CTFishTalk.com: East Twin Lake 06/14 and 06/15 - 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, had its tournament at Twin Lakes on Sunday. My tourney partner, rmflint (aka Ryan), is out of the country, so I planned to fish with my buddy Sam, who's a ringer, because Twin Lakes are his home lakes.

The only day I had to pre-fish was on Saturday, so I went with Daryl (aka Daryl), who had been living out of state for the last several years and whom I hadn't yet seen since he moved back to Connecticut. We decided to make a leisurely day of it and just fun-fish. As usual, the fun-fishing rules are:

1) You get one point for catching a largemouth or a smallmouth bass; and

2) You get minus one point for catching a rock bass (aka rocky).

When we launched at 9:40 am, it was already sunny. The water was mostly clear, but had that almost fluorescent, pale green tinge that seems to happen shortly after they put herbicide into a lake to kill the weeds. In most spots, we could see the bottom at least 10 feet down. The water temperature hung between 80 and 82 degrees. I don't like squeezing through the shallow culverts into West Twin, so we only fished East Twin.

I figured that the bass were probably holding deeper (e.g., eight to 12 feet deep), so we started by jigging and drop-shotting the submerged hump at the end of the point in the middle of East Twin. We didn't get even a nibble from anything, which really sucks when you're just fun-fishing, so we decided to just bang docks and shallow cover with weightless, wacky-rigged, five-inch, Green Pumpkin with Red Flake Senkos. It was sunny, anyway, so shade is a good thing to fish.

I'm a little hazy on the details of the day, because we were talking and catching up about the last several years, but I got off to a fast start. I was plus one with a nice 2-3/4 pound largemouth, then even with a rocky, then plus one with a small keeper largemouth, then even with a rocky, etc., while Daryl just hung even with, well, nothing at all. Finally, he hooked into a fish and caught a rocky, so he started off at minus one.

Three hours into the day, I hooked into a two pound largemouth that came out from underneath a floating dock. While Daryl was asking me whether I wanted him to net it, he noticed that his line was moving and that he had hooked into one, too. Double! And his fish was bigger than mine, so he got back to even with a 2-1/4 pounder!

About an hour before we got off the water at 2:40 pm, it was pretty hot, so Daryl decided to grab a cold drink and something to eat out of his cooler bag. When he opened it up, I couldn't believe what he had in there:

Yeap, Daryl brought not only a banana, but Banana Boat Sunscreen onto my boat. After that, it came as no surprise that the third and final fish Banana Boy caught was a rocky, so he ended the day at minus one. Meanwhile, I was at plus one, before I caught rocky, rocky, rocky, so I ended the day at minus two! Gee, thanks BANANA BOY!

Seriously though, our five-fish bag would have weighed just over 10 pounds, which isn't bad for a five-hour day of mostly banging docks while just fun-fishing.

After we got off the water, we stopped by Sam's place. That's when he told me that he wouldn't be able to fish the tourney with me on Sunday. Luckily, Daryl was free and agreed to sub for my sub. Whoo hoo!

The weather forecast for Sunday's tourney looked a little sketchy:

However, Weather Underground had it completely wrong. The sky was cloudy when we launched in the morning, but we ended up with full sun after it rained lightly for about 10 minutes at about 7:30 am. And it got HOT! I usually don't hydrate while I'm fishing, but I drank two 16 ounce cans of coconut water during the day and sweated all of it out.

We began our tourney day by hitting the docks in the area where we had caught the double the day before, but there was no sign of life for about an hour. Then, we began catching rock bass, but I also caught a small 1-1/4 pound largemouth to get us on the board. Whoo hoo!

After a long spell of absolutely nothing and then the rain, we began catching rockies. And one of the rockies spat up the smallest lobster tail I've ever seen:

After catching only more rockies, we headed to the other, shadier side of the lake. I continued to bang cover on the shore (e.g., laydowns, boulders and overhanging tree branches) with a Senko, while Daryl drop-shotted with a four-inch Roboworm in the deeper water on the other side of the boat.

After a cast into the shade between two overhanging tree branches, I felt the familiar tick-tick-tick of a panfish nibble as I twitched my Senko off of the bottom. As I pulled it out from underneath the branches and leaves, I told Daryl that I had gotten a panfish nibble and had missed the fish, but then I felt weight on the line. But it didn't feel like a panfish! After chanting, "Please be a bass! Please be a bass! Please be a bass!", we saw that it was an even smaller keeper largemouth than the first one I had caught. It probably weighed only one pound, but, hey, that's two keepers in the livewell. Whoo hoo!

We fished around the docks where I had caught the 2-3/4 largemouth the day before, but got nothing, not even rockies. So, Daryl suggested that we try fishing the hump at the end of the point where we had gotten nothing the day before, and, wouldn't you know it, I caught what looked like a 2-1/4 pound largemouth with a drop-shot, four-inch, Pearl White, Powerbait Minnow in the weeds on the bottom in about eight feet of water. At this point, we had three keepers in the livewell after four hours of fishing. Although we had no clue as to any pattern to follow, we had 60 percent of a full, five-fish bag only 50 percent of the way through the eight-hour tourney day, so we were still pretty hopeful.

To make a long story short, the rest of our day sucked. We both caught a lot of fish. Shallow water produced small rockies and small chain pickerel. Deeper water produced large rockies and large pickerel. And catching large pickerel with a drop-shot SUCKS! They twist and tangle drop-shot rigs so badly that you have to cut them off and re-tie. Ugh!

At the weigh-in, we learned that we were the only boat out of five that didn't come in with a full bag. The two boats that had spent most of the day in West Twin caught tons of largemouth, but they all weighed about two pounds. The two other boats, besides us, that had spent most or all of the day in East Twin had caught their fish by sticking to deeper water, but, like us, couldn't articulate much of a pattern.

So, we sucked butt. However, I also have to say that we sucked, BUT. . . .

Yes, we came in last place out of five boats. And, yes, we had only a three-fish bag, while all four of the other boats had full, five-fish bags. But we enjoyed a "NO F#@%ING WAY!" moment when we learned that our little, two pound, five ounce lunker was the tourney lunker! Whoo hoo!

Anyways, after I drained my livewell, I found that we had left an ounce or two in it:

That's an orconectes virilis, which appears to be the dominant species of crayfish (aka crawfish aka crawdad aka mudbug) in Twin Lakes. Strangely, neither Daryl nor I got any bites when we threw crayfish jigs. Go figure.
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Don't forget to wear sunscreen and don't litter!

senecak · Joined: 26 Jun 2018 Posts: 5

Nice report! Can’t believe that was lunker. No wonder everyone comes to Congamond.

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