swill17

Needed a day of fishing after a s***ty week and wanted somewhere a little more quite than my usual waters. Decided to get away from the 95 belt and headed out to long pond in littleton. Heard it had a good ramp and allowed gas motors. Fished from around 830-430. Got 6 bass, the best being longer than my plano 3700. Of course my scale decided then was a great time to not work.

Started the day throwing a square bill using my new cranking stick on the south side, no action. Had to go back to the ramp to fix my trolling motor after about an hour and then headed to the west edge. Started throwing a loud lipless crank at the edge and was rewarded with my first bass a few minutes later. Worked that edge for a while alternating the lipless and slow rolling a spinner bait . Only other action I got was monster snapping turtle swimming by my boat.

Some families were fishing for sunfish on the north west corner, looks like there is a picnic table there or something. Was getting frustrated, and not having any jigs with me (its hard to fish with the tackle box you left on your bench) I started throwing a senko at anything that looked like it could be cover. Hooked into my first good fish of the year in view of the families. Caught another in the same spot. Cloud band moved in and the bite died.

Had a slow few hours trying various spots not catching anthing, as I was leaving I saw the cove on the south side and hit that. Didn't really expect to catch anything so was just ripping my lipless through the emerging pads. Second cast I think snag a pad and am getting ready to motor over to it when the fish explodes out and gives me a show. Stayed for another hour after that and grabbed one more

Two guys in a canoe were killing it while I was there, they claimed to have caught 15 fish in the first hour, I was skepitical until I saw them catch a fish every cast right in front of me for a solid 20 minutes. I was struggling to find hooks and lures that were approriat as most of the stuff I prepped was sitting at home and unusable.

First time there and it seems like a nice fisher.

Went out with a buddy in my dads leaky 9 foot jon. He had good luck cranking grabbing around 10 fish, biggest around 2.5 3 pounds. Also got a monster perch that jumped out of the boat before we could weigh it.

I got on the board after switching away from my new rod and grabbed a small perch and crappie.

I hit martins to test out the new motor and get some fishing in. Let the water warm up a bit before I headed out, wanted to let fish move towards shallows.

Wind blowing towards the north west and I worked that shore and the island. Spotted a drop off the right side of the island and worked that with a spinner bait for a bit as well.

Only hook up was what seemed to be a large bass, drag wasnt set correctly and he threw the hook about 10 feet from the boat. Was using a reaction strikes jerk bait in perch I believe.

Was there from 1245 to 5, water temp suprised me at being a steady 59.9 the entire time.

The original plan was to get the work done on the boat during the week and put in sunday morning for a fathers day fishing trip. Rain and work put a damper on those plans and we still had some stuff to touch up sunday morning. Didn't end up getting on the water until around 3.

We had to be off the water by 6 because the lights on the trailer mean we can't use it after dark and had an hour+ ride home (so glad we only have to launch/retrieve it once a year). We headed out to the bell marker and put on a Pline Sabaki Rig and started looking for mackeral. Other boat out there said there were none around but we tried anyways. Five minutes in I hook up one, which in itself is rare who only catches one mackeral. But we figure where there is one there are many. I drop more weight on the end to get it to drop straight and keep jigging. 10 minutes later I bring up 4 and 10 after that I bring up another 3.

With them in the live well we head to our honey rocks. If we our going for an extended day we bring a bigger live well, the one on the boat is small and the fish tend to die very quickly when under power. We get to our rocks and drop anchor in the middle. Tie on some trebs and put them through the backs of the macks. Sitting for about 20 mins and the bait runner drag starts going on my rod. Wait a few seconds and pull up and I'm in my first striper of the season.

Put up a decent fight, my dad thought it was going to be huge because of the ammount of line it was pulling off, but I admitted I may not have set the drag properly. Ended up being a 27" 8 pounder.

I hook on another mac and sit back down and wait. Meanwhile my dad pulled his back in and found it had chocked itself to death on weeds and put on a new one. This guy decides he wants to try out for the under seas olympics at some point and starts lapping the boat. Instead of peacefully sitting watching our lines move a bit we spend the next half hour or so avoiding line crosses and adjusting bait runner drags.

At one point my dad mac takes off and we see a striper try to hit it top water, nothing like seeing saltwater fish break the surface. No run on the line so we assume we missed it and he starts doing laps again. At one point he makes a run at a distant rock pile but we assume the bait fish got spooked.

Shortly after that my rod takes off again and I have another one on. This one is closer to the boat but he is giving me a good fight. Even with the drag fixed he is taking line and fighting. We get him to find a 33 inch 13 pound striper on. My mother loves striper so we decide to keep this guy and keep fishing for the small amount of time we have left.

As we are reeling in to head out I look at my dads spool and go "wow that mac took a ton of line." My dad says its like reeling in a log. As it comes in we find the schoolie that hit the mack top water has the thing half way down its throat. The thing was so small we couldnt tell the difference between the mackeral on the line and the striper.

I tried to get it out but the hook was down by the gills and every time I tried to move the bait fish blood would gush out. Unfortunately I figured releasing him with the bait fish in there would be more likely to save him than f***ing up his gills.

Bass are just amazing, the bait fish he tried to eat was over half his size, even without a hook in him I don't think he would have been able to eat the fish.

Two and a half stripers in around 3 hours is nothing I will ever complain about. All around great day. And now I have some chunk bait for surfcasting.

Hit the Charles for the first time today, was a bit disappointing. We put in on woerd st in waltham, probably hitting the water around 1030, a little later than we had planned but fishing is fishing. We headed up river and hit a few coves and what ever looked interesting. The first place we stopped had a lot of fishing grabbing stuff off the top and i saw one good size bass we spooked. Most of the stuff up top was little guys but there was one bass/carp/pickeral that would not take anything we through at him.

I tried about everything in my tackle box at some point, small stuff was chasing grubs and split tail plastics but nothing big enough to take it. I tried to work on my jig most of the day but came up short. Lost my last lipless crank and spinner bait, and donated a few plastics and about a half mile of mono.

I got one on an ultralight spinning set up with small rapala floater, we think it was a baby carp, neither of us recongized it.

My friend grabbed a crappy, a small pickeral, one 6 inch bass and one 10 inch bass.

The total weight for the day was maybe a pound and a half.

Got off the water at 4:30 with a ton of sun, and still had a good time regardless of the poor fish count.