A Look back at March

March is going out like a lion. Its thirty four degrees and the precipitation can only be discribed as slush falling form the sky. I had planned on trout fishing today. I thought better of it knowing that even the trout will not be happy witht the sudden drop in water temperature. They will be in no mood to chase lures. So I write...

Without question I have fished more this March than I ever have. I have turned into a year round fisherman and fish almost every day. A couple years ago, March would be the month I would start fishing, picking the nice days along with everyone else. This year I fished whether rain or cold. It didn't matter, if I had time I was out in it. I caught fish on fifteen different days. Along with the usual March skunkings, I probably got out over twenty times. I can say that this was my best March ever, but I can also say I've had some of my best days ever regardless of the month in the last thirty days.

Carp-

March is inconsistant for fishing. Fish do not like sudden drops in temperature or cold winter storms ( like today). However if you can get out during a period of consecutive days of steady weather, fishing will be good. Well... this month we had the mother of all warm streaks. For about a weeek the daytime highs were over 65, including a few days in the eighties. Because of this, I had my best day ever in terms of numbers. On March 24, I caught 12 carp. Also this month I caught my largest carp ever being twenty three pounds on March 17. For the month I caught 29 carp. This is the far cry from the eighty five my friend Dave caught but, not bad for someone that also trout fishes and works full time.

Trout-



Because of the warm weather and mild winter stocking trucks got out early. I caught my first trout on March 9. This is 22 days earlier than my first last year ( exactly one year ago today).  I caught 40 trout this month.  I had five days where I caught five or more. My best day was my first. I caught nine on March 9. Also I caught more browns in one day six ( March 28), than I had in my life.  I also caught what I term a quality trout ( any trout over 16 inches). I caught a 16 inch rainbow at Hoxie on my fly rod.

Pickerel- I only fished once for anything other than trout or carp. I went bass/ pickerel fishing for about two hours. I caught 10 pickerel. It was a lot of fun.

The reason I had so much success was two fold. First the weather was incredible. Yet I caught most fish on the more typical March days. I caught the twenty three pounder when it was in the fifties, the same is true of my eighteen pounder, my 12 carp day and nine trout day. I did good during the eighty degree weather but just as well when it was fifty five.

More importantly than the weather, I fished a lot. I have no chance of catching anything sitting at home watching tv. I was out almost every day. I can't stand being home when I could be landing a big one, and this month I landed some big ones. This was a March to remember!

Bad Weather Trout

 Jeff and I wernt trout fishing today. It was rainy most of the day. We hoped the crappy weather would keep the fair weather fishermen away. We also secretely hoped that the rain would stop and we could fish in cloudy conditions.  Both worked for us. No one was at either pond we fished and the weather cleared up and we didn't fish in the rain.

We tried Hoxie, but fish weren't exactly destroying our lures. I didn't get any and Jeff hooked up on two rainbows. We went to another pond. When we got there, the water was glass calm. We saw a few trout rising as we walked from the parking area. I made about three casts and hooked into a brown trout. Then I caught two more in about three more casts. 

Jeff got in on the fun and caught some browns also.  Between us we landed twelve trout. All but one were browns. I caught one brookie also

The Fishing Gods are Smiling on Me Right Now



My 17 pounder from Sunday

I have carp fishing the last three days after work. If you read the below post you saw that I caught 12 carp on Saturday. That is by far the best day I have ever had carp fishing. In the last two days, I have gotten another eight. I am positive, I have never caught 20 carp in three days before.  I caught 5 yesterday and three more today.

Catching any carp today was probably more of a surprise to me than catching 12 on Saturday. Today it was very cold and windy. The wind was blowing out of the north at 25 mph. Today's temperature was almost25 degrees colder than Saturday and at least 10 degrees colder than yesterday. The wind chill must have been in the thirties. Today was the type of day that  experienced carp guys do not fish. It is usually a waste of time. With the water temperature dropping because of the cold air, the carp should have been very tight lipped. yet, I caught three, had a couple more short runs and had multiple bumps. In short, it was pretty good.

I have only caught three good sized ones in the past week though. My 23 pounder from last week, I got a 17-18 pounder yesterday and a 14 pounder Saturday. I am obsessed with catching a twenty five pounder. So I have been fishing every chance I get. I may not have gotten the big one yet, but all the time on the bank is paying off.

I went trout fishing on Friday with Jeff. As I reported I only caught 8 the whole day of fishing. It was one of those weird days when the trout were fussy everywhere we went. I was in bed thinking the other night about the tough trout fishing. I realized I caught eight but only saw seven more caught by everyone else fishing combined. There were a lot of people at Hoxie and a couple at Lout. So I really can't complain.

So I'm saying the fishing gods are on my side right now. I hope it continues and wish I knew what prayers to say to these fishing gods, because I am having the time of my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Twelve Carp Today!! Best Carp Day Ever!!!

Before today, my best day carp fishing was 7. I caught those seven at the Blackstone Canal my first year carp fishing, which was in 2003. Since then the average day would be between one and three. Today, I went straight from work to one of my favorite ponds. I baited up and waited about twenty minutes for my first hit. From there the fishing was amazing. I was getting one hit after another for about an hour. It was so fast, I did not have time to text my friend Dave until I pulled my rods out of the water.

At one point, I had one fish being landed while my other alarm would sound. Another time I casted my corn. I tried to throw some corn and before I could take three steps into the water to throw it, I had a fish on.

After the first seven fish, it slowed down. I caught my last five over about two hours. Still thats considered hot fishing in the carp world. Dave showed up toward dusk. Things had slowed down by then, still we caught six between us in 2 hours.  I ended up catching twelve total. My biggest was only fourteen pounds. I didn't get any monsters today. Who's complaining, with action that hot I had a blast. It was a crazy day!!!

Not as good as it Sounds

Cold, hard, facts from today fishing down the Cape for trout

I caught 8 trout today
Two of them were brookies
I caught one trout over 16 inches
I caught trout from 4 different ponds, three of them I had never caught a trout before

The Reality...

I picked Jeff up at 5:30 this morning to go trout fishing. Our plan was to hit a bunch of Upper Cape lake. I wanted to go to Nickerson, but my car is being fixed Friday so I couldn't stay over night.  We were at out first pond, Grews Pond in Falmouth, before 7 am. It was cold and damp. I caught two trout there, but only after putting in the kayak. We couldn't get any from shore.

We then went to Mares Pond also in Falmouth. We were disappointed by the public access so we skipped this one.

Next we went to Hoxie Pond in Sandwich. This pond was loaded with trout. We saw 50-60 swim by us, sometimes at out feet. They were picky. I caught 2, including the big one. Jeff caught two bass. I also caught a bass and 2 sunfish on the fly rod. We threw everything we had at the trout, they were just not in the mood to hit. Every other fishermen has having the same problem.

After out frustration at Hoxie, we went to a sub shop for lunch. After lunch we went  to Little. There was so many people we left. We drove the three miles to Lout. There I caught three trout including my first brookie. This is the best spot I found during the day. One guy had a decent rainbow and a brown on a stringer. I saw 2 other guys catch four 'bows on shiners.  We fished here a little while until moving on to Fearings.

We fished  Fearings hard for 2 1/2 hours. The only fish to show for it was one lone brookie. Of all the places I fish, I can usually count on Fearings to come through, today it did not.

We left Fearings and quickly went to Mary's Pond in Rochester. We fished about 20 minutes and headed home. I dropped Jeff off at his house then fished Falls Pond for 30 minutes. I caught one small bass. I finally pulled into my yard about 6:45.

So if you look at the stats, I had a good day. Jeff had a tough day. However if you add that I was gone 13 hours and fished maybe 9, it wasn't that good today. Thats why they call it fishing

Ecosystem is Screwed Up

Okay its obviously been extremely warm. I'm not going to lie,  I have been enjoying it.  There have been strange things that I have never seen before. In terms of nature these are crazy things. Here are some examples.

Adult menhaden stayed in the Providence River all winter. They survived the extremely mild winter.

Young menhaden ( peanut bunker) were snagged by Dave and Jeff a couple weeks ago. We never see them until at earliest mid August

I actually wet waded while trout fishing the last two days. I was up to my knees. The water was warmer than when I fished in New Hampshire on Memorial Day last year.  Dave checked the temperature in the shallows    64 degrees !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got bit by a mosquito last night.

My forsythia bush is blooming

My mid spring daffodils are going to be blooming by tomorrow

I saw a bat on Tuesday night  ( March 19)

I saw a dandelion  on March 10

Insect are hatching every where. Ponds are covered with hatches

Dave had a bee flying around his head almost two weeks ago

I'm not sure what all this means. I do think if we get a real cold snap it could spell disaster for a lot of species that think its late spring. Lets hope mosquitos are on that list!!!

Get out and enjoy it

I tried my luck night time fishing last night. It was the first time I fished at night this year for something other than stripers. I got invited to fish with a friend of mine who was going out anyway. I accepted. We fished from 6-8:20. We didn't get a hit. You know what, we didn't really plan on it. Its still March and the fish will hit during the warmest part of the day. Fishing last night was just an experiment and hope.

It was 80 degrees yesterday and its going to be that temperature all week. I would rather be out in this amazing weather not catching fish than sitting in the house watching tv. After the sun went down, it cooled off a bit. It still felt like a June night. I was wearing my waders and only a t-shirt and my arms were not cold.  Catching fish or not, I'm not staying home when I can be outside enjoying this!!!