Archive for 2010 CT River Pike Fishing
Bad day of fishing is better than…
Posted by: | CommentsA bad day of fishing is NOT always better than a good day at work… If was just one of those days.
Over 3″ of rain had the river on the rise. Mike and I figured that the ice would have been gone from some of our better spots for pond shiners. We decided to give it a shot before the water got out of control. We met were in the water by 7 and made our way to the first spot only to find close to an inch of ice still. I wasn’t too upset, as that means that I might be back walking on that same spot again this weekend. We found a couple of other spots that were open and we spent a couple of hours there in search of pondies but they just weren’t eating this morning. Something in the back of my mind was telling me to pull the plug and head home, but we decided to stay and switch gears…
Sorry for the poor quality cell phone pics ,but today was supposed to be a bait day so I never brought my camera.
We pulled up to one of my deeper catfish holes, and instantly, the fish finder went nuts. We tied on some jigs and dropped down to 30 feet and began jigging. It wasn’t long before I got thumped. This was a good fish for the river! On 4 lb test and a cranking current, it took a while but we managed to boat the cat. She weighed 12 pounds!
It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many cats in one hole ,we jigged for a while and put a dozen or so in the boat. Mike had a good one that was probably close to 9 pounds and I dropped another big one at the boat. I happend to look up at Mike and he was just standing there staring at me with this weird look on his face. I kinda had a feeling what was coming next… “Dude, I got 2 hooks in me”
Yep… Not quite sure how he managed it but he had 2 out of the 3 trebles buried in his hand.
As painful as it looked, they were in a pretty good spot to pop back out. It wasn’t what you’d call a text book extraction but we manged to get them out with out too much blood shed. Mike managed to hold my phone for quick video of the procedure. Here is the video:
That little episode took the wind out of our sails so we headed back to the ramp. I beached the boat and Mike ran to the truck only to find that his battery was dead. The river was coming up fast at this point. When Mike had parked the truck, the water was well behind the trailer. The trailer was now in the water as was half the truck. Luckily one of our customers from the shop happened to be at the ramp and offered us a jump.
The battery was complete junk, a jump wasn’t enough. I got a ride back to the shop to grab my truck and tools and returned to the ramp to remove the battery from the boat. We made the swap and the truck fired right up. I was hoping that as bad as the old battery was it would have enough juice to crank the little outboard up so we dropped it in. Nope… We ended up using jumper cables from the trolling motor and she just barely turned over but it was enough to get her running again. We finally loaded the boat and got the hell out of there.
Not the best of days on the water but at least we caught a few fish…
Crappie Thanksgiving
Posted by: | CommentsAs I have for the last several years on Thanksgiving, I launched the boat this morning to look for some crappie. It was 24 degrees as I was prepping the boat before sunrise. I found that quite a few of my hatches were frozen shut. I had to pour some water on them to get them open. The water than hit the deck quickly froze… Ah, the joys of late November fishing…
Today I had Justin withe me. A quick stop at CT Outfitters for bait and were were in the water 5 minutes later. In addition to searching for crappie, we also looked around for some brush piles and log cribs to mark on the GPS for future icefishing trips. I found 3 more piles in Wethersfield cove that I wasn’t aware of. Once we had them marked in Justin’s hand held and my 1197, we headed south for White Oaks cove. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to get in but I figured it was worth a shot. Along the way, we passed a guy duck hunting from a kayak, a father and son with 2 labs pheasant hunting along the bank and a group of 4 guys goose huntingat the entrance to the cove. It was nice to see so many guys out enjoying the morning!
We got 3/4 of the way into the cove when the keel started rubbing the bottom. I could still make headway but the tide was on its way out. I really didn’t feel like having to get out of the boat so we turned around and headed back up to Wethersfield Cove. We went straight to the brush piles I had found earlier in 16 feet of water and threw out marker bouys on 2 of them. There was almost no wind at all so we slowly orbited the piles on the trolling motor hammering fish as we went. I used a Lindy Little Nipper tipped with a small shiner. Many hits were so soft, the only way you knew you had a hit was to watch the line tick on the hit. Others absolutely thumped the jigs. There was no real pattern although we found most of our bigger fish up on a 12 foot flat. We also had several perch, bluegill and largemouth in the mix. None were big bu we had crappie up to about 12″.
We were back on the trailer by 11:00. Not a bad few hours on the river! I hope to get out a couple more times before I breakout the ice gear.
Veterans Day pike
Posted by: | CommentsThis is the time of year that I spend many mornings on the river either fishing for pike or crappie. The marinas are now empty, there is no traffic on the river, the weather cool and crisp. This morning I had a charter with Paul and Jack. We left from Rocky Hill at 6:30 and began our search. The conditions were right, the water was on it’s way down from the heavy rains, temps were 45 and it was great visibilty… Too bad the pike weren’t interested.
I switched lures numerous times, trying different sizes and colors. About 3 hours into the trip, Jack finally hooked up on a Lindy M/G Buck-A-Boo Muskie spinner. She was about 32″. We had another one on a Sebile Magic Swimmer. She was a bit bigger, but she came off along side the boat.
We moved around a bit but never managed to hook another fish. We had a few boils but no more fish. The bals eagles were out in force today. We saw at least 6 and were able to get close enough to a couple for some good shots. What better way to commemorate Veterans Day?????
Back to basics
Posted by: | CommentsAfter a few discouraging trips in the salt, I decided last week to bring the boat home at least for a while. I figured that while I waited for the fall run to shape up, I could get out on the river and play with the pike and crappie… Andrew and I launched from Haddam and fished some of the areas coves for giant pond shiners and crappie. I’m stock piling the pondies for ice fishing this winter. Big baits are at a premium come December. The pondies were easy and we loaded the live well in no time.
We moved north in search of crappie after that. They weren’t where i thought they’s be but we eventually found them. For the next couple of hours, it was lock and load. I kept 6 for dinner and released at least 3 times as many. There were some SLABS in the mix. We had several that went 15″ Dinner was outstanding!
21 May Jekyll and Hyde
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I had Steve and Neal on board today. Due to time constraints they had, we were not able to fish the southern end of the river where we knew the bite to be good. They were fine with fishing the Rocky Hill stretch so that’s what we did. It was a quick 4 hour trip but we made the most of it. We fished hard for stripers with top waters, Houdini’s and Revolution Shads but had no interest so they asked to switch over to pike for a bit. No sweat… I changed leaders to 50lb fluoro and we headed south to a couple of out of the way spots I know. Along the way we saw several eagles out today. This pair was enjoying the sun while keeping an eye on the nest.
We got to the bend in the river and found ourselves all alone… Within 3 casts we had our first follow and not long after that Neal had a beast of a pike come up and inhale his Revolution Shad. The fish hit right at the boat, we were in only 3 feet of water and the I could here the fish banging on the bottom of the boat. What a gorgeous fish!
We had several other follows and swipes at that same spot. One of which Steve saw and said that it was at least as big as the one that Neal boated! We were running out of time so we started working our way back north again and stopped one more time at a spot that usually produces for me. There were a ton of fish there as well. no hook ups but lots of follows. We were running the lures over the tops of the weeds and you could wath the pike just materialize out of the weed cover and stalk the baits. We could have done better with a little more time but if we actually had the time, we wouldn’t have even launched up here. I will have to make time to get back out there and target the pike again in the next few days…
5-4 Sunrise stripers
Posted by: | CommentsThe action was great while it lasted. Mike and I were on the water for 5. As soon as we pulled up to our spot we could see herring dimplng the surface. Every once in a while a bass would swirl on one. I think it took all of 2 casts for us to hook up. Mike was throwing a Storm Chug Bug and I was chucking the 9″ Revo Shad. The water was up to 60 today and the hits were explosive, there is nothing like the sound of a good sized striper on the surface inhaling a plug…
My biggest of the day came just before sunrise, it was a wicked hit 10 feet from the boat. No warning boil, just an explosion 10 feet from the boat.
Mike had a surprise pike in an area with a ton of current. She must have come out from the flats to chase the herring. When the fish hit, we thought for sure it was a nice striper. Gotta say, we were a bit disappointed to see that it was a pike.
We moved around a lot and had several more fish, every one of them were keepers this morning. Once the sun got bright it was over… I think we had 2 more hits after 7:30. We rode up and down the river for a couple more hours looking in our normal spots but that was it. Great day on the water…
April 27. The Charter season has begun
Posted by: | CommentsWord has gotten out that the river run is on… The phone is ringing and the emails are pouring in.
I had my first guided trip on the 2010 river run yesterday. Mike and Gary wanted to target stripers and pike. The conditions were perfect, light rain, no wind and 55 degree water. Gary hooked up on the first drift on a smoke/pearl Houdini. Not a huge fish but we got the skunk out of the boat in a hurry!
We had several fish in the next 45 minutes but none were keepers. As it got lighter and we could see better, we began to see a little surface activity. Mike was throwing a 7″ Revolution Shad and had a couple of big blow ups but none were stuck. On the 4th swipe, he hooked up with a decent fish.
Both Mike and Gary kept picking away at barely legal sized fish for the next couple of hours. The action was great but we were really hoping to see some larger fish…
Around 9, the guys made the call to switch over to pike. As we ran to one of my prime spots, I cut off the light flourocarbon and tied on new 50lb leaders. We stuck with the same lures we had all of our stripers on. Gary had a huge hit on the very first cast but wasn’t ready for it. The fish hit and was swimming right at the boat. He had completely inhaled the Houdin and when Gary set the hook, the fish bit right through the leader… Oh well, at least we know they were there. We fished for the next 45 minutes with nothing so I decided to downsize the Revolution Shads. That was the ticket… In 15 minutes, Mike hooked to real nice pike on a 5″ perch pattern. The first fish put up a hell of a fight, completely clearing the water twice along side the boat. She measured 39″ and had some big shoulders.
The next one was a bit smaller, but just as fiesty. It also hit the 5″ perch pattern. This one measured 36″
Overall, it was a great start to the season. The striper fish will improve over the next few days with more and more big fish showing up… It’s GO TIME!
3 Days on the Connecticut River
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7 Species in one day
Posted by: | CommentsIt had been 2 weeks since I had been on the river last. The Hartford area is still about 5 feet above normal but the water is very clean. Bob and I launched from Haddam Meadows this morning to normal water levels. It was a chilly start, but the sun burned the fog off quickly and we headed down river in search of stripers. I was surprised to see water temps right around the 52 degree mark. Less than 1/2 mile from the ramp we came across a seal heading north. For those of you not familiar with the river, that is about 20 miles inland. He must have been following a slug of herring or shad running up the river.
We fished a couple of flats that will eventually be loaded with stripers but found only a few schoolies. They were hitting plastics on 1/2 ounce jig heads pretty hard. A couple of areas showed signs of life. I saw several herring flip fairly close to the boat. One small cove had 5 osprey working hard… Another creek had a pair of bald eagles searching for a meal. We fished our way south and eventually turned around down at the mouth by the wood lot. By that time, the wind was blowing pretty good so we decided to try to find a spot out of the worst of it. We ran all the way back up to the shelter of the marinas in Chester and try our hand at some pike .
We threw 5 and 7″ Reaction Strike Revolution Shads. I missed a couple of fish but managed a pretty big pickerel on the 7″ bait.
I finally managed to stick a small pike. He hit it hard, I was hoping it was a bit bigger but it was a start.
From there, we worked our way up into one of the creeks in hopes of finding some stripers on herring or maybe another pike. Once we got into a protected area we could see quite a few nice crappie sunning themselves around some fallen trees. We grabbed the light rods and quickly tied on some jig heads with 2 1/2″ plastics and tossed them out. It didn’t take long… For the next hour or so we had a ball playing around with the crappie. I kept 4 for dinner, they were all between 13 and 15″ . We also had a few blugill, perch and small largemouth in the mix. That’s the great thing about the Connecticut River… You just never know what you will catch. Great day to be on the water. We covered close to 60 miles today. I am wind burned and sun burned and can’t wait to do it again tomorrow! Stay tuned…
Another day on the Connecticut River chasing Pike
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The river had come down nicely and really cleared up over the last few days. I have been itching to get out on the river for that famous ice out pike bite… The new guy (Mike) and I launched from Rocky Hill at 7 this morning in 34 degree temps and snow. I had a couple of areas that I really had high hopes for, we were dressed warm so it was hammer down to spot number one. We were both throwing Reaction Strike Revolution Shads. Mike had a blue back and I was throwing pearl. We fished along the banks and were casting into about 3 feet of water and workiong back out to 8 or so. Mike got hit first. The water is still wicked cold at about 38″ so they fish didn’t make any big runs but the fight seemed to last a bit longer if that makes any sense. What a fish it was! I had the Boga grip attached to the rail so I lipped her, and left her right in the water till we got the camera ready…
I didn’t care if we saw another fish all day after that… We fished for another hour and a half without a bump or sniff or anything. Just for the hell of it, we went out to deeper water and fished in 10-12 feet. That’s where they were… We never came close to the size of Mike’s fish but we put 4 more in the boat over the next hour. We also lost one and I missed at least 3.
Here is one of mine…
We both had to get to work so we packed it in by 10:30. The wind was cranking pretty good by then anyways. The water temps never got above 39 even in the shallow, protected areas. Hopefully the water doesn’t warm up too quick over the next few days, I’d like to see this pattern hold up a while longer. I’m at a show all day tomorrow but will be back on the water on Sunday and Monday! Can’t wait.