michaelk

My wife and I took the Friday off to go stay for a couple nights on the beach in Harwich Port before the Nashua T. I dragged the boat down with us, and went out on Long Pond Friday for half the day.

I hit the water around 6 am, noticing that it was town sticker parking only. A local guy told me I'd be able to pay for the day when I left, so I headed out anyways.

After running around the lake a bit to check things out, I pulled up on the shallower side of the northern stretch hoping for some topwater action. I fished a Sammy, a Buzzjet, and a spinnerbait. I got one swing on the Sammy over some weeds in 8 -10 feet, but it failed to connect. That was all she sang for the first couple hours as I fished my way around a point and into the western basin. I marked some fish on a steep dropoff around the point, but did not get bit dragging a jig down the drop.

Run to the far west looking for some different water, to no avail. Shallow cover was empty, docks were empty. I marked a bunch of bait in 20ish feet, which turned out to be White Perch that were eagerly hitting the dropshot.

Back to the northern basin, where I started bruising around looking for structure on the s***ty finder I have in the console. I spot something looking like a rock at 15 feet and drop a marker to come back and check it out. After some more scouting, I return and check out the marker on the finder: Looks like some kind of boulder perhaps, so I let out the dropshot, and almost immediately hook up with a solid fish. After hauling White Perch, this one feels like a tank, and it comes up and jumps once before diving down and peeling drag over and over again. It's a good sized smallie, but on the ML dropshot and the light test line it feels like a monster. Every time I get her close to the boat, off she goes again peeling drag. I take my time, and get her to the boat and in the net after a couple minutes and a quarter mile drift in the wind. Turns out to be a nice 3lb 2oz smallie at around 17 inches with a nice gut on it. Just a fantastic fight.

I get nothing else in that area, and head out looking for more deep structure. I find another rock-looking thing in 25 feet, and drop the marker again. Pull up, drop shot down, and another hookup! Almost immediately another big smallie comes up and jumps, and I have to duck as the hook and sinker comes flying back at me. This one looked like a better fish than the first one, and it's sadly the last smallie I hook up with that day.

I saw some of the biggest schools of White Perch there that I've ever seen. At times 8-10 feet thick, and stretching over 20-30 feet (although they could have been heading the same way as me). I could have spent all day catching them if I had been in the mood. If you're looking for some easy action, that's where it's at.

Every year around the end of July my wife and I take a vacation. This year we ended up taking our newborn son to Burlington VT, on the shores of Lake Champlain. We drove up with the Tracker in tow, and made it through the Green Mountains without drama.

Thursday I booked a trip with a local guide, to get a sense of the place and hopefully catch some decent fish. I met up with the guy up near the Canadian border and we drove down to launch out of St Albans Bay.

We started out fishing weed lines in 10ish feet of water, catching some cookie cutter smallies and a few small pike. While doing this, we drifted over pods of bait in 18-24 feet, so we did another drift down the shore dragging carolina rigs with a Zoom craw on it. The guide sets the hook on a heavy 2, and as he is fighting it I hook up with what feels like a truck. I end up with a personal best smallie right around 4 pounds, which ended up being lunker for the day as we repeat those two patterns in a few more spots. I ended up with the 4, a 3, a couple 2s and a mix of 1s and dinks. Nice day out! It's quite amazing what a good smallie feels like, even on heavier tackle.

Saturday I ended up taking out my boat on Mallets Bay. I've been having some issues starting the motor, so I was a bit nervous being on big water. I ended up spending a lot of time fishing dead shorelines and deep water before making a run to Mallets Creek where I found some weed beds. The day only yielded a couple of keepers on a brush hog, with a 2 1/2 LM as the biggest.

Sunday I started out the day in front of the creek, with the weather overcast. I got a heavy 1 on a buzzjet while trying out various topwater. I tie on a popper, and toss out a nice long cast. One pop, and the thing gets hammered! After a nice fight I net another 2 1/2 largemouth which ended up being the big bass of the day. I had close to a dozen fish from barely keeper size up to the 2.

While fishing along some shallow weeds, I spot a fish in about 2 feet of water. It's hard to tell what it is, but I pitch out a jig and it gets hit immediately. A solid hookset later I am getting a good fight out of whatever it is, rolling and making runs. After getting it in the net, it turns out to be a Bowfin, my first ever. Good times!

I wrap up the day fishing the docks around the launch, which fails to yield any bass at all over the two days. I did hook into a nice sized pike on the brush hog that took me several minutes to land. Every time I got it close to the boat, it would make another brutal run peeling off line. I can understand why people fish for them!

All in all a nice vacation. I would definitely go back, but I would spend time trying to fish the main lake. I regret not giving it a shot as I had decent weather without a lot of wind. The confidence has to be there in your equipment though, and it wasn't until after the trip. I had no problems whatsoever with the boat while there, so I'm feeling like those issues are behind me.

I haven't had a chance to go out much in the last month or so, due to the arrival of Michael K The Younger, but I've managed a few trips out with Sam F and the occasional shore trip. For a lot of these trips I've been playing around with my newest toys, swimbaits and other large/obnoxious lures.

The most productive trip was a few weeks back, going out for a few hours in the morning rain and wind. The conditions were good for some noisy baits, and we obliged. I busted out some new lures for the first time, including a 7 inch Slammer and a Buzzjet. Maybe a handful of casts with the Slammer went by, and Sam and I are laughing a bit at how huge it looks when I get a solid bite waking it by some pads. The fish pulls us along in the inflatable boat, and after a nice fight I land my first Slammer fish, a 3 1/2 lb chunk. I add a 2 a bit later, working it through the pads to get a fish that had missed Sam's frog.

Later that trip I switched to try a Buzzjet, an unholy mix of a wakebait, crankbait, and buzzbait. The thing makes a serious ruccus, and I ended up getting a few vicious hits on it and landing a heavy 2 and a 1. Not bad for a first outing with the big lures.

I've since been out once with the Slammer and managed another awesome bite. The fish was an ambitious barely keeper that hit it near pads as well. The picture is amazing I think =)

June has only had one more nice fish: When testing out a new rod in a small local pond, I got a couple of big blowups on a Rage Eeliminator in pads but failed to hook up. After resting the area a bit, I finally managed to get bit and set the hook. Working a solid fish through pads on 17 lb fluoro is not as easy as I thought it would be! After getting stuck once and horsing it through as best I could, I managed to land another nice 3 1/2, a best for that pond.

So far June has been the month of trying out new baits. I am happy to report that I have not thrown a single cast with a Senko-style worm, which has significantly increased my level of entertainment =)

Second club tournament of the year took place at Quaboag, and featured much better weather than the season opener on Mashpee-Wakeby. Weather started out cloudy with a slight wind shifting between north and east. Water temps were around 63-64 to start the day. About halfway through, the weather changed to mostly sunny and water temps rose to around 70 in the shallows.

I started the day around the southern "river" opening, fishing the point and cove behind it. I got a short bass and a couple of pickerel on a sammy-style bait right off the bat, but otherwise nothing of note.

After abandoning the cove area, I fished my way along the southern shore. It was mostly a 2-3 foot weed flat, with the occasional empty bed. Alternating between the sammy, a spinnerbait, and a buzzbait netted me some more spectacular pickerel hits but no bass.

About halfway to the western river opening, I chatted with another guy out there. He told me I was fishing in the right area, so I kept at it but switched to senko more or less full time. It was almost halfway through the day and I had no fish.

Soon after, the sun came out and before long I picked up my first fish, a nice 2-2, on the senko in reeds close to shore. My second fish followed maybe 30 minutes later when I spooked a decent size fish with the boat. I moved off about 5 feet, and it came right back. From maybe 10 feet away, I dropped the senko right on it and saw it turn and gulp it in. After a decent fight, I had a 2-12 in the boat.

For most of the remaining time, I stayed in the same general area. Coming by the area where I got the first fish, I was fishing out from shore when the line took off. This one put up a real nice fight on the spinning rod, peeling drag again and again before I netted it. This ended up being my big fish of the day, at 3-9. A 4th keeper clocked in at 1-2, also on the senko.

At this point I spotted a big fish on a bed right up under shore. It looked like an easy 4, so I decided to spend a large chunk of time on this fish due to our tournament format. We were paired up across boats, and each of us could bring 5 to the weigh-in. Each team would then cull to weigh their best 5. Knowing my partner already had 4 as well, I focused on the chance of a kicker fish instead of limiting out.

I spent probably close to an hour on this one fish. It was pretty lure and boat shy, but kept coming back 5 minutes later. Whatever I tossed in there, it just wouldn't bite. With maybe 40 minutes left to fish, I found out why: A second, equally big fish rolled up on the bed and they started spawning! No wonder there was no bite, they had other things on their minds =)

I ended up running to the north end of the lake and fishing out the last bit of time with another short to show for it. I felt pretty good about my contribution, and we ended up using my 3 biggest and my partners 2 best 1-and-change keepers for an 11.66lb limit, good for second. First place was a 15.XX bag including 2 fish near 5 pounds each.

It was nice to be out in decent weather for once. For a while it felt like I was going to get skunked, but the afternoon sun helped turn things around. Thanks, Quaboag!

As all who were there can attest to, the day started off looking like it would be a nice, warm day. But as the day went on, clouds rolled in and the wind picked up quite a bit. It ended up being a cold, blustery day out when all was said and done.

Sam and I weren't quite as prepared for this tourney as I would have liked. It was my first time even taking the big boat out this year, and we had only just gotten on the water and were rigging up the last few things when the field took off. We saw two boats head to each of the areas we had in mind to start, so we ended up heading off to the island right in front of the launch.

We got most of our fish on brush hogs pitched to cover or shallow structure. The shore cover was not very productive for the most part, as it was very shallow. Another foot of water would have been awesome. We got one of our nicer keepers off a dock in 3 feet or so, which culled our 13 inch rat that we caught early in the morning.

We managed to find one fish on a bed all day. It seemed nicely locked on, and doesn't move far from the bed even when spooked. Pitching the brush hog on the bed was rewarded with a quick pickup and spit. Repeat this for about 5 missed hooksets. The dropshot didn't even get more than a cursory look from her. Back to the brush hog it was, for another 6-8 missed hooksets as the fish doesn't even keep it in its mouth for more than a split second.

A beaver-type bait gets the first real bite, but the fish is barely hooked and comes off. Amazingly, she went right back to the bed. As we are maneuvering the boat back and forth in the wind, it looks like we spooked her off the bed. A closer look reveals that she's chasing bluegills, not being spooked. Out comes the bluegill swim jig. First pitch only skirts the bed and barely gets a look. Second pitch drags the jig right into the bed. Stop the jig, couple little twitches, and she slams it. Moments later, we have our fourth and biggest fish in the boat.

We saw a ton of bait in the weedbeds in the west basin, and fished a spinnerbait for a while. It seemed like a perfect time for it, and the pickerel certainly agreed! We picked up 6-8 pickerel and one bass that didn't cull before going back to our soft plastics. In hindsight, we probably should have kept at the spinnerbait as we got no more bass for the day and still kept getting pickerel on the plastics.

Our final bag went 10-8, with a 3, a couple of 2s, and a couple of heavy 1s. We put a total of seven bass in the boat, five on the green pumpkin brush hog, one on a jig, and one on a white/charteuse spinnerbait. We probably stayed on the shallow cover too long, but it's hard to abandon something that's been working so well.

As a bonus, I cranked the motor for the first time this year and it started right up. All in all, a pretty nice outing. It was great seeing everyone again!

We had our first club tourney on Easter weekend. It was on Saturday, of course, with all the delightful weather that came with it. I ended up fishing as a co-angler as I haven't had a chance to get my own boat ready for the season.

Mashpee-Wakeby is a large, clear Cape pond. Very limited shore structure to be found. Weather was in the high 40s to low 50s, with 25 mph wind out of the SSE. Water temps were around 46-48 for the day.

We started out fishing around the far island, thinking the fish might stop and stage around there. No dice, not even a nibble. After spending 45 minutes to an hour there, we fished our way around a point and into some cover from the wind.

We ended up on a large 4-5 foot flat, and pounded the area with jerkbaits and jigs. An hour later, my boater picks up a nice largemouth on a black/blue jig while dragging it over the bottom. He then promptly hangs that jig in a tree and loses it. Shortly after, I feel some life and set the hook on my only fish of the day, a 2.5 lb smallie while draggin a brown/green pumpkin jig.

We then spent a good while trying out different parts of shoreline, but the bite seems to have shut off completely in the areas we can remain steady in.

My boater ends up picking up one more random fish off a lone dock on the jig. This fish was enough to put him in the money.

We end up pulling the boats a few minutes early. After the weigh-in, we fire up the portable grill and have some April shower hot dogs to round off the day.

With a bit of a lull in the winds lately, I figured Wednesday night was a good chance to get out for a couple hours in the Jon boat. I bailed out of work a bit early and headed over to Hardy Pond for a couple hours of fishing since it's only 5-10 minutes away.

The temperature was in the low 50s with a slight wind, overcast and dark. Water temps were around 52.

I spent the first half hour fishing some shallow submerged boulders with a lipless crank and a jerkbait with no takers. I fished the dropoffs around there as well, also nothing. I was marking fish, but nothing was biting. The dark and somewhat murky water probably wasn't helping the jerkbait bite either.

I moved to a different spot and started fishing a stretch between two points, still with the jerkbait and lipless. After another 15 minutes to hauling water, I put both away and picked up the jig rod. I then went looking for laydowns, stumps, and brush. There was a lot of brush, but no fish biting in it. I found a small downed branch near some brush in a foot or two of water. As I pulled up to it, an older gentleman living there chatted me up about the fishing. Right as he walked away and wished me luck, I felt a thump and set the hook on a nice keeper. I almost asked him to hop in the boat and bring his good luck with him =)

I kept going on my quest to find nice laydowns, and found a perfect looking tree trunk. No fish. I fished some brush near it, and while dragging it back out over branches and junk, another keeper size fish swiped at it but didn't hook up.

I started working my way back in, but wanted to check out the part of the pond I've never fished much. It's shallow and weedy as hell in the summer. Apparently there are also some underwater rocks, because I slammed the trolling motor into one of them, but no damage done. Nothing going over there.

At this point, it's about to get dark and I start jetting back to the launch. I make one stop at a decent looking laydown and toss the jig to the outer limbs. The line is draped over the branches, and I don't feel a thump but something registers as an unexpected feeling or look, so I set the hook. I hook up with a nice fish and wrestle it out of the tree. I get it to the boat, and it's a solid 3lb 7oz chunk. I can't really explain how I knew I got bit, it was just a feeling that something wasn't "right". Nice to see that the instincts aren't completely rusty!

With a nice cap to the evening like that, I head back in. The weather is getting cold as hell as the sun goes down, and I only smacked one more boulder on the way in!

Not bad for a couple hours out. Hardy Pond is still not being super productive for me, but it's so nice and close that it's hard to beat. Maybe I'll keep at it a bit more this year and figure it out. The 3 1/2 was the biggest I've seen pulled out of there so far.

I finally had some time on Sunday to make it out, and some decently cooperative weather, so I grabbed the Jon boat and headed down to Plymouth.

By the time I got there, the wind was howling. I ended up picking a small pond where I knew I could get out of the worst of it, and dropped the boat and all the accessories in. The water was down around 3 feet from last year, and the ramp cove had maybe two feet of water. It was nicely out of the wind, and the temp was reading 58. I saw fish cruising around as soon as I got there.

I launched and fished the nearby area with a 1-minus crankbait, and almost immediately hooked up with a small dink for the first fish of the year. Next cast, a better fish. For two more casts I hooked up, for a total of four in a row. I managed a couple more before the area went dead. Nothing huge, just keeper size fish which is a bit below average for the pond. I did see a few real nice fish cruising, but none were willing to play.

After fishing the rest of the cove with no results, I braved the wind for a short while. I had to spend so much time wrestling with the boat that I hardly got to do any fishing at all. So I popped into another sheltered cove that is noticeably deeper than the first one. Water temp was around 52.

I fished a deep jerkbait for a bit with no takers before switching to a jig. The next fish came off a laydown in 4-5 feet of water. The line took off like a rocket, and by the time I set the hook it was 15-20 feet from the tree. Nothing fancy, but another decent keeper.

At this point it was almost time to head out, but I had one more stop to make at a pair of sunken boulders in 5-7 feet of water. I fished a Lucky Craft Pointer around the area, and felt it bump one of the rocks. Immediately after, I felt another thump and set the hook. After a decent fight, I managed to land a nice 2 1/2 lb smallie with a huge gut! It's the first smallie I've seen or caught in there, and the locals I've asked have denied their existence. Glad they were wrong =)

Back at the ramp I made a few more casts with a senko in that first cove, and managed to round out the day with another solid keeper chunk. All in all, it was a fantastic first day on the water!

Our day started off pretty shaky, with both of us having the morning blues due to the cold weather. We managed to stick it out through the desire to just head home and get some more sleep, fortunately. After standing around at the store for a while, everyone finally got on the water and we got going.

The cold weather made for a slow start to the day, as we opened up right at the start point. A nibble or two, but nothing going on. We fished our way out towards the first larger basin without much action. We did see someone else pull two fish out in a hurry, and could only hope that they were on our team.

We rolled up on a big dock in one of the channels, and Mark is rolling up on the other side of it. He pulls a keeper out, I pull our first fish which ends up a whisker under 12. That would be my theme for the day. We leave the dock to Mark (sorry Mark, probably should have passed it by completely. My bad.) and move on into the main lake portion to fish some more docks as the sun starts peaking out now and then.

We're laughing hard about our troubles with properly skipping stuff when suddenly Sam gets the first fish of the day. Soft bite, didn't even know it was there. In the boat it goes, it's a solid pound and change keeper. Feeling good about being on the board, we keep moving along. I get another short soon after, and we decide to make a move since the area is pretty crowded.

We make a run down to the next channel and pick out some nice looking docks with lots of cover. In the next couple hours we fished the crap out of the docks on that side. I got another 3 or 4 shorts, Sam pulls out a short as well. As we make our way down the Lake, we spend extra time on some of the docks to give the fish a chance to wake up and smell the plastics. Sam hooks up with a fish that thumped his lure and starts wrestling with it. He seems pretty calm, but I notice his rod being doubled over and his effort to keep the fish under control so I grab the net and get ready. We get her in the boat, and it's a beauty of a fish, at 4lb 4oz. This ended up being the lunker for the day. Sam has been chasing the 4 pounder mark all season, and he finally gets it to close out the MAFF season. High fives are in order before we move on!

We're both stoked at this point, and keep pounding the docks to grab a limit. We both miss decent fish and get some more shorts, but the docks are drying up. At this point, most of the ones we hit got fished already and haven't reloaded it seems. But we make our way back to the dock where we got the first short, since it looked like it would be big enough for multiples. Sure enough, I skip a senko up under a pontoon boat and connect with my first and our third keeper of the day. We lose another fish at that dock, a borderline keeper that would have been nice at this point.

We now have 90 minutes left and are two short of a limit, so we head in to check out the shallows again in hopes that the warmer weather has triggered the bite. Sam pulls another keeper off some fallen brush while we head for a spot that I've caught fish on almost every time out. I have a fish swing and miss at my senko as I am bringing it in, just another miss in a long day of being the driver =) Fortunately, Sam manages to pull our 5th and last keeper off the spot with 30 minutes to spare.

We fish out the last minutes, feeling pretty good about our bag from what we've overheard. Our guess is a high 8, maybe low 9 bag. We watch the weigh-in, and a 9lb4oz bag looks good enough to top ours. Mark then pulls out a pig that looks about even with our biggest, and we don't hear the weight on it. When we finally weigh in, we come out with a 9lb10oz bag and the lunker, and we are both stoked and a little shocked. A fantastic way to end the season, and a nice feeling after having struggled in my first few tournaments as a new boater.

There aren't enough thanks to be said to Johnny and Smoke for arranging and running these tournaments, and to all the people that make up the MAFF circuit =) It's a great bunch of people to be fishing with, and we look forward to more of the same next year!