HAPPY THURSDAY! Lots of great stuff this week from our JigHeads so let’s dive right in!
Saturday I hit the saltwater in Boston, taking my pops out for Father’s Day along with my cousin and uncle. We chartered out of Boston Harbor and fished for stripers and what a day we had! I can tell you when we left western MA at 3 am none of them seemed very excited, they were all worried it was going to rain…..as it turned out we were lucky enough to stay dry! We left the marina in the harbor around 5:15 am and we were back at our truck by 10:30 am. We landed 35 fish in just about 4 hours of fishing, trolling with umbrella rigs – only 6 within legal keep size (28-31 inches) the rest being too big to keep.
Tim only got out once this week for a federation tournament on lake Cochituate out in the eastern part of the state where water temperatures were 71-73 degrees and visibility was not great in the chocolate brown pond. He said that he and his partner I caught fish, but unfortunately not the right size for the tournament. Tim said that a black buzzbait got a nice one early on and weighted soft plastics on weed lines also produced fish. I found a weed patch in the middle of this chocolate milk that I pulled three bass, two crappie, and two pickerel off of. We had a couple of bites off of wood but were unable to land them. When water clarity is tough like that, I tend to go with a darker bait as well as a louder one.
Shawn the Fisherman fished the MAKB Western Division’s 3rd stop up at Lake Onota on Saturday. He said that the day started slow and he filled a (mostly) smaller bag using a ned-rig/dropshot 1-2 punch. Shawn’s bite picked up in the afternoon with the wind and he landed the lunker largemouth, smallmouth, and pike in the last 2 hours on a chatterbait and took the win!Pay attention to changes in wind speed and direction when on the water. Can herald the bite picking up and can pay off.Also, if you’re searching for Pike this summer, focus on cloudy days. They seem to feed more readily when the sun is obscured.Good luck and tight lines!
Nelson also got out for the MAKB Western Division event stop 3 on Lake Onota. He said the tournament started for him with a couple barely legal (8″minimum) smallmouth and after trying a few different power techniques – fast moving top water, chatter bait, crank bait – and not getting any response he went to my confidence technique: weightless soft plastics. Nelson caught all but one of my bass with this technique and said that most of the bass came from under overhanging trees that were just above or touching the water or docks; skipped far into the cover.
If you have never skipped lures under cover or don’t know how, I suggest learning it. Start with a spinning setup and a stick bait or some kind of flat profile lure. It takes some practice but can be a very effective way to catch a few more bass, especially if the sun is out. Cast into the shadows.
Nelson also caught one bass on a Berkeley Choppo but that was the only action I got on top water. Although the day proved to be a little tough for him to find some bigger bass, he did manage a decent limit and finished the tournament in 3rd place.
Congrats to Shawn and Jerry for also making it into the money and also for all those that stuck it out to the end and never gave up.Good luck out there and be safe!!
Ryan the Butcher went out Friday for a multi-species send and pre-fishing for an upcoming tournament where the water temperatures were 69-70 degrees and fish were chewing. He was able to land a mixed bag of smallmouth, largemouth, crappie, perch, trout and pickerel just having fun with one rod and seeing what they would hit. The Butcher reports that he found all his bass in 17 – 19 feet of water on a ledge picking them off with drop shot. I am having much success this year on ledges rather then my past focusing on my points, I’m not sure if the points are just overfished but being versatile and finding structure / ledges will get it done in the heat of the summer. I have a weekend full of tourneys. Butcher is looking for a pay day this week!
Cousin Jon got out for a quick solo trip Sunday morning where there was a lot of activity. He said that the largemouth didn’t seem very particular about any sort of pattern or type of Lure as long as it was retrieved slowly.
Jerry was another angler out Saturday for our MAKB western division tournament on Onota Lake which he had pre-fished a week earlier one afternoon and caught some smaller sized smallmouth on docks and vertical structure with a ned rig and wacky rigged stick baits all in natural colors. He had also picked up some largemouth on green pumpkin dropshot baits pre-fishing. On tournament day he said his plan was a dropshot, but Jerry couldn’t get a bite for the first hour. Then he saw a smallmouth jump, went right after it with a top water popper and on the first cast landed a sixteen incher. He managed to fill out a limit throwing a wacky rig green pumpkin in shallow weeds.
Jerry fished Littleville the next day, and found a number of largemouth bass on a hump with some grass in 5 – 8 feet of water. His last outing for the week, he fished a local hilltown lake in Hampshire county one evening trying out top water baits with a ripple on the water. He landed both largemouth and smallmouth one after another, but reported that as soon as the wind went calm they wouldn’t touch it.
Bobby Roast Beef reports that he was able to get out only twice in the last week. He said the first day was on a local boy of water, a regular haunt of his. It was clear and hot, and he was specifically looking forward to dragging Texas and Carolina rigged worms, craws, and lizards through some good sized weed beds. I had zero results! But did manage a single nibbler LMB on a weightless Texas rigged Senko, after seeing a fish hit the surface, then casting to it.
Moving on to Saturday, it was time to hit the hilltowns and he decided to try a “new to me” body of water. BRB said that after a little bit of a cold front moving in the previous day, he went into this expecting to have to struggle a bit to get a bite going. The plus side that day was a pretty solid cloud cover and he found some significant wind blowing right into the direction of the launch. He reports that he headed straight out to a point he had marked on the map, planning to fish with the wind back down toward the launch point. With the wind, Bobby started throwing a spinnerbait in a natural color to complement the high visibility of the water. After not having any results, I opted for a more subtle presentation with a finesse swimbait. I quickly realized that this wasn’t conducive to all the rock and wood along the bank, so I changed out to a swim jig. I was casting up shallow and focusing on areas containing wood and rocks.He said that he had a follow, then adjusted his retrieve a bit slower making contact with rocks along the bottom. That seemed to be the ticket as I got my first bite. I tossed my follow up bite to see if I could manage to get a hook into em, and it worked. A similarly colored stick bait got hammered and caught my first fish of the day.
At the next spot with wood and rocks he threw the swim jig at the and put his second fish in the boat. Continuing to fish my way toward the ramp, he only had one other hit, but this fish wouldn’t hit the follow up bait. He made the call to fish into the wind along the opposite bank, looking for similar wood and rock areas. Bobby’s first cast he hooked up with something pretty large; it was right off of the kayak and took a dive down below him, which was a fairly steep drop off, and it must have not had the hook of that jig very well, because it shook off. Next, he worked along the rest of that bank into the wind, catching another decent LMB, and having one more follow (this looked like a trout just looking to “find out”). Once I got up to about the distance of the original point I had pedaled out to, I let the wind carry me back to the ramp, and what a ride!
My swim jig was a 3/8 oz Dark Water Gill (black head, green pumpkin and black & blue skirt) paired with a 5″ BPS green pumpkin speed shad. The size of this presentation is great for calling fish in and getting their attention, and the secondary action of the skirt aids in that; making it freaking irresistible! My follow up bait was a 5″ worm from Fresh Baitz in a demo color that I TRULY hope they will bring into the fold. It’s a GP/B&B striped pattern. If you can’t tell, I LOVE to mix up my colors.
This weekend looks like we might have some rain, including some thunderstorms, so stay safe out there folks! The bite is picking up, so GET OUT AND FISH! Tight lines!
Wild Woman 