The holdover trout bite continues to be on fire, but it will be coming to an abrupt end next week—when the Sandwich Hatchery trucks hit the road to load up the Cape Cod kettle ponds with trout.
Above: Kevin Blinkoff with a healthy holdover rainbow taken on a homemade jig.
And of course, the holdovers will keep biting, but they’ll likely be outnumbered by the more aggressive and more gullible freshly stocked fish.
Here’s the report right from the folks at MassWildlife:
Spring trout stocking — Close to 500,000 brook, brown, rainbow and tiger trout will be stocked this spring from MassWildlife’s five hatcheries located in Sandwich, Palmer, Belchertown, Sunderland, and Montague. These fish, coupled with the more than 65,000 fish stocked last fall, will provide some excellent fishing in the coming months. Stocking is scheduled to begin in the southeastern area of the state during the first full week of March with other regions of the state expected to follow soon after. Anglers can get daily stocking updates at Mass.gov/Trout.
2018 spring trout stocking stats:
Most of the trout will be over 12 inches
More than 40% of the trout will be over 14 inches
More than 51,000 brook trout will be over 12 inches
More than 45,000 brown trout will be over 12 inches
More than 200,000 rainbow trout will be over 14 inches
More than 1,200 brown trout will be over 18 inches
More than 500 brook trout will be over 15 inches
More than 2,500 tiger trout will be over 14 inches
However, at Peter’s Pond this past weekend, I didn’t see any anglers complaining about a lack of fish. A dozen fishermen were fishing worms or shiners, and almost every one had a trout or two on a stringer. Kevin Blinkoff and I had luck throwing jigs. All of the fish were rainbows, with no sign of the larger holdover browns that a few fishermen reported just after ice out in February.
The bass and pickerel bite continues to get better as the ponds warm. Soaking shiners under a bobber in the hour before sunset is just about a guarantee of success, but Rat-L-Traps and jerkbaits are catching as well. Bass to 5 pounds were reported this week.
Some jumbo perch are also being caught. Small jigs or small shiners are a good bet for catching a pot-belly perch right now.
Fishing Forecast for Cape Cod
You can catch the hot holdover trout bite this weekend or target bass and picks while waiting for the stockers to get dumped in sometime next week. Either way, you can’t go wrong. The Cape’s freshwater season is in full swing.
Thanks Kevin for all the info.
Ill be going after holovers this weekend at. ………a really good cape pond : )
Thanks for the info. Can’t wait for the stock. I haven’t had much luck this year. Only tried a few times.
I’d love to learn about using a jig, to catch a trout. It would be a first. My favorite go to, is the ol school, small cast master.
The wobble is irisitable.
Can you help me, with selecting a proper jig?
I went yesterday. Got spanked.
All I had for a jig, was a a tiny shad dart/jig with a tiny curl tail.
Any help, would be great.
Good luck this year to all.
Maybe Blinks can pen an article in an upcoming edition of On The Water
That would be cool.
Tried searching, but wasn’t able to find anything.
Thanks all
Eddie, Pick yourself up some maribou jigs. Go small like 1/8 or 3/16th oz.. Black is a good color to start with along with chartreuse. Fish are shallow so slowly crawl, hop or swim jig along bottom. You’ll need an UL setup to cast these small jigs. Good luck
Thank you for the info.
Tried yesterday, after the storm.
Nadda.
Keep on, keeping on.
Refuse to surrender.
Thanks again.