds and lakes in southern NH are beginning to open up. What are the first baits you guys plan to throw this spring when targeting icy-cold largemouth?

This weekend I cruised around on a small southern NH lake on my buddies boat and the water temp was 61. There are still a few more weeks of good fishing left before winter sets in!

When I am in a slump sometimes I try to "keep it simple". Throwing a senko if there is no wind and a spinnerbait when there is wind is a pretty safe bet this time of year, especially with the bodies of water that you mentioned. Also, I know myself and others on this forum have had good luck using a keel-weighted rage craw in place of a senko if that is not producing for you. Good luck.

Google maps is your best friend in this situation. I lived in Alston a few years ago and by using Google Earth I found great shore fishing at the following places: Brookline Reservoir for Largemouth, Crystal Lake in Newton for Largemouth and trout, The Southern most point of spot pond in Medford for smallies, Quater Mile Pond in Medford for largemouth, Wrights pond in Medford for Largemouth, Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield for Largemouth, Horn Pond in Woburn for Largemouth, Field Pond in Andover in Harold Park State Forest for Largemouth. The list keeps going, but that should give you plenty of options. Good luck!

About 1.5 miles downstream from the launch is a dam that you can not get around, but due to that, the water is much deeper in this area then the rest of the Pemi so you will have no trouble navigating. Going upstream it gets more shallow the father you go. Good luck!

This time of year I have had my best luck by swimming both my chatterbaits and swim jigs at a steady/medium pace and the pausing so the bait falls of a few feet, before continuing the retrieve. Nearly every good bite I have gotten has been as the bait is falling. As KTinman86 mentioned, the spots you throw these baits should be flats near deep water where sunfish are present.

I document my better catches with photos, dates and weight. All around NH, from Plymouth, to Durham to Concord to Amherst, I have caught 7 out of my 10 personal best largemouth (all over 6 pounds) From August 31st-September 12th. All 7 during this early fall time frame came on a z-mans chatterbait with rage craw or rage rooster trailer (4), Spinnerbait(2) or a swim jig (1) with rage craw trailer. All were on either cloudy days or at sunset. Put in some hours on the water this week and let us know how you do!

My two cents about fishing drop offs with stained water is that it is tough to beat a z-mans chatterbait in bluegill pattern with a rage craw trailer. By counting the bait down once it hits the water, and retrieving it slowly with your rod tip down you can get the bait deep and it still gives off a ton of vibration for the fish to key in on in that stained water. I have caught at least 7 or 8 largemouth over 5 pounds in the last 4 years by doing this, and almost every one of them hit the chatterbait when I paused and let the bait fall for a second.

I did terrible, but my buddy who was fishing with me caught a big smallie offshore around some baitfish and he got two good largemouth from under docks with a jig. They were all healthy looking fish over 3 pounds.

I fished it around this time last summer and we were able to see schools of baitfish breaking the surface on the Western shore of the main lake, so we just chased them around all afternoon for smallies, and hit up docks for largemouth. I would assume the same tactics would be productive right now.

Ive had some night tournaments there for smallmouth. The lake is good sized and the water is incredibly clear, so they can be tough to find and even tougher to get to bite during the day. At night time, big topwaters in 5-20 feet of water worked very well for everyone ive fished with. Good luck.

The Merrimack River in downtown Manchester has good smallmouth, and Mill Pond/Nashua River on Riverside Street behind the High School in Nashua has good largemouth fishing. Both are very accessible from shore. Good luck!