New England - New England Freshwater Fishing Reports

Fall trout stocking in Massachusetts and Connecticut is well underway, and freshly liberated trout are now finning in ponds, lakes, and rivers across both states. Not nearly as many fishermen are out and about as in the spring, so you don’t have to share these fish with a host of anglers. You might even be lucky enough to find yourself in a situation in which you’ll have them all to yourself. That’s exactly what happened to me October 5 of last year. I had gone to Lake Buel in Monterey, Massachusetts, hoping to have some fun with largemouth bass, panfish, pickerel, and perhaps northern pike. The 196-acre great pond had not yet received a slug of autumn trout, but I did bring along a few standard stockie lures including a Thomas Buoyant, Al’s Goldfish, and Acme Phoebe just in case holdovers from spring stockings were in evidence. I began fishing around 9:30 a.m., and although my 3.5-hour session produced some nice-size yellow perch, fishing in general stunk. At about 1:00 p.m. I’d had my fill and motored back to the launch site to pull the boat. As I approached the ramp, I could see fish rolling and swirling around the area. Apparently, the stocking truck had arrived shortly before and dumped in a load of trout off the ramp. Although excited, I avoided casting for them until I’d removed the boat from the water. I didn’t have any particular reason for taking the boat out except that I wanted to fish from shore. At first, I used my trout lures and hooked seventeen stockies on ultralight spinning gear. Then I switched to a crappie-rod outfit and caught seventeen more on Bobby Garland Baby Shads. All were big, fat, slammer rainbows in the 15- to 18-inch range. All were released. I also lost a number of fish and missed a slew of hits. Almost incredibly, not one other angler showed up. I had those big, beautiful ‘bows all to myself. They stuck around for about an hour and a half and then began moving away. Some remained close to the ramp, but they stopped hitting. At 3:00 p.m. or thereabouts I called it quits. All the way home I kept thinking how lucky I’d been. What had been bad day at Buel had suddenly become one for the archives.