cyclopropene

Combining two short trips. I spent an hour out on Spy Pond in the kayak 6-5 and had trouble finding the bass, but got one decent one. Then Sunday 6-12 I spent just a half hour on the Mystic River at the mouth of Lower Mystic Lake by the bridge and picked up my first smallie of the season on a lightly weighted Kreature bait by the bridge casting at the usual locations and letting the current take it.

I took the kayak out today for its first trip of the season, first with my son and then for an hour with the rod. The wind was really strong and bad for the kayak, so I hid on the north side of the island and picked up several bass, a few small and one decent. Spy looks good, hoards of small bass visible (< 6", maybe stocked recently?) but few weeds. They have cut back many of the dead reeds. My reel broke, so I had to call it short. Good excuse to buy a new one...

This was my first outing of the season, if you don't count the trip I took with my 3-year-old son to catch dinks in Menotomy Rocks Park. I didn't have much time so I wandered over to lower Mystic near the river mouth to see what I could come up with. I was there for about 45 minutes in the late afternoon and managed to pick up a couple decent bass and a few dinks in the shallows from shore. Beautiful weather.

Today I was reminded why I still go back to Spy Pond. I took my 3-year-old son out around 1 pm for a cruise in the kayak (without gear) and located a few new spots that looked promising. When he got tired and Mommy took him home for his nap, I headed back out to see what I could come up with. Spy was more active today than it has been since early May, once you find the fish. I caught more 8-13 inchers than I cared to count, in a couple areas pulling a bass in on every other cast of the 4" Senko (many, many dinks, to the point of being a nuisance since they were ripping up my Senkos). I switched to a 5" Senko and moved around and a few more 10-12 inchers then hooked into my biggest pull from Spy of the year. I was only lightly equipped, and wished when I got the hook into this guy that I had bothered to put fresh line on (let alone something stronger than 6# mono...), but I fought it out and eventually got him to the kayak (should have brought a net, too, in retrospect...). No scale with me, but in length he was about 21", and very healthy looking. He did not appear to have suffered much from the recent weed treatments, nor did he appear to have been caught recently, either. Caught a few more after that and picked up a good sunburn. The dinks were deep in the "cover" Spy has to offer, the bigger boys on the edge of it, usually in the shade, where available. Overall a great day...

I live very near Spy Pond. In fact, much closer than last year, since we moved this past winter. So this afternoon, around 5:30, I had a choice: Go out and do some errands, or grab the kayak and try to get as much time as possible fishing out on Spy. No brainer. So I timed it. The decision was made at 5:30 pm, I changed my clothes, threw the kayak on the car, drove over to Spy, dropped it in, paddled out to the other side of the island, and... at 6:02 pm, fish on! Well, he got off, but a couple more casts and I landed a respectable one (13 or 14 inches). See, I needed to be home a little after 7 pm, for family reasons, so time was really of the essence. I managed to fish for about 45 minutes, and caught 4 fish, two of which were in the 13-14 inch range (the others still at least over 10 in...). I talked to a guy in a canoe who had fished for a while and he apparently had a great day. I will confirm, after this and last week, that Spy is healthy for bass. No pigs, but healthy, active fish. I got home a few minutes late, but no big deal. I will be out again...

Life's complicated. So this was my first trip of 2010. I went to Spy Pond for an hour and a half while the kid and his Mom and friends were playing in the park for the morning. The water was reasonably clear, and the lake fairly free of weeds after last years purge. They have killed the reeds that were growing around the island and the east shore. The wind was strong, so I fished just west of the island for a while. I had a decent bass on a senko, but he spit the hook. Then I saw a fellow kayak fisherman catch a good sized "pickerel". I later spoke with him, and let him know that I had never seen a pickerel in Spy Pond before, but I had heard that there are tiger musky there... I didn't see it close, though... Anyway, after that I headed over to the south side of the island along the dead reeds and picked up a couple of good sized bass (maybe 13-15 inches--it's in my plan to buy a scale this year... but weighing them just isn't as much fun as catching them!). The bass looked healthy, so overall I think Spy Pond is not lost from the weed killing last year. And I am curious about this "pickerel" my fellow kayaker caught...

I have been eyeing "Little Pond" for a while now. Located within the Alewife Brook Reservation, it is just across Rt. 2 from Spy Pond (and there are some references to it as "Little Spy Pond") and the source of Alewife Brook, which feeds into the Mystic River. The shoreline is almost entirely inaccessible, and I had contemplated whether it might be possible to traverse Alewife Brook in the kayak. I met some kayakers today that did just that, starting off in Lower Mystic Lake, but they said it took them 90 minutes at a leisurely pace, and they said some areas were pretty tight. Instead, after some searching on the internet, I found someone who shared with me the location of a very well hidden, dirt access road that leads down to an old broken dock where you can park your car and launch a kayak (or canoe, but that's about it).

The water in this pond is very murky, but it is otherwise a beautiful place to visit. Very isolated and protected from the otherwise urban surrounding, wildlife abounds. The pond is rather shallow. There are no lilly pads, but many weeds along the northern shore. There are lots of down trees in the water providing additional cover to fish. It's full of big but skittish carp, and even bigger turtles (and even bigger mosquitos...).

I was out in the kayak for about three hours, half of which was spent just paddling around enjoying the views and the wildlife. I saw some kind of huge hawk/eagle (not the usual redtail hawk) that was screeching like it was the end of the world, many other birds and an albino squirrel. I only caught one fish, a small bass on a 4" Senko, but had a great time and I will definitely be back. I saw another kayak fisherman and two guys wading, really the only ways to fish this water, in addition to the kayakers that made their way from Winchester. Recommended for kayak fishing, no serious shore access.

Well, the plan today was to take the family up to Sandy Beach (also called Shannon Beach) in Winchester to have lunch and swim and I would get some time out in the kayak to find some lunkers. But Sandy Beach was fenced off and closed due to some kind of Shigella bacteria outbreak that's been causing dysentery. The ranger strongly urged me not to put the kayak in.

Ok, change of plan, we took the kid to the Arlington Reservoir (filtered and lightly chlorinated in the isolated swimming area), had lunch, and afterward I headed toward Spy Pond to see what I could find. I found signs warning against a toxic microcystis cyanobateria algae outbreak that has resulted in a warning not to come into direct contact with the water... WTF is going on with our lakes?!?

I said f#$k it, I'll try not to touch the water much and launched anyway.

Not the Spy Pond of old. Water was cloudy and had a strange blue-green hue to it. It smelled funny. I found a dead catfish floating in the water. No more weeds.

That all said, the bass were biting. I first tossed a 5" Senko with a 4/0 hook (watermelon, green flake) and was getting bites, but couldn't set the hook. I switched to a 4" Senko with a 2/0 hook and started catching some fish, though still getting many more bites than I could set hooks. Not sure if they were small bass, timid bass, or some other species like yellow perch tugging on them. The Senko would come up partially pulled off the hook or missing entirely. I caught 6 fish in total over about two hours, nothing huge, all in the 8-12" range.

Then around 6 pm I heard a long tire screeching coming from route 2, followed by a blood curdling crash I could hear clear across the lake that made my own life flash before my eyes. Then the sirens came. I paddled over to see what happened. Apparently only one car in trouble, and the driver taken away in an ambulance. I saw them pulling the car away from the guardrail (that was the big crash sound), and it looked like seatbelts and airbags would have been sufficient for the driver (I hope so). At that point I called it a day.

I'm up in New Hampshire for a few days, just arrived this afternoon. After dinner and the requisite social niceties I headed down to the dock to try my luck. It was dark and calm, no moon. I threw a black jitter bug and got a little hit on the first cast that gave me some confidence. Then I had a small bass on that was jumping well out of the water over and over before throwing the hook. A little while later I had another hard hit and this one took off. The hook was set well and I pulled up my biggest smally of the year, maybe 15-16 inches, not really sure it was dark. I have a blurry shot from my cell with illumination from an LED headlamp...

The weather up here is beautiful...

I stopped by Menotomy Rocks Park in Arlington on the way home from work to enjoy the weather a bit. After a quick walk around Hills Pond and seeing many bass (mostly very small, but at least one good sized) in the clear shallow water, I grabbed my rod to see what I could find. Lots of small bass here, I did not even see a single species other than largemouth. Not sure what they eat, maybe frogs. Maybe that's why they are so small. I caught 3 dinks and had numerous little bites. A guy there said there is a five pounder in there that he caught twice (not big enough for two five pounders!). I didn't see it.

It's a nice park with some lawns, picnic tables, playground, and good shore access. A good place to take kids to learn to fish for bass. I think I'll take my son here when he gets older. Not recommended if you're looking for a lunker...