shawneramone

Overall I have had a great year for numbers but hadn't caught a fish over 5 since the spring. On August 23 I started a nice run with 6 fish over 5 pounds over the next 3 weeks. 4 of them on jigs, one on a frog and one on a drop shot which crushed my previous big ds fish by 2 pounds. All in all a great summer so far. Hope to keep it rolling. Tight lines all.

My pond has had the post spawn blues but I think they could be coming to an end. I went out in the hurricane for about 6 hours yesterday afternoon. There were gusts that stopped the boat dead in the water. That part sucked. I went to the wind blown shoreline and started buzzing. Nothing. I started throwing a 3/8 skipping jig. I like these around grass. They come through it pretty good. I started catching 1-2 pounders at a pretty good clip. I tried to back off and fish the 8-10 range looking for bigger fish. I got one. I just kept throwing the jig everywhere. Lots of small fish and just that one good one. I got a few on the frog in pads. I started cranking in the late afternoon. Still catching dinks and lots of bait fish. As the sun was going down I decided to throw the buzz again as I was heading back to the ramp. Bam bam bam I get a bunch of fish in a short little rally to end the day. All in all another great afternoon on the water. Had over 25 bass, countless crappie, a bunch of perch and one snapping turtle.

I hit up lake Quannapowit for about 3 hours this afternoon. I lost my first fish pitching to a tree. It was a good one. I caught my next bite but it was only a 1 1/2 pounder. Then I spent the rest of the time casting. There is some nice eye candy at that place. All in all it was a great day on the water. Tight lines all!

I was at one of my favorite ponds throwing the frog around and having some luck. I tossed it next to a dock and saw a huge wake come out and then the frog goes under. I set the hook and immediately think I have a 7-8 pound bass. As I started reeling I knew something was wrong. Then I see the head come up. Snapping turtle. I got it to the side of the boat and managed to get the hook out. Kind of a bummer. I ended up with 7-8 fish but no 8 pounders

I picked up Dunt around 3:30 and headed over to the Merrimack for some smallies. He started us off with a nice 2 pounder on a KVD square bill. Then I got a dink on a square bill. We came up on a cove that had water chestnuts just starting to take over. We went in. The depth was between 1-3 ft. Hard to tell with the weeds. We were hoping to find Larry but got a bigger surprise. We were both throwing buzz baits. I got a huge blowup right near the boat and then another 2-3 casts later but didn't hook up. Then I hear Dunt say he has one. I hear line stripping and locate the fish. That's a Pike!!!! Dunt's using a spinning rod with 10 pound mono. He fights the fish perfectly for a long time. Every time he gets it close, it sees the boat and makes a run. I have the net ready and we finally get him in.
We get the lure out and figure out the best way to grab it. It's Dunt's first Northern and I've only got 2. I grab it by the back of the head and we get it on the scale. 12.2 it weighs. I caught a couple of dink smallies and then it was time to go.

Starting on Thursday morning I was off work for 4 days in a row with no obligations other than an afternoon dentist appt on Thursday. I decided to head an hour or so west on Thursday and hit up Pond D. I was surprised at the grass beds that I saw. But this pond has a good variety of wood cover, overhanging brush and random rocks. I pretty much ignored the mats (probably my weakest skill punching mats). I started throwing the frog under trees and hooked up immediately. I would only need that bait for the day. I threw jigs, craws and cranks but other than the frog I had just one hit on the jig. Tiger Muskie. That's my new thing. If I get bit off, it must have been a tiger muskie. I ended the day with a dozen or so bass, none of which is brag about except maybe one that I got tea bagging the frog over a branch. That was awesome. I also got one pickerel that of course was the biggest blowup of the day. The dentist went well.
Day 2 was Friday. Sam and I met at 4:45 am and headed north to lake W. We started off in a largemouth cove and spent an hour finding out they hadn't moved up yet. Sam got one right at the beginning part of the cove. Water temp was around 60 there. We moved to a spot where we thought the smallies would be bedding. BINGO! I know some people are against bed fishing but I'm not. We bagged a ton of fish. Had double hookups three times and basically went non stop until a storm rolled in. One minute no wind and calm water. The next was gale force winds and white caps. Time to bail. I didn't feel too cheated as we had a good day and a long ride ahead anyway.
Day 3 was Saturday. Darren and I were heading to the Cape. Turns out I made two pretty bad decisions. The first one was going to the Cape in the first place. The wind was horrible. The second one was going to a pond I'd never went to. Ashumet. PAVE IT. We lost 3 smallies and I caught a rainbow walking the dog. We pulled out (lol) at 11:30 or so and headed up to one of my local spots. It didn't matter. We couldn't buy a bite. If not for that trout I would have had 0 fish. I felt bad for Darren as he hasn't been able to get out much and can't seem to get one of those days everything's biting. Soon I hope.
Day 4 it's Sam and I again meeting around 5am on Sunday. We went to pond c. We were met with blue bird skies. We were expecting them tight to cover and shallow. The place is shallow all the way through anyway. We grabbed our first 5 fish on frogs with Sam getting a 3 pounder. That was the fun part. The rest of the day was a grind. We ended up with 25-30 fish and it didn't feel like a good day. My best fish was a 3 pounder on a jig that probably kept me sane because I had some long stretches without a bite.
This might be the first time I've fished this much over 4 consecutive days. It was exhausting in an awesome way.

Sam and I met up at 4:45 am on Sunday. We started at pond A. A clear water pond with smallies and largemouth. There were some smallies on beds but it didn't matter. We were killing it with spooks, Jimmy's and Sammy's. They couldn't lay off the dog. We also picked up some fish with craws. Around midday we moved to pond B.
Pond B was a bigger bow also with clear water. Smallies and largemouth live here too. We saw even less beds here. We didn't catch as many fish here as pond A but the quality was there. Our biggest was around 4 pounds. We were getting them on jigs, craws, and grubs. I can't remember if we got any on top.
Day 2
I met Sam at 5 am and we headed out in search of Larry. I had spooled up my new frog rod the night before and was eager to try it. (Genesis air 7'5 H with a lews tournament pro 7.1). I started throwing a popping frog while Sam went with the spook. Over the next 4 hours with heavy cloud cover and intermittent showers the Topwater bite was on fire. We boated 50 or more fish from dinks to 3 1/2 pounders. I've never seen such an awesome Topwater bite before.
Then the weather shifted. It got windier and the sun was popping out. The fish went tight to cover and it was a grind for the next few hours. We boated about 10 more fish but Sam probably got 9 of them. We wrapped it up early and avoided the traffic home. We definitely beat our previous best of one kabillion fish. I can't wait to throw that frog again.

Dunt and I hit up Quannapowit for about 3 hours this afternoon. The weather was cloudy with off and on showers. Air temp was 55 with light winds and water temp was 59. Dunt got it going with a keeper on a kvd squarebill. Then I caught the next two bass on a Texas rigged craw. My next fish was a huge crappie. I didn't even know they were in there. It was 15 inches long and weight 1.13. Dunt grabbed a nice bass off a dock and then off a rock. I got fish on back to back casts with the craw. I tried a buzzbait for a bit but the water temps aren't quite there yet. I can't wait to cast that thing until my arm falls off.

Sam and I met up at the usual time (5am) and headed to the Cape for some smallie action. We went to Lawrence pond. We went last year in the fall and wanted to see what it was like in the spring. There's not much structure here except a couple of points so that's what we concentrated on. Sam started it off with the biggest smallie of the day (we didn't weigh anything) on a jerk bait. Ghost minnow I believe. He caught all of his fish on jerkbaits actually. I kept the tradition of catching largemouth instead of smallmouth alive by bagging a Larry on a dt20. I was fishing it on 15# test. I was getting it around 15-16 ft deep. This fish was in 13 ft and was close to 4 pounds. (The pic doesn't do him justice). I got all of my fish on crankbaits. The dt20, a sebile blue/orange craw (8-10ft) and a live target chartreuse deep diving craw. My first smallie crushed the dt20. I made my cast, cranked it down hard and stopped right when I hit the bottom. She must have been following it cuz she crushed it right when I stopped. That was pretty much the exciting part. The wind picked up to a steady gale and we picked up fish here and there. Our final determination? PAVE IT.

Sam and I hit a local pond Sunday morning around 7 am. We were on his boat so I had the back. I started off throwing a crankbait. I got a dink pretty quickly. I couldn't get anything going with the buzzbait. This was my third time here and I only have a couple of fish on it. I have deemed that place anti-buzz and will stop throwing them there. Sam was throwing a spook and wake bait. He was catching fish. He also lost a decent fish when it threw the wakebait. As the sun came up the fish moved under the brush. Time to skip some jigs. This is really when it was on. I barely threw anything else for the rest of the day. That means WHITE LIGHTNING did most of the work. I have to say once again how much fun it is skipping jigs. It's rewarding just to make a good skip. It's awesome when you make a good skip, your partner says deserves, and Wham! You get a fish. Just a great feeling. We ended up catching a ton of fish. Nothing huge though. We did catch a few 3 pounders. Overall I had a fun day. It's always a good day when you're catching tons of fish.

Next weekend is smallie weekend. Saturday with Sam and Sunday at the Quabbin with my man Darren. I hear the boys from Northshore are gonna check it out too.