Eastern Ma & New England Area Fishing Reports

[BR1AN]

On 4/1/2020 at 12:12 PM, Brian Jackson said:

The one time my son and I went we caught a handful of crappie and what would have been a pin size pickerel for my son had I known about the pin program in MA. No bass unfortunately, but it was a really windy, rough, rainy day. But when you get to fish, you got to go fishing. 

 

Brian

I just like the look of it from the parking area. Its got all the standing weeds around.. looks like a fun small boat place.

[BR1AN]

Finally got my own boat to play with! $200 no leaks or patches. Took the wood out from the previous owner because d**n he went overboard. Bought a couple folded seats, gonna give it a nice paint job. I don't need much.

[Mr. Aquarium]

Nice boAt. Congrats 

[Dunks N Dinks]

FYI hearing all tourney permits are cancelled thru May 4th

[QuabbinDude]

1 hour ago, Dunks N Dinks said:

FYI hearing all tourney permits are cancelled thru May 4th

They are. Saw it on DEP's website this morning. Also mentioned all gatherings >10. I hope people don't try to do some pick up tournaments or folks start getting itchy and boat ramps get clogged up. They will just close all the ramps. 

[Dunks N Dinks]

Gotta a hold of a couple brown popsicles in the crazy wind today. Tucked into a lil cove on Sheeps and found three smallies chillin in 8ft near a rock pile. They all ate a shad-rap style bait on the a long pause.

[JQ-92]

Caught a good one today on a jerkbait. 

[MassYak85]

On 4/3/2020 at 11:12 AM, QuabbinDude said:

They are. Saw it on DEP's website this morning. Also mentioned all gatherings >10. I hope people don't try to do some pick up tournaments or folks start getting itchy and boat ramps get clogged up. They will just close all the ramps. 

Hopefully we'll be on the downswing of this whole thing by the time the weather gets real nice and people flock to the water. I agree they might just close ramps. Heck the first day it hit like 60 degrees Whitehall had full parking, mostly hikers but I can see them looking at that and other places and saying that's too risky. I hope not but we shall see. 

[Dunks N Dinks]

(Semi-)enjoyed a beautiful but brutally-tough post-frontal outing on Mashpee yesterday. Bluebird skies for the most part, high 40s temp-wise (46 degree water), and no wind whatsoever. Marked plenty of arches in typical pre-spawn staging locations (secondary points and ledges near spawning bays), but the fish just weren't getting after it unfortunately. Ended up just getting 4 bass bites all day, the largest being a "square" 2lb larry (attached) on a super-finnessey ned rig in 8ft of water. The silver-lining however was that the stocked trout were busting the surface all morning as if they'd hadn't had a meal in months. I guess this is the whole "empty the hatchery" plan in progress. So i managed to get a few in the livewell early which turned into a lovely evening dinner project (as seen below). Anyhow, hope everyone's keeping sane and sanitized. Hoping to get out a few more days this week after work and get my first >4lber of the year. 

[Dunks N Dinks]

Took my dad out on Long Pond last night after work and nabbed a few brown ones. He's a saltwater guy but picked up the subtle stupidity and effectiveness of the ned rig in no time. Actually out-fished me on 3 to 2 while i was chunking the swimbait. Our 5 maybe went 11-12bs, not much, but honest work for 2.5hrs.  

[Dunks N Dinks]

Mission Accomplished - first hefty girl of the year. 4.39 smallie on the home turf after work. Water temps are closing in on the magic 50! She came in 22ft on the nedward. Also got a bonus smallie on the Magdraft in shallow water just before sunset. This quarantine thing aint so bad after-all...

[Mr. Aquarium]

Nice fish guys. 
 

fished 4-midnight yesterday. Fished 3 spots. Got 4 bass and a crappie after dark all on topwater. 9 inch slammer Matt’s meathead and a buzzjet got bit. Biggest going 2.14 on the meathead. All fish at pond 2 after dark 

[MassYak85]

3 hours ago, Mr. Aquarium said:

Nice fish guys. 
 

fished 4-midnight yesterday. Fished 3 spots. Got 4 bass and a crappie after dark all on topwater. 9 inch slammer Matt’s meathead and a buzzjet got bit. Biggest going 2.14 on the meathead. All fish at pond 2 after dark 

The meathead has grown on me. When I first got it I hated how it would blow out if reeled too fast. But as a slow moving top water it's got a really nice wobbling motion. 

[Mr. Aquarium]

3 hours ago, MassYak85 said:

The meathead has grown on me. When I first got it I hated how it would blow out if reeled too fast. But as a slow moving top water it's got a really nice wobbling motion. 

Yep!!!!!! I’m excited for it. Love the action. Just creep up top! 

[MassYak85]

I was doing some research and was wondering if any of you have guys have had success timing the herring runs in the spring for the lakes/rivers that are connected to the runs? I know the fish eat them when they can but are they getting fed enough on the real thing that successfully mimicking them would be difficult?

[DogBone_384]

Fished Jacob’s Pond in Norwell for a couple hours yesterday.  There were roughly a dozen people fishing from shore or kayak/canoe/jon boat.  It was windy from the south.  Water temps were 52.x, and air pressure was 30.2.

 

I caught 2 dink pickerels, both on a shallow silver Shadow Rap Shad.  I threw a couple different Keitechs, a Ned, and a 5.5” swim Senko.  Something bit the tail off the Senko, but nothing else happened.

 

Jacobs is shallow, no more than 5’ at it’s deepest.  I pulled up a lot of weeds, including some new, bright green growth.

11 hours ago, MassYak85 said:

wondering if any of you have guys have had success timing the herring runs in the spring

I fished Hinckley’s while the herring were there the last couple years.  I threw a variety of baits, some matching herring and some bright colors.

 

I zeroed every time.

[Dunks N Dinks]

CC Q-tine Update

 

Fished Sheeps on Friday and finally got that big swimbait bite i was looking for. 5.4lber (first 'younder' of the year) on the huddleston trout in 16ft. She absolutely devoured the bait, made the 8" profile look small in her throat. Definitely has been eating stockies all Spring.

 

Fished John's Pond on Saturday, wracked up a decent 13lb limit with a buddy of mine while scouting for a tourney that may or may not happen next month. Had 7-8 bites total, so kinda slow, with most fish in 20-24ft of water...drop-shots and deep-diving jerkbaits the ticket. 

 

Fished Mashpee Sunday and it was a total bust, caught 3 smallies on finesse stuff and bagged a trout for dinner by 2pm and called it a day. 

 

Re: herring - I've only had limited success chasing herring-eaters during the actual herring run, but usually throw a herring color swimbait when im on herring-run-access waters... But if you go on the MA gov site and look where the major runs are and then scout on google earth, you can usually find a few "untouched" kettle-holes with dirt ramp access. I'm going to check an upper-cape herring run this afternoon and i'll report back. 

[Don51]

Dogbone where are you launching to fish Jacobs? The creek or the main launch? The creek by the bridge saves a lot of steps.  ?

[DogBone_384]

27 minutes ago, Don51 said:

where are you launching to fish Jacobs?

I launch from the town launch off Jacobs lane.

[Don51]

You can also launch from Duncan Drive off 53. Small parking area and much closer to the water.

[Peter Logee]

Alright you guys need to help me out. Just stumbled across this page today, glad to find something relevant to what I'm doing rather than hearing random pros talk about the bite in Texas or something. 

 

Anyways, I've had bad luck this year. I have a kayak, but haven't taken it out yet cause it's kind of a pain in the ass to move around and I feel like its not worth the effort when the fishing isn't quite peak yet. So, a summary of my situation is that I am on foot (somewhat), located north of Boston (Andover), and can't catch anything. 

 

So far I've mostly been using crankbaits, ratltraps, jigs, and various finesse things. Nothing really seems to be working. I know its probably super broad to make any real assessment but if anyone has any reasonable advice for my situation it would be much appreciated. Once things warm up and school slows down I'll be much more kayak friendly but for the time being I'm pretty landlocked. From what I've gathered (at least from dinks and dunks) ned rigs and jerkbaits seem to be the ticket this time of year. If anyone has any advice or tactics for me to break this historic slump, or some great spots near me that you've had success at, it would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Good luck everyone!

[Dunks N Dinks]

Hey Peter, welcome to the forum.

I'd just bring those two baits with you, but only commit to throwing the jerk-bait from the start. If there are fish in the area, a painfully slow jerk-pauuuuuuuse retrieve (literally 8-12 seconds between jerks) is really hard to beat when water is in the 46-54 degree range. This can be super frustrating since you want to be "covering water", but this time of year you'll just be pulling the bait past the fish if you're fishing it too fast. Throw it out into deep water areas near spawning areas and make sure those fishing looking up have plenty of time to rise and see it dart erratically before mouthing it. You'll want a bait that suspends or ever-so-slowly sinks (floating up, away from the fish, is not good). Only throw the ned rig if you know there are fish in the area or are getting short strikes. Hope this helps. 

[MassYak85]

Welcome to the forum!

 

I know being shore-bound can be difficult when you feel your in a slump, less options as far as the water you can cover. But I think you've got the right mindset as far as lures, and definitely listen to Dunks N Dinks' advice. Jerkbaits, ned rigs, rattletraps, and jigs are all good baits to try this time of year. When the water is still cold it can be hard to find good shore spots if the fish are deeper, so finding shallower ponds can sometimes make things easier. If the pond is more or less the same depth and the primary cover is weed growth or shoreline laydowns you can try fishing the windblown side of the lake or the shoreline that gets the most sun, bonus if there's good cover nearby and extra bonus if it's an area near deep water (even if you can't reach the deep water). It's good to slow down if the bite is slow but don't be afraid to try and get a reaction bite with that rattletrap. My first couple bass of the year were when the water was still low 40's and I got them burning a bluegill swimbait in short bursts. 

 

Good luck! I agree it can be hard learning online for our area sometimes cause all the pros are talking about deep reservoirs generally. It can be hard to apply what they're saying to some of the grass bowl ponds we've got. But there are still some parallels you can apply just on a smaller scale. 

[Peter Logee]

Any go to colors for jerks/crankbaits? I generally go for a silver/chrome sort of look. I also broke my only jerkbait today so thats great lol. 

[MassYak85]

30 minutes ago, Peter Logee said:

Any go to colors for jerks/crankbaits? I generally go for a silver/chrome sort of look. I also broke my only jerkbait today so thats great lol. 

Personally I like to have a natural "clear" baitfish color for clearer water, a bolder silver/chrome, and a more vibrant perch or bluegill one.