Massachusetts Fishing Report – November 2, 2017

Flood warnings aside, the sound of the recent rain storms has been music to the ears of those who fish rivers. A grab bag of brookies, brown trout and other salmonoids await those who don’t mind taking a trip out west. However, not all is restricted to cold water species, spawning redds, and limestone detritus as the current has been the catalyst to better river fishing along the coast as well.

Massachusetts Freshwater Fishing Report

Hopefully you admired the picture of Patrick Barone, of Early Rise Outfitters, brilliantly colored brookie in last week’s forecast. If that doesn’t help ease the pain of striper-withdrawal, I don’t know what will. Patrick told me that there are a myriad of moving water gems out west which harbor not only trophy brook trout but brown trout 26 to 30 inches long! Naturally this elicited an automatic “Where?” from me. In addition to the Swift, trophy trout swim in the Miller, Deerfield, Housatonic and more. The rain has dropped water temperatures significantly and trout are heeding the pre-spawn call. Patrick likens the mood of the fish to the rut of an ungulate and those fish are in a nasty mood! Now is the time for big, gaudy presentations such as articulated streamers or other artificials if you’re covering a non-fly fishing only section of water. If you’d like to catch a trophy Bay State brookies or brown, Patrick may be your guy and now through mid-December is the time!

Chances are that where you find one crappie, you’ll find a school full. Chebacco Lake on the Essex/Hamilton is perennially productive for “calicos” as is Big Island Pond which is just across the border in Derry New Hampshire. Timing is ideal for a cross-border crappie run according to New Hampshire guide Tim Moore from TimMooreOutdoors who has been into suspending slabs. What has been working is downsizing to 4-pound fluorocarbon leaders and working Salmo Chubby Darters, Lake Fork Trophy Lures Baby Shads and Bobby Garland Baby Shads over marked fish.

At Wachusett, more rain has meant more salmon and brown trout in the Quinapoxet and Stillwater Rivers. Closer to the coast, the current has stacked river herring fry up against structure in rivers such as the Charles and Mystic making for explosive muti-species outings. Steve Langton has had luck with “Larries” up to 3 1/2 pounds on jointed Rapala Floating Minnows. Others such as Carl Vinning are getting them on feather-weight jigs.

Saltwater

Fore River

There’s no escaping the calendar or the reality that in November any striper is bragging material, and there are still schoolie blitzes in the Scituate area according to Pete from Belsan’s. The Herring River has been hot with surface feeds belying where to cast. One angler who while racking up stripers was catching a hickory shad for every fourth or fifth bass by Damon’s Point in the North River. There are plenty of mackerel throughout Scituate Harbor and I suspect Plymouth and Green Harbor. Attempts to catch smelt off the floats by the Harbormaster Shack in Scituate have not been fruitful but according to Lisa from Fore River, Hewitt’s Cove continues to attract a crowd. Amazingly a few Fore River customers are still catching small bonito on Sabiki rigs intended for mackerel off Nut Island and behind the CVS on the Town River. They’ve been showing the shots of these little tuna to Lisa.

A blitz was just observed off Avalon Beach! Just because it’s November doesn’t mean you have to mothball hopes of a keeper. Two of the shops most dogged fishermen, Joe Kelly and Brian Cronin, are not only still racking up double-digit days in the Nantasket Beach area but they are catching a few keepers on mackerel chunks!

Flounder fishing has tanked but probably more due to lack of effort. In past years while trolling the tube-and-worm at the mouth of the Mystic River this time of the year, Carl Vinning and Dave Panarello have caught bycatch blackbacks. And that’s with a big bass hook, I can only imagine if they targeted the flatties with a more appropriate hook.

Now that it’s post-Halloween things are a lot quieter in the Salem area where Tomos Tackle is located. Unfortunately, the same can be said for striped bass pursuits as well. The last catching which Tomo heard of was schoolies off Devereux Beach. Mackerel however remain cooperative off Swampscott, Marblehead, Beverly, Salem Willows and even behind the shop.

I was lucky to catch Liz and the ladies of Surfland Bait And Tackle mid-week for the report but sadly the luck stopped there. The shop, until the spring, will only be open on weekends. Surfland gets besieged with gear repairs later in the year, so now would be ideal to get the casualties of the season to Martha and the crew while they are not busy. Beach buggy season on the Parker River Wildlife Reservation ended October 31st and reportedly folks were still catching schoolies on the southern end of the refuge right up until the curtain call! Liz expects some of those schoolies to still be there, so now you have a reason to take a brisk walk along the picturesque Parker River refuge.

Massachusetts Fishing Forecast

If you are still in the striper game, you’ll have to check cow ambitions at the shoreline and be content with schoolies as well as the errant keeper. There are, however, holdover bass far bigger than schoolies swimming in many of our river systems such as the Charles, Mystic and Saugus Rivers. For those you’ll have to keep graveyard shift hours, however. For some it’s time to rekindle the freshwater fishing experience. Rivers flowing well now thanks to recent rains just might be the Bay States best bet, with trophy trout hitting with aggression out west.