Happy Thursday! The jig heads have been busy this week and despite the not so pleasant weather we have been having, they’re still finding the fish!
I was able to get out with some family this weekend on Saturday at a small pond where a club hosted a kids derby. The water was murky and the trout just didn’t want to bite as much as we had hoped, but we caught a few nice brookies on the good ol’ trout worm and bobber. The kids all had a blast despite the rain, so that is a successful day in my book!
Tim fished his first tournament of season out in Brookfield on an overcast and very windy day. He managed an eight fish limit and placed 5th. He said that all of his fish came on a moving bait, up real tight to shore along wind blown shorelines. Tim cracked the bait early in the morning, casting it off a concrete bridge. It still seemed to run true enough and it was the only one in that color… I caught all but one of my fish on that broken lure.
He also hit one of his local lakes for pre fishing and caught another bass on the same lure. After losing the lure to the trolling motor, Tim landed fivr more fish this day on other search baits paying, attention to wind blown coves and shore lines. This time of year, don’t be afraid to fish shallow.
Shawn the Fisherman hit a lake in the Berkshires he had never fished before this past weekend for his first round of the MAKB Knockout tournament matchup.
Shawn said it was windy, rainy, cold, and miserable and the water temps were in the low 40’s. He reports that despite the unideal weathwr the fish were biting and he made the best of the conditions. Shawn caught fourteen largemouth, with five of them over 16″ and the kicker at 21.25″ for a Massachusetts state pin. He also landed a rainbow trout, pickerel, and smallmouth to round off the day.Fish were generally around emergent vegetarian, and all were keyed in on either suspending jerkbaits or bladed jigs.
Berkshire Brett says he has only gotten out for a few minutes from shore. He landed one small brown in the river the other day on a Thomas spinner. Brett reports the Berkshires have had rain and snow on and off so the lake levels are back up to normal on the lakes and now they’ve closed most of the spillways. As Shawn already stated, water temps are still pretty low out here, and conditions are tough. A lot of wind and rain over the past week. On the trout scene however; they’re onto the third round of stocking in some places. A few lakes have been lucky enough to get Brookies, Browns, and Tigers, along with the abundant number of Rainbows already thrown in.
Nelson got out once this week for only a couple hours. He was able to find bass on the edge of weeds and caught them on a slow rolled chatter bait. He also reports that he caught some on a weightless creature bait fished very tight to the weeds and in small pockets in the weeds. Nelson also reported that water temperatures were still pretty low, hitting the lower 50’s mark. This same body of water last year at this time was already in the mid 60’s. It seems that things are about two weeks behind this year but the fish are active and the bite is getting better every day. The weather this weekend looks to be the nicest we’ve had on a weekend in a while. Get out there and catch some fish!
Mass fish & wildlife is still stocking and, as Brett mentioned, some places are already on their third round of stocked fish! Hopefully the nicer weather will stick around through the weekend into next week and start to warm up the water bodies. Good luck out there everyone! Tight lines!
Wild Woman 