Eastern Ma & New England Area Fishing Reports

[DogBone_384]

For real (?!?!?) the weather report over the next 10 days calls for high 40's & low 50's. I'm keeping an eye on my local ponds. 

Good luck to everyone else!

[DogBone_384]

Took a ride by my local spots to check out conditions.  St. Moritz, Blue Hills Res., and Houghton's  are iced over.

Ponkapog has some open water on the NE, but doesn't look like it's close enough to shore.

Jacob's Pond has open water too, on the southern side by the farm.  Shoreline brush prevents casting.

[DogBone_384]

Burned up some more gas today, traveling to my normal spots PLUS a blast down to Long and Little Ponds.  No changes around Boston, but both Little and Long ponds were WIDE OPEN!  

Needless to say the Kayak's loaded and ready to go!

Lastly, Billington Sea, which is right next to Little Pond, was iced over.  The common denominator with the frozen ponds is that they're shallow, where Little and Long are kettles.

Anyhow, if anyone gets out there tomorrow, best of luck!

[Fishing Rhino]

If you ever need a name for a vessel, may I suggest "Perseverance"?

Anyway to all the locals who participate in this thread, when we return from our annual trek to Daytona Speedweeks, and our daughter's home in GA, I'm thinking about hitting up the two small ponds close to home.  One is surrounded by private property. The other, while it has a public access, you need a canoe, kayak, jon boat, Pelican or something similar to negotiate the channel that leads to the pond.  So it is about as exclusive as it can get for a public pond.

I'll return by the middle of March.  On calm days, I plan to hit up both ponds.  If the fish are biting, I'll put out the invite to any and all.  Middle of April, I'll be gone again on what has become an annual expedition to Pickwick Lake for two weeks.

I hope the gas prices hold for at least another three months.  It's two hundred gallons to tow the boat back and forth, plus what I use in the truck and the boat down there.

Thankfully, we've learned quite a bit about Pickwick so we don't burn a lot of fuel in the boats.  Plus, there are plenty of ramps, so it you want to fish twenty or thirty miles upriver, we use a ramp in that area.

[DogBone_384]

I launched from Long Pond's boat ramp at 9:00 on the button, starting off paddling to the far end where I'd caught a couple small bass my last trip there, in October, if memory serves.  Today's water temp was 39 degrees.

I kept it simple, a 1/4 oz Silver Buddy, 1/2 oz brown hair jig with small Havoc Deuce trailer, and a suspending chrome/black 7-14'Rapala.  I tried to stay around shoreline that had drop offs @ 25' or so, but had zero luck.  There were two other boats out there, a bass boat working the north shoreline and a john boat that started at the far end where I'd been earlier.  I spoke to the john boat pilot and he said he caught two brown trout and a smallie on a blade bait on the opposite side I'd worked.

After a while I worked my way back near the launch and worked a small trout flavored, jointed, Rapala and a 1/8 oz chartreuse/pink/white hair jig in hopes of a trout.  Nada.  I left at 2:30 to get back home to pick my daughter up from swim practice.

The whole day I saw only one trout in the shallows and nothing on my Lowrance.  

This was my third trip to Long Pond, so no harm that I didn't catch anything, I still fished in February.  I made lots of mental notes where I saw rock beds, submerged trees, and steep drop offs.  I should do better in a couple months when the water temps warm back up.

[JG233]

Have a great trip Tom--looking forward to seeing pictures. I'm on spring break from teaching 3/12 - 3/20. I'm game to go out whenever you are.

Dog, a day out fishing is always a good day.

[Mike2841]

I probably won't go out until spring, although the last few days have been a tease.  Pretty busy with work and school right now, and hopefully starting a new career soon.  Until spring I'll probably just be doing hw in my spare time, and try to get a few rods built.  Also if anyone is interested in saltwater theres a big salt water fishing show in Providence in the end of February.

[DogBone_384]

1 hour ago, JG233 said:

Have a great trip Tom--looking forward to seeing pictures. I'm on spring break from teaching 3/12 - 3/20. I'm game to go out whenever you are.

Dog, a day out fishing is always a good day.

Woof! Agree 100%.  I might just get out there again tomorrow.... Don't have to be at work until 1700.

[Cyacnba]

I've been fishing at the Charles River in the Boston area where the Muddy River connects to it. Been catching bunch of crappies, few bass, and even a perch. Tubes worked the best, and other people were catching bunch of carps using corn. Today I caught my PB crappie (1.2lbs). Hope this helps to anyone who decides to fish in the Boston area.

[JG233]

Thanks for the heads up. I'm in East Somerville, but I've never fished the Charles at all. I put away all my gear in November, but I'm planning on getting everything ready to go by March. 

Right now, I'm putting together a big TW order in another browser window. I'm having difficulty anticipating everything I'm going need. Better to buy too much, I guess. 

[Fishing Rhino]

Hey JG, give me a shout, the week before your sabbatical.  While you're ordering, make sure to get a couple of black and blue jigs in your brand of choice.  Sawdy and Devol bass have liked jigs in the early spring. 

I should probably fish them more.  The same can be said of drop shotting.  I spent a couple of seasons fishing primarily drop shot rigs.  The past four years I rarely used them.  I don't think I used a drop shot at all last year.

[JG233]

Will do. 

Any jig recommendations? Swim or football? 1/4 oz or 3/8?

 

[Fishing Rhino]

Football.

[Janderson45]

I'm about to place an order for some siebert outdoors jigs, never tried them but like the looks of them and prices..

Think I'm getting 4 of each style:

Fogy bladed jig 

Grid iron brush jig 

football jig 

I'm on a mission to try and throw more jigs this year too, especially flipping them around the abundance of brush in a lot of the lakes/ponds I fish. I'll let you guys know when I get them and how I like them!  They've got some great prices on tungsten bullet weights I think I'm going to pick up too. 

[Chris186]

17 hours ago, Janderson45 said:

I'm about to place an order for some siebert outdoors jigs, never tried them but like the looks of them and prices..

Think I'm getting 4 of each style:

Fogy bladed jig 

Grid iron brush jig 

Flukemaster football jig 

I'm on a mission to try and throw more jigs this year too, especially flipping them around the abundance of brush in a lot of the lakes/ponds I fish. I'll let you guys know when I get them and how I like them!  They've got some great prices on tungsten bullet weights I think I'm going to pick up too. 

I have used Siebert jigs for a couple years now, they are really nice. In fact I like them so much they are the only jigs I throw. You wont be disappointed.

[ranger7717]

hi guys - CD1542....i have a tournament at the end of april on mashpee wakeby and was wondering if i should focus more on large or smallmouth... not trying to steal any secrets, but since you guys are talking jigs, are they good there? 

[Janderson45]

47 minutes ago, ranger7717 said:

hi guys - CD1542....i have a tournament at the end of april on mashpee wakeby and was wondering if i should focus more on large or smallmouth... not trying to steal any secrets, but since you guys are talking jigs, are they good there? 

I've only fished it once last spring, but from what I understand Largemouths are the dominant species on that body of water.  I didn't fish any jigs that day, I fished spinnerbaits, suspending jerkbait and flukes/paddle tail swimbaits with success that day.  There were a TON of alewives in a few large schools I noticed that day, so I tried to match my presentation towards them, caught 4 LMB all around the points that seperate the two sides of the lake, that's where all the alewives I found were hanging out too.

Probably not much help to you-but that's my experience on mashpee/wakeby .. The forage there was definitely a bit different than the bodies of water I typically fish in mass.  Good luck! 

 

[ranger7717]

thanks for the info...looking forward to going there - heard it's great 

[EchoSierra]

On 2/2/2016 at 11:54 PM, Cyacnba said:

I've been fishing at the Charles River in the Boston area where the Muddy River connects to it. Been catching bunch of crappies, few bass, and even a perch. Tubes worked the best, and other people were catching bunch of carps using corn. Today I caught my PB crappie (1.2lbs). Hope this helps to anyone who decides to fish in the Boston area.

Was this recent?  I seem to strike out with carp every time I target them.  They're there when I'm there without a rod, and then they're not there when I'm there with a rod!  Is the muddy river confluence a decent spot?  Where do you park to get to that spot?

[Cyacnba]

1 hour ago, EchoSierra said:

Was this recent?  I seem to strike out with carp every time I target them.  They're there when I'm there without a rod, and then they're not there when I'm there with a rod!  Is the muddy river confluence a decent spot?  Where do you park to get to that spot?

It was less than a week ago. I actually went again 2 days ago and caught a new PB crappie (1.43lb) and over 10 other crappies. I also caught a decent bass. Every time I go, I see someone catching carps. 

About parking, I just walk there, but you could try parking on Beacon St, close to Mass Ave. I've always caught a fish at this confluence, there is always something there.

[Fishing Rhino]

Okay guys.  I'll be outta here in about nine hours, and back the first week in March.

All you young whippersnappers have motivated me, a little bit.  If the surface water is still liquid, I might get out on the nice days to see what I can dredge up.  Haven't been fishing in March since 2010.

Might check in a few times while I'm away.  My wife will be bringing her laptop.   No, I don't own a laptop.  Sorry 'bout that.

Good luck to the crew.  Hope we can have an outing or three this year.

[DogBone_384]

March 2010 !?!?!?!?!

Sounds like an INTERVENTION is necessary....  that'll get fixed this Spring...

I hope you mean 50 as a young whipper snapper 

[ranger7717]

i 

20 minutes ago, DogBone_384 said:

March 2010 !?!?!?!?!

Sounds like an INTERVENTION is necessary....  that'll get fixed this Spring...

I hope you mean 50 as a young whipper snapper 

i hear that...i'm 50 on sunday and i'm still keeping up with the 20 somethings....and yeah on the intervention....massachusetts boys !!!

[DogBone_384]

Happy HATCH-DAY!  Not for nothing, look around at most of the 20 & 30 somethings these days.... they grew up very differently from our age group, and it shows.  

Enough of that.  When Spring comes around, we'll work on getting Rhino out fishing.... and if we're lucky, he'll teach us WHIPPER SNAPPERS a thing or two...

[Mike2841]

Who in here has the feel free lure?  I'm looking at getting another kayak this spring and the lure is on my shortlist.