[PECo]

My plan to go fishing with TurtleKiss (aka Kira) on Christmas Eve fell through, so we went on Boxing Day, instead. Since the water level in the Connecticut River is up, we considered checking out White Oaks (aka Crow Point Cove) from Wethersfield Cove or Hamburg Cove from Baldwin Bridge, but the wind was forecast to blow at up to 11 miles per hour out of the northeast, so the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Plant Canal seemed like it would probably provide the most shelter. Shelter from the wind was important, because the air temperature was forecast to stay in only the 30s. High tide in East Haddam was at 10:28 am and low tide was at 5:17 pm. We launched at Haddam Meadows in The Other Woman, Too just before 8:30 am:




Yeap, there was a little crunchy water at the ramp, but it was sunny and there was very little wind. We headed straight down to the mouth of the canal. After I shut down the big motor and dropped the trolling motor into the water, I noticed a little more crunchy water:



I started throwing a Pearl White three inch Berkley PowerBait Minnow on a 1/8 ounce round jighead. I would cast it over the shallows next to the channel, twitch it back to the channel and let it drop to the bottom. It turned out that the air temperature was 27 degrees and the water temperature was 32 degrees, which made casting a bit of a challenge:



We had to keep clearing ice from our rod guides as we worked our way up the canal. However, it wasn't long before we realized that the canal was totally frozen over with skim ice:



Kira decided to see whether she could retrieve a spinnerbait through it:



Um, that would be, "No", Kira :


Link

We didn't get a single nibble and didn't mark any fish with the fish finder. After we were stopped by the glacier in the canal, we decided to check out the Salmon River, instead. We saw a couple of guys at the Salmon River Boat Launch putting a trolling motor powered canoe into the water at the ramp, but they looked like they were going hunting, not fishing. We motored past them and headed into the little cove on the right side of the channel that's usually too shallow for bigger boats. It was three to four feet deep. I threw my minnow jig for a while, but didn't get any hits. Kira quickly tired of the shallow water, so we headed out of the cove and up to the flats:



As often seems to be the case, the flats were full of swans. We stopped at a bend in the channel on the southwest end to fish a point but, once again, we didn't get a single nibble and didn't mark any fish with the fish finder. We continued up to the mouth of the river and were greeted by more ice:



The laydown just outside the mouth of the river that produced a chain pickerel and two yellow perch for me the last time I was there didn't hold any fish, although Kira blew up the spot on her second cast with a perch patterned jerkbait when she casted over it, instead of next to it. When we headed into the river, the ice was thin enough for my trolling motor to power us through it. We fished laydowns on both sides of the channel, but didn't get any action. Kira actually took a social media break with her cell phone, while I continued to throw my minnow jig. When we got to the shallows at a bend in the channel at 11:10 am, I finally got a hit and boated the first fish. Kira took a photo, even though I know she was extremely jealous of my magnificent catch:



Whoo hoo! Yeap, it was just a yellow perch, but it was the first action we saw in over 2-1/2 hours. We enjoyed fishing in the full sun for a while. Kira even tried throwing one of my Powerbait Minnows, but couldn't locate my perch's wingman. As clouds began to roll in, we decided that we might as well check out Chapman Pond, too. I fired up the big motor and headed back down the river into the flats. We tried fishing around the channel again for a short while, but all that we caught was hair weed. So I fired up the big motor, again, and we headed out of the flats. Along the way, I spooked a bunch of swans, some of which kept pace with us as we headed down the channel toward the Connecticut River. Kira took a really nice photo of them:



We headed down the Connecticut River and arrived at the channel that leads into Chapman Pond at 12:30 pm:



We fished the water that was briskly flowing out of the channel on the way into the pond, but didn't get any action. When we got onto the pond, we were greeted by wonderfully still, liquid water. Here's the view to the west:



And here are the views to the north and south:



I tried to keep us on the drop off from the three to four foot deep shallows at the edges of the pond to the eight to 16 foot deep water in the middle as we circled clockwise around the pond with the trolling motor. Although the sun had totally disppeared behind a layer of clouds, it was really nice on the pond, because the air temperature rose to 32 degrees and the water temperature rose to 34 degrees before falling back down, again. No more frozen rod guides! Unfortunately, though, we marked very few fish with the fish finder and didn't get any action. At all. At about 2:00 pm, we gave up on the pond and decided to see whether the glacier in the canal had thawed. We motored into it at 2:25 pm:


Link

As we broke through the ice, the only open water we saw was underneath the trees at my crappie spot. I could tell that someone had been there recently, because there was a chartreuse curlytail grub hanging from one of the trees:



Although I worried we had spooked any fish that might have been holding there when we crashed up through the ice, at least one stuck around:



Kira netted the largemouth bass with a load of ice. It looked like we had just picked it up at a fishmarket! It was 15 inches long and had a full belly:



Kira took an artsy photo of me with it:



Whoo freakin' hoo! Although I wanted to explore further, there wasn't any more open water in sight up the canal:



We headed back down to fish the open water around the laydowns and the mouth of the canal. Although we didn't get any action at the laydowns, I caught a couple of yellow perch with the minnow jig at the mouth:




I snag hooked the last yellow perch in the anus. Yeap, I'm not kidding, in the anus. It looked like it had barely escaped being eaten earlier in the day, so I felt pretty bad about that. At 4:15 pm, I called "last cast". Surprisingly, Kira was ready to go, too, despite having to take the skunk with her:



We were off of the water as darkness fell at about 4:30 pm. I had thought that this would be my last open water outing for the year, but see a couple of relatively windless days in the five day weather forecast. I just might indulge in a little more open water snow fishing before the year ends.
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[SeaDog1]

Hi,

Good job guys !
Have to admire your tenacity to be out on the river on Boxing Day !

But I'm sure some of the fish where doing this:



Myself -> Fly Fished the upper Farmington this afternoon.
Caught 2 small feisty Browns abouit 13 inches each, (released).

Wind finally made me give it up and went to Riverton General for some hot chocolate.

Again -> glad you had a good day !

SeaDog1

PS: Get some "Stanley Ice Paste" to keep those guides ice free ! ....Works Great

[Redneckangler]

As usual, nice report Phil! I considered it on Boxing Day, but had heard from a duck hunter that Chapman's and the canal were skimmed over. Same with White Oaks I fear I may have to break down and try the ice fishing to get my fix. Went to Deerfield with the wife, sister-in-law and kids today. Had planned to fish the Deerfield River, but the weather was shitty. May hit the West Farmington Saturday. SD1, you're endless supply of fishing cartoons is great!
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Weekly reports from around CT, the LIS and beyond.

[PECo]

[SeaDog1]

[fishfinder]

Great to see others are nuts like me and don't cares out the weather outside and go. I went out last night but for the first time gave up after an hour despite catching a few. Wind wasn't bad at my house but a few miles away was way more then what I dressed for. I'm usually clad in many layers but under estimated this time.
_________________
There's a fine line between fishing....

and standing on the shore like an idiot!

[jimbojonez]

i'm trying to figure out imgur picture links and wanted to throw up my PB from Chapman pond ... such a beautiful body of water. a late thanks for this great report peco and kira. [img][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/AcCR9G1.jpg?1[/IMG][/img]

[fishfinder]

Nice fish!
_________________
There's a fine line between fishing....

and standing on the shore like an idiot!