Today is why i love fishing... CT River Pike w/ Garrett

success

 This year i have focused so much attention on stripers that i literally hadn't gone for pike once since the ice melted. Which is nuts if you know me because Pike are my favorite fish to target.  I had the itch bad all week. I text Josh and he had a wedding to attend so i hit up my friend Garrett who last year with me had back to back to back 7 plus pike outings on the river that included many big fish up to 38 inches. He was obviously down to fish so off we went. We were at the launch for 6:30 am and after 10 minutes of fishing i had my first hit. Watched the pike swim up next to the boat and grab my jig but it wasn't meant to be.  Minutes later i hear the famous words "fish on" and i turn around to see Garrett fighting a monster of a fish. Hit on a 7 inch paddle tail swim bait and gave him a hell of a battle. I net it for him and we started to wonder if this fish would break the 40 mark. Got the hook out and after a violent head shake that left me bloody the fish hit the measuring tape and was 40 on the dot! Was his second 40 in the past 2 weeks. We were pretty pumped! What a start to the day.  Little did we know that it would be a while until we found any more action. 

Garrett's 40

We made our way down river hitting all the spots that produced last year and had nothing to show for it other than a few small largemouth and a smallie. The tide was the lowest ive seen it in a long time which left some of my spots as dry land. By 11 the tide started coming in and Garrett got a 33 inch Pike on a spinner to get us back on track. I was still pikeless at around noon but that changed in an instant. I was throwing a big swim jig with a square tail trailer and no warning i get blasted! I look down and see this fish head shaking side to side in what felt like slow motion and after a run under the boat we had her in the net and knew again this fish would be close to the magic 40 mark. Well we were both stunned when she hit the tape and was 40 on the dot just like this mornings which was 2 towns away a few hours later.  Twin 40 inch pike on lures in one morning. I wouldn't think that was possible if it didn't just happen. Couldn't be more excited on how today went. Wasn't the numbers we got last year but the size was unreal and i couldn't ask for a better first pike of the season!  Both fish were caught main river in 6 feet of water right next to the weeds and were released unharmed. Thanks for coming out Garrett.

By: Joe Jacobowitz

Winchester Lake with Larry Johnson

Its been hard lately for both Larry and myself to get motivated to get the boats out and fish on these mid summer weekends.. dealing with all the boat traffic of pleasure boaters and over crowded lakes is not what i call fun and enjoyable fishing. But friday night i got a text from Larry saying i just decided im going fishing.. i said where we going and after a small discussion we decided on Winchester. I had only fished this lake one time previously and that was a few years ago and we had a decent day that day with 18 bass so i was hoping for a similar day. We arrived at 6:15 and the conditions were perfect. Nice overcast day with cool temperature and a water temp of 74 degrees. Right off the bat we saw bait fish being chases all over the surface in about 16 feet so i put on a zoom fluke on a 1/4 oz jig head and quickly catch 2 small bass and missed a couple more then that died. We worked our way down the bank towards the stumps and picked up a fish here and there. Once we got into the stump field rubber worm bite picked up pretty good. We were getting decent numbers but very little size. Larry had good success on a big chartreuse spinner bait and got 1 on a jig on a beaver hut. By mid day we still really hadnt found a pattern. We caught fish on spinner baits, ribsters on a jig, weightless flukes, weighted flukes, senko, wacky rig but they were all random. We came to the conclusion that this lake has far to much structure that it makes it hard to actually fish the fish. haha As we got all the way to the north end i tossed a booyah frog all over the pads with not a single rise. We started heading back toward the stumps and i took one most cast over open water with the frog and this 5 lb bass jumped two feet in the air on the strike and fish on! Fish jumped 3 times and gave me a great fight. Larry netted it and high fives were had. We caught a few more fish on our way back to the launch and ended our day with 25 bass and 1 pickerel. Not a bad day but i probably wont be hitting that lake again any time soon. Larry thanks for a fun trip lets do it again soon!