CTFishTalk.com: Candlewood Lake 05/17 - Connecticut Lake Reports ( CT Lake Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

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

I owed my buddy, Greg, a chance to burn some fuel, so we fished Candlewood Lake from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. We launched out of Lattins Cove. When we arrived, there were at least a dozen vehicles with trailers already parked in the lot that had New Jersey tags and a few with Pennsylvania tags. Confused

Luckily, we arrived right after the last of them were launching, so we didn't have to wait to get on the water. When we launched in Greg's bass boat, the air was still a little chilly, but the sky was almost totally clear. However, the wind that was blowing all the way down the lake into the cove from the north made it feel lot colder than I expected. It probably blew at 10 miles per hour for most of the day, but it rose to 20 miles per hour a couple of times. There were some small rollers breaking in the main body of the lake. We headed up to The Marina and fished the shallow flats in the protected cove. I started throwing a green pumpkin/red flake Zoom Brush Hog on a 1/8 ounce shakeyhead jighead, while Greg threw a white fluke. We didn't get any action for the first hour, so Greg switched over to a wacky rigged watermelon seed five inch Senko, while I tied on a four inch green tube. Greg told me that the water temperature was 62 degrees when I asked at about 9:00 am. After striking out in the back of the cove, we headed out of the cove down the west shoreline, where we spotted some beds in the slightly murky water. We could see the bottom fairly clearly down to about four feet, but were in shallower water than that. I'm not much of a bed fisherman, but tried tossing the tube at what I thought was a bed as we drifted past. I thought that I might have gotten a tug on the tube on one cast, but gave up on it. However, Greg figured that there might be a fish on the bed, so he turned the boat around and soon proved that he was right! Very Happy

Along a 30 foot stretch of the shore, he boated three smallies that probably totaled about eight pounds within 10 minutes. Shocked

I felt kind of stupid, because Greg's a tube guy and I'm a wacky Senko guy, and here he was catching fish with MY favorite lure, while I wasn't anything with his! Embarassed

I didn't get any photos, because Greg's not much of a fish photo guy (he acts like he's caught fish before Laughing

), but the best of the three smallies was probably about 3-1/2 pounds. As we continued down the shore, I tied on a wacky Senko of my own. The wind rose as we left the shelter of the cove, so we ran down to check out a flat on the windward (i.e., north) side of a point. Although we saw a couple of bass on beds, they swam off when they saw us. We headed around the point to the leeward (i.e., south) side and Greg began boating one to two pound smallies. After we had been on the water for a couple of hours, I finally got one of my own:

After Greg got several more smallies and I managed to get a couple, too, the wind eased, so we headed across the main body of the lake to an island. When we got to the hazard buoy over the flats on the windward side of the island, a bass immediately took a swipe at my wacky Senko, but didn't get the hook. After only 60 seconds, the wind rose back up to 20 miles per hour, so we headed to the leeward side of the island. I boated a few more smallies along the way, the biggest of which was only one pound, 10 ounces, while Greg boated what was probably his third or fourth stick fish Laughing

:

We decided to head down to a cove on the south end of the lake. Just after Greg said, "I'm surprised that we haven't seen any largemouth bass," I showed him one:

Shortly afterward, Greg hooked into a 4+ pound smallie. He was using his light set up with eight pound monofilament line and was being very gentle with it. I grabbed the net and peered over the side of the boat as he worked it in. When it got close to the boat, the wind blew the boat right over it. Greg tried to work the trolling motor to get us back over the fish, but it ran the line underneath the hull, and we heard a snap and a splash on the other side of the boat as it broke Greg off. Crying or Very sad

We each got another smallie before we decided to head up to the north end of the lake. I think that Greg needed to shake off losing the big smallie by burning some fuel:

We worked our way between docks around a wind sheltered cove. As we made our way toward a point, Greg managed to coax a decent smallie off of a bed. It wasn't the biggest smallie of the day, but it was close enough, at three pounds, three ounces, that Greg paused long enough to let me take a photo of him with it:

On the south side of the point, we finally saw several largemouth bass on beds. However, they weren't in the mood to bite wacky Senkos, Cabin Creek Salty Spider jigs or tubes. We had to move out from the shore to get around the docks of a marina. After one cast, Greg spotted a brown trout following his tube. I had a Perch Rapala Shad Rap SR-7 tied on, so I told Greg that I would catch the stupid trout with it. Sure enough, it hit the Perch Rapala on the first cast, but managed to avoid the treble hooks. However, I got it with the second cast. Surprised

I don't have a photo of it, because as it thrashed around it managed to get the second treble hook embedded in its side. It took a while to get both trebles out of it, so we quickly released the stupid thing. It swam away okay, if a little slowly, and I was relieved that I didn't have to keep it. As I've mentioned before, I'm trouted out for the season; three is all that I want to eat. Wink

After that, I went into full "I want to catch a fourth species" mode. We took another quick run a little further up the lake to Stump Cove:

Now, although I wanted to catch a panfish, I didn't want to tie on any new lures. So I threw my wacky Senko in hopes of catching, perhaps, a rock bass. While I caught a small largemouth bass and had a few persistent bites from sunnies, I couldn't manage to hook any panfish. As we went around the cove, I tossed the wacky Senko up tight to a low stone wall in the water and felt a hit. Just as I was about to tell Greg that I finally got a panfish, the fish pulled down hard and I knew that I had a largemouth bass on the line:

He was a decent 3-3/4 pounds and had rubbed the bottom part of his tail clean off while fanning his bed. We released him back at the wall from where he came. Greg also managed to pull a largemouth bass off of the wall, but it was smaller. As we headed out of the cove, the sunnies that I could see in the water taunted me with their inability to eat a wacky Senko, so I threw the Perch Rapala out and just let it float. Finally, a little sunny couldn't resist nipping at it and I boated my fourth species of fish on the day:

Whoo hoo!

We headed off of the water shortly after that. I have to say that 45 mile per hour runs with the wind are much more comfortable than 45 mile per hour runs into the teeth of a 15 mile per hour wind! Wink

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perfect hook set · Joined: 24 Feb 2008 Posts: 1069 Location: Danbury

haha awesome

hey you were in town and didnt go out with me at all!!!

Must habve not wanted to get whooped on =P
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pikePERSUADER1 · Joined: 07 Dec 2010 Posts: 521

Nice, I like how your reports are very detailed Phil, the exact opposite of mine, lol I would have a tough time even remembering the order I caught all those fish in!!! haha Nice outing guys! Cool

-Dan

Michael · Joined: 28 Jan 2012 Posts: 3823 Location: Bridgeport

Great fishing and great report as usual Phil

rvolkers · Joined: 23 Oct 2011 Posts: 359

GREAT JOB and a great report! - LOOKS LIKE A FUN DAY WAS HAD BY ALL!

DirtyDawg10 · Joined: 27 May 2009 Posts: 2238 Location: Granby, CT

Great report! Love the wind tunnel pics...lol