Oh boy, am I happy! Not much to say about yesterday's fishing, another super-really-slow-day and we definitely will not be fishing anymore the day following a storm. It's always the same thing, we can't get to find and catch fish...So that's it!
BUT...if you refer to my last post, i said something like: "...so stay tune as I hope to turn things around a bit!" Well, I did!
Lucky shot I gotta say, but I take it...So here is my new personal record for largemouth:
This baby weights 4.1lb and it made me really happy!!!
Man, I hope I'll get the opportunity to catch another one like that someday, what a fight that was! My adrenaline level is sill high, 24 hours later :)
I am catching up on the stories...finally. Don and I went fishing at Quaboag 2 week ends in a row since the fishing was really good. We have one good Saturday, the other one was just ok. Largemouth are starting to hit on the 6" long worms, still on top water and definitely still on lizards and that's no surprise!
Don has been fishing really well, kicking my little French butt several times. I am trying to get better at taking pictures and making videos, and I definitely need to keep up with the fish count. There was one week end we did good, probably around 10 pounds of fish. Back to dock, we found out that there was a competition going on that day, and the 1st one won with 5 fish and 17 pounds! That's pretty impressive.
Yeah, we gotta work harder :)
Anyway, here is a picture of one of Don's multiple bass:
and a video I made of another one he caught:
What about me you ask (well maybe you don't so I do!)? Nothing really impressive so far, I am not sure what's going on. I just bought some new line Berkly Fireline Crystal, so I hope that'll help me out!
This week end, Don and I went fishing on the Quaboag river in West Brookfield, one of our all-time favorite spots, it's such a beautiful river and the fishing has been amazing a few years ago. The river was treated in order to remove the on-going weed problem that was saturating the waters 3 years ago, and since then, fishing was never the same. Last year things were looking better, though the fishing was not even close from what is was 2/3 years earlier.
This year, things seem to really have changed, the water looks good, there is not much weed around anymore, so we wanted to try the river again to see if this is a place to hit several times this year.
Don got up early and went fishing around 7AM, I joined him 2 hours later.
There were probably like 20-25 trucks parked at the ramp which is a lot for this place. Many guys were fishing the main pond area, but we decided to go up the river where it's a lot more quite and there are some amazing areas.
So what happened?
My day SUCKED! Sorry for saying it but it is soooo true! Even Don would agree. I missed like 2 nice fish before Don took the first bass out, a 2.3lb largemouth:
And then he went on and caught another nice one after my line got snapped by a monster fish! My rod was bended half way, my line was coming out like insane, the drag worked but hat fish was really heavy, and I did not get a chance to react before my line snapped! So Don killed me with that nice 1.9lb largemouth:
I ended up catching 2 or 3 bass around a pound or less and a good size pickerel, Don caught another 2 or 3 bass as well.
Later during the day, I decided to choose a new top water popper, the Excalibut pop:
I caught one bass with it, and missed (yeah of course, missed!) a really good size bass from high water grass, but that @&%@# bass decied to jump out of the water into the weed and got loose...yeah lucky me, lucky day.
Well, anyway, it was a great day and we are super excited about the fishing at Quaboag this year, this is really encouraging. I hope we catch one of these monster fish the river hides...
Well, talking about hiding, we saw a few blue heron, and I took a picture of one trying to hide from us, freaken hilarious...can you see it?
Where are we going next week? I am note sure. Hey Don! Where are we going next week??! (Yeah, I am trying to get him to post or comment :) not sure this will work!! Help me out, ask him too!)
Today, Don, Scott and I decided to take a day off (well deserved after working all week end long) and go to West Brookfield for some largemouth fishing.
Today was beautiful and hot, since lily pads are not yet spread out on the river, the bass are still hiding in shallow covers and in the river and it is difficult to find them. We did not get lucky at all in the river but we started to catch a few bass in the main pond. Actually, Scott was the man to beat today as he caught more bass than Don or me! Want proof? Check it out below:
Fortunately for Don and I, we each caught a largemouth, nothing to break a record, but some healthy fish:
Note that "almost" all the bass were caught using plastic Zoom lizard 6 inches long, watermelon color. No success on spinnerbaits or senkos this week...I believe that Scott caught his first largemouth bass using a red spoon on a 30 pound test line....YES THIS IS TRUE!!! Scott's always ready for the record fish of the century!
With a 3 days long (Memorial Day) week end, Don and I could have picked the best day of any of the 3 days...but it did not go that smooth since I could only go on Saturday and the weather wasn't great. We went to Quacumquasit (South) Pond in the morning and moved to the Quaboag river around Noon time.
The Quacumquasit (South) Pond is really nice pond (lake?). It goes as deep as 70 feet, lots of sand (really cool beach) and does not have really any structure (too bad). You can fish for trout (some guys were catching trout from the beach!), bass, big pikes (there was recently a record size pike pulled off the water), lots of fish to play with.
The boat area is bit tricky: look at the 2 pictures below, you should definitely take your time and maybe have someone outside the truck to help you go down smoothly the first time you get there.
Also, watch out for the duckies down there! These 2 ducks were enjoying a day at the beach and did not feel moving one inch!!
We haven't been lucky that morning, maybe we should have tried fishing for trout because the other fishermen on shore and on boats where pulling them out all morning long! We tried using spinnerbaits, plastic Yamamoto Senko worms and even watermelon lizards, and...nothing. Several hits there and there (which could have been from trout actually) but that was it. So we decided to get the boat back on the trailer and move a few miles down the road, back to Quaboag pond for the afternoon.
We moved up on the Quaboag river to try to locate some lilipad areas like this one and use our plastic to find the largemouth bass:
We did not get any right away, but we were getting nice hits on watermelon plastic lizards. Still the hits were not bringing any fish in the boat. We took a quick lunch break and the weather started to get really stormy, which i was exciting about because it was probably going to wake up the bass.
The weather cleared up 30mn later; since we are well-equipped now (not like the first few years!!!), rain is not a problem anymore for us (but not for the few guys in t-shirts flying by on the river, trying to reach the boat ramp as fast as possible!!!). As long as we do not forget our rain gear, of course (which has happened to me once)!
Not sure if the thunderstorm helped (i believe it did), but the bass started to hit our lizards. The wind picked up a bit also and helped us drifting down the river quickly, offering opportunities to cast in so many different spots. We missed quite a few fish in the afternoon, lots of keepers (god damn it!), but here are some pictures of the ones we got on board:
Another day when we only catch fish late morning, and all afternoon long! I am not sure if this the time of the year, luck or the weather, but I like it! No need to wake up anymore when the sun rises, I can sleep in a few more hours and enjoy a great day of fishing and, a nice evening out without falling asleep at the dinner table!! We ended up catching around 10 to 12 bass which isn't bad considering the fact that we did not catch one fish at the South Pond. Oh, one other thing I do not want to forget mentionning: South Pond is a beautiful place, but the nice beach, sand and clean water make it a great spot for swimmers, beachers, jet skis and other water activities....So, go there early in the morning (if you want to catch some trouts!) or forget about it!
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