1 hour ago, AverageAngler said:

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.

We launched near Haverhill and went upstream until we couldn't go any further. Anchored in a pretty narrow channel and the current was ripping.

Wow what a money grab this boat safety course is. First it tries to charge you 18 bucks for the certificate at checkout by defaulting to a quantity of 2 (it's free if you change it to 1). And then it let's you "upgrade" to a faster version of the course that isn't time-locked if you pay a fee.

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.

On 3/26/2026 at 11:24 AM, MassYak85 said:

We launched near Haverhill and went upstream until we couldn't go any further. Anchored in a pretty narrow channel and the current was ripping.

Can get some real nice small mouth around there now.

Last night 4.5

Got it on a weightless worm in about maybe 5ft of water by a fallen tree. Great hook set and fight. Lot of meat on the back, thought it was over 5 til I weighed it. After a couple of skunks last week I'm feeling like it's on again.

Got some new spots around me I'm going to start checking out after work from shore. These warm days are promising just need the nights to stay warm too.

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.

Just got back from Florida. Fished salt and fresh. Couldn’t get anything on lures in the salt, had to use live shrimp. Got 5 new species. Mangrove snapper, jack crevalle, sheepshead, coppernose blue gill sunfish and a Penn pursuit 4k combo. Also got a couple Florida bass too. Up to 123 different species of fish. I can’t wait to get more

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

8 hours ago, AverageAngler said:

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

Thanks bud. Super happy. They are fun as hell. Never had sheepshead before. I’ve heard they are great to eat

The nice days lately seem to be calm and cold or warm and windy up to 20mph. Or small craft advisories in effect, one day had a gale warning too. Not good for a canoe or kayak.

This day (April 4th) I decided to wet the line with a little shore fishing. Weather was mostly cloudy, windy, air temps was 55 degrees and water temps was 48-50 degrees. The water temps surprised me as I thought it would be a little colder.

It was windy (gusts 24mph) but coming out of the northeast. Since I was fishing from shore on the north side of the lake, I thought I might still have a chance.

I arrived at the lake and it was worth a shot to fish.

Starting off with a new jerkbait and after a few casts I really liked the action, thinking, I need to get more of these as I fished it.

Then I snagged the lure and had to break off. I don’t like shore fishing and this is one of the main reasons.

OK then, let's switch to a cheaper paddletail just in case I get snagged again. The very first cast of the paddletail, It gets snagged. That’s it, I’m done. I break off and future shore fishing is a no go for me.

The positive: 1) I get to order more lures 2) I met another fisherman and chatted for a little while and shared some fishing information and 3) I finally got to fish even for a little while.

I'm looking ahead next week for a good day.

Cheers.

I love the warm windy days. They get them fired up!

On 4/5/2026 at 7:32 AM, Mr. Aquarium said:

I love the warm windy days. They get them fired up!

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.

My big brown from a couple weeks ago. Gotta try for bass maybe this week before early season passes by.

16 hours ago, MassBass said:

My big brown from a couple weeks ago. Gotta try for bass maybe this week before early season passes by.

Genuine unit.

On 4/7/2026 at 9:07 AM, AverageAngler said:

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.

I’m Not a fan of deep water in the spring. I love shallow water. Warm strong sun, rising temps gets em all fired up. Deep ponds stay cooler longer.

Deep water ponds are less affected by weather. Shallow water ponds are more affected. So I like shallow in spring, deep in winter. But a brief warm up in the winter will have them chewing in shallow water. One January I had a great bag with 2 fish over 4lbs with a 5.10 flipping jigs in shallow water trees like it was pre spawn March. It was warm and very windy,

23 hours ago, MassBass said:

My big brown from a couple weeks ago. Gotta try for bass maybe this week before early season passes by.

That’s an absolute unit of a brown

16 hours ago, AverageAngler said:

G unit

Posted in the wrong thread..

Sorry, carry on.

A-Jay

Got out for the first trip of the season with my dad today. Water temps were 48 to start with a light breeze. The pattern we started with ended up being the pattern for the whole day. Jerkbait around the first drop to 6-7 feet near spawning shores. Could not get them to hit any other baits which was honestly kind of exhausting. I don’t mind fishing a jerkbait but fishing it all day in the wind is a chore. Got 9 bass biggest around 2.5. It had a 5 inch perch in its throat so stuck with perch pattern baits all day. Got a lot of yellow perch and pickerel as well. My dad got less bass but got a nice 22 inch pickerel. Warm temps this week should he things going nicely. The fish just felt a bit off still they would not touch traditional search baits. Wind was out of the south so maybe that had something to do with it, and the wind blown shores produced better. Solid start though I’ll take it.

@MassYak85 happy to hear bro

I'm thinking of hitting the bank tonight, anybody have any tips for this early season night fishing? Never really fish before May much, and even less so at night.

Got in on some dirty water bass action yesterday, mixed bag 2 sm 2 LM. Felt good to get that first LM after thinking my old tricks weren't working. Can see one of the small mouths was pretty good, I think a main River fish that moved up on a wash up bank.

I caught my first seven bass from the shore of my pond this afternoon in about half an hour. I was casting into the wind and the lake was nearly white capping, but they were really hitting. Here are two of them:

See the beaver lodge behind them? I had to quit because my pup jumped into the water after the bottom bass and my pup was so cold he ran back to the car. I'm returning tomorrow for a little more shore fishing WITHOUT my pup and launching for the first time on Tuesday.

Swamp Girl picking up where you left off. 😎

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.

Went fishing out in the kayak today for about four hours (9-1).

Water temps were hanging around 57-60 degrees.

Nice to get out and fish.

I concentrated on the north end of the lake.

Three pickerels, one sunfish, one trout but it shook the lure as it leaped out of the water, one yellow perch.

Use a lipless, paddletail, worm, kastmaster, and a jerkbait.

The trout was on the kastmaster, the other fish were all on the jerkbait.

Two other anglers on the water informed me they caught a few crappie and two bass.

If all goes well, I'm shooting for another day on another lake.