Eastern Ma & New England Area Fishing Reports

[JAB50]

Swamp hawgs,

what were you catching the schoolies on? I'll be on the Cape this Friday evening! Chomping at the bit now! Just bought a few new chronarch Mgl's and spoiled them up with 12lb flouro. Freshwater only reels. But, I'll bring one of my utility setups for some schoolies. We call it out grand slam/triple crown. We try to catch a smallie,largemouth and striper in the same day! And there hasn't been a year where we haven't pulled it off! 

[Mr. Aquarium]

jig head and plastics!   we caught a few yesterday too. a friend caught a 27.5incher in a different area. my biggest so far is a 15incher

[JAB50]

Nice! Thanks for the info! I have few keitech fat impacts that I might try using

[Janderson45]

We had a fairly decent day out on the Quabbin this past Sunday.  We were fishing right after a cold front came through and knocked air temps down almost 30 degrees so I had tempered my expectations a bit as far as the bass fishing went..

 

We got out from the ramp around 7:30AM to blue mostly sunny skies and air temps in the lower 40's, it gradually warmed up to about 55 degrees throughout the day, lots of clouds moved in and around noon time we were getting rained on and had a period of thunder and downpours.  Winds stayed relatively calm and manageable, so that was a positive.  Water temps fluctuated from 54 degrees to 60 degrees in the shallow cove we fished at the end of the day.  18 smallmouth bass and 1 yellow perch caught between my friend and I, biggest 5 smallies went 4.83, 4.2, 3.91, 3.84, and 3.6 -  not half bad... really wanted to break that 5lb mark but we didn't.  

 

lots of 2.5-3lb fish, they looked nice and healthy for the most part... no signs of spawning yet other than the 1 SMB we caught up real shallow in 60 degree water... but he wasn't even bedding yet I don't believe, just getting close.   

 

It took us a little while to figure them out.. there were some fish up shallow that we caught on jerkbaits but it was pretty slow fishing until we moved out a bit deeper and started targeting water that dropped off quickly from shallow water to 15-20 feet,  even once we figured out a bit of a pattern location was extremely important... one drop off we were fishing we pulled 9 bass up in about a 30 minute period.. we were both casting to the same exact spot and for a while it was fast and furious action.. if you weren't hitting this location precisely with your cast you weren't catching fish.   

 

Anyways, here's some pictures:

 

This was the lunker on the day..4.8lbs

 

 

4.2lbs

 

 

Same 4.2lber

 

Nice and healthy.. 3.84lbs

 

 

 

Third biggest on the day... sadly this was the longest in length we caught, but only weighed 3.9lbs.. if you look at the photo you can see why;  Someone gut hooked it a while back and it's actively trying to pass a senko complete with hook and fishing line.. fish was very skinny compared to others we caught.   We tried to help it out a bit but after trying to remove the hook decided we didn't want to injure it further, so we just clipped the fishing line off the hook and released it. 

 

 

A little earlier in the day when it was nicer out.. this was the cookie cutter size we were catching

 

 

And this was our final fish of the day, up in a shallow 60 degree cove.. Not sure if it was getting ready to bed or what... I expected largemouth to be inhabiting this area but we caught 2 smallies in 3-4 feet of very stained (for the quabbin anyway) water on topwater. 

 

 

Could've been better, could've been worse but all in all a fun trip.  I'll be getting back out there in the coming weeks as well... they should be getting more and more aggressive as the temperatures creep up and they start spawning. 

[JAB50]

Nice haul! Can't beat that with the type of weather you started out with

[DogBone_384]

Got out of work this morning, did my chores at home and beat feet to Seymour Pond in Harwich.  Launched about 12:30 is a steady 15 - 20 mph head wind.  Made for some tough paddling.  I started on the west bank where it was fairly calm and worked my way back across with a gold 3/4 oz. blade bait, a brown/orange hair jig, and a green pumpkin/red flake Hula Grub on a 3/16 oz Keitech jig head.

 

Got one hit on the jig but muffed the hook set.  I caught a white perch, roughly a pound, on the blade bait in 20' of water.  I thought it was a SMB when reeling it in. It hit hard and had some fight in it.

 

Nothing else for quite a time.  The sun finally broke the clouds and the wind died down some.  I changed the Hula Grub to a green TRD and caught a 3-8 LMB in 3' of water right in front of a downed tree.

 

It was getting close to sunset and I'd fished most of the pond already so I made my way back west where it was flat & calm.  I caught a 1-13 SMB on the first cast of a black/yellow Whopper Plopper.

 

I finished the day drifting back to the launch switching between the gold blade bait and a jointed 10' Rapala that looks like a smallie.  No takers.

 

All in all it was a LOT of work for just three fish, but I didn't get skunked.  I'll take it.

 

Water temps were 57.x - low 58.x.  Barometric pressure started @ 29.7 and dropped by 1/10 by the end of the day.

 

Gonna try Hinkley's first thing in the morning, then play the rest of the day by ear.

 

A big congrats to Janderson45 for a good outing at the Quabbin.  I'm gonna have to pick your brain about your 18 fish day to Tom/my 7.

[JAB50]

Nice reports! Keep me updated Dogbone! Two more days to go till I make my big run for the Cape from Maryland!

[Janderson45]

11 hours ago, JAB50 said:

Nice reports! Keep me updated Dogbone! Two more days to go till I make my big run for the Cape from Maryland!

 

Following the striper's up are you??  Great fishing in Chesapeake bay right now

[JAB50]

I live in Maryland. Moved down here 20 years ago for work! I do not do much fishing on the chesapeake. My coworker has a 25' Sportsman center console. He was a mate and guide on the bay. I need to go out with him! He's a pin hooker! Does the white marlin tournament as a mate on 55-65 foot Carolina style custom sport fishing yachts! 

[DogBone_384]

17 hours ago, JAB50 said:

Nice reports! Keep me updated Dogbone! Two more days to go till I make my big run for the Cape from Maryland!

 

Gotta do something productive with my Masters Degree...

 

I fished Hinkley's today.  It was nearly as windy as yesterday.  I worked the whole place, yeilding 6 Yellow Perch, 5 SMB, and AT LEAST a dozen fresh water clams.  The perch were good sized, probably 3/4 - 1 pound, and the SMB were 1 1/2 - 2.  No scale killers, but I'll take it.

 

I caught the perch on a gold blade bait, Mepps spinner, chartreuse jointed Shad Rap,  watermelon/red Rage Tail Menace on a 3/16 Keitech jig head, and a wacky rigged 4" perch Senko.

 

The SMB were pickier.  They ate the Rage Tail and a T-Rigged Zoom U-Tail in gourd green.

 

Water temps started at 57.x and peaked at 60.x in the shallows.  Barometric pressure was higher today at 30.1.

 

Fishing Rhino and I are attacking Long Pond tomorrow... gonna look for some Janderson45 mojo.

[JAB50]

Great review! Throw Texas rigged craw/creature type baits. Yum wooly bug,zoom ultra vibe or brush hogs. 3/16oz weight. Colors green pumpkin,watermelon and a shad/herring type color. 

[Janderson45]

@DogBone_384  I hope asking for my mojo at long pond didn't do you in... fished there 2 weekends ago and almost got skunked!  1 Smallmouth decided to cooperate on a chatterbait up shallow but that was all she wrote for the day..  Granted I was in my kayak and it was very windy... big water bodies early in the season with strong winds can be verrrryyy tough to fish out of a kayak as I'm sure you've experienced..  Anyways- hope you guys did well out there today.. I'm sitting in the office wishing I was with ya  

[JAB50]

Dogbone,

let us I know how it went today! I'll be up at 3am tomorrow making my 8 hour trek there!

[MassYak85]

What do you think the storm tomorrow will do to the fishing? I'm thinking of going out and have had some of my best days in some pretty nasty weather. 

[Chris186]

Anyone fished Webster yet? Know what the water temp is?

[DogBone_384]

6 hours ago, JAB50 said:

Dogbone,

let us I know how it went today! I'll be up at 3am tomorrow making my 8 hour trek there!

 

WENT?  The Cape was on lock down today.  Fishing Rhino and I launched at Long Pond just after 6:00 this morning.  By 2:00 or so Tom caught 4 SMB and 3 Yellow Perch, all on a gold Binsky.  None were worth the scale.  I threw the kitchen sink in the water and got one bite on a jig that I blew the hook set on and a couple tap-taps from perch on a 4" wacky Senko.

 

We split and went to a pond in Mashpee we've done well at.  After nearly two hours there neither of us got anything to the boat.  

 

Hamma met us at Long Pond and followed to Mashpee.  I don't think he caught anything either.

 

Long Pond's water temp was 55.x - 57.x and Mashpee was 62.x.  

 

Long Pond is BIG chunk of water.  I'd rather drive to Quabbin.  I've more confidence out there.

 

Luckily this was only skunk #2 for me this year.

[MassYak85]

3 hours ago, CD1542 said:

Anyone fished Webster yet? Know what the water temp is?

I was there April 23rd. Water temps were in the low 50's. Couldn't tell you much about the fish activity cause I got skunked. New weed growth was minimal at that point. 

[JAB50]

 Dogbone,

Thanks for the report! Hitting the road now for my long drive north! Hopefully, the bite changes! I'll be hitting about 6-8 different lakes and ponds. We'll see what happens.

[Janderson45]

Long pond harwich is tough Dogbone, don't get too discouraged.

 

Weather looks a bit all over the place this weekend, I'm thinking of fishing somewhere central mass this weekend where winds should be a bit more mild than on the coast... thinking of getting out in the kayak on Whitehall or A1 or possibly Webster.  Fishing Mashpee the next two weekends after that 

[DogBone_384]

I'm not.  Fishing Rhino and I agreed:  we tried, didn't like it, and would rather travel to Quabbin for smallies.

[JAB50]

Just got a little fishing in! Dogbone,

I was catching them off of beds! The largemouth were on beds at the lake I just fished. And I caught some blind casting. Tough with the rain and wind! It's going to be a long weekend and week of fishing for me. Trying to sight fish is going to be a pain in the butt. I crushed them last year when they were on beds but not to sure how this will play out!!

[Mr. Aquarium]

i tried a spot ive been dying to fish!  water felt super warm, pads are coming up. it was super windy. i missed a good fish on  a weedless 6inch swimbait.  pickerel were active had a few hit my swimbaits. caught one small bass on a 7 inch slammer. tried for some night bass with big baits but forgot my headlamp. so i fished a pond in a condo complex. had a good hit on a 9 inch slammer eel 

[MassYak85]

Went to Chauncey in the downpour for a few hours. Decided to only bring my swimbait stuff to try for some big ones. I got a halfhearted blowup on a lunker punker but I couldn't tell if it was a dink with a big stomach or a big fish just nudging it. Also got a nibble on a real prey perch but no way to tell what it was. Skunked. I'll be out again tomorrow, hopefully with more luck.  

 

@swamp hawgs I'm going to have to get me one of those slammers eventually. Only wakebait I really have right now is a G2 shellcracker but the thing is so noisy I feel like I'd have better luck with it in the summer. Do most of your slammer fish come on a slow steady retrieve or are you able to walk and twitch in in place? 

 

 

[JAB50]

Fish are either already spawned out on the two places I fished today. There were a few on beds still. But, they were males. My brother caught a smallie close to 3lbs. It was really long and skinny. Probably would've been a 4.5lb plus if it was in full prespawn mode. The second pond we hit was locked and loaded! We caught a ton of fish on creature/beaverstyle baits Texas rigged! Nothing to big though. Poured like a son of gun andvwindy too

[MassYak85]

4 hours ago, JAB50 said:

Fish are either already spawned out on the two places I fished today. There were a few on beds still. But, they were males. My brother caught a smallie close to 3lbs. It was really long and skinny. Probably would've been a 4.5lb plus if it was in full prespawn mode. The second pond we hit was locked and loaded! We caught a ton of fish on creature/beaverstyle baits Texas rigged! Nothing to big though. Poured like a son of gun andvwindy too

I'm pretty confused what stage the fish are in. Because most places I've fished had the shallows get into the 60's already, which I would think most of the fish would have spawned then, and I definitely saw plenty of males shallow, but haven't seen many actually guarding eggs. But some of the larger lakes also never saw the main body get much above the mid 50's. And now with this cold week I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm almost thinking we've got two groups of fish right now, those that have spawned and are just doing their thing, either eating up and recovering, and those that didn't spawn and got knocked back into a pre-spawn stage almost. Maybe not just a theory, what have your guy's experience been so far? Do you think the fish are mostly post-spawn right now.