CTFishTalk.com: Mansfield Hollow Lake 05/06 - Connecticut Lake Reports ( CT Lake Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

PECo · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT

My bass fishing club, Empty Lake Bassmasters, held its second tourney of the year at Mansfield Hollow Lake. As you may recall, my fishing partner rmflint (aka Ryan) and I didn’t do very well in the first tourney at Long Pond on 04/22. Although we took Third Place, we got skunked along with two other boats.

Ryan was out of town, so Dan1 (aka Dan) filled in for him on the back of my boat. However, all day long, Dan kept jumping up onto the front deck of the boat. I felt like I was Captain Phillips in that movie:

Actually, though, I’m not territorial about the front deck on my boat. If my fishing partner wants the drive the boat, I really don’t mind.

We fished from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm. The weather conditions were good, although the air temperature had dropped over the previous few days:

The water temperature ranged from the high 50s to just over 60 degrees and, no, we didn’t see any beds or bedding activity.

We had no plan for the day. We decided to try the upper part of the lake, first. While Dan threw a wacky-rigged, five-inch, Black with Blue Flake Senko and half of a five-inch Black with Blue Flake Senko on a 1/6 ounce Ned rig jighead, I threw a chatterbait with a Keitech padfletail swimbait trailer and a two-inch Pearl White Berkeley PowerBait Power Grub on a chartreuse 1/8 ounce Arkie ball jighead. We didn’t get any action until a yellow perch bit my grub jig.

Since the bite didn’t appear to be very active, we headed for one of my not-so-secret spots. Whenever the bite is tough on Mansfield Hollow Lake, I toss a wacky-rigged Senko into any culverts I can find. We hit the culverts between the Fenton River and the upper lake, and I quickly picked up a small keeper largemouth bass. We went through the culverts, but I managed only a short largemouth on the Fenton River side. After we came back to the upper lake, though, I caught another keeper largemouth. Just like that, we had two fish in the livewell.

Dan was eager to hit the culverts between the upper lake and lower lake, but I wanted to work our way down the east shore of the upper lake, first. We caught some black crappie, yellow perch and chain pickerel with the Ned rig and the grub jig, and I got bit off by a 30+ inch northern pike at the boat after a good fight. When we got closer to the culverts, Dan caught another keeper largemouth.

As we passed through the culvert, I boated another short largemouth. But after we got through, I caught our fourth keeper largemouth.

In the lower lake, we caught yellow perch and pickerel over the shallows in front of the dam. We didn’t get any bites anywhere else on the lower lake, so we headed back for the upper lake. At the culvert, I boated our fifth small keeper largemouth bass, just as two of the other boats in the club idled past us.

Back in the upper lake, Dan boated our sixth keeper, but it somehow managed to be smaller than our other five fish, so it didn’t cull. However, he also caught our seventh keeper, which did cull a smaller fish and ended up being our lunker at only 1-1/2 pounds. The rest of the time, we caught the occasional yellow perch, crappie or sunny, but pickerel after pickerel after pickerel. We had at least a dozen on the day.

Of the five boats in the club, three had full five-fish bags, one had three fish and one got skunked. Dan and I ended up in Third Place. We got snaked out of Second Place by the boat with only three fish, because they managed to boat a Hail Mary four-pound largemouth that was the tourney lunker. Arrrgh!

I’ll be out of town during the next tourney, so Ryan will have to fish without me. Hopefully, he’ll figure out how to win on his own.
_________________
Don't forget to wear sunscreen and don't litter!