Eastern Ma & New England Area Fishing Reports

[MassYak85]

7 hours ago, Fishing Rhino said:

Be careful putting your boat on skim ice.  It may break the ice, but that ice will act just like a saw on your hull.

 

Several years ago I was scalloping on the Westport River in late Nov., early Dec.  There was a skim ice on the river, but the wooden skiff pushed through it with ease.

 

The ice darn near cut through the one inch planks on the side of the boat in hardly no time.  

 

If your vessel rides high in the bow, it might break the ice without it cutting into the hull.

That's a good point, ice vs plastic hull would probably end badly

[DogBone_384]

Plus or minus 8 weeks and things should be warming up.  I still hope to get out and try ice fishing, but won't cry if I don't.

[Fishing Rhino]

C'mon, surely someone went out today.  But for prior commitments, I'd have entertained the notion of trying Devol Pond.  It can't get any nicer than this in Feb.  Temp pushing 60.  Light breeze.

 

Won't be anything like this tomorrow.

[MassYak85]

1 hour ago, Fishing Rhino said:

C'mon, surely someone went out today.  But for prior commitments, I'd have entertained the notion of trying Devol Pond.  It can't get any nicer than this in Feb.  Temp pushing 60.  Light breeze.

 

Won't be anything like this tomorrow.

Once I get some more line for my backup spinning setup I might bring it to campus to try in the river on warm days like these. Only issue is most of the places I can fish from shore are relatively shallow and I'm not sure what my chances of a smallie even seeing my lure are going to be. 

[DogBone_384]

1 hour ago, Fishing Rhino said:

C'mon, surely someone went out today.  But for prior commitments, I'd have entertained the notion of trying Devol Pond.  It can't get any nicer than this in Feb.  Temp pushing 60.  Light breeze.

 

Won't be anything like this tomorrow.

The last couple times I drove past ponds near me they were iced over.

[MassYak85]

Fiiiiiinaaaalllly got out. A few hours at A1 and all we had to show for it was an obese slime dart. I'll take it though, first fish I've caught in months. Ice was about 5-6 inches. Mostly white re-frozen slush from the storm with about a 2 inch base layer of clear stuff. 

[DogBone_384]

Good to see SOMEONE got out.  I've 'planned' on it but haven't.  I'm not working this week, as of yet, so I might drive around to my normal haunts and see what they look like.  

 

It's almost mid February, so warm weather isn't far away....

 

Heck, mid April isn't far away either .... Quabbin reservoir opens about then, methinks.....

[Mr. Aquarium]

march is 2 weeks away!! 

[MassYak85]

10 hours ago, swamp hawgs said:

march is 2 weeks away!! 

I'm planning to ice fish at least twice this 3 day weekend. Day temps look like they are stabilizing in the 40's after that and we might start to see a thaw. Fine by me, as long as I can put a line in the water and not be in the water myself I'm happy. 

[DogBone_384]

Where is there safe ice? I'm just south of Boston and nothing near me looks safe. Whitman's, BHR, and Jacobs all have that gray, wet look to them.

[Mr. Aquarium]

30 minutes ago, DogBone_384 said:

Where is there safe ice? I'm just south of Boston and nothing near me looks safe. Whitman's, BHR, and Jacobs all have that gray, wet look to them.

where ya from? im in marshfield. 

[DogBone_384]

Quincy.... WWWWAAAAAYYYY up North ?

[MassYak85]

16 hours ago, DogBone_384 said:

Where is there safe ice? I'm just south of Boston and nothing near me looks safe. Whitman's, BHR, and Jacobs all have that gray, wet look to them.

I was out last weekend on A1 (Westborough) with about 3 - 4" of white ice and about 2" of clear underneath. I heard a report online that someone fished in Hopkinton today and had 8" of ice. With the past two storms most of the ice will be snow that melted into slush and then froze. Temps are supposed to touch 20 tonight and tomorrow night and should refreeze any melting that occurred this week. It really depends on the lake though. A1 always seems to melt the snow it gets very quick, I saw other lakes the same day that looked like a slush pit. And just because there is slush on top doesn't mean they aren't safe but obviously be very careful. Late season ice is about as sketchy as it gets. That's one of the reasons I fish A1 so much is I feel relatively comfortable with how it acts during the winter. For example a few weekends ago I was looking at another pond about 5 minutes from there and there was about 2" on that pond, but about a 50 foot section filled with geese that was open water. Fast forward a week and I'm sure that spot probably froze. Had someone tested at the ramp and found 4" then walked over to that spot unknowingly, I would think they would go through. 

 

It always amazes me during the winter that our tiny little state has such varying micro-climates. The Cape might never freeze some winters, meanwhile some winters central MA might only see a month of safe ice, and northern and western might get 4 months of safe ice. 

[timcauliffe]

Any open water in the Central MA area?

Live in Hudson and was looking to take the jon boat out this weekend!

[KenP]

3 hours ago, timcauliffe said:

Any open water in the Central MA area?

Live in Hudson and was looking to take the jon boat out this weekend!

After the last few weeks of freezing temps I haven't seen much of anything open. Even the chu is completely frozen over.

[timcauliffe]

18 minutes ago, KenP said:

After the last few weeks of freezing temps I haven't seen much of anything open. Even the chu is completely frozen over.

Thought so.

 

PS I grew up in Sterling!

[MassYak85]

Fished A1 today for about 5 hours. The action was really strange. We'd wait around for an hour and then have two flags go up at once...then wait an hour, have two flags go off within 2 minutes. In total we got 5 pickerel and 4 bass, biggest being about 2 lbs. I'll be fishing somewhere again tomorrow but this looks to be my last weekend ice fishing. Weather this week looks nothing short of murder for ice. I wouldn't be surprised if I could launch a kayak on A1 next Sunday after the really high temps this week and the rain we're supposed to get Saturday. Wouldn't that be something, ice fishing one weekend and kayak fishing the next...on the same lake. 

[DogBone_384]

Any open water out there? Local forecast calls for 50's this week. I drove by BHR this afternoon. It looked gray & cloudy.  I'm not confident enough to give it a go, though IT, and St. Moritz (further down Wampatuck road, behind Shea Rink) both appeared to have many "healed" round holes all over.

 

I'm not working tomorrow, as yet, so I'm planning on taking a road trip to Plymouth/Cape Cod to see what waters look like.

[CTBassin860]

21 hours ago, MassYak85 said:

Fished A1 today for about 5 hours. The action was really strange. We'd wait around for an hour and then have two flags go up at once...then wait an hour, have two flags go off within 2 minutes. In total we got 5 pickerel and 4 bass, biggest being about 2 lbs. I'll be fishing somewhere again tomorrow but this looks to be my last weekend ice fishing. Weather this week looks nothing short of murder for ice. I wouldn't be surprised if I could launch a kayak on A1 next Sunday after the really high temps this week and the rain we're supposed to get Saturday. Wouldn't that be something, ice fishing one weekend and kayak fishing the next...on the same lake. 

Ice out could happen sooner than later.43 degrees looks to be the coldest day this week.

[MassYak85]

1 hour ago, MassBassin508 said:

Ice out could happen sooner than later.43 degrees looks to be the coldest day this week.

I fished A1 again today. Thankfully the temps dipped down and touched freezing so all the slushy ice from saturday froze again. It was still pretty sketchy though. There was like 6 inches total of ice. About 4 of crappy white ice full of air bubbles, and about 2 on the bottom of clear, but heavily fractured ice. We managed about 5 bass and 5 pickerel. I managed a pickerel jigging too. Biggest bass was 2.4lbs. Action was slow, the fish we did get came in short bursts of two or three at a time and then about an hour of waiting. It was an absolutely beautiful day though. It was overcast in the morning but we watched a clearly defined edge in the clouds move over us and the sun came out and dare I say, dressed in all black, that it was hot. I got a slight sunburn from the last two days. I'm not sure if you guys have ever experienced this but when the ice is melting fast, you can hear it. The air bubbles frozen in the ice get released as the layers start to melt and it almost sounds like a tiny stream is flowing underneath your feet. Cool and a little scary at the same time. 

 

We walked on the ice around 8:30 and it was frozen solid, when we walked back to the ramp around 1:00 there was about half an inch of water on the entire pond. Season's over at least in my area. Only got out 3 times but I'm ready for spring. Daytime temps stabilizing in the 40's and 50's this week, one day of 60, and a weekend of 50 degree rain. I think the week after that is supposed to get cold again but it would take a serious cold snap to even lock places up again, never mind get them safe enough to fish again. 

[Mr. Aquarium]

got out yesterday! felt awesome fishing in a t shirt in february! found open water! caught a fat 3.5lbs smallie in 20 feet of water over a hump! only fish of the day! but it was awesome! 

[DogBone_384]

OPEN WATER? 

 

Where? 

 

I have Wednesday through Saturday off, as of now, and my kayak misses me. 

[MassYak85]

The nice part about spring fishing is I'm used to ice fishing in 20 degree weather so that first 40 degree open water day I'm usually not cold. Assuming we have open water by mid march (I can't see how we couldn't at this point) I'll be spending spring break in my kayak. 

[Neonsnow78]

Thursday its supposed to be 64 on the South Coast, hopefully that will make for a lot of open water and the beginning to my fishing season!!

[DogBone_384]

Where's Fishing Rhino?

 

Hey Tom, what's Sawdy look like?