Massachusetts Fishing Report- December 21, 2023

How dreary would December be if it weren’t for cold water species? While trout are tops in that category there is actually a saltwater alternative for those who want to remain in the game.

Massachusetts Freshwater Fishing Report

I’m starting to get the feeling that my calls to shops are serving as an alarm clock for snoozing staff who haven’t seen a customer in a while. That certainly isn’t the case for Eddie of B&A Bait and Tackle Co. in West Boylston who had just finished hanging up 70 Kastmasters on his walls when we spoke! When asked what was working, I soon realized that a more fitting question may have been – “what’s not working”! With spawning well behind them, salmonoids of all sorts in the Chu are on the feed. While lakers, rainbows and salmon get the headlines, Wachusett has unheralded species that occasionally surprise. I met a gentleman off Scar Hill Road on Tuesday who told me that he got into a school of what he surmised to be brown trout in late November by the first Cellar Hole in Sterling. He said that the on-average 18” specimens were tightly packed and looked to be at least going through the spawning motions. The activity was only a few feet out and in spite of their amorous intentions they couldn’t pass up a jerk bait. One look at the photos he flashed proved this guy was right on the mark with that specie identification and that he caught numerous ones that day.
 
If your grandfather fished Wachusett than he could have told you about the trophy brown trout fishery that they enjoyed there. In fact the state record brown trout came out of the Chu in 1966 – a 19-10, 31” football! The combination of a free-fall in the smelt population combined with a surge in lake trout numbers ended that run almost overnight. With a robust smelt biomass just maybe brown trout are on the rebound. For at least one angler that seemed to be the case!

While I ordinarily spend my time on the Route 70 and Route 110 sides, my buddy Billy Eicher and I had a hunch that the rainfall would bunch up fish near the current on the reservoir side of the causeway and that proved to be accurate. What also fit the expected mold was that the larger lakers were holding outside of the current while junior and his friends hadn’t figured out yet that continually fighting the flow was a waste of valuable energy. Of course at Wachusett Reservoir anywhere at any given time a monster could come along and make your day. Jeff Evans just caught a 37” 12-8 forktail (laker) from where Eddie surmised was the Fish and Game side of the reservoir on a 3/4 ounce firetiger Kastmaster. The textbook example of the Wachusett wildcard factor was the then state record 24 pound laker caught by Mike Sienkewicz in May 2004, which stood for over 10 years. I had the pleasure of fishing with Mike shortly after that in preparation for writing a story on his accomplishment. What I remember most was that he was a great guy, in fact he even gave me a facsimile of what he caught the laker on – a 1/4 ounce candy Kastmaster. While a skilled angler, he did have luck on his side that day as he caught that fish in the Quinapoxett River. He was hardly aiming for trophies as his choice of downsized gear indicated – all the way down to 4 pound monofilament line. Mike would have been perfectly content on that day to hook a freshly stocked rainbow and certainly never expected to catch a 40 1/2” state record lake trout! But that’s Wachusett and lucky are we who still have over a week to fish it!

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Where luck hasn’t been a friend is if you’re fond of fishing rivers! I spoke to Ethan of Concord Outfitters who recommended the Swift and Deerfield Rivers as best river bets for not only for their proclivity of producing nice trout but that both rivers have efficient flood control mechanics in place to make them among the most fishable. For still-water, Walden and White Pond had been good for both rainbows and browns. A similar take on things was expressed by Josh from The Fishing Pole in South Hadley who listed both the Swift and Deerfield as the earliest rivers to be navigable and fishable. Moving forward, Josh hinted at invaluable intel that he will be able to provide for this report in the future, one clue came in the form of the shad darts he was busy stocking in the shop! He also mentioned a white perch run as well as their bigger striped cousins. As for ponds and lakes with trout such as Dean Pond, Nashawannuck Pond and Laurel Lake, Josh said that you can’t beat a bucket of shiners when water temps are this chilly!

Massachusetts Saltwater Fishing Report

I was pumped to see the word “smelt” as I glanced at a text from my friend Captain Pete Santini until I read the remainder which said something about – Market Basket. For someone panting for a sliver of a salt report that was hardly humorous! More promising regarding the brine is that he told me that Jimmy Walsh of Walsh’s Deep Sea Fishing out of Lynn has been running pollock trips which are an absolute hoot. No-one is as adept at finding those winter-time, hard-fighting gadoids as he is. Just be prepared to fish very deep water and have on hand ibuprofen for the inevitable soreness the next day from hauling in doubles of double-digit pollock from 300’ of water. Closer to the shore, a clam soaked on the bottom off of Nut Island, Castle Island or Deer Island could very well come up with a catch-and-release cod, maybe even a winter flounder or a wayward striped bass! A more reliable option may be working a sabiki rig off these same spots for mackerel, whiting or – (you never know!) smelt which aren’t stocked in a supermarket! For a freshwater option Horn Pond has been hot for trout, big pickerel and even crappie.

Massachusetts Fishing Forecast

May your Christmas stockings be far fuller than this weeks report dear reader! Back in the day when naughty parents would sometimes scold their kids with the threat of little more than ice water left under the tree, right about now I’m thinking that the combination of ice and water wouldn’t be a bad idea!