Fishing 2023

[JimG.]

5/31-East Branch Reservoir

Went out solo for a few hours. Good rowing. Fishing not great but did find hordes of bluegills spawning. Caught at least 30 of them, some the size of my fist. But not a single bass. Did boat a 2fer though.

 

[JimG.]

6/3-Rye Lake

Fishing has been good at Rye Lake all spring and today was no exception. Decided to start out casting a 5" black with blue flake senko and never changed lures. The smallmouths were biting aggressively so we had to stay on top of the fishing to hook the fish as soon as they grabbed the worm. Swallowed hooks are a no-no. Great action and many good-sized bass were boated. The pic is very representative. June is the best time for bass!

 

[JimG.]

6/10-Pepacton Reservoir



Mill Creek was very low, in danger of getting cut off from the reservoir. Now I know why the reservoir was backing up into the creek when I fished here several weeks ago. Water level was down to 95% and the roadbeds out near the mouth of the creek were emerging. I hiked out to my usual spot and then fished my way back along the shoreline to the creek and past that to the far shoreline. I caught nothing until I got back to the creek area. Once I got past the mouth of the creek I started catching fish and wound up with a largemouth and 3 decent smallmouths, Also caught a few yellow perch.

We need more rain. Soon.

 

[JimG.]

6/21-Bog Brook Reservoir

Got out at 4 for some late afternoon fishing. The weather was cloudy and cool. Pushed off and let the wind push me down the shoreline. I always start off with the 5" Senko at BB. Sure enough, first deep weeds I fished at produced a nice largemouth. A few minutes later I boated another largemouth. And so it went for 90 minutes. Pretty good fishing.

Until the sun peeked out. And the clouds broke up and dissipated. Suddenly it was sunny and warm. The fishing died. Didn't get a bite for another 2.5 hours. That's fishing!

Wish I had started out 2 hours earlier.

 

[JimG.]

6/29-Rye Lake

Rye Lake has been by far the best bass producer this season. Steve and I were on water at 2:20 and I caught my first fish right away and had consistent action until
7:20 when we ended our day. Same for Steve. We caught a nice mix of small and largemouth bass. I live for days like this!

No pics, too busy catching fish and nothing truly large was boated. Quantity over quality today.

 

[JimG.]

7/5-East Branch Reservoir

On water at 7am fished until 11:30 with my son James. Smallmouths were rising around the weed beds near our boat spot. James hooked a decent smallmouth right away and soon after I hooked a decent largemouth. But we lost both fish. We did boat other smaller bass and quite a few bluegills. By 9:30 the sun was blazing and it got hot and humid. The bite ended as well. So, we headed back and called it a trip. Had lunch at the Red Rooster.

 

[JimG.]

7/13-Rye Lake

Another solid day of good bass fishing with Steve. Hot and humid but also breezy with a 10 mph south wind. Fishing was good right from the start. Smallmouths were biting and fighting very aggressively. We caught all smallies except for 2 good sized largemouths. No swallowed hooks and the fishing was great right back to the boat spot. Nothing really big but a bunch of 16-17" fish.

 

[ThatGuy]

Had a huge bass today, wish I got a picture but I was alone. Had to be 5+ lbs, up there with biggest Ive caught.
Going to Paradox Lake tomorrow with the boat, hoping to get some pike and Lakers.

 

[JimG.]

Had a huge bass today, wish I got a picture but I was alone. Had to be 5+ lbs, up there with biggest Ive caught.
Going to Paradox Lake tomorrow with the boat, hoping to get some pike and Lakers.

I lost my best fish yesterday, a big smallmouth. The weed beds are growing in now and all of our fish were hooked near weeds. The bigger and smarter fish immediately bury themselves in the weeds and this one managed to pull right off.

 

[ThatGuy]

Caught a few nice pike and a couple bass. Can’t get over how much higher the water level is from all this rain.

 

[JimG.]

7/15-East Branch Reservoir

Fished for 3 hours 4-7pm with my son James. Other than two surface hits my son got using a shad colored jointed Rapala we didn't see a bass. Conditions were just like Thursday but the utter lack of weeds at the EB has diminished the fishing tremendously. The spillway was raging and the res was as full as I've ever seen it. Gotta get there at 5:30am next time.

Rowing was a good workout in the heat.

 

[ThatGuy]

View attachment trim.413A20E7-2F62-4F86-8464-219CAE60C0D2.MOVView attachment trim.46FAD9D9-74FA-4A87-AE87-6AC892E8C3BA.MOV

 

[JimG.]

Night bass; first fish looks fat.

 

[ThatGuy]

Night bass; first fish looks fat.

Was a crazy fight, tonight I had a monster but lost it right at the shore…also got this nice one. The bass are finally hitting good up here

 

[deadheadskier]

Alright Bassholes, after really not fishing at all for 20 years, I'm getting back into the sport as my son is showing a great interest.

When I did fish in VT as a kid through my mid 20s, I was primarily a small mouth bass fisherman and fished mainly top water with torpedoes and hula popper type lures in colder lakes.

Now we live along a warmer river in Southern NH where small mouth are few, but large mouth are much more common, which I haven't done much fishing for in my life. The river averages 4-6' deep with many lilly pad areas and lots of underwater vegetation in general. I'm looking for lure / technique recommendations for this environment.

Watcha got? We fish exclusively from shore if that makes a difference in what you recommend

 

[ThatGuy]

Texas/Carolina/Ned Rigged plastics always work well. Basically anything weedless and pull it through the vegetation. Topwater lures like a popper/Rapala could be an option and if there’s openings in the weeds a spinner would be good as well.

 

[JimG.]

Texas/Carolina/Ned Rigged plastics always work well. Basically anything weedless and pull it through the vegetation. Topwater lures like a popper/Rapala could be an option and if there’s openings in the weeds a spinner would be good as well.

Size 2-4 spinners or spinner baits are good options. Floating Rapalas work great. Sinking Rapalas fished patiently are deadly in open areas. Plastic frogs work in lily pads.
And I always try using a 5" Yamasenko, in rivers the current makes that lure look alive.
Being on a river makes fishing from shore more workable. As you get more into it, investing in a cheap pair of chest waders will broaden your fishing horizons greatly.

 

[ThatGuy]

This was largest of the night but had a few other nice ones

 

[JimG.]

Rye Lake tomorrow.

 

[JimG.]

7/25-Rye Lake

I was stoked to get out on Rye Lake just because the weather conditions were almost identical to when we last fished there 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, imminent bad weather made it a short time out on the water. We in fact never got further than 150-200 yards from our boat spot because of the threat of rain and lightning. We were able to fish from 2:15 to about 3:30 before it started drizzling. But it was perhaps the most productive hour of fishing we've had this season as we both boated 4 decent bass and a few smaller fish. Pretty amazing for only about an hour of fishing in basically one spot.



I caught my last good sized bass right at the boat spot as we were heading in. The fish slurped something off the surface right near shore so I cast at the disturbance and plunked the fish right on the head. Wish we could have fished more as we would have cleaned up, but the weather got ugly quick with heavy downpours and scary lightning strikes.