The striped bass bite has been good this past week. Believe it or not, there are still some bunker around and it’s probably the latest that I’ve seen them here. A lot of schoolies are in the harbors and tidal rivers. A few keeper sized bass were taken from the CT river. Some anglers spent on a day on the mighty Housatonic and repoted boating over 100 schoolies. There are also some keeper sized fish to be found and they are fat! We had reports of bass up to 36″. Anglers have been hookin up with green heads on 7″-9″ white and black sluggos fished slow off the bottom. Swim baits and SP minnows have been productive as well.
Largemouth fishing has been decent with some good bass reported from Candlewood, Ball pond, Bantam and Highland lake. Smallmouth have been very active on Bantam, Lillinonah, Saugatuck reservoir, and the CT river. The best reports came from Candlewood lake, and it has been on fire lately! Good smallies can be found in around 30-35′ of water on the outside of structure and solid fish were taken on swimbaits, blade baits and jiggin raps. A few walleye were reported from Squantz and the Saugatuck reservoir. Pike reports have been excellent with the best quality and quantity of toothy northerns coming from coves along the CT river. Pond shiners accounted for most of the catches this week. Some under floats and others off the bottom. Other decent pike reports came from Bantam and lake Zoar.
Panfish action is still excellent. Some jumbo yellows were caught out on Candlewood. Big crappie have been pulled from coves on the CT river as well as lake Lillinonah. Lillinonah and Zoar have been giving up some great white perch too. When you find one, there are tons more! Small shiners are a good bet when targeting panfish that are gorging themselves in preparation for winter. But micro soft plastics on a 1/64-1/32oz jig head aren’t a bad idea either. Trout reports have come in from all over. Of course recently stocked places like Black pond, Tyler pond, Beach pond and Crystal lake have been hit up this past week. Some excellent trout also came from the Farmington, Salmon river and the Saugatuck reservoir. Salmon are still being plucked from Mt. Tom on live shiners. Some great specimens were also pulled from the upper and lower Naugatuck, as well as the Shetucket river again this week.
NOTE: Last call for Tog! The season ends on 12/6
Kyle Quine
Fishing CT
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