Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:44 pm Post subject: Otis Reservoir 06/08
I drove back up to Tolland State Forest in Massachusetts to fish with metalfish (aka Ian) and TurtleKiss (aka Kira) on Otis Reservoir again today. On my way there, I found myself asking, "Why did the turtle cross the road?":
I guess that it didn't know the Colebrook River Lake boat launch is still closed. Or it was looking for the chicken. Once again, I drove up to the reservoir from Route 8 on Alan Road, which isn't much more than a goat path. Yesterday, I almost lost the plastic shield underneath my Saab's front bumper to a rock. Thankfully, Daryl (aka Daryl) had a zip tie with which I could reattach it. Today, Alan Road kicked my a$$ even worse. I was driving more slowly than I did yesterday, with the windows open and the radio off because I was towing The Other Woman (aka my Hobie Pro Angler) on my 4' x 8' utility trailer. The trailer was jiggling and bouncing more than Pamela Anderson as I went up the road. When I was half a mile from the end of the road, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw The Other Woman bounce up and off the back of the trailer. It looked like a tank being air dropped from a C-130:
When I went back to reload The Other Woman onto the trailer, I saw that the D-rings I had bolted to the plywood decking of the trailer to hold the straps had come off of the trailer. The nuts on the bolts had actually pulled through the plywood. One of the two straps that I use to tie The Other Woman down was completely gone and the other was barely hanging onto the trailer. I strapped her down to the frame of the trailer with the one remaining strap, and crept up to the end of Alan Road and all the way to the boat lanch ramp. I paid the $5.00 boat launch fee and put The Other Woman into the water. It was another hot, sunny day, with a brisk west breeze. Immediately after I launched, I saw a couple of areas where the water was boiling with fish:
I never did figure out what kind of fish they were. They ignored my black crappie rig, which is a swirlytail grub on a 1/16 ounce jighead suspended underneath a stick bobber. They also ignored a small floating Rapala and a slightly larger one, too. With the west breeze, I decided to hold off on exploring the Southeast Cove and headed up to Ian and Kira's campsite. They hadn't gotten out onto the water, yet, so I went ashore to tie on a drop shot. After I boarded The Other Woman and Kira boarded Dinghbat, we set off for the beach on the northwest shore of the point. Ian decided to hang out at the campsite and fish from the shore, rather than get blown around by the breeze in his inflatable kayak. Kira and I didn't find any smallies or sunnies at the beach like we did yesterday, but she did find a chain pickerel:
After not finding any more fish at the beach, we decided to head to a bed of reeds on the opposite shore. As we neared the reeds, I saw what I thought was a decent largemouth bass leap in the air a few feet inside the reed bed. I yelled to Kira that she should throw a frog in there, but she didn't have one tied on and decided to just throw a Texas rigged worm at it. She didn't get any hits and moved up the shore. So I tied on a soft plastic Yum frog and threw it deep into the reeds. As soon as it hit the water, "Bam!", a fish hit it, but I didn't wait and missed the hookset. Kira was impressed enough that she immediately tied on a frog and began getting hits on it. It wasn't long before she pulled a decent largemouth bass out of the reed bed:
I went up the shore while Kira continued to work the reed bed with her frog, when Ian paddled up in his inflatable kayak. We banged the shore for a while, but didn't land anything. It wasn't too long before Ian gave up trying to fight the breeze and headed back toward the beach and the campsite. By this time, Kira had moved on in search of more reed beds, so I decided to throw a wacky rigged five inch green pumpkin/red flake Senko at the edge of the first reed bed. I got a good hit about a foot inside the bed and pulled a 16 inch, one pound, 13 ounce largemouth bass out of it:
I followed Kira into the shallows at the south end of Southwest Cove and began throwing my wacky Senko into the edges of the weed beds. I landed several more largemouth bass; three 11 inchers and a 13 incher. I also hung up a lot, especially around the old beaver lodge. As the afternoon wore on and it was getting closer to the time for me to leave, we headed back to the area off of the beach. I soon landed a big sunny on a drop shot with a 2-1/2 inch Gulp minnow on the hook:
By the way, thanks again, MarkO! I was able to turn my upside down hook around this time! When I dragged the drop shot over a pile of boulders in six feet of water, I landed a little 10 inch smallie:
While I was taking a photo of the smallie, Kira hooked up with and was able to lip a keeper smallie while swim fishing again:
Before I left Kira at the beach, she cut off eight feet of her anchor line for me, so that I could use it to tie The Other Woman down onto my trailer. As I started on the one mile pedal back to the ramp, my legs went dead. I had felt pretty good while pedaling all day, but fatigue set in on the way back. So I stopped to fish the shoreline on my way back in. I had just given up on catching my "Just One More" fish, when I saw a big splash at the edge of a log that looked like a largemouth bass had risen up to grab something off of it. So I threw my wacky Senko at it and landed another 13 incher:
It was a great way to end another hot day out on the reservoir. After I loaded up my car and trailer, I headed back down Alan Road toward Route 8. And, go figure, I found the strap that I had lost on the way up. Whoo hoo! _________________ Don't forget to wear sunscreen and don't litter!
Last edited by PECo on Thu Jun 09, 2011 12:05 pm; edited 2 times in total
Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 10:02 pm Post subject:
I can't figure out how you'd get up Alan Road to go ice fishing during the Winter. It's a crazy bad road! _________________ Don't forget to wear sunscreen and don't litter!
Joined: 09 Mar 2010 Posts: 1200 Location: central CT
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:49 pm Post subject:
Yes Phil. Put washers under your nuts (the ones on your trailer.)
I caught a bunch of fish - nothing over 2 lbs. though. Hard place to fish due to the speedboats. I tried fishing at night too...didn't see anyone else on the water after 10 p.m. but that might be because nothing was hungry. On our third and final night, we had a storm headed our way. Ian took shelter in his car, and I stayed in my tent. Big mistake.
So glad You and Ian got thru the storm OK!
Last night was bad but today was worst!
It's been a long time since I've seen the sky turn black as midnight at 4:00 PM in the afternoon.
Got trapped at Up Country Tackle for 45 minutes as the rain and wind was tremedous.
Finally got home to a very upset puppy -> Mac settled down after a few hugs and pettings.
Glad you had a nice time up at Otis !
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Once again, I drove up to the reservoir from Route 8 on Alan Road, which isn't much more than a goat path. Yesterday, I almost lost the plastic shield underneath my Saab's front bumper to a rock. Thankfully, Daryl (aka Daryl) had a zip tie with which I could reattach it. Today, Alan Road kicked my a$$ even worse. I was driving more slowly than I did yesterday, with the windows open and the radio off because I was towing The Other Woman (aka my Hobie Pro Angler) on my 4' x 8' utility trailer. The trailer was jiggling and bouncing more than Pamela Anderson as I went up the road. When I was half a mile from the end of the road, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw The Other Woman bounce up and off the back of the trailer. It looked like a tank being air dropped from a C-130:
