Fishing 2024

[JimG.]

East Branch Croton River-4/22

Checked out our fleet of rowboats and trimmed up access trails to my favorite spots on the river on Sunday so figured I'd fish for trout yesterday. Beautiful spring day, sunny and bluebird. Water was clear and fast. Enticed many hits and bites on a variety of small spinners and plugs on the downstream section of Brady's bend but hooked nothing. Too sunny and the water too clear, trout were having too much time to examine my bait. So, I moved to the Borden bridge and worked the upstream and downstream pools. It was shady and cool and water was moving fast but with plenty of eddies and deep pools. And the trout seemed to love it. Landed about a dozen holdover browns and hooked as many others. Good start to fishing 2024.

 

[JimG.]

Rye Lake-4/26

Steve did some bass fishing at Rye Lake earlier this week and had good smallmouth luck so we went out again today. Got out at noon knowing that action usually dies at 4:30 or so this time of year. Still pre-spawn so the male smallies were out and about feeding up and looking for trouble. We each boated 5 decent sized bass today all about the size of the fish in the pics. No weeds yet so the action was pretty random but catching a total of 10 fish in an afternoon is a damn good day.

 

[JimG.]

Rye Lake-5/3

Great day for me. 6 bass total, 5 smallmouths and my first largemouth of the year. Pic is of my best fish, a solid 4lbs. Steve caught 1 decent bass and 2 small fish.
Luck was pretty one sided today.

 

[JimG.]

Bog Brook-5/4

Steve and I decided to try Bog Brook today. BB is best fished in April and May and is well known for big smallmouths. The fish are also known for being very picky. We caught a lot of small pan fish and small bass. Steve tied on a small #2 silver spinner and bang a nice 4lbs. smallmouth. I had a hard time believing the fish wanted that tiny little spinner, but I tied one on and cast it into every good looking spot as we headed down the shore back to the boat spot. Steve stopped rowing for a moment and threw a cast and bang, after I had thrown about 200 casts he bags another fine smallmouth on his first cast. He clearly possessed the mojo but I refused to give up and kept casting right back to the boat spot. And bang I hooked a nice smallmouth that fought hard and jumped 3 times. Lost it at the side of the boat but I was pretty happy anyway. Funny how luck ebbs and flows day to day. And how those fish made me work hard right up until the bitter end of the day.

 

[JimG.]

Rye Lake-5/7

Weather was way too nice today, blue skies and intense sun. The bass were biting very lightly and were hard to hook. We did boat 4 bass each and a few were decent sized, but nothing to photograph. Towards the end of the day a few bass were hitting on the surface and I boated my best bass of the day on a surface hit. Days like this make me appreciate when the fish are hitting with abandon.