Catching Largemouth at Quabbin
…and only largemouth! I won’t complain at all, neither will Don. What started as the worst day, ended up with the nice catch of several good size largemouth bass.
Gate 31 and Smallies
Gate 31 at Quabbin is most known for the smallmouth fishing. We caught quite a few smallies all over the place, and we still have so many areas to discover. The rocky structure and numerous drop offs all over the place offer a paradise for smallmouth bass. Yesterday was a first, unexpected I’d say…
Guess what…the weatherman got it wrong AGAIN!
The weather forecast from Friday night announced a shower or two passing by Quabbin on Saturday. If you read this blog, you know we can deal with showers, we did all year long! Good rain gear and motivation are the only things you need! Lucky us, we got both. So we decided to meet around 9:30AM, take our time, since we had planning to go out only 2 times more, better try to enjoy the day.
After 15mn on my way to meet Don, rain started to fall down…”hmm, that is probably the shower or 2 they talked about…”, well no. 45mn into my trip, rain is still coming down and at one point, it’s pouring down like a very bad thunderstorm. By the time I meet Don, it is still raining. We still give it a go (of course we’re at Gate 31!) but as soon as we get on the water, the “good luck” from fellow anglers on their way back to the dock is a sign that this is going to be tough on the water!
If you do not believe me, check out this weather radar report for yesterday…I could not get it for the morning, this only covers this afternoon when it did not really rain much…still, blue is 1/2 inch of rain…imagine in the morning!
After a hour and a half of fishing and not a bite, we are ready to give up: rain is pouring down on us, literally, the wind gusts pick the cool up from the top of the water, we are drifting at 5mph, we are basically freezing our butts off…We finally reached an area where we can relax for 1/2 hour before leaving….and the unexpected started!
Largemouth, largemouth and…largemouth!
I had one of the best days of my fishing career honestly. Here is what happened: the area we were taking a break in had lots of weed at the bottom, a major split area with a lot of bait fish, and nice dropoffs around 15′ to 19′ deep…so we joked about it being the perfect spot for largemouth bass. Using a senko (after trying several crankbaits and spinnerbaits), I started to cover the main part of the area (the deepest) and after several casts, I was getting hits. Nothing huge, small guys playing and pulling on the senko. But finally something took my worm and stretched my line out:
1st Largemouth 2.3lb
I then caught another largemouth around 1.5lb and a smaller one…Don did not get a chance to catch any, but he was getting lots of hits. The wind started to push us down towards the dock which was good because time was running…and time was also running for Don to catch something! My lucky day kept getting better: I ended up catching a nicer largemouth:
2nd Largemouth 2.4lb
And then another 1.5lb…And, of course, another nice largemouth one right after that one!
2nd Largemouth 1.8lb
What about Don?
You could wonder what Don was waiting for…yes Don, what were you waiting for!? HAHAHAHAH. Seriously, Don was not taking any nap (this time 
), but he was working a lot harder than I was, first because he had to handle the boat all day long and yesterday was Hell), but also because he was trying to catch ONE bass!! The dock was getting close and pressure started building up on him to catch something…well, OF COURSE, Don finally did!
Look at that smile! Don is a Happy Camper!
Wrapping up the day
Don ended up catching largemouth one after the other! We ended up with around 10 catch I believe, most the catch happened within a 2 to 3 hours timeframe. We had at least 6 or 7 keepers and that makes us really happy! Finally a good day…and thank God for the rain gear!
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July 9th, 2007 at 8:56 am
[…] We then moved on to the area where I had a blast on closing day, catching largemouth after largemouth, but we could not find them this year. […]
August 19th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Glad to see some largies caught up at 31, I usually fish 43 and have caught on big largie(6lbs) a few years ago and I have seen two big largies cruising around in 12ft of water on a hump near the baffle dam. We also caught one nice largie, over 5, at the point where the river goes under the baffle dam. Both sides of the channel had fish on them and we used a jig tipped with a shiner to catch this fish in 30ft .
For some reason the nice coves out of 43 , which normally you would think would have a good populaton of largies, seem bare.
Sure would like to get a few more good largies besides the great smallies.
September 27th, 2007 at 7:26 am
[…] We went at Gate 31 last Saturday and Don suggested we fish our spots in reverse of what what we usually do. So we started from the channel that goes off on the left of the launching area where I caught a nice amount of largemouth last year around the same time. And the funny thing is, if you look at the pictures, you will see the same type of weather, cool and overcast. […]