markvan

Come to think of it, are the gazillions fish I’m seeing splashing around in the shallows actually herring? They look bigger and more slender than the pictures of alewife and bluebacks that I’ve seen.

Couple rough weekends, but had a lot of luck in the lower charles yesterday. Herring were spawning like crazy... how does that affect the bass? Seems like the adult herring are too big/fast for a lazy larry, but do bass eat the fry? I got a lot of practice at telling the difference between a herring splash and a bass swirl last night.

Finally broke my skunk streak! Hit the Nip for 4hrs the weekend before last, with nothing to show for it but a dink pick on a senko. Got skunked at Field Pond the weekend before that. Had a couple skunk nights on the charles throwing jerkbaits, spinners, senkos in between. But tonight I landed two 17-inchers on the charles, both on a blue-black jig. Surface temps 58-60 per sailing pavilion weather station. Been seeing herring around the museum of science and in shallow areas near the Longfellow for the last 3-4 days. It’s on!

The MIT Sea Grant made an awesome bathymetric map of the lower Charles: http://seagrant.mit.edu/charleschart/ If you use google maps on your phone, you can save the map to “my places” and use it to show your location on the map when you’re on the water; great for finding the deeper holes. It it looks like the Cambridge side, north of the Longfellow bridge, bottoms out at around 18ft... my guess is that the lazy larries are sticking to the deeper slopes near the holes until the striper muscle them out when it warms up. Does that sound possible? Any hope of catching largemouths on the <20ft deep flats, or near structure along banks, this time of year? Or do I have to brave the wind and get out there in the ‘yak?

Took a couple exploratory casts with a ned rig in the lower Charles at lunch today, caught a plastic bag and floating sneaker. Was trying to find deep slopes on the west side near Kendall, but probably didn’t get any deeper than 15-18ft or so. Didn't have my sonar, so no idea of surface temps. Is there a small thermometer I could keep in my tackle box, and lower into the water to estimate surface temp? I think we’re all going to be watching the temps closely the next couple weeks... I wish the lower charles bouy were operational, but it looks like it doesn’t usually start reporting til mid May. Also, first post! I started fishing a little more seriously around Boston last summer, and the trip reports and advice in this thread were amazingly useful. Thanks to everyone who contributes here; keep up the good work!