Janderson45

I would assume they're going crazy on the east side right now and some of them might be just starting to bed. Good luck! Jealous of that 5lber, not sure what my PB smallie is but certainly not 5lbs.

Was out on Worden's again from 12-630 yesterday. Not a whole lot to report or be proud of though to be honest. Talked to a lot of guys coming off and going out on the pond, doesn't seem like anyone faired particularly well there yesterday. I managed 2 LMB, one on the red eye shad in chili craw (again, this bait has been money for me so far this year) and one on a live shiner... I practically never fish live bait in freshwater, but since I was after a trophy pike mainly I figured I'd try and up my odds with some shiners... I found the pike I was after and played her for over 2 hours, couldn't get a hook set. It shredded numerous shiners without getting itself hooked, and since we were talking about 6" to 12" of water I saw the fishes back up and out of the water feeding numerous times. It was a giant and I was flabbergasted that I couldn't put the hook to it. Seemed like they were feeding on a school of yellow perch in the shallows, I caught roughly a dozen of said perch, and ended up keeping a smaller one and rigging it up tossing it out there hoping for the best... No luck. In hind sight I probably should've cut the fish up to use as bait as I didn't have proper terminal tackle with me to rig up a live 8" perch, but I still tried. Managed to take 2 good sized pickerel towards the end of my outing on a chartreuse KVD squarebill... Not the outing I was hoping for, but I'll learn from it and hopefully check a good sized pike off the list soon (I've never caught one). On a side note, I love the post that grampa made about slowing down and working one bait all day, paying attention to conditions and logging your success or lack there of for future reference... Advice I'm almost certainly going to heed myself as someone relatively new to this sport (new in any sort of serious way at least). I've finally got a boat I can launch and fish out of myself this year, and I've definitely still got a ton of learning to do as far as patterns and baits go. I'll be adding a fish finder to the kayak soon (loweance elite4x chirp) so that'll be a whole new ballgame with knowledge of the exact depth and temperature, contours, bottom structure, weed growth and fish marks etc. I'm excited for the up coming months and really getting seriously into this sport... I've been doing alright so far this season, but really without that one decent bass I posted earlier all I'd have to show for it is some 15" largies and a bunch of pickerel. Keep at it dogbone, the fishin gods will repay you one of these days I'll be out in the yak again tomorrow (few weeks off from work and taking full advantage of it). Not sure exactly where I'm going yet, but I'm back local in Eastern MA. Might go down to Plymouth and try to play with some smallies, might go to Rochester to chase pike again, or might stay real local and consider nippenicket, winnecunnet, sabatia, or the Norton reservoir. Just ordered a neck gaiter and some gloves today, I severely underestimated the number the sun can do on you three days in a row out on the water for extended periods of time, even this time of year through the clouds I still got a decent sun burn going. Tight lines everyone!

Checked out worden pond in Charlestown RI this evening, only fished it for about 2 hours and did more exploring than fishing (huge body of water)... I caught 2 pickerel on a red eye shad and my buddy caught 2 LMB as well as 2 pickerel all on a watermelon red brush hog rigged on a 3/8oz weighted keel hook. I'll likely be out on Worden's again all day tomorrow in search of trophy Northern Pike and of course LMB. I've heard a lot of good things about this body of water and can't wait to give it my first real shot tomorrow... Not sure exactly how I'm going to fish it yet, probably just more of the same as what I've been doing so far this year seems to be working pretty well. I do plan on potentially picking up some XL shiners from a bait shop to increase my odds of landing a large northern, figure I can toss them out there and let them do there thing while I'm chucking my other artificial baits. I'll report back tomorrow evening, hopefully with some good photos of nice catches... Be forewarned however I've yet to figure out how to get good pictures of my catches out of the new kayak.

Got the yak out on Winnecunit in Norton today for a few hours this afternoon. Was fighting some pretty rough winds for the few hours I was out there, the anchor trolley made a huge difference! Nothing note worthy to speak of, 2 small LMB (both around 12") and one average sized pickerel. All fish came on a red eye shad in the grass. Did have one toothy critter break off my black/blue jig I was throwing as well... Probably a good sized pickerel, I'm not confident it was his teeth that broke the fluoro off though, I didn't inspect it for any kinks or nicks above the lure like I usually do, oh well. Beautiful day, I'll likely be out again tomorrow

Went out on the quabbin for opening weekend and got a few nice lake trout, one was 19.5" and 2lb13oz, the other was a bit longer (didn't get length as it was a clear keeper) and weighed in at 3lb9oz. Went out on a reservoir in westborough yesterday in search of LMB. Ended up boating 3 large mouth and a pickerel. The first two LMB were 15" and 15.5". The 3rd and final fish was a 21" fatty! I was stoked to bring her in, first good bass of the year. Wish I had a scale with me! Here are a few pics of that last bass.

Nothing but two dinky LMB in two short little pond/bank fishing outings I've had so far.. Got a quabbin trip planned for this weekend, we'll see how the salmon and lakers are biting! Also got my new kayak showing up on Thursday, so can't wait to get that rigged up and wet. Going to be a good week! My thoughts are some of this warmer rain we are having and will continue to get should help liven up the fisheries a bit too? Fingers crossed.

Glad to see people back fishing! Wanted to get on here and see if anyone was doing any catching yet and what water temps looked like. I'll probably try out a bit of bank fishing in the next few days just to wet a line. Happy to report that I just placed an order for a new 2015 wilderness systems ride 115x, can't wait to get out on the water in that bad boy! Hopefully next week it'll be here

It's on my list... It's supposed to be the premier pike fishery in the north east United States, and I've heard the smallmouth bite isn't half bad either

Beats my biggest of the year so far... What are water temps in southern NH at the moment? Have the bass finished spawning yet? Most bass seem to have finished spawning around here about 2 weeks ago, slowed fishing down a little the past few weeks. Water temps creeping into the low 70s from what I can see around here.

Go figure mike, I was out in my canoe on the A1 yesterday from about 1-6 PM. Me and my buddy caught 9 LMB between the two of us, big fish on the day was 3lbs, but all the rest were still nice fish in the 1.5-2lb range. Caught on topwater frog and weedless senkos. Also had what appeared to be a decent pike hooked up for about 15 seconds before he found a way to spit the frog

I'm curious (as I'm new to the term "rage rig" as well) is using a weighted swimbait hook on a soft plastic swimbait also called a "rage rig" or does it have to be a rage tail bait to be called a rage rig? I understand the concept behind the rig of course, i just fished a caffeine shad this way last weekend, and the slight weight underneath the bait gives a unique action that the fish love, and allows you to work it fairly quickly in a horizontal fashion. Just curious about the terminology..

I am really starting to like the lake fork hyper stick...surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet But I generally have good success fishing all types of worms, I've probably caught more fish on a dinger than anything else.

Went out on halfway pond in plymouth in my canoe this weekend, had a blast. If you haven't been out there before it's a beautiful pond and I think it's got some real good untapped bass potential... although only accessible from shore or car-top boats. LMB, SMB and a nice healthy pickerel population to boot! Caught about 10 fish (and lost quite a few as well) 2 largemouth, a smallmouth and a boat load of really healthy fat pickerel. All of the fish except the last pickerel of the day came on a strike king caffeine shad rigged on a twist-lock weighted swimbait hook. Fish were crushing this bait all day to to the point that I had to switch to a wacky rig at the end because I ran out of caffeine shads. Here's a picture of one of the largemouths and one of the pickerel Here's a couple photo's of bass caught a few weeks ago at the A1 site as well

Took two LMB tonight in a small pond in Sharon MA. First one was a very healthy 3lber that showed no signs of spawn abuse and took a blue/black yum dinger trigged weightless and a dink that took a black/blue flappin hog also t rigged weightless. Heading out again tomorrow AM likely to the Plymouth area.

That thing is a toad.. but I'm sorry there's just no way it's 9lbs... 75% the size of the world record... ok that might not sound like that much of a feat, but when you consider how often you see smallmouth that look this size range, and not to mention fish (like posted above) that clearly look bigger than this one? That would make pictures of numerous smallmouth bass I've seen on here pushing 10-12 lbs and world record status? Doesn't add up to me.. I'm no expert and obviously it's hard with just images of a fish, but If I were to guess myself I'd give that fish 6lbs.

That's awesome! Now if you can just teach her how to rig up her own rods reels and tackle, you might have scored on a fishing partner for life!

I'll let you know more definitively tonight, last weekend they weren't too bad yet. You could see some weed beds for certain however, some of them poking out just above the surface, some of them just barely submerged.. Most of the good fish came off/near weed beds with abutting stumps/cover. Gonna stay with what worked last time out today, similar conditions I would think, perhaps just a bit cooler water temps... jigs and texas rigged soft plastics in blue/black and chartreuse and green pumpkin. Anyone got any advice for taking a muskie or pike out of this place? I realize the best time frame for catching them has come and gone, but surely they're still feeding very actively in there.. with the abundance of weeds and hang ups in there I wouldn't really even consider fishing something that wasn't weedless other than maybe a spinnerbait or topwater ... I'm gonna toss a real big (10.5") worm along some weedlines and see if I don't get lucky and hook up on something mean..

Mike- I've been looking at the same yak and it would likely be worth about as much as my car too! I went out on the A1 last weekend and did pretty well, particularly on chartreuse colored soft plastics texas rigged either with a small bullet weight, or weightless (lizzards and senkos mainly) Got 3 LMB in the 4-5lb range, and a lot more in the 2-3 lb range. Also hauled in quite a few pickerel... all in all I caught about 20 fish and my buddy caught about 5 on a gorgeous 80 degree day in central mass. Will be heading out again this weekend hopefully and would love to have repeat results.

I use fluorocarbon filler spools as leader all the time, Bass pro or similar retail shops often sell "fluorocarbon leader" that is available in various lb tests, and is priced at a point that it is obviously supposed to be superior to regular fluorocarbon line.. however as mentioned above, I doubt you'd realize much of a difference when using FC "leader" material versus regular FC line... Like i said I use regular FC line as a leader all the time (tied to braid main line) and have yielded spectacular results.

I would agree, certainly appears to be a smallmouth. They're great to fish for if you've got a lot of water bodies around that hold them. I've got far more largemouth lakes/ponds around but often find myself gravitating towards a body of water with some smallmouth also if I've got the option. Great fighters!

So I'm sure this has been brought up multiple times, but I'm having some trouble determining when to use what knots for which techniques of fishing. For instance; off the top of my head currently the most common fishing knots that I tie (in no particular order) are: Palomar Improved clinch San diego jam Albetro/Improved albright So based off of those four knots, I use the palomar whenever I'm using braid to terminal/lures , or when perhaps when I'm texas rigging a soft bait or jig with fluorocarbon line... the improved clinch I generally use with just about any monofilament application, and horizontal fluorocarbon applications (not sure of my reasoning on that) The san diego jam I typically use with fluorocarbon knots when I'm worried about low palomar knot breakage strength, and again horizontal fluorocarbon line presentations. The improved albright/alberto knot (pretty sure these are the same?) I use for connecting fluorocarbon leaders to braid for clear water fishing or whatever other reason.. This is my current thinking, but I'm sure some of it is flawed... I know how to tie many other knots but thus far this is what has seemed to work best for me.. But I still have many questions and feel like I could slightly improve my fishing simply by learning when to use what knot and perfecting the ability to properly tie each knot. When would one use an imrpoved clinch vs a san diego jam vs a palomar? They are all main line/leader to terminal tackle (hook) knots, but they all have different qualities and breaking strengths with different lines... also, many people use a uni knot? When would one use a snell knot vs a palomar? I often use the palomar on "live bait rigs" but know that others often use a snell knot? What is the advantage of this? When would one use a line connecting knot (such as the double uni knot) as opposed to an albright, alberto, double albright, blood knot etc.? Lots of people use the san diego jam as a good "non-slippage" knot for braid, I've always used the palomar knot for this application instead... I've got absolutely no problem learning how to tie any fishing knot that was ever postulated if it will help my fishing, but it seems like there is a shortage of information on what particular application you should use each knot for.. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

I would just thread it on the jig like you would any other trailer.. the weed guard on the jig is what's going to keep you from fouling up, not the senko.

Sweet! I've only fished the Quabbin once, strange beast she is. I'm more used to fishing shallower and more stained or muddy water that we have out here in eastern MA... nothing quite like the ultra clear and deep water. Needless to say the Quabbin smoked me, we got the skunk!

running a senko weightless along lily pads or other similar surface vegetation doesn't seem to work well either..

I haven't ever fished it, but in case you're not aware of the mass.gov pond maps they generally have some decent information. Here's a link to lake Singletary. http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dfg/dfw/habitat/maps-ponds/dfwsingl.pdf