With our friends at Masswildlife poised to give us the first wave of about 500,000 trout, you don’t need to hear robins chirp to realize we are at the doorstep of spring. If you’d like a different sort of salmonid option, one enterprising angler has already logged his first open-water landlocked salmon of the season. The biggest news, however, just might be the pike bite in a major river on the North Shore.
It didn’t take long for anglers on the South Shore to take advantage of open water and catch some impressive largemouth bass according to Pete from Belsan’s in Scituate. The most productive method has been one-part fishing and one-part exploration. Many towns in the South Shore such as Marshfield and Marshfield Hills are dotted with non-descript little ponds (farm ponds) which are light on pressure and heavy on fun and unexpected catches. Anglers search for these through the utility of “satellite-eye” search engines and after a courteous inquiry to landowners are often granted permission to fish them! Treading lightly on the property and a big thank you go a long way towards a sustained pass. It’s worth a try! More public places have solid options now too! Somehow a 9-pound broodstock salmon survived from the final stocking a few years ago in Long Pond and was recently caught and released! This is the second such broodstock I’ve heard of that was taken there lately. Look for some company for those salmon beginning this Monday as the Southeast District of Masswildlife begins stocking rainbow trout on the Cape as well as the mainland. A biologist told me that the fish are on average 14”, similar to last year, but there will be a liberal sprinkling of breeder fish thrown in the mix. This fish are supposed to be real trophies and more will be available than most years, so a tug on that drag before you make your first cast might be a good idea.
Ordinarily there’s a week or two gap between stockings on the Southeast verses other districts, but the word from the Northeast District is that this coming week may be a go also. Biologists and other hatchery personnel are making the rounds checking on oxygen and PH levels as well as entry spots in the hopes that next week will begin the stocking. The first batch will be all rainbow trout and they will be nice-sized like last year! There’s no need to wait, however, the brief ice fishing season resulted in minimal fishing effort and holdovers from the fall stocking are plentiful. Look for moving water of any sort wherever you fish and chances are the trout will be stacked up there. Some of the rainbows they’ve been catching have grown to 16”. For some reason, first light seems to always fish best.
And then there are fish big enough to wolf down most anything coming out of the hatcheries! Dave from Merrimack Sports told me that he’s tiring of the photos from patrons of pike up to 18 pounds that are being taken from the Merrimack River and tributaries. While he’s happy for his customers, he’s yearning to put himself into a few of those selfies with those toothies. Far from an aberration, the anglers are talking in terms of multiple fish outings! At the effluence where tributaries such as the Spicket, Shawsheen and Concord link up with the Merrimack is where the action is. The bridge areas have also been hot. The modus operandi is not complicated, just float as big a shiner as you can in the current and hopefully a pike will find it! Should you have a honey hole with some oversized pond shiners than you might be golden because big natural looking bait can make a difference. The smallie bite has been productive also and there have even been a few walleye taken! You have to give it up for those big rivers! Until the stocking trucks arrive, anglers are wetting their appetite with holdover rainbows from Round Pond, Stiles Pond, Baldpate and Pleasant Pond.
While anglers with dreams of Wachusett Reservoir are counting the days until opening day at the “Resi” on April 2nd, one patron of B&A Bait and Tackle has already caught his first salmon! This guy floated a shiner into a sliver of open water in the Stillwater Basin and caught a feisty 16-incher! With the spate of warm weather predicted throughout this coming week, this may be one of the more alluring angling options in the Bay State. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility to hook any number of salmonids which swim in Wachusett there.
Slowly but surely there are even some saltwater possibilities opening up. Boston Harbor’s dynamic duo, Carl Vining and Dave Panarello have already tag-teamed their way to February stripers among estuaries of the harbor. In fact Carl registered a “twin-27”, a 27” on February 27th! The ticket is a weightless red tube and worm dragged slowly over structure. They were marking temperatures of 42 to 43 degrees and considering next week’s balmy forecast look for things to happen early this year. Patrons of Fore River are already considering trying for squid, according to Lisa. Some caught their calamari from Pemberton Pier in April last year and with this year’s warmer temperatures squid might be active sooner! No word on that first flounder of the season yet, but they should be inshore preoccupied with spawning as opposed to feeding just yet. There was a time when St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) was the unofficial start of the flounder season. After the blast of this coming week they may be stirring with the Sugar Bowl in South Boston habitually an early season best bet.
Fishing Forecast
It’s time to dust off the Power Bait jars, break out the spinners and tie on new tippets – next week the hatchery trucks cometh, at least in the Southeast. Look for Long and Little Ponds in Plymouth to be among the first stocked. Other regions meanwhile have plenty of survivors from fall stockings with Cochituate and Horn Pond good options. For a cast on the wild side, soak a shiner among open water patches in the Stillwater, landlocks are lurking there already. And if the wimpy ice fishing season left you longing for pike, then check out the Merrimack watershed where the toothies are proving to be anything but wimpy.
Recommend to excersize caution with Dave’s fishy forecasts, “stories” of lore. Told me how they stocked Round pond w tiger trout 2-3 years ago. Said hatchery guys told him in the store. If you phone the district on Friday afternoons, they will tell you what was stocked and where. Never went back there for shiners.
When should east mass expect to have stocking start.