Back on Dry, Solid Land

Feels good to be home! Long day!

Back on Dry, Solid Land
Today started with a 3:45am wake up and on the road by 4:20.

Today's trip was to the Quabbin Reservoir, the largest body of water in Massachusetts by over 10X the next nearest sized lake. The Reservoir is just too enormous for small boats so Kayaks (Watchtower, I will take a pic of my rigged kayak next river trip!), canoes, and small boats under 10 feet are not allowed. Luckily the Reservoir is operated by the state and they rent 14 foot aluminum boats with a 20hp motor and a huge tank of gas for $45 for the whole day! What a deal!

As it is deep summer time and and the lake trout, salmon, and rainbows are all so deep as to be almost not catch able the reservoir was almost empty. I like that a lot! Plenty of room.

We saw Turkeys, Bald Eagles, Deer, and Martens on the islands. Great wildlife. Loons everywhere as well. But it is about the fishing.

Fishing was a little tough today due to heavy winds. On a lake this size the wind really gets channeled hard and not even 50 pounds between two anchors can keep a boat in place! Luckily I have developed drift fishing techniques for deep water smallmouth bass over the years which worked well today regardless of the wind.

I am feeling a bit wobbly and still feel like I am moving with the waves so I will make this short. I was able to locate some great fish (with help of the new Eagle 350c color fish sonar) and the wife and I had one of our better days even with the wind issues. We caught 25 fish between us and the wife, as usual, got the biggest which means I HAVE to go see the Twilight film "Eclipse" this weekend! Dang smallmouths!

Here is a good one I got early on, about 3 pounds:


The wife's first fish:

Not bad!

I got this guy and he was really long but did not feel too heavy. He fought heavy though!:

Great coloration.

My best of the day, a football shaped fatty over 4 pounds and he was a mean jumper! He got aerial 4 times. It was probably a female as the females are bigger, but whatever:

Nice fish!

We had lunch out of the wind in a quiet cove, but of course I saw some movement and it was a largemouth bass chasing shiners near shore so I had to catch him:

Besides the obvious difference (mouth size!) large and small mouth bass are very differently colored, as you can see.

Fish of the day? The wife's easy 5 pound plus bruiser brought up from 18 feet deep on a great rocky dropoff I found. Caught on a black 5 inch wacky rigged senko:

Monster smallie!

Do not be alarmed at the blood from the fish, the wife hooked him in the lower jaw near the tongue and that area will bleed a bit for a minute but with no damage long term to the fish (they have done studies).

A great day but I am tired out. Working anchors, tying hooks and rigs, fighting the wind, and driving the boat. It's like real work only fun!

Added:
An autumn overview of the Quabbin which shows the size and the beauty of the place:

Wow.

Have a good night.

Gone Fishing

I will have the usual Friday night stuff up later on, but I had such a great time fishing this morning I thought I would post about that.

Gone Fishing
As soon as I could walk my Dad took me fishing and I think I have spent the better part of 25 years fishing the Merrimack River myself from shore. Over time I have been able to find about 30 or so spots that are sure things but I always dreamed of being able to get out on the river and see what I could find away from the shore. Besides, poison ivy is never fun!

I was a bit apprehensive about taking the kayak out on the mighty Merrimack because it really is a good sized river and the current moves medium fast. I also have very limited experience fishing from the kayak. Seeing that I am totally dumb, I just went right ahead and did it today! I am glad I did.

There is a nice boat launch right near where I live and it is located in a region that I wanted to try with a boat, so that made it easy. I was supposed to get up at the regular time (5am) and be out on the water by 7am. Of course I went out with the wife last night for a while and then came home and stayed up too late! I was slow to get going, but I was on the water about 9am. What can you do? Here is a shot looking back at the river:


There were tons of fallen trees in the river from shore erosion, and I targeted these fall downs as I passed them. Smallmouth bass will not relate to wood structure unless they have nothing else, but largemouth bass love trees. I tried about 6 places and nothing happened. A couple of taps, but no fish. Here is one spot I tried:


I was not worried, I knew I needed rocks! Smallmouth love rocks, the bigger the better! I kept paddling along for a while and I was getting nervous as I had not seen the type of rock strewn bottom I was looking for. After travelling for about 20 minutes I finally found what I wanted. Only One problem, these pesky ducks came in from the shore and would not leave me alone!:


You can see the boulders in the water at the right hand side of the picture.

Things picked up, but sunfish kept grabbing my senko lures as soon as they hit the water! Here is a good sized sunfish:

Here is a really awesome colored pumpkinseed fish:

I was fishing 3 inch fat senkos but I switched to 4 inch regulars to get rid of the tiny fish. Of course, then I caught a bunch of tiny smallmouths:

and

This one had great color and the darkness of the fish clued me in that the bass were in much deeper water. If this guy had not been caught, several big fish would not have been caught either, HAHAHA!

I backed out a ways, about 50 feet and there the water was about 12-18 feet deep. I switched to 5 inch senkos and stayed right on the bottom. I could feel big rocks as the lure bumped bottom, so I knew this spot was going to be very good. I was slowly bumping the senko back when a small tap made me give some slack line. The line started to move against the current so I slowly reeled in and applied pressure to turn the octopus hook up and WHAM!!!!!!!!! It was on! This fish stayed deep, right at the bottom and was so strong. River fish are way more powerful than lake fish due to having to swim in current all the time. This was a big one. It took about 6 minutes to get the fish ready to come in the boat. It was a bruiser river smallmouth, about 4 pounds:

See how big this fish's eye is? That's how you can tell a big smallmouth!

I put the fish back in the water and it took a minute for it to get going. I did not take anymore pictures of fish because they were all pretty good sized (2-4 pounds) and after the fight they were really done so I wanted to get them back in the water as soon as possible. I caught 12 total in about 2 hours.

At some point my anchor (a 7 pound hand weight on a rope) got wedged in some rocks so I had to cut the line. I used the wind to drift fish the area and it seems I have found a great 15-25 foot deep rock strewn flat teeming with big fish. Unreal. I will be going back, count on it!

UPDATE:
My friend Mark had this to say:

Why do we call skipping work or school "playing hooky"?

Perhaps it is based on the word hook? I'm just trolling for fresh ideas. Just angling for a new spin. Spawning some thoughts. Weighing-in with my opinions.

Have I hit bottom? Is the jig up? I feel a backlash. I'm bobbing and sinking here. I should probably stop now before I cast off some real barbs. That would be a real drag. Some just don't appreciate puns and would likely throw a few carping remarks at me! I'm almost baiting them!! I need to learn to shut my large mouth!

Oh buoy. I've crossed the line. The lure of streaming puns was just two great lakes. I've hit my limit. The pun reservoir is dry and I can't restock it.

True talent is rare in this world, enjoy it when you see it!

A good day away from work and the markets.