Eastern Ma & New England Area Fishing Reports

[MassYak85]

Fished Brimfield Res. today with my dad. There was some decent activity in the morning, but it slowed as the day went on. No one else we talked to was doing well. The bass we did catch were on deeper weed lines a ways off the shore. Probably about 10 between us, and a ton of pickeral. I decided to give my 8" savage gear line through trout a fair shot today and fished that a few hours. I got two fish.....both pickeral. When I got an 8" swimbait catching 18-20 inch pickeral wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but oh well, better than nothing. I was actually surprised they were even able to eat the thing. They had the treble in the corners of their mouths which means that had to have had the entire bait in their mouth, which for a 2lb pickeral shocks me but I guess they can fit it. 

[Fishing Rhino]

On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 2:22 PM, JAB50 said:

Those d**n toothy creatures took a lot of my tungsten weights and 3/0 extra wide gap gammies this past week! 

I've found the solution to the pickerel problem.  I use fifteen pound test fluorocarbon for a leader.  The six and eight pound test line I have on my reels is no match for the toothy critters.  I make the leader about six feet long.  That allows me several bait changes before it needs to be replaced.

 

[JAB50]

I actually got snapped off by a few using 12lb flouro! But, I'm sure the line was already a frayed a little to begin with.

[MassYak85]

5 hours ago, JAB50 said:

I actually got snapped off by a few using 12lb flouro! But, I'm sure the line was already a frayed a little to begin with.

I use 12lb fluoro for most of my leaders and they almost always hold up to pickeral. Of course they are frayed so I have to retie after catching one but I rarely have one bite clean through. It has happened though. I imagine 15lb like Fishing Rhino said would hold up to all but the biggest pickeral. 

[Mr. Aquarium]

havent been freshwater in 2 weeks! been getting salty!  got a decent mid 20s inch fish saw some much bigger! kept folowing the lures but wouldnt commit. tons and tons of small stripers around! 

On 5/28/2016 at 9:16 AM, timcauliffe said:

If that was the reward, I would say forget it - leave them there 

It's just a couple Real Prey's and a Hudd. Luckily, I work with Joe at Real Prey, so they are replaceable, but losing them always sucks especially when you know exactly where they are!

d**n dude you work with joe thats really cool! his baits are awesome! but im shocked i havent stuck a biggon yet on it! 

[sd0a]

Hey everybody.  New to the forums, figured I would share a bit of a fishing report over my 3 day weekend.

Saturday morning, around 8:30am, I started at the ponds behind the Shea Memorial Rink in Quincy.  The Skyline trail passes between the two of them.  It is easily accessible and best of all you can fish 2 bodies of water pretty effortlessly.  I started off fishing the Northern bank of the southern pond.  I started off using a candy craw colored jig with a green pumpkin candy flappy daddy as a trailer.  No bites on that.  Moved on to a weighted 5" senko in pumpkin green.  No bites there either.  I eventually switched over to a weighless senko on a 3/0 hook and got bites on the northern end of the south pond and the southern end of the north pond.  No catches unfortunately.

I moved on to Noannet Pond at Hale Reservation.  I fished the Northen most point/banks for a couple hours.  I threw basically everything.  Spinners, crank, soft plastics, hard plastics.  Not even a nibble. One of the employees there said that the shore line to the right of me, which I couldn't easily access, had some decent sized bass.  I couldn't get any of them to bite if they were there.  Plenty of bait fish and bluegill though.

 

Late in the afternoon I needed to stop at Dicks to pick up some things for a little fishing I had planned for Sunday.  I took the long way home looking for waters to fish on for Sunday that I hadn't been to before.  I stumbled across Settler's Pond.  There were a couple of guys there one of which said a friend of his caught a 10lb bass here last summer.  This guy also had a bass on the line but couldn't reel him in.  I decided to cast a few using a texas rigged weighted senko and a topwater frog.  Neither got bites, but, I did see a couple topwater strikes in areas that I couldn't access.  I fished this pond from the eastern bank.

 

Sunday morning I fished this unnamed pond.  I caught a decent sized bass here previously on a spinner bait, which had to have been pure luck given all the lilly pads and heavy substrate.  This day I wasn't so lucky.  Throwing mainly the jig I mentioned before and a texas rig senko (weighted and unweighted) I had no luck that day.  I moved on after this, but, for the life of me I cannot remember where.  I do know that I didn't catch anything there either.

 

Monday afternoon I went out, despite being catchless the past 2 days.  I ended up starting on the western side of Reservoir Pond in Canton.  I used my previously mentioned jig and a 1/2oz brush hog to fish the weeds off to the left.  I had a bite, no catches.

 

From there I moved over to Ponkapoag Pond and fished the left side of the beach on a southern part of the pond.  Using mainly a jig and weighted senko I got no bites.  I did see a top water blow up, tried to cast a senk in that direction in hopes for a bite, no luck.  I also tried a top water buzzbait with no luck.  The most frustrating part of this outing was that a bunch of guys in a canoe end up fishing just beyond where I could cast and caught a fish just as I left.  Looked like a 3 pounder.

 

Finally,  I ended up at the north end of the twin ponds from Friday.  I threw mainly weighted/weightless senkos and a jig (in candy craw and black/blue flake) with no luck.  I decided to throw a spin bait just for giggles and discovered that I didn’t tie my braided line tight enough and watched that sucker sail into the middle of the pond.

So, that was my weekend.  Lots of traveling, no fish.  Maybe I need to get out much earlier in the morning to start catching things.  Not a lot of confidence in myself after going catchless for 3 days where as in the past 3 weekends I caught at least something.  Hope it helps everyone.  Hope others had better luck than I did

 

[MassYak85]

10 hours ago, Mike Dixon said:

havent been freshwater in 2 weeks! been getting salty!  got a decent mid 20s inch fish saw some much bigger! kept folowing the lures but wouldnt commit. tons and tons of small stripers around! 

d**n dude you work with joe thats really cool! his baits are awesome! but im shocked i havent stuck a biggon yet on it! 

I just ordered a 5" perch and a 7" pond shiner 2 weeks ago, super excited to get and try them out. 

 

@sd0a Welcome to the forums, sorry to hear about your fishless weekend, I think we've all been there experiencing the goose egg before. 

 

Also, do any of you guys ever fish the Sudbury reservoir? It's restricted to shore fishing and I've never caught anything huge out of there. Tried it today with a couple swimbaits and didn't get any bites. I did have a couple bass follow it all the way to shore, about 2-3 pounds. Probably could have eaten it if they really wanted to but they weren't really the size I was targeting. Anyone ever catch anything big out of there?

[Mr. Aquarium]

ive been striper fishing lately so not a total goose egg! 

couple of good runs last night! missed em again! d**n IT!!!!!  we got a lot of mackerel few pollack a couple skates! missed 2 good stripers! 

[MassYak85]

29 minutes ago, Mike Dixon said:

ive been striper fishing lately so not a total goose egg! 

couple of good runs last night! missed em again! d**n IT!!!!!  we got a lot of mackerel few pollack a couple skates! missed 2 good stripers! 

My dad and I went striper fishing in the connecticut river this weekend, but didn't get any, I think it's kind of late in the run and most of them have headed back to the ocean. We got a couple hits but none ran with the bait. We probably could have done pretty well on smallies but silly me only brought my swimbait set up to go for stripers so I was stuck throwing an S-Waver at smallies. A lot of interest but no bites. 

[Mr. Aquarium]

big smallies love glide baits!  ive done well with hudds on smallies! 

[Fishing Rhino]

Okay, guys, I'm back in the game, and the fish are biting.  Anyone interested in getting together, and trying an interesting, productive pond, I have an empty seat at the bow of my canoe.  That puts you in the preferred casting area of the boat.

If you want to know if it will be worth the trip, ask JG233.   

[MassYak85]

5 hours ago, Mike Dixon said:

big smallies love glide baits!  ive done well with hudds on smallies! 

I had a few decent sized ones nip at the tail but none wanted to commit unfortunately. 

I also fished the sudbury res. from shore yesterday with the new savage gear bluegill swimbaits. Had a couple around 3 pounds follow it in but they didn't bite. Anyone ever do well there? I'd imagine there are some decent fish in there considering you aren't allowed on it. 

Today I went back to A-1. Started off just to the left of the launch near some lily pads, managed 2 fish around 2 lbs on a t-rgged stick-o. Gut hooked one and for the first time in a long time had to leave the hook in and cut the line, usually I can get them out with that trick but not this time. Moved on past the island and holy crap....talk about weeds. I thought last time I was there was bad, but there were some thick mats this time. I've never seen it this bad, even at the peak of summer last year they weren't this thick in the middle of the pond. Tried a jig for a little while but even that was turning into a salad on every cast. Decided to tie on the frog to eliminate the weed problem but they weren't biting on that. The wind kicked up while I was out, and I also brought my outriggers for my kayak so paddling back to the launch was literally painful, with the extra drag from the outriggers, the thick mats of weeds and the wind blowing right in my face. Battling the conditions wasn't fun so I decided to call it quits after a couple hours, I fish for fun so if it is no longer fun I'm not going to stay. 

Guess I'm going to have to rig up a punch rig next time I go there, and hope they are biting on frogs. There were a couple guys in a small boat kind of in the area I wanted to fish (it was out of the wind, since I currently don't have a stakeout pole), but I figured I'd give them some space. Saw them haul in a couple decent ones though. 

Also, my real prey swimbaits came in the mail. The 5" perch looks AMAZING. 7" pond shiner looks great too. 

[DogBone_384]

On June 1, 2016 at 3:49 PM, Fishing Rhino said:

Okay, guys, I'm back in the game, and the fish are biting.  Anyone interested in getting together, and trying an interesting, productive pond, I have an empty seat at the bow of my canoe.  That puts you in the preferred casting area of the boat.

If you want to know if it will be worth the trip, ask JG233.   

I'm in. Name a date & location. I'll bring a 2nd kayak for another member who doesn't have one. Preferably smaller bodies of water, but any with good fish will do...

[JG233]

So @Fishing Rhinoand I had one of those days the other day.

We each caught over 30 fish--so 60 total with a couple of them over 5 lbs. Hell of a day!

[MassYak85]

7 minutes ago, JG233 said:

So @Fishing Rhinoand I had one of those days the other day.

We each caught over 30 fish--so 60 total with a couple of them over 5 lbs. Hell of a day!

SWEET!

 

I stopped by sudbury res again and to my surprise there were still fish spawning. I saw three fish on the same bed, and if I had to guess none were under 4. Of course they weren't having anything I threw at them but it was cool to see anyways. They were right up against the shore and had their bed next to a log. Only bass I saw spawning too, a couple smaller fish followed in a swimbait but weren't interested enough to bite. 

[JG233]

It seemed like they were in a feeding frenzy when we went out. Every single fish we caught had a gut from feeding. We could even see the tail of a smaller fish in the throat of one of the big 5 lbers.

[MassYak85]

2 hours ago, JG233 said:

It seemed like they were in a feeding frenzy when we went out. Every single fish we caught had a gut from feeding. We could even see the tail of a smaller fish in the throat of one of the big 5 lbers.

Bluegills maybe? I tried using bluegill swimbaits today to try and mimic some of the ones that were spawning but no luck sadly. 

[DogBone_384]

Anyone know the kayak fisherman that drowned in Silver Lake today?

http://m.patriotledger.com/news/20160603/dive-team-searching-for-possible-missing-person-in-silver-lake

[MassYak85]

3 hours ago, DogBone_384 said:

Anyone know the kayak fisherman that drowned in Silver Lake today?

http://m.patriotledger.com/news/20160603/dive-team-searching-for-possible-missing-person-in-silver-lake

No, I saw that on the news and was praying it was none of you guys. It's really unfortunate though. Do they know how the guy actually died yet? It seems like he just tipped over in deep water and didn't come up. If they are searching for his body I would guess he managed to get out of the kayak when it tipped, and just drowned somehow (maybe didn't know how to swim?). Sad reminder to wear a PFD though I guess, I know I'm guilty of not doing it sometimes. 

[sd0a]

Bit of a better weekend this past weekend for me.  Had about half a dozen bites and 2 catches.  I ended up at Town Pond in Stoughton on Saturday.  I fished it with a green pumpkin w/purple flake 5" senko and had no problem with fish biting on it.  Caught a couple bass, 1.76lb and 2.05lb.  Nothing huge, but, after a catchless weekend last weekend I was stoked to have them.

After that I ended up at Settlers Pond in Easton again.  I fished several places along this pond.  I started this first location.  After about 2 dozen casts and only 1 bite that I couldn't hook up, I moved on.  I moved along a trail that goes around the pond to 2 additional places.  Second location and Here. The pathway is a little bit overgrown but not too difficult to navigate.  Unfortunately I didn't get any catches here.  I did see a nice sized blue-gill at the 3rd location, but, didn't really bring a setup to fish for that on that day.  Maybe my next trip out I'll bring a rod with me to fish for that, possibly use it as live bait, who knows.

 

["hamma"]

On 6/1/2016 at 10:41 AM, Mike Dixon said:

ive been striper fishing lately so not a total goose egg! 

couple of good runs last night! missed em again! d**n IT!!!!!  we got a lot of mackerel few pollack a couple skates! missed 2 good stripers! 

try the storm 3/4 oz swimbait in the greyish color for schoolies, i kick butt with them. The white bomber 1 1/2 oz jigs with the trailer attached are a good bet too.

[Mr. Aquarium]

On 6/4/2016 at 9:02 PM, MassYak85 said:

No, I saw that on the news and was praying it was none of you guys. It's really unfortunate though. Do they know how the guy actually died yet? It seems like he just tipped over in deep water and didn't come up. If they are searching for his body I would guess he managed to get out of the kayak when it tipped, and just drowned somehow (maybe didn't know how to swim?). Sad reminder to wear a PFD though I guess, I know I'm guilty of not doing it sometimes. 

i knew the kid! my buddy and him were fishing, they were 50 yards a part. the kid yelled and flipped the yak.  he had braid on and we think he got wrapped in it! 

2 hours ago, Keith "Hamma" Hatch said:

try the storm 3/4 oz swimbait in the greyish color for schoolies, i kick butt with them. The white bomber 1 1/2 oz jigs with the trailer attached are a good bet too.

yea plastics have been very good as usual this year

[massrob]

21 hours ago, sd0a said:

Bit of a better weekend this past weekend for me.  Had about half a dozen bites and 2 catches.  I ended up at Town Pond in Stoughton on Saturday.  I fished it with a green pumpkin w/purple flake 5" senko and had no problem with fish biting on it.  Caught a couple bass, 1.76lb and 2.05lb.  Nothing huge, but, after a catchless weekend last weekend I was stoked to have them.

After that I ended up at Settlers Pond in Easton again.  I fished several places along this pond.  I started this first location.  After about 2 dozen casts and only 1 bite that I couldn't hook up, I moved on.  I moved along a trail that goes around the pond to 2 additional places.  Second location and Here. The pathway is a little bit overgrown but not too difficult to navigate.  Unfortunately I didn't get any catches here.  I did see a nice sized blue-gill at the 3rd location, but, didn't really bring a setup to fish for that on that day.  Maybe my next trip out I'll bring a rod with me to fish for that, possibly use it as live bait, who knows.

 

Where do you live?I'm from norwood and i know some spots that you should do well around here. 

[sd0a]

3 hours ago, massrob said:

Where do you live?I'm from norwood and i know some spots that you should do well around here. 

I'm in Stoughton.  If there is any place you recommend in the Norwood area, I'll give it a try.

[DogBone_384]

Went to Ponkapog after work yesterday.  It was as crowded as I've ever seen it.  There were three canoes and six kayaks.  Water temps were in the higher 70's and wind was light.  I used a Yozuri bass flavored topwater 'popper', 5" swim Senko, and my trusty gourd green Zoom texas rigged worm. 

It was a game show.  I backlashed more from my normally set & forget bait caster than I did when learning on my PQ.  I wrapped my spinning reel's line around both rods behind me AND hooked my tackle TWICE.  Lastly my spinning set up decided to go for a swim, though I managed to get it with another rod before it got out of sight or before I had do swim for it.

During all that, I managed a nice fat little 2 lb. 3 oz. Larry on the Zoom worm.