Summer is in full swing! The water is warm, in the 70s, and the fish are starting to hang out in deeper waters.
Last Saturday a friend and I took out the canoe in some pretty gross, rainy conditions to my favorite local hilltown pond. In just under 4 hours we only landed 3 nibblers, but she had driven a long way so we had to give it our all! The water was actually quite warm, but the weeds have become increasingly hard to fish in some parts of the pond.
Nelson finished up last week with very little action down in NC where he said the wind picked up quite a bit and fishing shut down.
He also reported fishing the valley area a couple times this week where water temperatures were in the mid to upper 70’s. Nelson had action on top water walking baits, spinnerbaits, and weightless soft plastic stick baits. All the action was around some kind of wood structure in the water. With the warmer water temps the top water bite at sunrise and sunset should be great in most areas. Get out there and get em!!
Shawn the Fisherman wrapped his eastern seaboard round trip with a charter trip from the Outer Banks where the guide put them on a ton of Triggerfish which were promptly made into tacos upon their return.
He then met up with Bobby Roast Beef and Delirious Angler at the Maryland home of one Cody Van Sant and reported that the fishing was tough in the Chester River, but each of them landed a largemouth or two on various jigs and plastics. Shawn also landed his first blue catfish! Which went right into the Chronic Trips Elevated Multispecies online tourney, registration still open! Follow Shawn on Instagram and get more info on Chronic Trips!!
Finally, after getting home from a long week and a half of gallivanting, he immediately drove out to a pond of his choice on Cape Cod for his MA Kayak Bassin Round 3 Knockout match. Shawn grabbed the lead mid-morning, and hung on for the win, which means he is elite 8 bound! He said that jigs with craw trailers and ned-rigged creatures filled his limit.
Dog days of summer are here. The fish know that the shallows have a large number of humans within, so don’t be afraid to go deeper to find fish willing to bite!
Jerry hit the water a few times this week reporting that bass in the Berkshires were on fire this past weekend fishing on Saturday on a 160 acre reservoir, with stained water, where he was targeting largemouth bass for the MAKB monthly tournament. Jerry said that the water temperature was 72 degrees. He was on the water at 5am throwing black soft plastics, which he found to be the pattern of the day. Texas, Neko, Wacky rigged didn’t seem to matter big fish were on hard cover wood and rock ,smaller bass were in weeds. Jerry landed 10 bass on the day totaling 87 inches from his best 5 and 21.25 pickerel.
Sunday he was at it again on a 287 acre clear water lake with 71 degree water at 5 am start with calm waters and no wind. He went with green pumpkin soft plastics around weed beds and caught six largemouths, one smallmouth with a lunker 19.25″ largemouth. Unfortunately around 10 am the wind picked up out of the North, and the bite shut down.
Monday Jerry went back to the body of water that produced so well on Saturday, but this time on a late afternoon outing. With the heavy fishing pressure from the long holiday weekend he chose to go to a hump in the middle of the lake and started with a ned rigged up with black/blue. Every cast got hit: Bluegill, yellow perch,pickerel and the bass were there to 86.75″ worth of his best 5. Hope you all got out on the water for a great Independence Day weekend!
The next few days are looking beautiful here in Western Ma, at least for now, with temperatures in the low to mid 80’s and not a whole lot of rain predicted until Tuesday. Don’t forget to be cautious in this heat of the large number of recreational boaters on the water, especially when in your kayak! Get out and fish everyone, have a great week!
Wild Woman 