Fishing Lake Hayward May 29 2010

There was a light breeze on Lake Hayward even at 6 am, but it never got too windy. I caught my first fish on my 3rd cast and thought I was going to have a good day. The lake was as busy as I expected on Memorial Day weekend, but everyone was considerate of each other. Everyone seemed to be catching fish, but no one was catching a lot of them. I was using everything I had, but there didn't seem to be anything in particular they were interested in. My final total for the day was 16 crappie, pickerel and bass. The biggest fish (15")was caught in the shallow marsh right in front of the boat launch.

Fishing Gardner Lake and Pickerel Lake May 28 2010

I haven't fished Gardner Lake in a couple of years. The old boat launch area is not set up for a kayaker. I'm afraid that if I put my boat in the water that it will be gone when I get back from the parking area. The fishing wasn't too good either. I think the most I caught in a day was 2 fish. One day while touring houses with my office I drove by a remote corner of the lake with a dam. It looked real interesting som I went back a couple week later to look it over. It turns out to be a good place to put a kayak in the water and fish the other part of Gardner Lake. This part of the lake is not as deep as the other half. On the 28th I spent half the day paddling around this half of the lake. I was more interested in learning water depths, weed beds and what color combinnations the fish liked that seriously fishing. I was able to catch 11 pickerel and bass. None of them were very big. Around noon I went home, had lunch and a nap.

At 4pm I decided to take a trip to Pickerel Lake. By this time th wind was blowing pretty good, about 10-15mph. Fishing was slow and by 8pm I had only caught 4 fish. As the sun went down the fishing got better. In the next 45 minutes I caught 7 more pickerel and bass. By time it was very dark and I stopped fishing when I realized that I did not want to take a hook out of a pickerel in the dark! My total for the day was 23 fish. Almost all of them were caught on some combination of a jig or weed less hooked plastic worm/grub.

Fishing Ruby Cohen Park May 22 2010

I only had a couple of hours to fish the other day. So I went to Ruby Cohen Park in Colchester. The town purchased it a couple of years ago and it has a couple of small ponds that I've been meaning to try. I had been there before as a chaperone for my kids school trips. I was surprised to see that both of the ponds are 80-90% covered by lily pads.

When I got there there was a couple of women there. One of them was working with a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. It was real impressive watching her work with the dog. She would throw a float in the water for the dog to retrieve. The dog would jump in, swim out to the decoy, return and drop, shake and heel, all on command. I'm still trying to get my dog to stay off the table when I'm eating. It turns out that my daughter knows her. She is a dog trainer, the dog (Daphne)has won many competitions. She is from Colchester and she runs Hawk Nest Kennels.

All the splashing didn't hurt the fishing. In the 2 hours of daylight I had left I caught 6 pickerel. The catch of the day was a 22 inch monster that really gave me a good fight. The 8lb test line held up fine, even with all the weeds, but I have made up my mind to put some 14lb test line on my reel. I caught all the fish with weedless single tailed grubs and Yamamoto Swimsenkos.

Lake Williams May 20 2010

What a beautiful day to be on the lake. My main goal today was to get out in the big lily pond area and catch some fish on top. In about 3 hours I caught 5 fish, none of them big. Apparently they weren't in the mood or the high pressure zone on top of us turned them off. I did catch 2 more fish on the way back to the boat launch. Most of the fish were caught on top using Yamamoto Swimsenkos. I did catch my first fish on a Yamamoto Senko for the year.

Fishing Red Cedar Lake May 16th 2010

After my open house on Sisson Rd I went fishing at Red Cedar Lake. It was very windy, but I was only 2 miles from the lake. Being a Sunday there were boats and jet skis on the lake so anchoring off shore was not an option. The wind quickly pushed me down the lake to the lilly pads which were partially sheltered from the wind. I used the same weedless combinations that I used on the 11th with some success. I think the fish I caught on the 11th were now wise to the deception. I caught 7 (bass and pickerel) fish by 8pm and then started heading back to the other end of the lake. By that time the wind had let down and the boats/jet skis were docked. On the way back I caught a bass, a pickerel and a small perch before it got dark.

Fishing Pickerel Lake May 13th 2010

Did not have much luck fishing the main lake today. The jigs and senkos I threw out there were not drawing much interest. A couple of guys putting their bass boat on the trailer only caught 1 fish (bass) in 3 hours. In 2 hours I caught 3 fish, one sunfish and 2 pickerel. One of the pickerel was 18 inches long and would have made the trip worthwhile by himself. Fishing picked up at the south end of the lake using a combination of flukes and swimsenkos trailed across the top of the water through the weeds. I ended up catching 15 fish. The biggest bass was about 13 inches. While I was fishing a couple of guys from the CT DEP came up in a boat asking questions for a state fishing survey.

Red Cedar Lake Fishing May 11th 2010

Red Cedar Lake, Lebanon CT

The office had no meeting or tour on Tuesday, and it wasn't raining. Lately, if it's not raining, it's a good day. The wind was 10-15 mph, but it was pushing me down the lake at a nice pace. In the first two hours I caught one fish. By that time I was down by the lilly pads. I changed from the jigged grubs to the topwater weedless setup. I had a lot of fun for the next couple of hours catching bass and pickerel. Two of the bass and one pickerel I caught were 15-16" long, the rest of the fish were average, 12-13" long. I caught a few more on the way back to the boat launch for a total of 15 fish.

Fishing Lake WIlliams May 7 2010

Lake Williams, Lebanon CT

To use a football analogy, "I took what the defense gave me." In this case, the wind (15-20mph) was from the Northwest, so I fished off of the North shore. Fishing was slow, but fruitful. I caught crappie, perch, pickerel, sunfish and large mouth bass. The 4 bass I caught were in the lilly pads and were about 12-13" long. I used some big single tail grubs, fished weedless on top of the water. There is nothing I like more than seeing a fish hit a bait on the top of the water. I ended up catching 20 fish in about 5 hours of fishing. Most of the fish caught were on the small to medium side. The wind pushed me back to the dam at a good clip. That was really appreciated because I was very tired by then.

Amston Lake May 2 2010

After a week of chasing turkeys in the Berkshires with my dad, I got a chance to fish on Sunday afternoon. Not want to take a chance on not being to find any parking I went to Amston Lake. The wind was high (10-20mph) on the lake but the weather was warm and sunny. At one point I had to paddle across the lake to get to the lee shore. My Wilderness Pungo is very stable and made the trip without trouble.

I hit a few hot spots and ended up catching 20 small fish, mostly pickerel. This is the first time I've caught crappie there. Jigging soft plastic works well, but I am really looking forward to dropping some senkos if and when the wind stops blowing. Hopefully I can get ahold of some of the big bass hiding out there.