Janderson45

Pretty much my plan for the day... When the grass is down a bit you can be effective with spinnerbaits and soft swimbaits but this time of year it's pretty much impossible to throw anything with an open hook, even buzzbaits struggle to get through the milfoil mats in my experience. Just gonna go to work and grind it out pitchin and flippin to every target I can find. Plan is to frog early and hopefully grab a few, if we don't hook any hopefully some will at least expose themselves, then we'll go to work and really slow down in those areas. Overcast skies and cooler day time temps may have them roaming a bit more than they otherwise would be.. but I figure that just means we may be able to be a little less precise with our pitches and still get bit? Oddly enough, the state actually stocks this place with tiger muskie too... not that I'm complaining, but certainly not an easy fishery to target musky on due to the immense amount of cover present... almost have to get lucky and flip your bait right in front of them and pray they don't break you off... I've yet to catch one but I've been broken off by one on numerous occasions. Set the hook and WHAM- gone.. haha!

Yes ive certainly seen this advice before... will have to be on the lookout for different weed types for sure. In your experience would places where pads meet milfoil also be a good initial target area?

Also think I may try out a "power shot" drop shot sort of technique. I've never tried it before but this seems like it could be a good place to give it a go... Thinking 40lb braid mainline to 3/0 EWG to 3/8 or 1/2 sinker. Maybe a rage bug or a straight tail worm? I could see the sinker getting tangled with the leader line in some of the brush being a potential issue, but that's just part of the game I suppose.

Nice! Gotta love hitting those little unpressured ponds, can make for a real fun day. I fished a similar spot one time a while back and I don't think the fish had ever seen a hollow-bodied frog. I think I got blowups on 20 straight casts or something ridiculous.

A few guys in my current club are still that way today, especially around smallmouth. The thicker rubber of the skirt definitely flares out a bit more on a dragging retrieve, but I know what you mean. These don't replace jigs for me by any means, just a presentation that looks similar to a jig in the water. Personally, if I'm fishing spider grubs/hula grubs or whatever other names people have for them I'm fishing them on mid to deep structure lines. I don't texas rig them and I always try to fish them on an open hook if I can. I'll either drag and hop them along the bottom on some sort of football head or shakey head jig, or I'll fish them with a similar retrieve that I use on tubes sometimes, letting them fall on semi slack line, settle on the bottom, rip them off the bottom aggressively and then let them fall back down. Sometimes smallies love this retrieve... it's a nice one to try if you're not getting bit dragging or crawling baits along the structure but you know the fish are down there.. creates a bit of a reaction strike. I've only used the GY hula grubs personally, the GY plastics are so soft and salty that I don't see the need in trying others that are likely a stiffer bait. They are expensive and they do get torn up fairly easy, but just like the GY senkos they have a certain texture to the plastic that I feel creates a more enticing action and also makes fish hold on a bit longer. They also have a ton of colors available and are sold everywhere.

Thanks for the reply A-Jay. Weather pattern looks fairly similar to what you were suggesting, we've had a stable high pressure with south winds for 4 or 5 days, tomorrow night weak front approaching the area but hanging just a bit south of us until late Saturday when it can fully move into the region... I'll be fishing all day Saturday in mostly overcast conditions and light south wind with chance of pop up showers and tstorms... Friday looks like the better day with still mostly sunny skies butt I'll be stuck in my cubicle in the city. A punch rig will certainly be tied on. St Croix EC74HF, curado 7.1:1 spooled with 60lb FX2, 3/4 or 1oz tungsten weight, SK 4/0 straight shank heavy cover flippin hook and a 4" D-Bomb in superbug. Up in the air as to whether or not i'll add a punch skirt.

Hey guys, been a little while for me. Fished Champlain (Ticonderoga) most recently. Bite was real tough down there for the two day tournament I was in. Managed to save face a little on day 2. I basically flipped heavy cover the whole time, which is what the majority of the field did. If you backed out of the cover a little bit you could get bit on some more finesse presentations but the sizes were down and pike bite-offs were frequent. Frog/topwater bite was virtually nonexistent for whatever reason.. that was a bummer. Same with just about any type of horizontal presentation, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, paddletails, swimjigs... the lot of em hardly got any attention. The bass were really hunkered down in the cover in a pretty negative mood from what we experienced anyway.. Couple guys that got up there early to practice were whacking them pretty good on swimjigs and chatterbaits but that bait completely died over the weekend. Winds changed from south to north and picked up pretty good under high pressure and bluebird skies.. probably had something to do with it. Here's one of my better fish from day 2: My quabbin fishing partner finally got a fishing kayak, so we are planning on hitting it hard this Saturday and Sunday for largemouth. Will let you know where we end up and how we do. Doesn't appear that many of you have been chasing those mossybacks lately, or at least not posting about it if you have!

So without boring you with too many details, there's a waterbody located near me in New England that I've fished before on numerous occasions, I've had varied success over the years but don't typically do quite as well here as I feel like I should... It's an old pond that had a relatively small river for an inlet/outlet , about 50 or 60 years ago they dammed the river and flooded the adjacent cedar tree farm. They didn't clear many of the trees before flooding, so it created an impressive amount of standing timber to be fished. Over the years the trees rotted and many of them fell into the water, there's only a few still left standing in certain locations of the pond, but underwater is an absolute maze of fallen trees and stumps. The majority of this flooded timber field is 3-4 feet in depth, with certain holes that are about 6 or 7 feet deep, and the old stream bed cuts right through the middle of the flooded timber, averaging 7 or so feet along the old creek bed location with a few areas that hit approximately 10 feet in depth. The water is highly fertile, with poor visibility of about 2 feet. Milfoil runs wild (especially this time of year) and forms some pretty thick nasty mats in certain areas. There are also a few spots with some good lily pad growth. Bottom composition is predominately a soft silty/muddy mix. Once the weeds come up in the late spring fishing pretty much anything with an open hook here is a no-go.. I could probably throw a spinnerbait parallel along the flooded river bed but once I wander away from that the milfoil and timber gets too dense. I usually hit this place with a mix of frogs, texas rigs, swim jigs and weedless paddletail swimbaits. Recently I've gotten a lot more into heavy cover pitching/flipping/punching with texas rigs or jigs, and as of now I plan to really dedicate myself to a day of pitching to targets with heavy texas rigs and jigs. I've planned to do this before but was very impatient and quickly went back to covering water swimming lighter texas rigs and swimbaits which had worked well for me in the past. So in summary my questions are: -How would you fish this type of scenario? -Shallow stained/muddy water loaded with timber and grass -How would you determine target areas in a seemingly endless field (300 acres) of incredibly bassy territory? -How long would you dedicate to working an area with minimal results if all of the surrounding habitat is very similar? -How heavy of a tungsten weight or jig would you ideally be pitching in 3-4 feet of water? - I realize this is dependent on it's ability to effectively penetrate the cover, but would you try to keep it on the lighter side (1/2, 3/4oz) and sacrifice a bit of efficiency because of the shallow depths? Looking at overcast conditions and potential for a bit of rain for the planned fishing date, which I realize isn't quite ideal for pitching heavy cover, but I don't know if this place leaves me a lot of other options either.

I've got 6 of the Curado I's and counting... don't feel the need to upgrade to the new Curado K although I'm sure it's great too. The Curado I is really just such a workhorse and phenomenal reel for the price... I guess I can't comment on longevity as the oldest Curado I that I own is only about 18 months old I believe, but I'm sure they'll last a good long time. I recommend them to all of my friends... I fish all Curado's and Chronarch's now pretty much... The Curado I turned me into a shimano fan boy and the newer Chronarch's are just out of this world good for the price. If I had to really nit-pick the Curado I there's only really two things I'd complain about. The first thing is the placement of the lever that opens the side plate for access to brakes and spool... occasionally (very rarely if I'm being honest) I can nudge it with a finger and not realize that it's in the "open" position... the only other thing I'd gripe about is I like longer handles.. the handle on the Curado isn't too small, I believe it's 86mm or 88mm, but I prefer the swept 90mm-96mm handles they have on the Chronarch MGL's. I own exactly 1 Lews reel, a super duty, and while I don't quite hate it... I definitely don't like it either. I use it exclusively for C-rigging as it's got a higher liner capacity for the 20lb fluorocarbon mainline I've got it spooled up with. Of course there are plenty of people that love lews.. I'm just not one of them. The SVS braking on the new Shimano reels is the "real deal" in my opinion.

looks like you were struggling with a mix of two issues, too slow of a shutter speed which causes image blur when either you or the fish moves, and focusing distance.. Don't know what you were shooting with for a camera/lens but in many cases the camera/lens must be a certain minimum distance away from the subject in order to achieve proper autofocus. Nice fish though, looks like you caught a bunch and must have had fun anyways!

Canal cows. Good work. I know the big ones run through there but I hate fishing the canal lol. Kudos to you for putting in the time and reaping the rewards. I got into some nice blues over the weekend. Im fishing Champlain next weekend, excited for that!

I've been snooping around the used market for something cheap and quabbin oriented. I've got a friend that lives out near the quabbin that's been keeping an eye out for used boats out of the Champlain area for me. speaking of Champlain, I've got a tournament up there in 2 weeks! Quabbin was tough on us yesterday as well @DogBone_384 ; boated 9 fish total, biggest was only about 2.5lbs. About as poorly as I've done out there in past 2 years I think. Back to back slow trips for me out there. Won't be able to fish it for about a month now so hopefully by the time I go back I'll have better luck. I got 3smb on a dropshot, 2 on a jig, 1 on a c-rig. Partner got 1lmb on a spook, 2SMB on a ned rig. I found tons of bait in certain areas but the bass either weren't around or certainly weren't feeding heavily on the bait. Couple spots we pulled up to I thought for sure we'd be catching schooling smallies; bait was there but the bass weren't nearly as aggressive as they typically are in my experience. Getting over schools of bass and bait, vertically fishing a dropshot... they were completely ignoring it. Tried various leader sizes and bait/color selections and none of it seemed to make a difference. I may may get out in the yak this afternoon somewhere by me, nippenicket sabattia winnecuneit .. it's hot though and I'm sunburnt

Up two hours earlier on Saturday AM than I have been for work all week... some people think we be crazy... but this is what it's all about! ? Them brown fish be callin

Dont let it shake your confidence, everyone has off days and I'm sure Tom has been fishing for quite a bit more of his lifetime than you have? Just keep putting in the time and try to learn something new each time out if you can, sometimes you end up learning what doesn't work or what not to do if you're not catching fish, but those days are important too. Eventually something just clicks on a given body of water and then every time out you've got the confidence that you can go and catch fish. The quabbin happens to be one that has "clicked" for me over the past couple of seasons, but I've got plenty of other bodies of water that I'm still struggling to figure out. If we ever end up organizing a bassresource day out there i would be happy to show you or whoever else what I do and what works well for me out there... even if we don't I can try to take some pictures/video of my rigging and equipment tonight and tomorrow and post them on here or PM you. Anyways- good luck, hopefully you'll get a few good bites with the remainder of the afternoon!

How is that possible?! I typically out-fish my buddy but not that bad... if I put him on a good spot he generally catches a few? Dropshot is still my top producer out there.. although recently I've been playing around with a whole assortment of techniques. You guys launch for gate 43 or 31?

missed you by a day- me and my buddy Joe are headed out to the Quabbin tomorrow (7/15) ; hope you guys whack em good, let us know how you do! I'm going to try and film a bit more on my gopro this time, we'll see how that goes...

At the Quabbin? Bite was relatively tough last time I was out (Sunday) .. they weren't very aggressive, lots of sluggish fish sitting on the bottom. I'm going out again this Sunday, should whack em better I think... What and where are you guys fishing? I've yet to have a 50 fish day there (although I've come fairly close) and I've never had a day where I haven't caught one at least 3lbs ... Interested to hear how you've caught 200 fish in 3 days out there between the two of you and haven't broken the 3lb mark yet.

Lol no that's crazy though. Saw a guy out there kayak fishing too, surrounded by strong current, choppy seas and hundreds of fishing boats... no thanks! People can get pretty ballsy out there for how rough that area can get.

Those don't look like keepers to me?? Legal size is 28". Glad you had fun and caught a few though. we got our commercial limit (15 fish minimum 34") out around Provincetown yesterday... wasn't as easy as we envisioned but we grinded from 4:30 am -2:30 am until we had a limit. Ferocious and fast paced top water action in the AM and then live lining mackerel or vertical jigging as we got into the afternoon. Lots of short fish mixed in, probably caught 20 or so shorts. Had a blast though, was my first time fishing commercial striped bass. My buddy took a bunch of pics and video, when he sends it over to me I'll post a bit of it.

Was out at the Q again today with my typical fishing partner Joe. We had relatively high expectations based on our outing on monday, but they never panned out for us. It was a real grind out there. We fished and fished hard for the full 12 hours out there, last boat off the water At the end of the day we had boated 15 total. I had 9 but four of them were complete dinks, he had six, mostly in the 1-1.5lb range. End of the night saved us, I caught 3 good ones (good ones for today anyways) between 6:15-6:45PM and i beleive he landed two more in that time as well. We both did lose a handful of fish; spitting a dropshot while going airborne was the majority of it. I did catch my first ever Quabbin largemouth as well, it ate my jig in 20-25 feet of water surrounded by smallies... weird. Also had a serious bite mark from what we think was a lake trout ?? We also considered a bird but don't think a loon would attack a largemouth and I don't think it would've gotten away from an eagle nor where they puncture marks like an eagles talons would leave. Water temp was 74-77, winds were WNW and got gusty and higher than forecasted in the afternoon. Mostly sunny with air temp hovering around 85-90 most of the day. Fishcwere caught at a wide range of depths from 12 to 35+ feet. I couldn't help but find myself losing a fair deal of confidence out there, unless it's early early season I have spots that consistently produce for me and they just weren't happening today for whatever reason. Marked a lot of fish laying on the bottom either by themselves or with one or two other bass in 25-35 feet of water. They seemed very sluggish and reluctant to feed which surprised me. Where we found any sort of sustained success were the few times we came across groups or schools of clearly more active bass, they were roaming a few feet off of the bottom in about 20-25 feet of water instead of laying on the bottom in deeper water. Yes I'm wearing the exact same outfit as Monday... lol Up early again tomorrow to go striper fishing, hopefully with better results than our smallie expedition today. ?

Yes it's a transom mount trolling motor and it has a lowrance HDI transducer mounted on the bottom of it. In the past I also used a portable suction cup mount for the transducer, but can't say I recommend it, I just made it work for a while. They also sell clamp on brackets for mounting a transducer that I've seen people use.

Or anywhere in New England to my knowledge... would love to catch one though.. I see the ones Cody Meyer wacks out in cali and they look like a blast

The Chronarch MGL is my favorite reel in my arsenal... I don't own a Metanium, but I do own an Alderberan and prefer the Chronarch MGL ... Simply put it's an awesome reel.. you wont be disappointed. The braking/cast control is terrific, casting distance, drag and smoothness of retrieve are all spot on. I have the XG (8:1), which has an even larger oversized handle (96mm I believe) that is just awesome to fish with. It's a new reel so I haven't used it a ton yet but I've been very impressed in the few weeks I've had it. I've fished mostly paddletail swimbaits and 14lb fluorocarbon on it.. had me borderline speechless after the first few casts :).

Curado looks pretty nice.. New slightly smaller size and micro-gearing.. I've got a bunch of Curado I's though and like the size just fine.. gearing will probably make it feel a bit smoother or more refined. The Chronarch looks like they literally just took the Chronarch MGL and removed the magnum lite spool (the only thing that made it a freshwater only reel) ?? Specs look pretty much identical and same exact price point... I have both the MGL and Ci4+ versions of the chronarch and love them, but this doesn't look like much of an upgrade... more like they just made an MGL with a saltwater friendly spool?

Only in certain counties from what I understand though, right? Fished the St. Lawrence from Waddington/Masena last year and those rules applied, got down to Oswego to fish Ontario and people down that way had no clue there were restrictions on bass fishing further north/east and looked at me like an idiot when I informed them.