Where in the spawn are we here in New England???

[Bassnajr]

Hey all...

Went out two days ago to my local pond. I found that the males seem to be up fairly shallow, grouping together, "boliling" the top. They we fairly easy to catch on pretty much any lure. I'm figuring that it's pre-spawn, maybe 1 or 2 weeks before they begin. Anyone else have any "signs", ideas, comments???

ajr

[SenkoBasser]

Not a clue man. Haven't even had the chance to throw anything in any bass waters. I think the water temps need to climb more. Probably 2-3 weeks of some good temps and we'll be rockin and rollin.

[Kozak]

Temps in the ponds/lakes I've been fishing have been between 58-62* as of today.  I'm thinking a week or two of sunny weather. I personally always thought that the spawn occured more in June around here, but I caught a FAT largemouth today.  Went nearly 3lbs when it probably would have been around 2 at most without the stomache. All the other bass I caught were between 1 and 2 lbs and were most likely males. Thus, the females around here are deffinately getting ready to spawn.

[Tin]

Where I fished today and yesterday there was 58-62 degree water and we loaded up the boat yesterday with lots of 12-14" bucks. Today when we were out I saw 2 freshly made nests that were not there yesterday. Its on 8-)

[Tin]

Hey all...

Went out two days ago to my local pond. I found that the males seem to be up fairly shallow, grouping together, "boliling" the top. They we fairly easy to catch on pretty much any lure. I'm figuring that it's pre-spawn, maybe 1 or 2 weeks before they begin. Anyone else have any "signs", ideas, comments???

ajr

Might be longer on some lakes because the quick warm up screwed up a lot of fish and the next full moon is either the 3rd or 4th week of May. :-?

[Kozak]

When I was fishing today I noticed some areas where it looked like sand has been churned up but I didn't see any movement in the middle or any black object(fish), could this have been a male creating a nest that took off when I pulled up or was it more likely just the wind? In other words, when the nests are being built do they usually make a big dust cloud or is it subtle?

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

Tin's got it,...gonna be a screwy yr but a good one by the looks of it.

They should kick off a little sooner than usual, I would expect to see beds by the beginning of May if these temps keep up.  The moon isn't till the 3rd week, I think many will not wait for it.

[nboucher]

I was out of Friday and caught a bunch of very aggressive males patroling the flats very shallow.

Don't forget you're measuring surface water temps. I wonder if that might be drawing fish up and shallow, misleading us into mistaking this for spawning behavior. Given the few warmup days we've had so far, it's likely the water is still pretty cool below, especially in deeper water bodies.

[HOIST-N-HAWGS]

I was out at the Cape Friday on a deep lake, 80' plus depths. Saw huge female LM's in the 6 to 7 lbs range cruising the shallows and extremely spooky. Also saw some beds which was odd with the water this low. Water temps around 54 to 56*. Caught this Smallie guessing close to 4lbs. Had a 6 to 8 inch shad in it's mouth and can't believe she still tried to fit more in her mouth. Saturday @ Waterman's water temp was 58 to 59* w/millions of bait fish schooling in the weeds w/bass just sitting there w/them. Couldn't get one to take a lure for more then 1/2 second if that. It was just like when their on the beds and they just pick it an spit it. I'm guessing the abundance of bait fish for the taking, made my offerings unappealing.

[HOIST-N-HAWGS]

Sorry Russ still can't figure out the photobucket thing,red X's come up instead of pic's and I shut off my firewall as directed.

[WTRDOG]

Nice fish.....that shad in it's mouth is a herring.I also fished down the cape Sat...Very slow bite till 9:00 then the wind kicked up a bit.Where I was I could see fish,smallies and largies cruising around wood and mourings in about 9' of water.Caught 11 fish to 3# 5 0z,all on a Rapala DT16.Worked it very quick digging up the sand and rocks on deep drops to 20' deep.I went out Sun afternoon to a shallow lake water temp was 65 deg.Buck bass cruising the bank every where,caught 19 fish to 3#  on a home made spinnerbait and a wacky rig senko lots of small fish 12-14 " didn't see any beds ,next full moon you'll start seeing fish on beds,all over the Cape.

[HOIST-N-HAWGS]

Nice fish.....that shad in it's mouth is a herring.I also fished down the cape Sat...Very slow bite till 9:00 then the wind kicked up a bit.Where I was I could see fish,smallies and largies cruising around wood and mourings in about 9' of water.Caught 11 fish to 3# 5 0z,all on a Rapala DT16.Worked it very quick digging up the sand and rocks on deep drops to 20' deep.I went out Sun afternoon to a shallow lake water temp was 65 deg.Buck bass cruising the bank every where,caught 19 fish to 3# on a home made spinnerbait and a wacky rig senko lots of small fish 12-14 " didn't see any beds ,next full moon you'll start seeing fish on beds,all over the Cape.

Ok WTRDOG, w/all the fish you keep catching I may just have to pay you to school me on the Cape! Gotta head back out to Mashpee tomorrow for one more try prior to the T on Sunday. Gottem on the reaction innovations skinny dipper blue/pearl shad.

[Tin]

I'll add one more to the Skinny Dipper club. shhhhhhhh.........The money shot colors are where it is at.

I have heard of 3 more lakes where people ar seeing bedding fish in RI. Scattered but it is a start.

[SPEEDBEAD.]

Hey fellas, I was in Vermont all weekend long (near Champlain) fishing a 35 acre pond at the family's house.

Apparently, last Wednesday was ice out.  I was fishing on Saturday (75 smallmouth!!) and Sunday (44 more).  Water temps were still relatively cold, but I saw 5 or 6 beds on Sunday that werent there on Saturday.

I am thoroughly impressed with the waters in VT.  Average fish was around 3lb and my biggest 5 on Saturday went 21-14 with the biggest being 4-11.

Smaller males and a few females were caught on Sunday, but all fish were EXTREMELY agressive.

[Bassnajr]

So it seems we agree...

With warm weather, we're around 1 or two weeks.

ajr

[Tin]

After looking at the forcast for the next week or so I would say maybe a little later. Even though the next few days will be warm, we will still be having some of those low 40 / upper 30's nights which can really mess things up. A couple warm rains would help though get the process going.

[xjma99]

I went shore fishing from a tiny little pond called old pond in easton, ma yesterday afternoon for like an hour or two.  It's probably less than 10 acres in size and right on a main road.  It's an old impoundment that used to power a mill.  Anyways, I caught what was probably the biggest largemouth that I've ever caught in my life!!!  I don't have a scale (getting one today after work) and didn't have a camera with us, again, unfortunately.  I caught two big largemouths on black power worms and my fiancee caught a large mouth on a husky jerk.  Hers was a little guy, probably between 1-2 lbs.  My first had to have been pushing 5#s, and the second definitely exceeded 5#s by a good amount!  I don't really know how to tell male/female other than if I see a fat belly, but none of them had fat bellies, although they were freakin huge fish!  The only tangible evidence I can give that these fish were big is that usually fish don't leave marks on my thumb from lipping them....but these ones did.  They were definitely heavy to hold.  Like I said, I'm going to pick myself up one of those fish scales tonight so that I can stop these guessing games!!  

Oh, but this post is relevant to this topic because maybe these fish big fish were agressive due to spawning??  I was on shore and couldn't see far enough to see if there were beds or not.  Both fish big fish were caught in pretty shallow, probably less than 2' of water.  the smaller one was caught in a little bit deeper water.  

I had plenty more nibbles and twice had bait in mouth but I failed to effectively set the hook.  I'm going back tonight!

[Kozak]

hmmm.... I'm starting to hate the part of Massachusetts that I live in. It seems like everything around here has either became infested with pickerel or overstocked with trout. I fished a pond today and on one side the water temp was 68*!!! on the other side the temp was 62*. Does the water need to turn over or something? I found zero beds and I circled the shoreline twice in my boat, only managing to pick up 1 tiny bass and too many pickerel. At 68* shouldnt the bass be ACTIVE?

I've been fishing new ponds lately, in search of a hawg. I was hoping that these trout ponds would have sufficient forage for a bass to grow to double digit size, but the more of these ponds I fish the more I feel like I'm just dreaming.

[Tin]

hmmm.... I'm starting to hate the part of Massachusetts that I live in. It seems like everything around here has either became infested with pickerel or overstocked with trout. I fished a pond today and on one side the water temp was 68*!!! on the other side the temp was 62*. Does the water need to turn over or something? I found zero beds and I circled the shoreline twice in my boat, only managing to pick up 1 tiny bass and too many pickerel. At 68* shouldnt the bass be ACTIVE?

I've been fishing new ponds lately, in search of a hawg. I was hoping that these trout ponds would have sufficient forage for a bass to grow to double digit size, but the more of these ponds I fish the more I feel like I'm just dreaming.

That is exactly what I was talking about, a quick warm-up like we had can really mess up the fish around here. So far though everything is weird in RI. Some lakes are in pre-spawn mode and some fish have not even moved out of their winter holes, while fish in other lakes are just beginning to stage.

For the RI guys, saw beds on Johnson's Pond yesterday. But in places you would never expect beds to be. I'm talking dead, stagnant water in the back of a tiny tiny inlet. All the leaves were kicked out and there was a nice sand circle with a buck on it. The other ones I saw didn't have fish on them, but they were close by.

[jaystraw]

my grandmother lives in Easton.   Sounds like I need to take a trip down!

I saw what looked like tons of beds in the sand at a small lake in NH the other day, but they had no fish on them.  Maybe left over from last year?  

[Perfect Hook Set]

This one came out of a bed and actually weighed 3.7