It’s Thursday, and here’s what the Jig Heads had to say this week!
Shawn the Fisherman reports that the fishing he’s had in the past couple weeks was a tough trip to Winnipesaukee for the Elite Kayak Fishing Tournament. Unfortunately the only thing Shawn managed to catch was a nasty summer cold before he headed North, which he says put the ki-bosh on his fishing since. Looking at a little salt fun this weekend.
Brett was off at training for work in Marlborough this week and of course his gear is in the back of his car, as it always is. He found via MA pond maps on the MA.gov website, Lake Chauncey nearby. He grabbed a rod and a select few lures. There were paths that go a good distance around the lake with quite a few cuts in the brush for shore access. I threw a senko, spinner, and a frog with no luck. Brett said it seemed like he could reach a max depth of about 5-6 feet. The place seemed promising. If I had my yak I definitely would’ve put it in and made a lap around the place.
Tim is back from my vacation in Key West with no fishing last week. He hit Congamond a couple times this week. Tim said yesterday he got six quality fish dragging a ned rig on the bottom in about 5 to 10 feet of water and a couple on weighted worms.
Today he had plans to fish up in the Berkshires but the storms stopped that from happening, so he went back to the local haunt, where the water temperatures seemed to be holding around that 79-80 degree mark, and caught a few more fish. He reported that today there was a deeper water pattern. He fished some humps with drop shot and ned rig. Tim also caught a couple small ones in shallow water. It seemed like the deeper water fight was solid, and the shallowater bite was very faint. When the bite is hard to detect it’s a good idea to have good polarized glasses and I use a fluorocarbon line which tends to sit on top of the water so that I can easily detect any strikes.
Ryan reported having another decent week out there on the water. He fished a few local ponds to him in central Mass. Ryan got skunked on the CT river Friday for the club tourney, but it was 107 degrees with the heat index that sucked.
The small ponds hidden by tree cover did the trick. Ryan had a bunch of 1-2 pound fish chewing on the Hookset Hoodlums soft plastics all day, pulling them off bushes and any shaded coverage. As the sun started to set he decided to start throwing a few bitter baits, ms slammer, whopper, jointed jitterbug with no luck. When he tied on his bull shad wake bait, it got annihilated on the first cast. He reports slowly retrieving the bull shad at the top of the water, one moment I saw my lure the next it was a huge splash and the lure was gone. Completely devoured by a central mass water pig and his personal best of the season at 5lb 14oz! I hope everyone has a great week. My next endeavor is starting to pre fish for OGO on Quaboag and Webster Lake for the big open in October.
Nelson went and had some fun in saltwater this week. He said he was on the water before sunrise in the area of Rhode Island, near Narragansett/Point Judith. As he made my way on my kayak to an area he wanted to fish there were fish on the surface, not a frenzy but more of a splash here and there. These were stripers and they were being very picky as six other kayakers and myself found out very quickly. No one was hooking up. The stripers and some blue fish mixed in throughout the morning. Nelson reported that at times they were on the surface in a frenzy, and they still would not take a lure. After trying several different lures, he found one that finally fooled a couple stripers and a bluefish. They finally hit a jerk bait fished very quickly. He says they were focused on a very tiny bait and didn’t want anything else.
He also did some drifting for fluke and sea bass where he found plenty of action in the 20-50 foot depth. There were also tons of sea robins mixed in. Nelson quickly filled his limit of sea bass to 20 inches and spent the rest of the day looking for some keeper fluke, but never found them. He said he thinks the bigger fluke were in water deeper than 50 feet. Nelson ended the day with 50-60 fish caught, multiple double hook ups, and enough fish in the freezer for six meals. I caught five different species, Sea Bass, Fluke,Sea Robin, Bluefish, and Striped Bass. That area of RI is absolutely loaded with bait fish right now and the fishing is only going to get better for the next couple of months. Now is the time to hit it.
Have a great week everyone! As, as always, tight lines!
Wild Woman 