New England - New England Freshwater Fishing Reports

On April 28, my fishing partner, John Chrisant, and I made our first trip of 2021 to Quabbin Reservoir. We got in line at Gate 31 in New Salem around 5 a.m. and were on the water about fifteen minutes after the 6 a.m. opening. Our plan was to search for smallmouth bass moving up from deep water toward the sand and gravel shoals used for spawning sites in May. John had to be home in the afternoon, so we knew we’d have to be off the water around 1 p.m. considering the cold, windy weather the Northeast has been enduring this spring, John and I really did not expect fast fishing. We fully anticipated having to work hard for every fish. But this is the prespawn period at Quabbin—prime time for contacting a lunker smallmouth. If we could manage to catch a big bronzie—one scaling at least 4 pounds—that would make the tough and tiring fishing worth the effort. Well, as it turned out, fishing proved as difficult as predicted. The Big Lady failed to give us much of anything for our hard work. By our 1:00 p.m. quitting time we’d experienced a grand total of five hits, all on small jigs. Worse, we missed three of the strikes. The only fish boated were an 18-inch smallmouth and 22-inch lake trout, neither anywhere near memorable size. The bronzie bit a 3.3-inch Alewife Keitech Swing Impact mounted on white 1/10-ounce Ned head; the laker inhaled a white 1/10-ounce Ned head dressed with a watermelon Mister Twister Teenie. We also had follows from one small rainbow and one small laker. We couldn’t blame the weather. Conditions were nearly perfect: mostly cloudy; air temperature around seventy degrees; a light and variable breeze. We simply did not find many fish. Quabbin’s water level, by the way, is very low. That does not bode well for post-spawn and summertime largemouth bass fishing in the reeds. Most of our favorite reed stands are now high and dry, and it’s going to take an awful lot of rain to put them back in the water.