I've found my "Go To" Lake- 6/23/14

On the Water- 5:35 pm - 8:45pm
Air Temperature: 72-64
Water Temperature: 75-78
Water Clarity: Clear
Skies: Partly Cloudy
Wind: 3 - 8 Mph SSE
Barometric Pressure: 30.16 - 30.17"



I arrived at the lake, and wanted to see if my pattern from last Thursday was still intact.  Even though the conditions were extremely different, it was much of the same.  I paddled up to a small lily pad flat with deep water on all sides, and pulled out a quick limit on a pumpkin seed Cobra Bait Deadbolt as well as one on a Keitech swing impact fat.  Nothing was particularly big however.

I moved to find some more lily pads, and submerged grass, and got one more on the deadbolt.  I threw the Keitech around a little bit and after making a "poor" cast, I reeled it in really fast, and much to my surprise, it got nailed by a decent fish!

After a few more fish on the swimbait, the action died a little, so I moved up to a main lake point, and burned the lure across it and got a nice 3 poundish fish.  Once the sun went behind the trees, the fish stopped biting, and the bugs started.  I also forgot my light in the car, so I figured I'd just call it a night.

Long, but rather skinny, fought like hell though!

Here's a stupid video of part of my trip.

                     

On the last 3 trips to this lake, I have totaled 38 bass, including the 12 from last night.  Each trip has included a fish around 3 pounds.  After a few rough trips trying to figure this place out, I think I have it dialed in.  I think it's safe to say, I've knocked off the 3 year old rust.

Morning Striper Skunk, Afternoon Alewife Blitz - 6/22/14

Connecticut River Stripers (or lack thereof) 

On the Water: 5:30 - 8:00

Air Temperature: 54-63

Water Temperature: 68-70

Water Clarity: Clear/Stained

Skies: Mostly Sunny, occasional clouds

Wind: 0-3 Mph E

Barometric Pressure: 29.96 - 29.99"

To put it bluntly, the river was just plain awful today.  In the two and a half hours Josh and I were out there, we spooked 6 or 7 fish, had a couple follows, one swirl and one hit.  The stripers must have known that I was coming today, because every time I show my face in their presence, they seem to vanish.

This pretty much sums up our morning on the river.

Secret (not so secret) Lake

On the water: 8:30am - 3:00pm

Air Temperature: 64 - 73

Water Temperature: 74 - 77

Water Clarity: Mostly Clear with a slight brown stain

Skies: Sunny in the morning, Clouds rolled in around 12:30

Wind: 0-6 Mph E (until 12:30), 6-9 Mph S (after 12:30)

Barometric Pressure: 30.00 - 29.99"

Josh and I wanted to try somewhere new today, so we agreed upon this location for a couple reasons: The lake does not allow boats with gas engines, so we wouldn't have to worry about pleasure boaters, and it is fairly secluded, so we figured we would pretty much have the lake to ourselves.  Well we were dead wrong about the latter.  There were many pleasure kayakers, some obnoxious people on the "beach", and some fellow anglers.  The parking lot was nearly full when we arrived, not what we expected.

Anyways, when we got on the lake, we started paddling up the shady side of the lake, just surveying depth, structure and cover, making note of spots we wanted to come back to when the wind pushed us back.  We fished for a while without any action aside from the few hits Josh had on the Panhead jig.

I finally was able to land the first fish of the day on a Cobra Bait Deadbolt in less than a foot of water.  It was about a pound and a half largemouth, most likely guarding fry.  A short while later, I heard a big splash near Josh, and he informed me that he just had a 5 pound + fish jump and spit the hook on the jig.  We started seeing some fish breaking the surface out in the middle of the lake, and we quickly figured out that it was bass going after the schools of alewife.  The bass were pushing the schools out of deep water and up onto large flats, going from 30+ feet all the way up to 6 feet, where they were feasting for much of the morning.  We were able to catch a good amount of largemouth during the blitz, all of these fish were caught on Zoom Super Flukes.  

Once the action had slowed down, I had to try to figure something else out.  I tied on a rainbow shad colored Keitech swing impact on to a 1/4 oz Strike King swimbait jig head.  I would cast out and allow it to sink to the bottom, and then reel in at a slow to medium speed.  I was retrieving my swimbait, and it felt like I reeled into a brick wall, after a few seconds, the fish came to the surface, jumped, shook his head, and spit the hook.  This fish was a GIANT!  After about 30 seconds of sulking I went back to the swimbait and caught a few decent fish, all in 18-24 ft of water.  One of which I caught trolling while paddling to the next spot, which surprised me a bit.

I moved across to the other side of the lake, and was able to grind out one more bass on the swimbait, and missed a couple on a drop shot.

Between the 2 of us, we caught 11 bass, 7 on the super fluke, 3 on the Keitech, and 1 on a deadbolt, the biggest being 3+.  For this being a new lake, and not being quite what we expected, I think we did an okay job. New water is always tough.  But the overall size of the fish in this lake was well above average for CT.  The smallest fish was a pound and a half, the biggest we saw was well over 5.

Gettin' "Wacky" in the Weather 6/19/14

On the Water: 6:30 am - 11:45 am
Air Temperature: 64-70
Water Temperature: 74-76
Water Clarity: Clear
Skies: Overcast with steady rain until 11:00, sunny with occasional clouds for the remainder of the trip.
Wind: 3-5 Mph NNW
Barometric Pressure: 29.99 - 30.03

The weather forecast last night stated a 30% chance of showers throughout the morning.  When I got out of the shower this morning, I could hear the rain pelting off the glass of the skylight in our bathroom.  "It must be a passing shower." I told myself.  I arrived at the lake, and the rain had still yet to subside.  I dragged my kayak and gear down to the lake, and the rain continued to fall harder.  "Oh well, I made it this far, I'm sticking it out!"

When I got on the water, I began cranking a rip rap bank.  After a short while of no action, I decided to drag a football head jig around.  Nothing on that either.  I tossed the drop shot in and quickly landed 2 small bass.  I moved further up the lake, in search of some larger bass holding onto the outside weedline.  I threw the kitchen sink at this one spot, and after 30 minutes without a bite, I became a little discouraged.  Now, drenched to the bone, and freezing my you know what off, I thought about just going home.  But I stuck it out, and I changed up my lure selection a bit.  Even though the conditions did not call for it, I tried flipping a little bit, and landed one small bass on a sweet beaver.  I tied on the squarebill and started ripping it over top of the grass, but couldn't buy a bite.  I was tossing a green pumpkin deadbolt, wacky rigged,  and had a few taps but couldn't get the fish to commit.  I decided it was time to switch colors.  Unfortunately, I ran out of the pumpkin seed deadbolts, on my last trip, so I had to resort to a pumpkin with black flake senko. Immediately, I began catching fish.  Most of the smaller fish were at the transition from lily pads to milfoil.  The larger fish that I caught, were on outside weed edges adjacent to deep water.  Once I was able to form the pattern, I caught 12 more fish before I ran out of senkos, and managed one more on a green pumpkin deadbolt. I also lost a 3 lb class fish in the process, but made up for it with a few solid fish.  Once the sun came out however, the fish seemed to shut off.

Bottom line is, color matters!  Some may tell you that it is personal preference, or a confidence thing, but I think today's results proved the non believers wrong.  I went from short strikes to hook ups, and all it took was a simple color change.  The profile of the bait was right, the color just wasn't what the fish wanted today.  For the day, I ended up with 16 bass, 2 on drop shot, 1 on a sweet beaver, and the other 13 on the wacky rig.  Biggest was around 3 lbs, best 5 was approximately 11.5 lbs.

Here are a few pictures, unfortunately, due to the rain, I could only photograph a few fish, but I did manage to get my "lunker" for the day in there.

The "wacky rig" is a presentation that I have overlooked for years.  When it first gained popularity, it seemed wildly pedestrian.  We all had that friend growing up, that didn't know the first thing about bass fishing, and we dragged them along with us anyways.  Well, this is how I picture that person rigging up a plastic worm.  I finally vowed to give it a go this year, and I'm glad I did.  This technique has produced a lot of fish for me in the past 2 weeks I have been using it, and has quickly become a "Go to" in my arsenal.  You can never have too many weapons.  If you haven't yet adopted this method, I strongly suggest giving it a try.

Windy but Productive Day 6/15/2014

On the Water: 5:45am - 12:15pm
Air Temperature: 55 - 72
Water Temperature: 68-71
Water Clarity: Clear/Stained
Skies: Sunny/ Partly Cloudy
Wind: 7-22 Mph, Gusts to 28 Mph
Barometric Pressure: 30.02 - 30.05

I woke up a little later than I had planned today, I was hoping to get on the water at sunrise, and try to get a good topwater bite early.  Well, that didn't happen, and there was no topwater bite to be found today.  I started fishing some laydowns with a jig, a square bill crank bait, and a wacky rigged pumpkinseed Cobra Bait Deadbolt.  I landed my first fish after about 15 minutes on the deadbolt, probably about a pound.  I continued on, and as soon as I turned the corner from where I was, I realized just how windy it was.  I was tired, and I didn't feel like battling wind all day, I was so close to leaving, you have no idea.  But, I stuck with it, and landed my second fish on a spinner bait.  Two guys in a small aluminum boat were fishing behind me, seemingly trying to "push" me out of the way.  But, I was on my spot and I wasn't moving, they can go around or wait.  I'm glad I stood my ground, because I pulled 3 fish off this laydown, on 3 consecutive casts, while they sat and watched.

I kept moving, and caught a good pickerel.

I started throwing the wacky rigged deadbolt and a Cobra Bait 4" paddle tail on a drop shot near laydowns adjacent to deep water, and deep banks with a defined shade line, and began rapidly catching fish.  Most fish were in 6-8ft of water, but nothing was particularly big.  The majority were about a pound, a couple being a pound and a half.  I worked my way back to the launch fishing like this, losing my anchor in the process.

As I was leaving, I wanted to take a cast from shore into the large stream that flows into this pond.  In the summer months, the larger fish seem to stack up in there in search of colder water.  I spotted two bass swimming with the current, so I cast the drop shot ahead of them, and landed one of them.  Probably a little over 2lbs.

More expert level cropping!

I wound up with 14 bass and 1 pickerel.  8 bass and 1 pickerel on the deadbolt, 5 bass on the dropshot, and 1 bass on a Booyah spinner bait.

So, I caught a good number of fish, but the size of them was unimpressive.  I see some Selective Harvest in my future.  FISH FRY!

The Frog got the Numbers, but the Deadbolt Caught the Kicker 6/14/14

On the Water: 5:40-9:30
Air Temperature: 64-66
Water Temperature: 66-68
Water Clarity: Clear in spots, stained in other spots
Skies: Overcast with light rain early, mix of sun and clouds late
Wind: 0-6 Mph
Barometric Pressure: 29.82 - 29.85"

As soon as I got on the water, I immediately began tossing a black Booyah Pad Crasher.  I trimmed about an inch off of the legs, to try to eliminate some of the short strikes, which plagued my last trip to this body of water.  On my third cast, just as I was about to lift the frog out of the water, a small bass came up and dragged it down to the milfoil covered bottom.  My reaction speed was a little off this morning, whether it was due to the lack of coffee, or 7 total hours of sleep in the last 2 days, I'm not sure, but whatever the reason, I forgot to set the hook.  The fish spit the hook back in my face.  I better take a minute and have a few sips of coffee to wake myself up.

Two casts later though, I was able to get my first fish.

A solid 2 pounder to start the morning, I'll take it!

This one came from deep in the lily pads, so I began fan-casting the padded areas, and pulled out 3 more fish within the first hour.

This little guy came off the edge of the lily pads

I must have casted right on top of this one, he hit as soon as the frog landed in the water.  Hooked right through the nostrils.

Here's another look.

One more look at him, again, probably close to 2 lbs.

Got this little fatty

In the first hour, I had landed 4 bass, and only had 2 short strikes.  One of the short strikes, I suspect was a pickerel, when he missed, I punctually pitched a Sweet Beaver on top of the ripples left behind, and hooked up with a small pickerel.

After a while the once hot, first light bite, had seemingly shut off.  I kept throwing the pad crasher, and flipping the Sweet Beaver into some holes in the thick vegetation, and a Cobra Bait Deadbolt, but couldn't get much to happen.  A short strike here, a swirl there.  I decided to head to the far north side of the pond where I caught the majority of my fish, on the last visit.  There are some brush piles next to some thick grass, so I tried to pitch the sweet beaver in there, instead, I drove the hook into my finger and caused an awful backlash that took roughly 20 minutes to fix.

Once I dealt with that debacle, I tossed the frog around again, and caught one more small bass and a decent size pickerel.

This was all that was happening on this side, so I went back under the bridge, and went back to the green pumpkin/copper flake Cobra Bait Deadbolt, wacky rigged.  

There were some large holes in the lily pads, where you could work the deadbolt about 2 feet down from the surface before it became engulfed in milfoil.  I simply would cast out, deadstick it until it reached the top of the weeds, then rip it back to the surface, and repeat.  I started to see my line take off, and I set the hook.  The drag was ripping, the fish was swirling on the surface, and I was desperately trying to deter the fish from going into the lily pads, as I was only using 10lb braid, with an 8lb fluorocarbon leader.  I thought for sure I had a large pickerel, based on the side to side movement of the fish, I was surprised when I saw it up next to my kayak, and I reached in and grabbed under it's belly, and scooped it up onto my lap.

This picture doesn't do it any justice, maybe I should work on a mount for my phone, that way I have somewhere to set it down for pictures.

This fish was just shy of 4lbs.

So, for the day, I wound up with 6 bass and 2 pickerel.  Best 5 probably a little short of 10 lbs.

  It's been 10 days since I fished this pond, and the vegetation has almost doubled in some spots.  Even on the lowest sensitivity, my depth finder could only register the milfoil coming off the bottom, thus, making it obsolete, aside from water temperature.  There was only one spot that had open water, and it was 8 ft deep, and roughly a 20 ft stretch.  My options were very limited here, but I made the best of the situation.

On a side note, in my last two trips, Cobra Bait products have landed me my 3 biggest fish, two 3 lb class fish, and a 4 lb +, as well as put up some good numbers.  If you haven't already, check them out on the web at Cobra Bait, and also "Like" Cobra Bait on Facebook.  When the page reaches 200 likes, Jon will have a giveaway contest!  You don't want to miss it!

While you're "liking" stuff on Facebook, please "Like" My Page as well!

The Local Spots

Those of you who know me, know that I am very protective over "my" fishing spots.  I realize that I do not own the water, thus the quotations.  But the way I feel, the less people know the whereabouts, the better.  It's one thing if it's a fairly large body of water, or one that I feel is difficult to figure out, or remote enough, that people wont bother with it, then I may share the name of the lake/pond/river.  It's quite another, when the pond is maybe an acre, or has very limited access, or already has significant fishing pressure.

Now with that out of the way, what I want to talk to you about, is those little local ponds, creeks, rivers, or whatever it is that you have.  You know the ones, you live 5 minutes away from them, and never in your wildest dreams, would you expect to catch a fish in there, let alone, a decent bass.  Well, here's my advice, FISH IT.  Sure, you may get some looks from the clueless old lady walking by, or the pompous guy with the striped bass belt and the topsiders , that asks you "What do you think you're going to catch in here?!" with a sarcastic attitude.

My father taught my brother and me to fish in a small river.  The widest point of this particular spot is maybe 8ft, and approximately 5 or 6 feet deep.  We still fish this spot frequently, and continue to pull out 3, 4 and 5 pound fish.  I still get snickered at from time to time by the aforementioned supercilious gentlemen, but I just chuckle to myself, and play along, and be careful not to tip my hand on how productive these small waters can be.

Now I get asked a lot where I catch some of these 4 and 5 pound bass, and some get upset when I don't give them the slightest clue as to where it was.  The bottom line is, my father, my brother, and I have all put in our time, trying to figure out these bodies of water.  These have become "go to spots" when we only have an hour to fish, or just need a quick trip to build some confidence.  When one of us goes to one of these locations, and finds a group of people with buckets, taking everything that they catch, we kind of take it to heart.  We have since had one small pond, basically fished out by a group of "poachers".  I can't prove that they were taking more fish than the daily creel limit allowed, but if you take 6 bass out of a tiny pond every day, you are bound to destroy that ecosystem, and quickly too. Luckily, a volunteer group, has since taken over responsibility of the pond, and has made it strictly catch and release, and the bass population is starting to bounce back.

So, what I'm getting at, is go check out that little pond down the road.  Throw everything you have at it, and see what works.  I've come to the conclusion, that every body of water (aside from a puddle) has fish in it, no matter how big or how small.  Everyone wants to know where someone caught a  five pounder, but no one wants to put in the time looking for their own spot. This is the best place to start. Just give it a shot, and I think you will be glad you did.

Here are a few pictures from some of these places, and please excuse the expert level cropping, but I have to protect the spots!

Josh with a 4lber on his home made popper!

My dad with a nice bass, on a rubber worm.

Fun in the Rain with Cobra Bait 6/9/14

On the Water: 10:15am- 2:45pm
Air Temperature: 66-63
Water Temperature: 72-73
Water Clarity: Clear
Skies: Overcast/ Pouring Rain
Wind: 0-8 Mph SSW
Barometric Pressure: 29.99 - 30.00

My wife took the day off of work today, so I asked her nicely if I could fish.  Well, she said yes, and boy am I thankful for that.  After having coffee and breakfast with the family, I went out to load up my gear.  I realized that I never disconnected my battery for my depth finder, and after being jostled around in the process of loading and unloading, the wire ripped out of the disconnect.  I had to get more ends and crimp them back on, no big deal.  Once I loaded up, I got to the lake, I parked the car and began unloading.  I was looking around, and couldn't believe the amount of garbage left around.

There's a dumpster 20 yards away, but these scumbags were too lazy to walk it over.  

I picked up the parking lot, but there was still a ton of garbage all over the field.  Thankfully, DEEP was there not too long after picking up the remainder of the trash.  I don't understand it, these people are out enjoying nature, yet they litter the place with their crap.  

But anyways, after I dragged all my gear down to the lake, I realized I had left one crucial item at home... my paddle!  Luckily, Josh took the day off from work, and was able to bring it to me.  Thanks again dude, you're a life saver!

So once I finally got on the water, I started throwing a crankbait at the rip rap, but didn't get any hits.  I was about to paddle up to another spot, but for some reason, I decided to toss the drop shot in behind me.  As soon as it hit the bottom, I felt a tic, and set the hook awkwardly across my body, but the fish pulling turned me around and I was able to have a nice battle with this guy.  After a few decent runs, I was able to boat him.

I got him on a Cobra Bait pumpkinseed colored 4" paddle tail.  He hit 3 lbs on the nose, on my scale.

A few more casts yielded no more bites so I paddled a little further up working the outside weed edge with the drop shot.  I felt another tic, so I set the hook.  After fighting for a second, I thought to myself, this must be a little guy.  Then she came up to the surface and jumped 2 feet in the air, and I couldn't believe it.  Once she saw me, she really started to dig.  After a lengthy struggle, I got her in.

Sorry about the awful picture, I tried using a timer on my camera, but I don't have anywhere decent to prop it up in the kayak.

This was also on the Cobra Bait paddle tail.  My scale went a little screwy, but it was just over 4 lbs.

I kept moving north, working the outside weed edge, and missed a few more fish on the drop shot.  I arrived at a large weed flat, and starting tossing a Strike King KVD squarebill crankbait, atop the weeds.  I promptly was struck, but the bass jumped and spit the hook.  I moved further up to another patch of weeds, and threw a frog, crankbait, spinner bait, and a spook and could only manage one on the squarebill. 

Sugar Booger as Jimmy Houston would say.

 I went back to the drop shot, and couldn't get anything there either.  I was marking fish sitting a little higher up in the water column on the weed edge, so I threw a green pumpkin/copper flake Cobra Bait Deadbolt wacky rigged, and as soon as it started to sink it got whacked, but I missed the fish.  This happened a few more times, and I wound up landing a few on the deadbolt.

I missed a few more fish, and lost a nice one that jumped and spit the hook all on the deadbolt.  After a pickerel stole my last deadbolt, I didn't really know what to do.  I had a few Yum dingers and some senkos kicking around, but I couldn't get anything on them.  Not even a nibble.  I began working my way back towards the big weed flat in the pouring rain.  I threw the squarebill into the wind and ticking it on top of the submerged grass.  I hooked up with a fish, but he jumped and spit the hook.  I continued my retrieve and a few seconds later, I'm on again.  This time I landed the fish.

I got a few more on the crankbait, and one more on the drop shot.

Despite the litter, forgetting my paddle, and the pouring rain, I was pleased with the outcome today.  I just wish those damn pickerel hadn't stole all of my deadbolts, or I would have landed more fish.

I ended up with 10 bass (3 on drop shot, 3 on deadbolts, and 4 on the crankbait), and one bluegill.  I lost 3 on jumps, and missed about a dozen.  Best 5 was probably 11.5 lbs.  Not bad for a lake that has been pretty tough for me.  

If you haven't already, check out Cobra Bait, made right in CT.  They produced some solid fish for me today, and caught fish when a senko couldn't!