live4fish

What a great few days....

Sunday Morning: Special place. Phil and I rocked it hard. 1 big bass. 5 or 6 average bass--spinners, cranks, and the southern-crappie special. 8 or so yellow perch. 3 picks. Couple nice ones. Fished 6:30-11:30. Phil fried up lunch of perch and a few of the barely legal dinks. Boat was still on the car. Stopped back for sunset hour or so. Caught 2 or 3 bass. One big. 2 picks--1 big, one average. 5 crappie. A guy was scouting the place from shore. Seemed allright--good gear and didn't have face tatoos--lol. Invited on boat and made a new fishing partner--good dude. Felt terrible. He only caught a huge sunny on a crank bait, while I was pulling in one after another.

Headed out to one of my work haunts Monday with an office-fishing friend. He rarely fishes anything other than a high-end bass boat, but he was willing to slum it from shore with me. Caught one nice bass. Went to another spot Tuesday. He smashed picks. I caught a couple perch and one nice bass.

Gotten 2 on plastics. Mostly spinners and such.

Southern crappie special: pencil bobber, suspended jighead with a little swim bait... Jig 2-3, sit a sec, repeat... Perch, bass, and crappie all took it. Very cool technique.

I've caught fish this year, but the bites were few and far between. I crushed it yesterday. 3 bass, (2 average, 1 good one), a gator Pic, 3 crappie.

I'm loving my new skiff... Nice to be able to stand up.

Gary's and Spinners are working well.

I fished 10:30-12:00, and 5:45-7:45.

Hit my favorite honey hole yesterday and today.

Yesterday: 5 minutes, 3 hits, family emergency.
Today: 1 hour. 3 very scrappy yellow perch, 1 snapping turtle... with a 2' pole and 4lb mono!

Winds were brutal. I suspect all the hits from day 1 were perch as well. I used all my bass/pickerel favorites and my other rigs without a nibble.

Hit my favorite honey hole yesterday and today.

Yesterday: 5 minutes, 3 hits, family emergency.
Today: 1 hour. 3 very scrappy yellow perch, 1 snapping turtle... with a 2' pole and 4lb mono!

Winds were brutal. I suspect all the hits from day 1 were perch as well. I used all my bass/pickerel favorites and my other rigs without a nibble.

Lake Cochituate is a tragic example of poor resource management....

I hit the lake at 5:30 AM. Caught a few tiny pumpkin seeds before launching. Quickly paddled around to find the 'steak and lobster (yellow and white perch)'. I located some schools in about 20' and jigged up a couple perch.

In a rush, I took the rubber worm off a pole with 12 pound mono and hooked a live yellow perch, maybe 4.5", with a 3/0 rubber worm hook. Casted him out, and continued jigging perch.

I had a gruesome hit on the perch... It pulled like hell... Pole was buckling over...It sawed me off... If I only took the time to put on a steel leader.

Could have been one of the following:
- Pike
- Musky
- Salmon
- Huge pickerel (Which would have been the disappointment of the century)

This was right near deep water, in 15 or so feet.

I wanted white perch and bass fish while live lining... The lake is lousy. Just a couple crummy little bass... no white perch...

I spent the next 7/8 hours without squat for big toothy fish.

I did a lil homework afterwards. No pike in over a decade, and they aren't established there (even though the MA state site sells it as a Pike Best Bet). If it was a salmon, I sure wouldn't want it... I found out the state stocks full grown, 8-18 pound fish... That's like hunting at a zoo...

That lake could be awesome (no more trout or salmon). Smallmouth, forage fish, channel cats, pike... they'll get a foothold.

Probably never fish there again.

*I was fishing the SouthPond

I found my way into Welds after working with some folks from the town recs dept.

Seems they gave me bad info. I even had a police officer show up one day and I insisted it was legit and dropped the name of the environmental folks I spoke with.

One of the people from the town that told me where to access the pond was on vacation last week and sent a follow up today telling me it was 100 percent off limits.

I hit the pond yesterday morning at 4:30 AM.

Jigged up about 20 perch for pike bait at another location. I needed to change the water a couple times and lost a few perch each time, so I had to perch fish longer than I planned. It's fun though with a light rig. I also jigged up a 3# bass and a HUGE bluegill--funny as hell.

I headed out for an hour or so of bass fishing... Wham: Back to back 3-pounds-plus bass. A few other goodies and couple picks.

I heard the story of the 8# bass from OldFisher many years ago... I swear, I fished this place hard the last few weeks. At least 10 bass in the 3-4# class. Nothing bigger.
At least 50 perch. Many, many bass. Many, many pickerel
(no gators, but some were respectable). I don't know if a big boy is there, but I won't be back as it it's 100 percent illegal. I was loosing a little faith in big fish there...

If you check it out on a map, I went right to the spot I knew the biggest fish would want: A deep water heaven at the entrance of long, almost stream-like section of the pond that is about 2-3' deep loaded with bait fish. I casted to the left and got one 3, casted to the right and got another 3.

If you can get in there, I HIGHLY recommend it. I may proposition a landowner to pay for access...

It was awesome fishing. Pond muck for frogs and senkos, and awesome places to chuck spinners and cranks (which I seldom get to do anymore where I have been fishing).

Besides the pictured bluegill, I caught 2 more that were bigger over the last couple weeks...

No sense keeping it secret now. It gets a fair amount of pressure anyhow from folks that know landowners.

Post script: How good is it? I brought a friend on my kayak who hasn't been fishing much this year. We planned to shore fish a couple spots and use the kayak for transportation as it's not a tandem. In route, I said cast there: bam, big bass. Cast there, another big bass...

Sooo.... Big bass and big picks are fun, but I need a Pike.... It would be my first.

So I fished a very special place tonight. I caught 2 or 3 bass outright (cranks) and one pick.

I wanted a couple small perch to liveline.... The perch I was getting were nearly 4", and that really takes about a 3 pound or more fish to take whole... I fished them for a little while w/o luck. Decided it's time I hunt pike (haven't gotten a new FW species this year).

I ACTUALLY stopped for worms and they were sold out... My angling techniques were tested: time to work the techniques and tool box. I focused on a jigs (small spinner for a couple). I jigged up 8 or so perch.

Talk about problems. I jigged 3 bass and another pick. One of the bass was pushing 3... Good fish.

I've got my live perch. The pike hunk starts ASAP. If I don't get out, I'll fry the perch as they're delicious and I only kept males (my conscious is clear).

I was going to fish with Biggz tonight, but threat of Thunderstorms threw him off. It was too late for JR, so I was Hans Solo... Good night. Fun to jig small stuff and catch Perch.


OHHHHH... Johnny Law was waiting putting a note on my my windsheild about no tresspassing. Nice guy... I let hime know who I spoke with at the town, and it's legit... Houses go for a mill over there, so people are pretty uptight (too uptight to catch good fish, which will keep me coming).

Met Mark for White Cats and Carp. Mark nailed a 2lb Channel Cat... What a catch.

We hit my favorite carp spot, fished for an hour... I had to pick up dinner and wanted to grab my oldest kid. Mark had carp hits but no landings while I was gone... I'm sure Mark will be back there.

Met down river at the trusty white-cat spot... My kid caught a couple bullheads, Mark must have caught a dozen. It was discouraging, cause we were there for the white cats... We also had a couple break offs, which was odd, because I had 15lb mono and Mark was working with braid.

BAM... Mark nailed the beauty Channel in the pictures. It was about 2#.

They were stocked in that part of the Charles more than a decade ago, and that fish wasn't older than 2...

We hit another spot that gave me MANY whites last year... Again, a ton of little bullheads. Mark also nailed a bluegill that was about a pound... Kind of cool.

I hadn't gotten out for cats and carps really since getting a yak... Lot of fun. Mark was able to mark off another species, so it was an awesome night. Good company, and an unexpected but awesome catch. I'm sure Mark will be posting some carp pictures soon too.

I had a 3-day weekend, and the fishing was lousy. I knew it would pick up this morning, and I work from home on Tuesdays. So I got up at 4:30, fished for a couple hours, and man did it pay off...

I got about 10 fish in total. The monster pic attached, and the bass that had to be between 4 and 5 pounds (closer to 5... he had a belly-and-a half.

They gave me my first and second kayak rides (I didn't need an anchor or anything as the wind was perfect.).

The bite was really on, really aggressive. Not 1 dink out of the bunch. All were between 1 and 3 lbs.

A big pickerel broke me off, so I was extra glad to boat one (I fish that area with live panfish for them and always use a steel leader.).

While the spot's secret, I'm not a total d&ck. If you've got a two-man boat with a low draft, or a kayak, and live around Dedham, PM me and come along. You'll need heavy gear and experience with top-water frogs/fishing plastics in heavy cover.

I brought an extra pole with a spinner today thinking a couple of the navigation channels might be lure-safe after the rain, and it was absolutely useless.

After a grueling couple months of fishing a few hard-to-fish, off the path ponds, I've got it down--favorite pond and solid technique.

Fished Wednesday...5 bass, less than 2 hours. 3 bass about the same as the picture 6.30. 1 dink. 1 monster (7.17.).

Fished Thursday. 2 hours.
4 bass just about the same as the picture 6.15 Thursday.

I'm really digging bass fishing. The only big fish I could catch in New England from shore with any predictability were carp and stripers... Whole new world after getting offshore.

Heavy 6" Senkos to punch through the pads... Heavy gear to work them out. I'll chuck a frog now again to see where they are at, but without a better, high-end freshwater rig, it's useless (That will be on my Christmas list.).

Fished with a guy last night whose fished this pond for about 25 years (one of few other people to fish this place.) It's produced many 8s, 9s, and 10s... I've spooked a few behemoths that I thought were carp. Nope... I also saw a pick last night savaging a perch. It must have been 6/7 pounds. This place is a gem.