CTFishTalk.com: Connecticut River - Haddam Meadows 03/24 - Connecticut River Reports ( CT River Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

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

I went fishing with mep21 (aka Mark) on Sunday and, as always, we had a blast. Mark told me to tell everyone to take a day off from work this week, because The Spawn Is On! Well, for yellow perch, that is. Laughing

We launched in The Other Woman, Too at Haddam Meadows. There was only one other trailer in the parking lot and it had Massachusetts tags. My Jeep said the air temperature was only 29 degrees and there was a brisk northwest wind blowing down the Connecticut River, but it was sunny. Low tide was at 5:10 am, high tide at 10:57 am and low tide at 5:33 pm, but the water level looked very low to me when we launched at about 7:45 am. A large area of the sandbar upriver from the ramp was totally exposed. Almost immediately after we launched, we marked several fish on the bottom where it dropped off into the deeper water of the channel. The water temperature was almost 37 degrees. We slowly motored downriver past the 53 green and 52 red channel markers, and decided to drag some lures from the shallows of the west bank back to the channel. We didn't get any hits, but the wind kept us on a nice one mile per hour drift down the channel. When we got to the first marina, we decided to motor over to the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Plant Canal. I didn't head far enough downriver before cutting across to the mouth of the canal and grazed the sandbar, sanding some of the paint off of my new white propeller. Embarassed

We entered the canal just after 8:30 am:

It was windier than we thought it would be in the shelter of the canal. The water temperature was 40 degrees. We hadn't marked any fish in the channel with the finder, so we decided to start fishing the big laydowns near the mouth. Mark and I both threw striper jigs. Mine was a Pearl five inch Berkley Powerbait Ripple Shad on an unpainted 1/2 ounce round jighead. However, striper jigs and laydowns don't mix, so I quickly pulled out another setup to throw a more snagless white 3/8 ounce Strike King Redeye Special spinnerbait. Neither of us caught anything other than snags, so we decided to motor up to the end of the canal. Along the way, we were surprised to see a couple of other boats, both of which had Massachusetts registrations. The two fishermen in the first boat we passed said they had caught the vag at the end of the canal and were on the hunt for spawning yellow perch. The father and son in the second boat had a few lines out with shiners under bobbers. They said they had caught some small yellow perch, black crappie and largemouth bass, and were on the hunt for northern pike. Mark and I continued up to the end of the canal, where we threw big lures, hoping to find some northern pike or bowfin. Like Sergeant Shultz, we saw nothing, we caught nothing. Confused

We must have looked pretty benign, because we were startled by the splash of a swan landing in the water four feet from The Other Woman, Too, before it paddled away from us and began searching for weeds to eat closer to the bank:

Our attention span was pretty short, which I blame on the cold wind from which we couldn't seem to find any shelter, so we both had crappie jigs tied on by 10:00 am and were heading back down the canal in search of panfish. After we passed the father and son, and approached the other two fishermen, we saw them hauling up yellow perch at a pretty good rate from the west bank of the canal. Mark was throwing a white and chartreuse one inch tube on a small jighead, and soon boated the first fish, a yellow perch, at 10:40 am:

He noticed that the other fishermen had weighted their lines to get their small jigs on the bottom, so he put a split shot on his line about eight inches above his jig and began hauling them in, too. He caught his next three at 11:00 am, 11:04 am and 11:09 am:

Meanwhile, I was fighting against the wind to hold our position in the channel with the trolling motor and, ultimately, the anchor, while trying to fish and frequently taking photos of Mark's fish. Rolling Eyes

I focused on trying for black crappie from my secret crappie spot on the east bank with an Emerald Shiner 2-1/2 inch Berkley Gulp! Minnow on a white 1/8 ounce fishhead jighead and boated my first fish, a black crappie, at 11:12 am:

I got my second one at 11:15 am:

Meanwhile, Mark continued to haul up yellow perch on every cast. He caught his next six at 11:19 am, 11:21 am, 11:23 am, 11:26 am, 11:27 am and 11:29 am:

He kept saying, "Wouldn't you rather try for yellow perch than black crappie?", so I tossed my jig toward the west bank and got one at 11:32 am:

After Mark's white and chartreuse tube got torn up, he swapped it out for a pink tube, because he had never caught a fish, any fish, with a pink lure. He achieved that goal at 11:41 am:

I resumed my search for black crappie, but boated my first largemouth bass of the year at 11:52 am:

Whoo hoo!

Mark tired of the pink tube after he hit a short lull. He swapped it out for a chartreuse tube and quickly followed up my largemouth bass with a 21 inch long chain pickerel at 12:00 pm:

After Mark boated the chain pickerel, I told him that I wasn't going to take any more photos of yellow perch. So, he just began to keep a post-photo tally: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six. . . . I hit a lull in my quest for black crappie, so I tied on a chartreuse two inch curlytail grub on a 1/8 ounce big eye round jighead, and joined him in his quest for mass quantities of yellow perch: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six. . . . We set a goal of 100 for the boat and began working toward it. While we did so, several more boats entered the canal. At one point, it felt like we had joined the fleet fishing for stripers in the lower Housy, although our fleet was catching mostly yellow perch. Laughing

DCAJ (aka Dave) motored past (Hey, Dave! Very Happy

), as did the Ranger TR177 Guy (aka Todd) (Hey, Todd! Very Happy

). We saw one of the first two fishermen we had met pull up a 15 inch long fatty female yellow perch Shocked

and a standard size (aka about 26 inches long) northern pike. The water temperature rose to as high as 44 degrees and the air temperature got into the upper 40s. I almost had to take off my coat and did take off my gloves. Very Happy

In between yellow perch, at 3:05 pm, I got a small 22 inch long northern pike of my own:

And in between even more yellow perch, at 3:55 pm, Mark got his first largemouth bass of the year:

After I got my half of the 100 yellow perch goal for the boat, I told Mark that I wanted to head back up to the end of the canal to check it out, again. We motored up there and threw striper jigs, spinnerbaits, crankbaits and crappie jigs, and didn't get even a nibble. Confused

We drifted back down the canal and didn't get a bite until Mark switched from a tube to a chartreuse two inch curlytail grub on his crappie jig and finally boated a yellow perch as we approached the new laydown that almost reaches from the west bank to the east bank about halfway up the canal. We have no idea why, but it seemed that the fish had moved in only halfway up the canal. Wink

By the time we got past the laydown, most of the other boats had either cleared out or would soon clear out. Mark revised our goal. We would each catch 100 post-photo yellow perch. Shocked

There was a funny thing about the yellow perch. We caught four to five males for every female. And for some reason we couldn't figure out, every male that Mark caught would spray him with milt. He was having a yellow perch orgy on the back of the boat. Bowm-chicka-wowm-wowm! Laughing

I, on the other hand, escaped the pearl necklace until my number 63, which was quickly followed by numbers 64, 65 and 66. Embarassed

If we had stayed focused on fishing for yellow perch from the start, we would have each easily tallied 100 post-photo yellow perch. I got my 100th as the sun began to fall low on the horizon to the west and the moon rose in the sky to the east. Mark called "Just One More" on himself after he had tallied 95 and got excited when he hooked into what he thought was his 96th. At the start of the day, we never would have thought that he'd be disappointed to boat his second largemouth bass of the year Rolling Eyes

:

Running out of the canal and upriver in the quickly fading light was a little bit creepy. Although we could clearly see the flashing light of the 53 green channel marker in the gloom, I couldn't spot the unlighted red 52 channel marker until we were within 50 yards of it. By the time we hit the ramp at 8:00 pm, it was dark. We were tired and cold, and our hands were beat. In the end, including the yellow perch that I had photographed, Mark caught 106 yellow perch to my 101. He also got two largemouth bass and one chain pickerel, but I got one largemouth bass, six black crappie and one northern pike. We caught mostly panfish, but we each caught 109 fish! Shocked

Like I said, we had a blast. Cool

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

Excellent report Phil! Awesome job on the perch guys! Nice crappie Phil! Nice pickerel Mark!

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

Oops!

I just re-read my report and saw that Mark actually caught 106 yellow perch. I forgot to count the one he caught with the pink tube jig. So, at the end of the day, we each caught 109 fish! Very Happy

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Fishin'Fireman · Joined: 15 May 2012 Posts: 122 Location: Simsbury

Looks like a great day, multiple fish, multiple species, good stuff!
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sbehuniak09 · Joined: 10 Jul 2012 Posts: 229 Location: Seymour, CT

Sounds like an incredible day. I love catching a ton of fish even if they're not big!
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The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad. ~A.K. Best

Gary p · Joined: 22 May 2010 Posts: 16

nice day, too bad the schoolies weren't in there hammering all that bait!

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

RaMPaGeBaSsMaN · Joined: 02 Feb 2008 Posts: 100 Location: West hartford

Awesome report great day of fishing and great variety!
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mep21 · Joined: 01 Mar 2011 Posts: 65 Location: West Hartford, CT

On cold weather days like this, I'll take whatever is biting. I'm pretty sure Phil felt the same way because I sat through quite a few of his broken self promises of

"Once I get to 24 I'll stop.......ok 40........I swear at 60 I'm going to tie on something else.......ok 100 " Laughing

Can't wait to go out on the water without long underwear and a heavy coat! Isn't it supposedly spring?

angry john · Joined: 30 Jun 2012 Posts: 119

Over a hundred each is a hard day to beat. Glad you fella's had such a bang up day. Guessing i should switch to a smaller bait to increase my luck!!!!

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

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

DCAJ · Joined: 04 Jun 2012 Posts: 76 Location: Berlin, CT

Good job catching all those fish. That's 200 more fish more than I caught that day.

I stuck with jigs and swimbaits for bass or pike and got nothing.

I didn't stay too long, my motor stopped and had to use my trolling motor to get back.

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

mep21 · Joined: 01 Mar 2011 Posts: 65 Location: West Hartford, CT

Hey I can't help it Phil, the perch just find me far more attractive Razz