MassYak85

@Janderson45 Sweet boat! Is that fresh from the factory? I am thinking of trying some new places this weekend. What have been your guy's experiences at Singletary and/or Manchaug?

I've pretty much stopped buying from both stores as well. They usually don't have all of what I need, if they do have it it's marked up, and it's a decent drive to get to the nearest one.

Tackle Warehouse is always my go-to, but if they have a lot of stuff back-ordered, or I "NEED" a certain item, I'll look elsewhere. Places I've used before.... Outdoor Pro Shop Tackle Supply Depot Carolina Fishing Tackle The Hookup Tackle Last Chance Tackle The Tackle Trap Fish USA Turner's Outdoorsman and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few I've got a few local shops near me that I'll give business to for live bait and small last minute items (maybe I ran out of some worms). I almost always do online for bigger orders though. Also pretty much all Reel orders I do through Ebay now, the discounts are just too good to pass up when they happen.

I love summer don't get me wrong but the transition into Fall is my favorite time of year, and not just for fishing. Those 90+ degree days on the water just drain me is all.

Counting down the days lol. Although I'm sure when I'm chucking hudds or fishing jerkbaits in a winter jacket, gloves, and having to de-ice my rod I'll regret saying this haha.

No but I'll give it a try, thanks!

Has anyone had success with adding a keeper to straight shank worm hooks? I really like the roboworm rebarb hooks but the 4/0 medium wire ones are just a tad small and not heavy enough wire as I'd like for some of the stuff I do. I'm looking at adding one to a 5/0 Gamy round bend to start (the tiny barbs don't do much). I was thinking of bending some wire and tying+gluing it on to the shank but was wondering if any of you had some tips on better methods.

@gjfisher I've never actually fished Ashland despite living one town over. I have driven by it and people at the ramp didn't seem to be lighting up the bass so I kind of brushed it off. It seemed more like a trout lake but I couldn't help but think about tossing some trout swimbaits after a fall stocking or something. I'm not sure it's worth the 45 minute drive but I have to imagine both the Ashland and Hopkinton reservoirs (both deep, rocky, and plenty of trout) are keeping at least a few bass fat. A few recent trips to report... Fished Webster Friday, found a decent (3.3lb) largemouth by a dock early on, bit on a jig. Caught a decent (2lbish) smallmouth nearby on the same jig. After that had to really grind it out with a 10" power worm to find a couple dinks on deeper weedlines. Bite was very slow. Day ended fishing a hump in the middle of the lake, snagged my worm on a rock and the wind wrapped my line around one of my guides so I couldn't give any slack....POP! Out came the guide. I did get the worm and weight back but was pretty bummed about the rod. Decided to pack up before I did any serious damage to any more gear lol. Luckily the guide foot just got pulled out of the threads so I was able to glue it back in and so far it's been good as new. Fished Quinsig Saturday. They treated Flint Pond recently so I wanted to stay out on the main lake. We found a few dinks in the weeds between the islands but not much luck elsewhere. I was pretty adamant about staying out of Flint because of the dying weeds but my dad wanted to give it a shot. I managed to hook into a 4lber right next to a stick in the weeds so go figure....guess I was wrong to think the treating would shut off the bite there. Funny thing with that bass, I caught it on a 10" power worm but it was hooked straight through the nose, not the mouth. I'm thinking it picked up the tail and started swimming off with it and when I set the hook it had the front of the worm draped over it's face. I had always assumed the bigger bass just headshot those worms or inhale the whole thing...wrong again lol. Fished Whitehall this afternoon for a few hour. Tried a shady shoreline when I first got there with a stick-o, then tried a frog in the pads, and a 10" power worm (can you tell I like power worms in the summer lol) a little deeper. No takers so I went out in the middle in front of the ramp. On my "last cast" a dink came up and munched on the tail of my worm so I decided to stay a bit longer and fish that area. Glad I did, got a couple smaller bass and a pick within 15 minutes on the worm. These were only like 1lb bass but they CHOKED the 10" worm. I gut hooked both of them and the bites were not subtle. Bluegill started coming to the surface to feed on bugs so I tried the G2 shellcracker waked up top and cranked down over the weeds for a bit but no luck so packed it up and headed back.

This, everything goes in the cup holder (kayak or boat) until the end of the day when I put everything back in it's proper spot.

Huh, I didn't even know you could launch on that side. I'll keep that in mind whenever I go back thanks!

Which beach? The one one near the launch or the far shore? I fished the one near the launch without any interest but there were some nice weed lines for sure.

The farther out they are the more stability you will get. IMO you won't gain much from having them that close. If you do end up building outriggers I'm on my second design right now and maybe this will spark some ideas for you. My original design I used 5x11" floats, two per side and had a PVC pipe permanently mounted to my kayak which had a coupling to attach the PVC arms on each side. It also had adjustable notches so I could control the height of the outriggers in the water. It worked, and my kayak was so stable I;m convinced I couldn't have tipped if I tried, but it also had a TON of drag. It probably cut my max paddling speed in half at least. Ultimately I decided the drag was too much and that I didn't need that much flotation. I scavenged the floats and now only have one 5x11" float on each side. The PVC couplings on the old ones would start to come lose throughout the day and could be a pain to tighten and loosen so I scrapped that. Instead I used 3/4" square aluminum for the arms, the whole system is far lighter, has less drag and I can still stand. It's not the rock solid unsinkable stability of the first design but it's plenty. For both design the actual floats are about 36" (more on original design, slightly less on current design) off the center axis of the kayak. No matter what you do MAKE SURE they are not going to interfere with your paddling stroke. Sorry pics aren't great shots of the actual outriggers. If anyone is interested I can document exactly what I did for the new design. Original design: Current design:

You're going to get out what you put in unfortunately. Things will start to wear eventually and you will notice sooner rather than later if you don't maintain your reels to some degree.

I usually don't reach for my whopper plopper UNLESS it's choppy. The 130 size truly excels in rough water IMO as many other topwaters get "swallowed up" by the waves. A couple years back they upgraded the stock hooks to much beefier trebles. If you swap them out for a smaller size and lighter wire hook (I use ST-36s on mine), you can get the bait to sit a touch higher in the water which will help in the choppy water.

I have been using the OMTD hooks as well! Another thing I do is take an Owner Beast Hook (unweighted) and then use nail weights. I do use the Owner Flashy Swimmers though. To me any kind of underspin falls into the grey area of the law (it's more than just a weighted hook or jig head at that point). Because how is an underspin different than a spinnerbait (which are not part of the law, and in essence are simply jigs with a wire blade attached)? The length of the wire arm? Yea I don't think so. Obviously the law doesn't go into that kind of detail so to my understanding they're fine. Take away the blade though I don't use the normal weighted beast hooks because according to the letter of the law they do count.

I love hearing these stories of those freak teener northern strains. Thanks for sharing!

Went out on Lake Winthrop for about 4 hours Wednesday afternoon when the afternoon storms were rolling through. Managed to stay somewhat dry though. I was mainly fishing Weedless Rising Sons through the pads, no luck. Tried the slammer on the edges, nothing. Tried a huddgill and same result. Skunked. I went out on Whitehall this evening for a few hours and struggled a bit as well. I did manage to get on a couple smaller ones once the sun went down cranking down a shellcracker above some of the milfoil beds. About as soon as that little pattern developed the Mosquitos decided to start feeding, and discovering I forgot the bug spray called it a night. August has not been kind to me so far.

I was once in a Walmart on vacation that had a similar deal. I think I bought like 10 packs of rage bugs. It was funny too because they had a nice display made up for them and everything....only to have them on clearance lol.

The last couple years I've found myself using the following almost exclusively for soft plastics BPS Stick-O (senko knockoff) - T-rig weightless or wacky Keitech Fat Impact - Go to for swimjig/chatterbait/spinnerbait trailers or on a weighted swimbait hook Keitech Crazy Flapper - Jig Trailer or weighted T-rig, bigger ones I use for punching as well Zoom Super Fluke - Either in open water with a small finesse wide gap or in cover with a 3/0 Superline EWG hook Roboworm straight tails - Shakeyhead and drop shot Upton's Customs worms (Mainly the 9" and 10" ones) - Larger shakeyheads, T-rigged and fished slow on the bottom with a split shot Berkley Powerbait power worms (curly tails, mainly the 10" ones) - Carolina rig or weighted T-rig I still go to a few others for stuff like finesse jigs (Various grubs), coldwater jig trailers ("dead action" trailers) etc.

I agree I think I'd do the same. Getting good enough measurements and pictures for a replica and then watch her swim away.

I fished Sabattia for the first time back in June. I didn't do great there when I went but it definitely has more structure and good milfoil beds than Norton Res for sure. Funny thing with Sabattia though....I've never seen a Navionics map that was so inaccurate lol. In one spot we found almost a 20ft discrepancy.

That's the one area we didn't try hahaha. I did see one guy in a boat zoom straight to that area and thought he must know something we don't, guess he did lol. We mainly fished that NE cove, a bit around the dam, and around the islands. Outside of that cove I barely saw any surviving milfoil. I'll keep in mind the NW corner if I happen to go back though. Thanks!

Firstly, I don't know what the laws are where you live, but many ramps explicitly state "no fishing within xxx feet of ramp". If there is no sign and you have checked your local laws, make sure to realize that the primary purpose of the ramp is still to launch boats, so just be respectful to people pulling and launching boats and don't get in their way. That being said many ramps can be a great transition along the bank. Maybe it's a weedy shoreline and all of a sudden there's concrete, or sand etc. That edge can be good to fish. Depending how deep the ramp goes I might try some jigs or worms where the ramp stops too. Some transition nicely into the bottom, others have a considerable lip at the end. And depending how much use the ramp gets there might even be a cleared "trail" through nearby vegetation by boats coming in and out. That can be good cover too.

Took a friend to Norton Reservoir today fishing from the kayaks. We started up the eastern shore towards the dam. The overcast weather and cooler temps had me pretty hopeful for a good day, and seeing the nice lily pads and large boulders in the northeastern cove I thought it was a lock to hook into a few.....NOPE. We spent about 6 hours there, and the only thing that saved a skunk for both of us was a ned rig which enticed a 1lb largie. I saw a sign when we launched that they had treated the lake for weeds back in late June. Well this was my first time fishing there but if by "treat the lake" they meant "eradicate anything that grows" they did a pretty good job. Save for some lily pads in the coves there was just some of that green algae slime on the bottom. Looking around it looked like there used to be some nice weed beds, not anymore, everything was dead from what I saw. It looked like a small fish kill had taken place as well. I saw about a dozen dead perch washed up on the shores. Has anyone done well there recently? I have very little reason to go back at this point. And the shallow, seemingly structure-less and weedless bottom had me pretty clueless as to what to try.

Yea I don't trust anyone who says they caught anything over 10lbs in MA unless I've seen the proof myself (pics and a scale weight). I know a few do get caught every year but they usually are just barely breaking 10. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I believe the state record of 15 and change is the only verified teener fish to ever be caught in the state. It still boggles my mind to think northern strain can even get that big. I had a guy tell my dad he knew of a 40" largemouth getting pulled out of a pond in Rhode Island. When asked if it was a striper he said it was absolutely a largemouth...people will always lie or believe what they want to believe. Interesting discussion question though, if any of you guys caught a teener here in MA what would you do? Would you report it for the record/pin for the year? Not tell a soul?