Eastern Ma & New England Area Fishing Reports

[DogBone_384]

I met Fishing Rhino at Long Pond in Brewster at 0530 and off we went. I hooked onto a pretty good smallie with my new 3/8 oz under-spin  that got unglued before I could get it on the boat (that’s 5 good fish that got off that bait).  Not much else happened there for the next couple hours so we packed up and went to Wequaquet.

 

Things were VERY different at Wequaquet....  For the next 4 1/2 hours Tom out fished me at 3 or 4 to 1 where his bass weighed in pounds and mine in ounces.  Tom had at least three over three pounds and one over four.  He sure took me to school today.

 

The weather was perfect all day.  Water temps were 72.x and BP was 30.4.

[DogBone_384]

I redeemed myself for yesterday’s poor performance at Ponkapog this afternoon.  Ponkie is a shallow, weedy pond with little structure change.  Finding the fish is really a game of hide and seek in the weed patches.

 

Today I found the right patch, right in front of the only rocky point on the pond and pulled up my personal best.  Unfortunately I didn’t have my scale with me, but estimate this fish between 5 and 6 pounds (maybe the membership educated in BIG bass can help based on the photo).  I caught four others, each around a pound.  I needed only two baits: a 4” green/red wacky rigged Yum Dinger and a T-rigged green/red Yamamoto Flappin’ Hog. The big fish ate the Flappin’ Hog while I let it sit on the bottom.

 

It was in the low 80’s with a fair breeze from the S/SW.  Water temps were 73.x and the BP was 30.0.

 

The weeds are starting to wilt, but the water level is low enough to prevent any topwater other than a frog.  T-rigs are your best bet.

 

 

 

[LadiMopar]

Hey nice going @DogBone_384  Can You guestimate length and girth of that fish?  Under the tools section here at BR there is a weight calculator. 

[DogBone_384]

Tough to say the girth, but my foot is 12”.

[Fishing Rhino]

Dogbone misunderestimates his mo jo.  The reason I caught more fish the other day was that I stuck with one bait that was working for me that day, a wacky rig.  Occasionally I'd try a Ned rig, but after a few casts it was back to the wacky.

 

While I was catching fish, Doggy was trying a variety of baits.  There is nothing wrong with that, and on some days that will work.  And when it does that one bait will last all day unless you hang it on the bottom, unlike going through a few packs of plastics.

 

A true test of mo jo would have been if we were both using the same bait.

 

Last year I was fishing with JE1946 in the same area.  I was casting the wacky rig and John was casting a long ten inch swimbait rigged weedless. After he caught three or four fish to my single, I "borrowed" one of John's baits, and voila, I began catching fish at a much faster rate.

 

 

[Jigfishn10]

@DogBone_384, glad to hear Ponkie gave a nice one up. I can't comment on the size of the fish, pics are always tough to estimate with and I'd hate to over or under estimate. I've seen some real escalating arguments on this site in the past with peeps guessing weights. It's too bad to, when you catch a nice one like you have, you should be happy sharing your excitement with your friends. For whatever reason there's always one who has to be the rain on the parade.

 

Beauty of a fish though...Congrats

 

I used the same deadstick technique this past weekend, glad to see the pattern is confirmed.

[DogBone_384]

39 minutes ago, Jigfishn10 said:

glad to hear Ponkie gave a nice one up

Thanks for the thumbs up.  My biggest scale confirmed is 4-12 and yesterday's fish was much bigger.  

 

Either way, I'll take it!

[Jigfishn10]

8 minutes ago, DogBone_384 said:

Thanks for the thumbs up.  My biggest scale confirmed is 4-12 and yesterday's fish was much bigger.  

 

Either way, I'll take it!

Imagine what that fish would have weighed around the spawn season!

[DogBone_384]

1 hour ago, Fishing Rhino said:

After he caught three or four fish to my single, I "borrowed" one of John's baits, and voila, I began catching fish at a much faster rate.

I'm too stubborn to do things like that ... it's the Irish/German conflict .... ?

[JG233]

20 minutes ago, DogBone_384 said:

I'm too stubborn to do things like that ... it's the Irish/German conflict .... ?

Or, what happens is you start fishing with the borrowed bait and then the bite turns off for both of you. 

 

I'd call that fish 5 lbs. You broke your PB. In the picture you texted me it looks kind of skinny? 

 

I saw some kayak tourney results for Ponkie from a year or two ago and multiple 5+ lb fish were caught, a few 4's too. 

[DogBone_384]

26 minutes ago, JG233 said:

the picture you texted me it looks kind of skinny?

Yes, everyone that made it into the kayak from Ponkie were skinny.  

[MassYak85]

Awesome catch @DogBone_384. Tough to say on the size. Judging by your shoe I'd say around 20 inches. Fish looks a bit skinny but I'd say around 5lbs.

[Mr. Aquarium]

yea I’d say the fish is about 5lbs long skinny fish! I bet there’s some senkos in its belly. That fish looks to have 6lb potential if it was a healthy fish. Always tough  to tell by a picture. 

[gjfisher]

3 hours ago, DogBone_384 said:

Yes, everyone that made it into the kayak from Ponkie were skinny.  

That pond has way too many pickerels that stunt the growth of bass. Nice catch!

[Fishing Rhino]

5 hours ago, JG233 said:

Or, what happens is you start fishing with the borrowed bait and then the bite turns off for both of you. 

Then I channel the dogbone in me and go beyond throwing everything in the kitchen sink at them.  If nothing produces fish, I'll try the kitchen sink.

 

All of these, plus a few that I gave to our neighbors were all caught on the same bait.  A six inch Rebel with a mackerel coloration.  Circa 1970  Caught in Cape Cod Bay on the west side of Jeremy Point, just outside of Wellfleet harbor.

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Aquarium]

Fish your confidence baits then if that don’t work pull out your inner Dogbone lol

[Mr. Aquarium]

Slow weekend of fishing. Yesterday went out pike fishing we saw some fish but they wouldn’t bite any of our lures. Finally got the only fish of the day in the bottom of the 9th on a live sunfish.  
Today went to Rhode Island and the cape for some albie fishing. Saw some at the first  spot at sunup  to far to reach with a cast. No fish until the last spot. We saw plenty again to far to cast. we had a few shots when they came close my buddy had to hits. The hunt continues. I need a 20lb pike and some albies!

[Dunks N Dinks]

@Mr. Aquarium Don't give up hope. The storm has the hard-tails a bit more spread out than in years past but I've had the best luck around slack tide in Nantucket Sound. Went out yesterday morning before the Pats game and ran into a couple blitzes. After casting plugs at them for an hour or two with only a few hookups, my buddy and I decided to set-up a mini troll formation (a few epoxies and a few plugs) and that made all the difference. Caught and released 8 or 9 green torpedoes in the two hours around slack   

[MassYak85]

Finally got some confidence back. Fished local both days at places I'm very familiar with. Got a few good fish each day, with a 3.2 and a 4.36. I kind of went back to basics and what I grew up fishing with spinner baits and weightless stick worms and it paid off! That 4lber was my biggest of the year by almost a lb. Which is a sad thing to say for the season but good to get my mojo back. Things seem to be looking up for the fall. 

[Mr. Aquarium]

1 hour ago, Dunks N Dinks said:

@Mr. Aquarium Don't give up hope. The storm has the hard-tails a bit more spread out than in years past but I've had the best luck around slack tide in Nantucket Sound. Went out yesterday morning before the Pats game and ran into a couple blitzes. After casting plugs at them for an hour or two with only a few hookups, my buddy and I decided to set-up a mini troll formation (a few epoxies and a few plugs) and that made all the difference. Caught and released 8 or 9 green torpedoes in the two hours around slack   

Thanks bud. It was my second time fishing for them. 1st time from shore. I’m an albie virgin. Any advice for shore albies? If you care to share some spots PM me. Thank you. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

heading down tomorrow afternoon and probably everyday this week. Saturday doing an all day trip. Sun up to sundown

[Dunks N Dinks]

Derby Report: Last Dance on Lakeville 

Also fished the second to last NEBassin team trail event on Lakeville Saturday. Needless to say, with the amount of fishing pressure the place receives, and the recent storm blowing through, expectations were skewed to the low-side. Compounding the feeling, conditions set up a bit challenging as well, with a full-moon / chilly morning arrival at the ramp (air ~52 warming to 70, water ~65) with forecasts for a 13-15mph blow out of the South in the afternoon. Fortunately enough, my partner pulled a #1 boat chip, so we had the pick of starting spots. Unfortunately, we didn't have much confidence in any of our spots lol.

 

Fast-forward 4hrs, and we had 1 fish for <2.5lbs in the 'well, having covered most of the horse-shoe canal in the northern-most area of the lake and a swath of the grass beds that extend from 4ft to 7ft in that basin. Scrambling for clues as the winds started to kicked-up, we down-sized and went ultra-shallow in a wind-protected pockets, skipping docks and bushes. Stumbling across a handful of active shallow bank-runners, we filled out our limit playing this pattern in 3 areas, but that only yielded us about a 7-7.5lb limit.  

After making several small ounce-worthy upgrades running up to about ~2pm, with time in short supply, we came to face a familiar dilemma; pursue the current pattern in hopes of better quality or switch tactics to target a different class of fish? After limited debate (lol), we chose the latter. My partner armed himself with a 6" thru-line swimbait, while I upgraded to a frog, and we went lunker-huntin'. We went predictably fish-less for the next 40 mins, targeting isolated reed-lines and floating docks...but with 20 mins remaining...things got a little interesting...

 

With morale quite low, we were pulling around a small rocky point in the mid-lake area with little intention of working that particular shore-line on the way to our next row of docks, when I pitched my frog next to an isolated reed stem and reared back on a fish. Having hit my bait the instant the lure hit the water, when the fish jumped, it revealed a single hook on the outside of its chin, which summarily popped loose in mid-air. In my frustration, thinking i had lost our only chance of an upgrade, my next cast was the classic into-the-wind backlash to end all backlashes. Throwing my rod down in disgust, my partner let out a confused "i think i got him???"...

 

What he meant was that he had launched his swim-bait back into the fray just beyond the reed-stem and hooked into another (or the same) fish from the back of the boat. Rushing to the back, i managed to barely scoop the swim-bait fish with an outstretched net just as the treble gave way from the bass' jaw-line. As my partner culled out a line-squeaker for his 3lb upgrade, i turned and saw a subtle boil about 50ft off the side of the boat near the bank. With my frog out of operation, i picked up his swimbait rod and plopped the bait just beyond the swirl. On the third crank of the reel handle, she had it. Racing left, then right, ending with a tail-walk towards the boat, up came a fired-up female. My my hands shaking, i eased her in close enough for my buddy to lip her (forgetting we even had a net in all the commotion). While in the heat of the moment, i would have swore she was 5lbs when she jumped (haha dont we all), she ended up weighing 3.45lbs.

 

When it was all said and done, we kinda just sat there and reflected on "what the heck just happened" and then came to our senses and zoomed back to weigh-in with a couple minutes to spare. Thanks to the last minute mania, we managed to cash out in 2nd place for the day with 11.53lbs. The winning limit was impressive, 14 and change (anchored by a 4.5lb lunker), while 12 out of 16 teams had limits (average limit around 7.5-8lbs).               
 

@Mr. Aquarium PM sent

[DogBone_384]

Had an afternoon off so I drove to Hedges for some smallie hunting. The weather was perfect, partly cloudy, a light wind from the N/NW.

 

Hedges is a normally clear pond, but today it looked like Gator Aid colored coffee.  I tried bright and dark colored treble hook and soft baits with one topwater hit off the north shore.

 

About half an hour before dark I landed a 1-6 SMB on a wacky rigged 5” green pumpkin/chartreuse Senko.

 

I covered most of the pond and really didn’t mark much.

 

Water temps were 75.x - 74.x and BP was 30.0.

[Jigfishn10]

Hey guys, anyone ever fish Fulton Pond in Mansfield?

[Mr. Aquarium]

Took an hour drive after work for some albies and Spanish macks.  Had a quick shot at albies and macks. One guy hooked up to a big albie! Saw lots of bait.  Albies and macks didn’t want anything to do with my lures. The quest continues for an albie and Spanish mack.  Did get a small bluefish and Black Sea bass 

[Mr. Aquarium]

I am so incredibly happy to have land my first Spanish mackerel.  I can check this fish off my bucket list.  Such a beautiful fish. I hooked into a monster albie! In a non conventional way. A live blue fish. I almost got spooled. I had 2 other hard hits on live blues. I also had a needle fish hit. Landed a schoolie and a Black Sea bass!