Eastern Ma & New England Area Fishing Reports

[DogBone_384]

Took yesterday (Tuesday) off because the forecast was too good to pass up.  Loaded the kayak when I got off shift in the morning and took off to Wampatuck State Park.  Got in the water by 10:00.  I started with a Bluegill DT10 between two fingers on the south west that dropped to 15' quickly on each side.  Moved to a wacky rigged Senko.  

 

Without so much as a whiff, I moved down the fingers to the shallows where there are many big rocks and a small island. I tossed a shallow Shad Rap, in line spinner, chartreuse spinner bait, and the whacky Senko as I gradually moved along the banks back to the deep section where I started.  Depths ranged from 3' to 8' back to 15'.  Again, not so much as a strike.  For that matter, the only other living creatures I saw were turtles sunning themselves and a flock of turkey vultures.  

 

After a couple hours I stopped to eat lunch and ponder where ANY fish were. I paddled to roughly the middle where the depth ranged between 18 - 22'.  I started with a chrome/shiner DT10, changed to a bass flavored DT16, then to a chartreuse/white chatter bait (varying between hop-hop-hop and steady retrieve), and finally to the whacky rigged Senko again.  Still, nothing.  

 

With only an hour left to fish, I moved to the north west corner where the depth ranges from 12 to 5', is fairly flat, with some large rocks between shores and some grass areas.  I split that time with the Shad Rap & T-Rigged Senko.  I finished the day without even a strike.  Surface temperatures in the southern section were in the high 50s and low 60s in the north, towards the end of the day.

 

Throughout the day my Lowrance didn't show much traffic, though the reservoir reportedly produces good bass but can be tricky, I'm going to chalk the day's poor luck to my inability to find fish and the 30+ degree temperature swing throwing them off.  It's a big water for a kayak.  I'm going to spend as much time there as I can this year to figure the place out & what the rich bass in Hingham eat....  

[grampa1114]

Mlinskyhockey...welcome aboard...nice report. Even better with Dad...I found excellent results with Hula Grubs and a 1/8 Dropshot hook. Doesn't sound like you need advice but perhaps you could give it a try. Gives the bait a nice stand up pose.

 

Grampa 

[mlinskyhockey]

Thanks Grampa! I will definitely try that some time. Sounds intriguing. Any small change can go a long way if the bites tough. Here's to hoping everyone has lots of success this week/weekend. Will give a report next time i hit up a body of water. 

[Janderson45]

Checked out worden pond in Charlestown RI this evening, only fished it for about 2 hours and did more exploring than fishing (huge body of water)... I caught 2 pickerel on a red eye shad and my buddy caught 2 LMB as well as 2 pickerel all on a watermelon red brush hog rigged on a 3/8oz weighted keel hook. I'll likely be out on Worden's again all day tomorrow in search of trophy Northern Pike and of course LMB. I've heard a lot of good things about this body of water and can't wait to give it my first real shot tomorrow...

Not sure exactly how I'm going to fish it yet, probably just more of the same as what I've been doing so far this year seems to be working pretty well. I do plan on potentially picking up some XL shiners from a bait shop to increase my odds of landing a large northern, figure I can toss them out there and let them do there thing while I'm chucking my other artificial baits. I'll report back tomorrow evening, hopefully with some good photos of nice catches... Be forewarned however I've yet to figure out how to get good pictures of my catches out of the new kayak.

[je1946]

Fished Quabbin yesterday, 16 smallies running to 4.2lbs on blades and jerk baits, water temps 49 to 53 degrees, no sign of spawning but with water temps rising quickly can't be far off.

[DogBone_384]

I'm glad to hear some of you catching lots of good fish out there.  I went do Whitman's pond in Weymouth for a couple hours after dropping my daughter off at school.  After a couple hours of nothing and one too many backlashes I got frustrated and packed it in.

 

I've not caught one bass yet this year, and really not much other than that either.  I keep trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong, but it seems no matter what I try or where I try it I don't really catch much of anything.  

 

I believe I just don't have any fishing mojo.

[grampa1114]

Calm down Dogbone...it's fishing not world peace. Just take one type of bait with you for short trips. Just bring a Twitchbait one day and throw it everywhere......bring something plastic to bounce off the bottom another time and throw it everywhere.....bring a Spinnerbait or Crankbait and throw it everywhere. When you do, be mindful of weather conditions and where you have luck. Pretty soon you'll lose count of how many fish you catch. Remember...Fishing is Fun.

 

Grampa

[Jigfishn10]

I'm still stuck in Little League season, so I haven't been on here much nor have I fished at all this season, but if what I'm reading is true, I'm real surprised at the water temps? I figured they would have been a little warmer by now?

[je1946]

I'm glad to hear some of you catching lots of good fish out there.  I went do Whitman's pond in Weymouth for a couple hours after dropping my daughter off at school.  After a couple hours of nothing and one too many backlashes I got frustrated and packed it in.

 

I've not caught one bass yet this year, and really not much other than that either.  I keep trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong, but it seems no matter what I try or where I try it I don't really catch much of anything.  

 

I believe I just don't have any fishing mojo.

Dogbone take what Grandpa is telling you and run with it.  Yesterday at Quabbin we had caught a few fish with what I normally catch them on this time of yr jerkbaits and jigs, ah but yesterday we couldn't get them to really turn on UNTIL I noticed water temps at 49degrees out came the blade baits, now mind you I have NEVER caught a fish on a blade bait, within 5 cast I had a real nice smallie on and so it went for the rest of the day total about 16 smallies boated and probably lost another 5-6 fish.  Now if I had gone by previous outings and left that bait in my tackle box I would probably not of had a very productive day.  Pick a bait that you know will catch fish, say a black jig with a black trailer read, and ask other fishermen all you can about fishing it then go out and use it  and use it and use it, once you develope confidence in it move to another bait and so on. You do have the mojo just have to learn how to use it.  gd luck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

q

[mlinskyhockey]

i totally agree. Take a some deep breaths, rewind, remind yourself that you LOVE fishing and love conquering the battle that is figuring out the largemouth. switch from one confidence bait to a next. really work it, and remember to fish sloooowwwlllyyyyy. Heck, you've heard all these things before! you know what youre doing. Be confident. Be determined. Keep working baits you know you can catch fish with in places you know you'll catch. Itll pop for ya. Thats how it goes for all of us at one point or another. 

[mlinskyhockey]

@jigfishn ya water temps were def abnormally cool for this time of year.. BUT, that being said, obviously the recent superb/warm weather should change things! Fishing should get better and better. 

[Chris186]

I'm glad to hear some of you catching lots of good fish out there.  I went do Whitman's pond in Weymouth for a couple hours after dropping my daughter off at school.  After a couple hours of nothing and one too many backlashes I got frustrated and packed it in.

 

I've not caught one bass yet this year, and really not much other than that either.  I keep trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong, but it seems no matter what I try or where I try it I don't really catch much of anything.  

 

I believe I just don't have any fishing mojo.

Everyone has bad starts to there seasons, happens to the best of us. I was in your shoes last season. This season I have been fortunate to be slaying them every time out, at least 15 fish in the boat each trip. I have caught more fish on a jerkbait this year than I have in the past 10 years combined, although I think that bite will be dead after this week of warm weather. Keep your head up, fish your strengths, the bites will come.

[Janderson45]

Was out on Worden's again from 12-630 yesterday. Not a whole lot to report or be proud of though to be honest. Talked to a lot of guys coming off and going out on the pond, doesn't seem like anyone faired particularly well there yesterday.

I managed 2 LMB, one on the red eye shad in chili craw (again, this bait has been money for me so far this year) and one on a live shiner... I practically never fish live bait in freshwater, but since I was after a trophy pike mainly I figured I'd try and up my odds with some shiners...

I found the pike I was after and played her for over 2 hours, couldn't get a hook set. It shredded numerous shiners without getting itself hooked, and since we were talking about 6" to 12" of water I saw the fishes back up and out of the water feeding numerous times. It was a giant and I was flabbergasted that I couldn't put the hook to it. Seemed like they were feeding on a school of yellow perch in the shallows, I caught roughly a dozen of said perch, and ended up keeping a smaller one and rigging it up tossing it out there hoping for the best... No luck. In hind sight I probably should've cut the fish up to use as bait as I didn't have proper terminal tackle with me to rig up a live 8" perch, but I still tried.

Managed to take 2 good sized pickerel towards the end of my outing on a chartreuse KVD squarebill...

Not the outing I was hoping for, but I'll learn from it and hopefully check a good sized pike off the list soon (I've never caught one).

On a side note, I love the post that grampa made about slowing down and working one bait all day, paying attention to conditions and logging your success or lack there of for future reference... Advice I'm almost certainly going to heed myself as someone relatively new to this sport (new in any sort of serious way at least).

I've finally got a boat I can launch and fish out of myself this year, and I've definitely still got a ton of learning to do as far as patterns and baits go. I'll be adding a fish finder to the kayak soon (loweance elite4x chirp) so that'll be a whole new ballgame with knowledge of the exact depth and temperature, contours, bottom structure, weed growth and fish marks etc. I'm excited for the up coming months and really getting seriously into this sport... I've been doing alright so far this season, but really without that one decent bass I posted earlier all I'd have to show for it is some 15" largies and a bunch of pickerel. Keep at it dogbone, the fishin gods will repay you one of these days

I'll be out in the yak again tomorrow (few weeks off from work and taking full advantage of it). Not sure exactly where I'm going yet, but I'm back local in Eastern MA. Might go down to Plymouth and try to play with some smallies, might go to Rochester to chase pike again, or might stay real local and consider nippenicket, winnecunnet, sabatia, or the Norton reservoir.

Just ordered a neck gaiter and some gloves today, I severely underestimated the number the sun can do on you three days in a row out on the water for extended periods of time, even this time of year through the clouds I still got a decent sun burn going.

Tight lines everyone!

[massrob]

I caught one yesterday on a squarebill. The day before I was just testing out a whopper plopper and had two blowups on it. Didn't catch them though but it was still pretty cool. I wouldn't have thought they would hit a topwater already.Hope everyone has a good weekend my birthday is on mothers day this year. Good thing my mom loves to go fishing. Haha

[grampa1114]

Ok...My turn at the podium....My old pal Rhino and I went out onto Charcog....Webster Lake yesterday. 7-2 and the weather was warm with high pressure and no wind. Beautiful. Good thing it was nice out cuz fishin' was sparse to say the least. We both tend to like to bounce plastics off the bottom and his shaky head caught a few nice bass, a couple of fat pickerel and a sunfish. I have some new things to try so I threw an Underspin to no avail and a squarebill with just as much success. So at about 10:30 I picked up my go to bait which is a 3" Sluggo on a 1/16 oz 1/0 leadfree ball jig and managed to recoup the day with a Sunfish, a nice fat Pickerel and finally a nice chunky LMB over in the corner by the Pump House. I saw a lot of cruising fish and beds starting to pop up. Water temp went from 57.2 to 62.5 by the end of the day. 

Hope this helps

 

Grampa

[marcmunroe]

The fishing our here in Framingham had been pretty good the past couple days do a lot of my fishing in sterns resivor (framingham rez # 3) but they seem to be draining the resivor for some reason my only problem is being a bass fisherman is I'm catching a lot of large pickerel and a lot of smaller bbass in the past two days I've fished Ive caught one 3+ pound bass one 4+ pound bass one 2 pound bass 3 1.5 pound bass three 2.5-3 pound pickerel this concerns me because normally I can pull multiple 3+ pounders a day out of their I'm worried that the draining is effecting the fishing

[YungAngler]

Hitting the Quabbin tomorrow.  Hoping this warm weather the past 2 days has the smallies very active.  Caught my PB 5lb Smally there last summer.  Hoping to beat that!!

[Janderson45]

Hitting the Quabbin tomorrow. Hoping this warm weather the past 2 days has the smallies very active. Caught my PB 5lb Smally there last summer. Hoping to beat that!!

I would assume they're going crazy on the east side right now and some of them might be just starting to bed. Good luck! Jealous of that 5lber, not sure what my PB smallie is but certainly not 5lbs.

[Janderson45]

Change of plans for me today, I'm headed back out to westborough. Buddy of mine called me this AM and said he wanted to go fishing so we'll be taking my canoe out and I'll be leaving the kayak at home. We'll see how the bites warmed up there in the past week. I'm assuming the answer is a lot... Fingers crossed!

[YungAngler]

I would assume they're going crazy on the east side right now and some of them might be just starting to bed. Good luck! Jealous of that 5lber, not sure what my PB smallie is but certainly not 5lbs.

yeah  i can't wait.  here's the pic of the 5 lber from last summer.  We caught about 6 smallies over 4 lbs that day.  They were schooling and the most active I've ever seen them.

[Jigfishn10]

Ok...My turn at the podium....My old pal Rhino and I went out onto Charcog....Webster Lake yesterday. 7-2 and the weather was warm with high pressure and no wind. Beautiful. Good thing it was nice out cuz fishin' was sparse to say the least. We both tend to like to bounce plastics off the bottom and his shaky head caught a few nice bass, a couple of fat pickerel and a sunfish. I have some new things to try so I threw an Underspin to no avail and a squarebill with just as much success. So at about 10:30 I picked up my go to bait which is a 3" Sluggo on a 1/16 oz 1/0 leadfree ball jig and managed to recoup the day with a Sunfish, a nice fat Pickerel and finally a nice chunky LMB over in the corner by the Pump House. I saw a lot of cruising fish and beds starting to pop up. Water temp went from 57.2 to 62.5 by the end of the day. 

Hope this helps

 

Grampa

 

I was waiting for that 3" Sluggo post to come out!...Great job grampa!

[carlm01]

Anyone know the address of the new boat ramp in lowell on the merrimack ?

[grampa1114]

Ok, I admit it...I went fishing on Mother's Day week end. 4 hours midday Saturday. Caught some nice fish too. 63-65 water temps and males are moving in. Lost count but more than a limit of 1.5-3.0 males. No fat females were within range of my seeing them.  They would follow my Zara Puppy but not hit it and hit the follow up Shaky head or 4" Senko or Sluggo. The drop baits were very productive. Hope this helps. 

 

Grampa

[mlinskyhockey]

Good work Grampa. No shame in getting that bite in! 

 

So i hit my honey hole again yesterday and had another great day. I caught my two biggest bass of the season. First was about 3 pounds on a live shiner (ill do this from shore before taking my boat out just to relax a bit), second came on a texas rigged zoom brush hog (blue fleck) 1/8 oz tungsten weight. I pitched the bait to the outside edge of some scattered pads that were just growing in, in a shaded area. She thumped it and started moving set the hook and fight on! This fish had to be at least 5, an absolute pig was so happy. Pic attached below. it was another 20 fish day. Unlike the hula grub fest that was last sunday, i caught most fish on brush hugs and then some senko fish at the end. Loads of fun. Might try striper fishing next weekend- might be early though. Will keep everyone updated. Pic of the fish below. 

 

Also, threw a line out a crystal lake earlier this week. Nothing doin. (in Newton, ma) I've caught some reel nice fish there over the years but the pressure has really gotten too it. Small body of water. Lots of people taking the big largemouth and eating them anyways, its worth a cast you can randomly get a great bite. 

 

Tight lines. 

 

 

[Jigfishn10]

Crystal Lake in the Nonantum section, if I'm thinking correctly?