It’s hard to believe this is the last Thursday in July, and that August is only a few days away. This week our jig heads have had lots of action.
Andy fished Otis again with 73 degree water in the main part of the lake and 80 degree water in the shallow Dismal bay. He reported catching lots of fish on all sorts of lures, mostly a shiner pattern but worms, crayfish, and panfish patterns were working great too. Andy’s biggest fish was on a top water at midday. He reported that looking for weed beds was the key for most of the fish, but a few were taken off of deep rock structures
Tim got out for a tournament in Barton Cove on the Connecticut River on Sunday and they managed to get their limit! He reported they did not run the river as it was still littered with logs and debris, but chose to stay in the cove. They caught their limit on weightless senkos and small finesse baits, and ended up in sixth place. Tim said that it was a cloudy, rainy day and the water had cleared up a little bit.
Today he is at Congamond with water temps just under 80 degrees. He was lucky with topwaters in about 15 feet of water, weightless wacky senko, and weighted finesse baits. Last I heard from Tim he was up to 22 for the day, keep it up man!
Ryan went out early Friday morning and reported an epic topwater bite! Whopper plopper, jitterbug, wake bait, spook, you name it they hit it. Monday he decided to stop after work and was snagging them on a whopper again. Tuesday he went shore fishing and caught them on soft plastics in the heat on a shaky head with a plasma tail. Ryan said that water temps at South Pond overnight were at 76. Ryan will be fishing at a club tournament tomorrow, good luck! I am sure we’ll get all the details in next week’s report!
Brett managed to get out twice this week. First from shore, where he managed a few smaller fish on a weightless 5″ senko. Brett also said that he learned on that trip that he wants to find a new EWG hook. The light-wire Gamakatsu hooks apparently can’t hold up to my abuse as this was the second time I had one snap clean in two. Brett made a quick stop to a favorite cold water stream and managed a decent brown on a Thomas single blade spinner. Although the rain has managed to bring the temps down a bit on the moving water, Brett mentioned that the water wasn’t as cool as he’d like. Then he was off to a small pond for a dink fest of bass. He landed six on a Senko, and had at least six bites on a frog, but couldn’t manage a clean hook up.
Nelson only got out once this week on Saturday where he fished the Massachusetts Kayak Bassin’ (MAKB) Western Division stop #5, The Route 57 Run. It was a 7 lake/pond tournament where you pick the lake you wanted to fish on. Nelson picked West Lake in Sandisfield, the only lake that he had any real history on, although he hadn’t fished it in 5 years.
He started his morning with top water lures and was getting action on a hollow body frog but could not get a hookup. After about 2 hours and trying several different baits he still had not caught my first fish. Nelson reported he made some lure and color changes and at 8:10am he caught his first bass. He continued to catch bass, mostly small, in the weeds in shallow water on weightless soft plastics. After Nelson filled his 5 fish limit, he said he moved to deeper water hoping to find some bigger bass. He spent the rest of the tournament upgrading his limit and reported that most of his larger bass came out of 6-11 feet of water. He caught those deeper bass on a weighted creature bait.
Nelson ended the tournament in 2nd place and I also took the lunker with a 20.25 inch, 5lbs.10oz football of a bass. As a bonus, the weather was absolutely gorgeous!
Have a great weekend everyone – get out and fish!
Wild Woman 