CTFishTalk.com: Thompson CT 9/9 - Connecticut River Reports ( CT River Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

therieldeal · Joined: 20 Oct 2010 Posts: 245 Location: Thompson, CT

Yesterday I fished a small pond in Thompson with my girlfriend to try and get her into some bass. Previous attempts had not gone too well, resulting in photos such as this:

I had good luck at this pond last weekend by myself, with multiple 2+ pound fish in a short period of time. She generally prefers “quantity over quality”, so after a few minutes of no hits on a bass worm she usually switches to a bright pink trout magnet to try and catch as many bluegills/perch/etc. as she can. Yesterday I finally talked her into sticking with bass lures the whole time, she agreed to try it for 2 hours “no more!” lol.

We spent most of the time fishing wacky rigged ZOOM finesse worms (pumpkin/red-flake) on eagle claw fine wire circle hooks, which have been working really well for me lately. I was never much of a wacky rig guy (prefer to texas rig my senkos/dingers) but I really like the action of these thinner finesse worms. Also, the material seems to be more durable, and with the lighter weight they hold up for a longggg time hooked directly onto the hook.

For the first hour of our 2 hour trip the action was pretty dead. We were working our way up the east shore of the pond where I was catching well last weekend, I managed 1 or 2 dinks but that’s all. She asked a few times to switch to the west bank of the pond, I finally agreed even though it is pretty shallow with far less structure. We got over there… lots of sunfish nibbling but that’s about it. We fished a couple laydowns, a few rocks, mostly just casting towards the rather featureless bank though in about 1-2 fow.

At one point instead of casting towards shore she started casting out towards the middle of the pond, not sure why. Suddenly she said that she was snagged on a log and needed help. OK… so I start paddling over… when I notice that her kayak is moving away from shore but she is not reeling or paddling. She calls out “NO WAIT! … I THINK ITS ACTUALLY A FISH!”, just as the thing jumps and tries to shake the hook (hooray for circle hooks!). She was using the lightest spinning combo I own which is spooled with 6# mono, so the fish kept stripping line and dragged her around for a couple minutes. She was worried about tipping over while picking up such a large fish so I paddled over, lipped it, unhooked it, and weighed it for her (3.4 pounds). Handed it back to her for a photo op:

After this I scoped out the area where she was casting to, it looks like there is a rocky drop off there – probably the edge of the original channel from before the river was dammed up. Not having a fish finder I’ve never really considered fishing submerged structure… I will have to keep it in mind from now on! We fished that west shore of the pond all the way back to the launch area. We each caught one more dink, she also hooked into a decent sized pickerel which towed her around a bit before biting her line off boat-side.

Anyway, the bite seems to be picking up as the nights cool down. Excited to get out there as much as possible this fall!
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PB's:
LMB - 4 pounds - Stump Pond, Thompson
Carp - 11 pounds - W. Thompson Lake, Thompson

Still searching for some toothy critters big enough to be worth weighing...

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

Nice bass!

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

therieldeal · Joined: 20 Oct 2010 Posts: 245 Location: Thompson, CT

the east side of the pond where we started out is much deeper, the bank there drops off steep, straight into deep water. I never thought about trying to find/fish the opposite "original" bank as it's essentially hidden in the middle of the pond. I think i will try trolling a crankbait around in that area the next time i'm out. i definitely need to develop some techniques that don't rely so exclusively on fishing the shoreline/visible structure.
_________________
PB's:
LMB - 4 pounds - Stump Pond, Thompson
Carp - 11 pounds - W. Thompson Lake, Thompson

Still searching for some toothy critters big enough to be worth weighing...

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

therieldeal · Joined: 20 Oct 2010 Posts: 245 Location: Thompson, CT

I have an older fish finder that came along with my little bass boat, but I’ve yet to hook it up or figure out how it works. (Not that ever have time to use the boat anyway lol, the kayak is so much easier to throw on the roof & get out on the water quickly). I wonder how hard it would be to set that thing up on my kayak instead… I’m sure it’s not the best but even an old one should at least give me decent depth readings, right?
_________________
PB's:
LMB - 4 pounds - Stump Pond, Thompson
Carp - 11 pounds - W. Thompson Lake, Thompson

Still searching for some toothy critters big enough to be worth weighing...

hila2006 · Joined: 22 Jul 2011 Posts: 582 Location: Ellington

Oh Phil if only that was completely true. We have yet to find any bass out away from shore at home, we see all kinds of people working the crap out of the open water and hitting nothing. We went out Sunday for a couple hours and hit like 10, all around shoreline structure. All you have to do is find shadows and you'll hit em, trust me Very Happy

We've consistently been hitting in close to shore, it hasn't changed for us since we got there. It's like most things, you have to be in the right place at the right time dude. Sunday we hit nothing below 2 pounds. I finally got one on a spinnerbait and she was in less than a foot of water, just hanging in the shadows of a laydown.

pikePERSUADER1 · Joined: 07 Dec 2010 Posts: 521

Nice report, but this is the river section, shoulda put it in the bass reports!