The Schweitzer’s Place

Today I took the kayak out to A-1 reservoir in Westborough around the middle of the day. It was a little warm, a little sunny, and a lot of fun. The fish were pretty active and I caught 8 bass and 1 chain pickerel. Only one of them was picture worthy, but at least they were biting today. I guess fishing season is here now…guess where I’ll be in the evenings.

I went out with Will and he caught a nice one. Maybe I’ll get his photo and share it.

Yesterday was my first day of fishing for the year. I took a quick trip to the Assabet river with the fly rod and took several “practice” casts. I was out there less than an hour, but it was still a good time.

I tied on gree wooly bugger and a small grey nymph. I didn’t catch or see a thing. I think I’ll do a little research over the next couple days to find some alternatives. There were definitely a lot of small grey flying creatures all over the place. Maybe I should learn more about bugs.

Boys grow up with a fascination with bugs…then they must study them to fish later in life. It is amazing how life is a big circle…isn’t it!

The weather today is looking like a great day. I can’t seem to get the fish off the brain. I think I’ll go again when I get home tonight…and go again Saturday…and maybe again Sunday.

I finally found this “hidden” little pond. I was really looking for a new launch point for the Sudbury River, but I figured I’d try this small pond out and see if it connects to the river. I arrived around 12:35 and left at 15:45. It was warm outside and the wind was blowing about 10 MPH. Wind like that is a challenge on a kayak, but I managed. I used the pumpkinseed worm and a black sinking rubber frog. I was skunked on the worms, but had several hits on the frog. I did actually catch a fish this time. I caught a nice little bass, but he swallowed my hook so I had to cut off and pray for him. I caught the bass near the boat ramp around 15:35. I tossed the frog near the shore under some trees and had a few hits. Finally one decided to stick on!

While paddling around I was looking for a way to connect to the Sudbury River. I am sure you can do it, but I didn’t want to bush whack in the kayak. I know I was close because I could hear some guys talking on the river, but I just couldn’t break through. Oh well….I guess I need to go out there with a person that knows or wait till winter to see how close they really are. 

Today I woke up at 5:30 and arrived at Rocky Pond in Boylston, MA at 6:20. Rocky pond has a floating island and tons of weeds for fish to hang around in. I used my trusty old rubber worms and paddled around in the pond in the kayak. I started off with a black curly tail worm, changed to a pumpkin seed straight tail worm and also tried a 9″ green paddle tail worm. I was skunked again. I did have one really nice hit and the fish tied itself up in a bunch of weeds. After a couple minutes of working my way over to untie the mess, the fish shook loose. Looks like I’ll need to take some Fishing 101 courses to see if I can remember how to fish. I stayed around there until about 8:55.

The weather was very nice and the water was clear. A slight breeze (maybe 8 or 10 MPH) picked up just before I started leaving. 

Will and I took a short spin in the kayaks. We fished from 11:00 – 13:00 at Bartlett Pond using the fly rods. We didn’t catch a single thing…I had one near hit as well as Will. At least it wasn’t raining and we had a chance to practice our fly casting.

My main goal was to test out a floating wooly bugger. I tried using some foam under the chennele and hackle to make it float a bit more. This didn’t work too well since I had a pretty large hook and a pretty small piece of foam. Back to the drawing board….

Most of the time we were fishing I used a dark diver-type popper that I cut from some foam flooring. With only one attempted strike, I switched to a weighted wooly bugger for the last 45 minutes. 

Conditions:

• Weather: Partly cloudy in the mid to upper 70’s. There was little to no wind.
• Water: Clear