MassYak85

There's not necessarily shad but many lakes have shiners and some lakes have alewives. I've done very well with flashy silver spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, tailspinners, and blade baits even in some of the small ponds. Craw and bluegill patterns are my usual go-to's though. I wasn't aware they stocked those there, I thought it was only rainbows and browns. But I guess it makes sense why they'd try there, nice deep reservoirs without pike. Both reservoirs get a good amount of shore fishing pressure but the only way to target the deeper structure really is in a kayak or canoe. You can launch boats at Ashland but the parking is extremely limited, and Hopkinton doesn't allow gas engines. I've tried chucking a hudd at both around the trout stockings but never connected with anything at either.

I grew up in Hopkinton. Ashland and Hopkinton reservoirs both have good trout fishing, I've never sunk serious time into them targeting bass. Biggest out of Hopkinton I've got is maybe 3lbs. They're in there for sure. With the trout stocking I can't imagine there aren't at least a few monsters that grew fat on stocker rainbows.

I'm jealous of you guys living down near the Cape, I've got to deal with this hard frozen water. I like ice fishing but it's not the same.

Ice fish when I can, I try to be at the gym more than during open water season, organize tackle, clean reels, small hikes. I usually keep busy until mid february and then I start getting a serious itch for open water again. You can only comb through your tackle so many times.

You should easily be able to find a used sub dolphin kayak or something. Not great but it will get the job done. I've fished out of a 10 foot sit in kayak for years.

Man the swimbait game is going a little far ?

I like to fish traditional Carolina rigs around deep weedlines in the summer mostly. In gonna try them more in the spring this year too. But I generally like big worms and creature baits. Zoom lizards or big 10 or 12 inch worms. Im fishing braid mainline to a 12 or 15lb leader generally. Straight shank worm hook.

@Dunks N Dinks Hit up Real Prey swimbaits! They're local and they make their baits out of silicon so they are durable but still have that subtle tail kick even in super cold water. They've got you covered for just about any size. They make a nice 5" perch and some bigger 6 and 7" shiner and gill patterns, all the way up to BIG 10" trout and a Jumbo Shiner. But the Perch is nice, you can throw it on a jig rod you don't need swimbait gear.

I'm pretty young (23) but a couple years ago I invested in a couple sets of sungear. To be honest, I don't wear them all that much, I do try to use sunscreen often when I don't but I know I could be doing way more to protect myself.

The Tatula platform is great. The Fuego CTs are a great option too. Basically the exact same reel without the T-wing. I've got a few of each. Budget friendly, easy to work on, and hold up well. The magforce z is a great braking system. Like others said above, just get the spool tension knob dialed in once and you can pretty much leave it alone. From there I might have a 3-4 number range on the brake dial that I use depending on conditions and the lure I'm using. They're just overall really carefree to use IMO.

What's your budget and what gear do you have to throw them on? So many great lures out there.

Bluegill flash and alwewife for the really small ones.

Haha, unfortunately these are a bit more expensive than the real deal. Bigger too I think, aren't baby possums like actually super tiny?

5.2 lber on a Cl8 baby possum in November. I had a good late fall here in New England but my better fish came cranking wood with the possum.

1. Fish deeper. I definitely made strides in this area this last year but for years I was a beat the bank guy, with 8-10ft weedlines being "deep" to me. My goal is to find some of those productive 20-40ft spots on some of my favorite lakes. 2. Don't force a bite. The fall transition kicked I disagree this year cause I tried forcing that "fall feed" bite sooner than I should have. 3. At least two 6 ponders.

Depends.... If I miss it's a long drawn out "awwwwwww" If it's small I usually don't say anything and just boat flip the fish before whoever I'm fishing with even notices I have one. If it's at least decent size I usually go "there's one"....followed by "NET!" if it's big, or "OH MY GOD" if it's really big lol.

Slowing down with jigs and big soft swimbaits is one of my goals for next year. Big worm fishing has always been a favorite for me in the summer too. Do you feel like electronics are a hindrance when actively fishing for these bigger bass? Obviously their usefulness in locating good areas to target is important, but do you think it's critical to turn them off when actually going back and fishing those areas? I've heard mixed opinions on this. How about using things like "spotlock" or shallow water anchors? Is the noise from an intermittent trolling motor or the scraping of a talon on the bottom enough to spook big fish?

I had the same reaction when I got my first one. I was able to get it to move by hand but it took a lot of effort. It's effortless with a normal cast though. It is LOUD.

Like the disposable ones? I've thought about it but I use them at work sometimes and can't go more than an hour without my hands getting wet from sweat cause they don't breath at all. Those NRS gloves up above look kinda like what I'm after. I might have to try them. It's even crossed my mind to wrap something around the reel seat of my rod cause I feel like most days thats what sucks most of the heat out of my hands. It's one reason I've steered away from round reels for swimbait fishing. The large metal frames while nice suck heat much faster than a low profile with plastic sideplates.

Bass Pro sells cheap fleece fingerless gloves for like 6 bucks. They're warm and stay warm even when they get a little wet. Buy 5 pairs and just rotate through them. I have tried a lot of different gloves and never found one that had a perfect match of warmth, waterproof, and dexterity. You're always gonna have to sacrifice on one is what I found. To me the ideal glove would be like a 1 or 2mm neoprene liner to keep out water and wind and then use a fleece fingerless glove over that. I haven't found a waterproof neoprene that is thin enough for my liking yet.

My happy temperature is like low 50s water temp. Prespawners start moving shallow in the spring and the Fall fish start really feeding up at that temp.

Thats funny with the turtles, the last 4 or 5 years the turtles in the shallows are the first thing I look for to indicate "go time" for the spawners to start moving shallower.

Nope straight fluoro. Don't get me wrong I liked it. But I'm not so advanced in my casting that I can expect to go months without a backlash. So when inevitably I got a kink in the line 20 yards into the spool, well now I had to trash 20 yards of line. Doing that twice meant a new spool of line. I just couldn't justify it when braid to leader had always been good to me.

Yea it won't load for me either.

I use Braid to leader for 90% of my fishing. The only exceptions are Frogs/Punching which is straight braid, and large treble hook swimbaits which is straight copoly for a little added forgiveness with the bigger lures. I've tried straight fluoro for one season and did not like it. The slack line sensitivity was nice but in my experience one bad backlash was lights out for your spool of line, which for the cost of the stuff was sickening when it happened. Even one kink and the line was compromised. I broke fish off 20 yards from the bait multiple times because of it. (This was sunline sniper if anyone is wondering). Maybe I'll give it another shot one day but I really don't feel I'm giving much up by using braid.