AverageAngler

That cold front this past weekend was something else huh. I went out twice and I managed to get a couple fish feeding shallow. I tried the Charles River in Needham and the current was flowing more than expected due to the rain. Looks like we’re getting more rain on Sunday too, we definitely need it but the vibes of the summer in 2023 where it rained for 14 weekends straight are starting to be felt🫣. Nice post spawner after work. The bass in the Charles were tight to cover, they bit right at the current breaks.

Oh how I missed this forum! This past month has been kind to me in terms of freshwater fishing; I put in a lot of hours trying to improve my game and I feel pretty good on what I learned. Saltwater has been a different story but I’ll keep improving little by little. Instead of detailing my numerous trips I’ll just share some highlights: My first ever Wachusett Reservoir fish! It took me about a year with 5 trips ranging from 1-4 hours to get this one. I landed another about 30 minutes later but this one was way prettier. On the jerkbait. Nice 3.5lber on a bed. I just had to flip the tube in there when I saw the female was still on it. Personal Best brook trout, also on a jerkbait. One of about 20 I caught this day. I noticed after the first week and a half of May most beds were vacant and the bass were post spawn. Big ol slab at about 14 inches. Underspin. This past weekend I went down to the Cape, post spawn was fully in effect and the smallies were chewing. A rainy Morning on Memorial Day brought some awesome topwater action with most fish hovering around 17-18inches. The next day brought some bluebird skies and some shallow flat bluegill eaters. Water temperatures between 67-70°. Some pretty pumpkinseeds too. And a giant pickerel. 25 inches on the baby bull shad.

I went out this afternoon to my favorite clear water pond to see if the smallies were either still prespawn or on beds. Although the past week has seen colder than seasonal averages, the smallies were right up near the shoreline tending to their nests. I must have kayaked past about 5-8 fish before one finally committed. Not sure how unpopular it is in the forum but I really enjoy the challenge of coaxing a fish to bite on a bed. Naturally I put them back in within 30 seconds, but seeing them nose down and suck up a bait is really fun. I landed 10 and saw about 30. The water levels are real down here and a lot of them were actually deeper than last year - around 8-12ft deep.

I definitely missed the memo on these jigs, they seem awesome but yeah 12 dollars is insane. That looks way bigger than 3lbs 😆

I actually haven't tried either craws, my allegiance lies with the sk rage craws and the zoom speed craws. Both of them provide a different type of aggressive leg kick. I use jj's magic sometimes and while it absolutely stinks I do believe that the fish hold on longer. My favorite way to rig them is either on the back of a jig or a bladed jig. If I'm using a texas rig I prefer a beaver style bait or a brush hog. Here are some highlights from the past week. I’ve been truly blessed enough to fish a lot this month, and while I didn’t get that spring giant, I did catch good numbers and have really upped my confidence fishing colder water. I also gained a lot of confidence in the soft glide bait. Sometimes the YouTubers really put you on to a gem of a technique.

I L O V E orange on a craw. I'm not so sure the crayfish are the same in Maine but here outside of Boston all of them that I find have orange tips at the end of their claws.

Thank you very much "You got soft hands!"

Some highlights of the past week. The warming trend earlier was pretty kind to me with a nice 4lber but I got stormed out on Sunday and yesterday was a total grind. Hopefully they’ll be active again by the weekend.

Saturday I went out with a cousin of mine to try to get him a fish for the first time in years. The first pond was a dud but the second pond seemed to have a lot more action. The colder nights this past week definitely put the fish in a funk since the only other people that were catching were trout anglers using powerbait. We landed two rainbow trout jigging a kastmaster off the bottom, and missed two others. Honestly it was a success considering how much everyone else around us was struggling. Sunday I went out near the Cape to try and catch a big one and ended up with a number of different fish. 3 pickerel, 2 bass, and an assortment of panfish. All the bigger fish were on a bladed jig, with the panfish going after a jerkbait. The river was a lot shallower than the ponds I fished the day before, which helped me locate them a lot easier. The winning areas were either emergent wood structures in shallow flats or overhanging trees opposite the channel swing in shallow water. This warming trend with warm nights has me excited for the upcoming weekend. I'm blessed enough to have three days off so I plan on going ham on the water.

Genuine unit.

It wasn't very warm yesterday but it sure was windy and it got the fish at a local pond all fired up. I got about 10 in an hour after work all on little swimbaits and crankbaits. I've been struggling at the deeper ponds this spring but the shallow weedy ones have been a lot more productive.

Nice fish! I love those little mangrove snappers, and I also heard sheepshead taste incredible.

Water temps finally hit the low 50s in both ponds I checked, one west of Boston and one south. I got three fish out west and five fish down south. A variety of moving baits worked but I had to work HARD to get them. What’s interesting to me is that I will go 90% of the trip with almost no signs of life, however during that 10% I will find them all bunched up. If I don’t take advantage of that feeding window then it’s lights out for me. I do feel the gears in my head turning though, each trip I learn something new.

Tough fishing this weekend, tried to juggle both trout and bass fishing but I kind of did neither. I took some friends out on Saturday and we battled the winds for a few hours but we did manage a rainbow, which was a HUGE win; now they want to chase that adrenaline again. Sunday was a solo trip to two places. I landed a big yellow perch on a jerkbait early, then skunked hard at the second pond. I might be irresponsible and play hooky tomorrow to chase some pre-frontal bass at one of my favorite ponds, not sure yet.

I fish the river mouth sometimes and while the fishing is good, it can be absolutely terrifying and outright dangerous if you catch the winds and tide wrong. The joppa flat is well known for a reason though, so much fun.

Haha that is awesome! My cancelled trip was actually going to be with some of my close friends who were interested in trying something new. Hopefully they get the bug like your friend. It's like when uber eats did their year end review and showed me every poor decision I made over the last 12 months...

Proof that I didn't get skunked. Beautiful colors on her.

Went 1/2 on trips this weekend. Saturday I tried a new pond in the southeast that was stocked with trout pretty recently. I usually do terrible in kettle hole ponds but I wanted to target trout mostly so I thought why not. The first two and a half hours I struggled immensely, no bites and no clue on what to do. The people on the bank were hammering the trout on kastmasters but I didn't want to intrude on their space so I stayed off shore. I made a final decision to anchor on the northwest side and just cycle through baits and cast to a place that I marked had a ton of fish cruising. No joke as I was picking my nose a spunky 13 inch lmb smacked my jerkbait, and that gave me the clue that helped my last hour go a lot better. I interrupted my cadence about halfway through my long cast and sure enough I got another bite. I upsized my bait to a larger one and caught two more, including the biggest fish of the day at a fat 16.5 incher. Overall I caught as many fish this trip as I did all of March last year, so that's pretty awesome. Sunday due to the rain my initial trout fishing trip got postponed, but I made a quick stop by a smallie pond to get some casts in. Unfortunately at that spot I skunked, but I learned a lot and I had a good time so wins all around.

Shoutout @DogBone_384 for the scouting reports, slowly but surely all the good waters will open up. I was able to bank fish for about 2 hours on Saturday by the entrance of the Cape; I managed to get my first bass of the year dragging a ned rig ultra slow off a wind blown point. I was completely expecting a skunk to start the year so that was a great surprise. I started 0/4 last year so getting on the board early feels nice. This weekend looks rainy but the temps in the high 40s low 50s look promising with my dry suit on.

Drove around Jamaica Pond yesterday after work, some of the shorelines have opened up but most of it is still iced over. A lot of the Charles by Watertown is completely open, hopefully all this wind proves @MassYak85 right with that blowtorch theory and we'll have lots of options open by the weekend.

Must. Fish.. . Open. Water. I feeel it...

I thought that I could blow off the desire to try ice fishing for the first time until next winter, but with the reports of ice still being thick, I might have to hit up facebook marketplace...

It was worth it when it was on xbox game pass but now that you have to shell out the money it's not really worth it anymore. BPS The Strike was my jam like 15 years ago even with the janky controls, but if the urge to play a fishing game ever hits me I'll play the original Sega Bass Fishing.

1. Fish more. Must. FIsh. More... 2. Get good at catching fish in sub 50 degree water. New England is in a dark and dreary state for about 1/3 of the year, and it would be very beneficial if I figured them out to keep my mind occupied during that time. 3. Scale down what I bring on my kayak, I brought way more than I needed on my trips and I felt clunky at times. Slimming down would increase my enjoyment greatly. 4. Fish earlier in the day; life threw a few curveballs at me in the second half of the year and it derailed my motivation to fish at times, and oftentimes I would head out 2-3 hours later than I wanted to. I missed out on a ton of good bite windows as a result, so this relates to goal 1 a bit. 5. Target more species. I caught the highest number of bass in my life in 2025, and while trying to beat that number would be cool, I also have a ton of saltwater gear that basically went unused. I live in the mecca of striped bass fishing, it would be a shame if I didn't take advantage of it next year.

November was a bit of a bust for me, I had two good days but the others were skunk city or a grind for one or two panfish. Once that water dropped below 49 degrees I was completely out of my element. I plan on going out this Sunday to get at least one bass then I'm targeting trout for the time being.