Brookie

Brookie

Monday, April 20, 2015

4/20 is for fatties



 

A year ago I posted about my trip on the quinnie on 4/20 and made a joke about catchie a "fattie" that would rival the day's hidden meaning. Well, one year later and although it wasn;t on the exact same day, I caught another fish that would put cheech and chong to shame.

On Saturday I fished the river street bridge near the rail trail, downstream from the bridge. The F&G does such a good job updating its stocking info on the website, as evidenced by the 12 cars parked along the road at that bridge when I arrived. 90% bait and spin fisherman, as usual. As I started my day, I fished the small run/pool just below the bridge. I watched the fellows above me pull 5-6 nice rainbows out of the large pool at the bridge. Into the bucket they went... oh well, maybe someday we'll get a C&R on this river.

My first rig was a wooly bugger, swung and stripped. No hits. I switched up to a doubled nymph rig, pheasant tail on top and caddis pupa on bottom (bright green, always bright green!). REALLY soft hit on the 4th cast and had a nice fish for a second but he got off. I moved down to the riffles at the large rock. Nothing doing there either. Made my way even further to the big turn pool and tried the bugger again and then the nymph rig. Got one hit on a slowly floated nymph and indicator. Again he came off. I was persistent and ended up landing a small rainbow at the edge of the pool. Nothing rising when I was there.

I figured I'd head back up to the place I started, just below the bridge. Went back to old faithful in the bright green caddis. Another really soft hit but this time he was on for good. This fish fought like a champ, zigging, sinking, zagging, jumping, it was a great fight. When I finally got him to the net I realized hot FAT he was. He became the new fattest fish I ever caught in this river. Probably a 14-16 inch fish. The F&G has done a good job putting big fish in this river. Unfortunately, due to the put-and-take pressure and warm summer months, not many survive. I put him back to where he can thrive, at least for the next month or so.

I left the river st bridge and ended my day at the stretch above the wachusett pump station. no fish here, but a great scenery as the sun set. Mr. Heron was watching me and waiting with a hungry stomach. Unless many of us, something tells me there's a very few day that he goes home without a trout!
 

How did others do? If you;re planning to head out this week, hit the areas I've starred in the map below. Green stars indicate where the fresh stockies are. Try the orange star if you're looking for some 8-12 inch native brookies (its a bit of a hike to get to, but worth it).

 

8 comments:

  1. got a shut out yesterday while I was there. noticed the powerbait and spinning rigs, parked cars etc. as you did! fished about 100 yards up from the gauge down to the turning pool with black woolys, white woolys and some pheasant tails. maybe better luck next time!

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  2. Great post, Nick!

    Have hit the Swift twice recently. They've not stocked the C&R area yet, and so, I was down there with catch-and-keep folks. Everyone is very nice, but it really is a weird feeling for me to see trout landed and put into plastic bags and put into trunks of cars. The limit is 3 fish a day on major rivers, but I think some folks are pretty liberal about interpreting that rule.

    Oh well.

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  3. I had a great day friday on mill street. We rotated 4 fly guys outta the hole underneath the bridge. Everybody was hooking up. As far as the stocking I think it should of happened a little bit earlier when the water was high give the fish a chance to move around. Also I hope they dont pick friday as the day stock the rest of the season. Hopefully this week they will get the railtrail bridges and fish will b had where spin anglers wont travel too.

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  4. I agree, would have liked to see them put in a lot earlier. Their excuse was "snow" but thats a bit hard to believe when all they do in most cases is dump em off the closest bridge. Which is why 75% of those fish sit right there for a good amount of time afterwards, and then its open season on put-and-take. And you're right, we do have the rail trail bridges to look forward to. Plus the closed sections of river rd/st in a few weeks or so.

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  5. I was there with my son fishing Sunday. Fished upstream from the cable pool to a set of small islands with big sweepers, nymphs and WBs, but no luck. Then fished the same stretch toward the turn pool that you mention in your blog...same deal. The bite was not on. Everybody I spoke to had similar luck, at least while we were there. When we left at sunset a hatch of really small somethings was happening, but I'm not sure what. But it didn't matter -- not one rise did we see.

    Matt

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    Replies
    1. I think I was headed out when you showed up! Was amazed at your sons casting ability.... wish I started that young!

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  6. The water temp although almost 50 is still to cold i think for them to chase and these stockers aren't habituated to stream life yet so i don't think much will come on top for a bit. we were having luck nymph fishing or getting down and dirty as hank patterson calls it. anything with any type of flash. but I'm hoping that with the rain today any left over fish will be washed down stream and get a chance to spread out.

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  7. anyone ever hit the stream that flows under malden from the beaver pond on the right side of the road

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