[PECo]

Although coastieyaker (aka Pete) headed home to spend the rest of Father's Day with his family after we fished at Scoville Reservoir in the morning and early afternoon, my kids are a lot older than Pete's two-year old, so mep21 (aka Mark) and I kept on fishing. We checked out Long Meadow Pond after we had a nice Father's Day linner/dunch at Smokin' with Chris in Southington. Neither of us had ever been to Long Meadow Pond before, so we had no idea where to launch our kayaks. We drove around the pond for a while, before finding roadside parking along Long Meadow Road, right on the northeast shore of the pond:



When we got on the water at 5:30 pm, there was just a slight south breeze. Mark didn't bother hooking up his fish finder, so I don't know what the water temperature was. The water was stained and slightly murky, with visibility down only about a foot. I didn't see any areas that appeared to be more than four feet deep. It's a very bassy looking pond:



Mark got our hopes up for more action than we had at Scoville Reservoir when he boated a small keeper largemouth bass with a Zoom Horny Toad on his first cast:



Unfortunately, however, the bite ended up being just as slow at Long Meadow Pond as it had been at Scoville Reservoir. At 5:55 pm, I got my first fish, which was just a short largemouth bass, with a wacky Senko:



We worked our way up to the culvert on the north end of the pond without much action. It wasn't until 6:30 pm that my LIVETARGET Hollow Body Frog was hit over some big shallow lily pads along the northeast shore. I went right back to the same spot with it, got a real bite and set the hook on what turned out to be the lunker largemouth bass:





Whoo Hoo! Although it was a solid 18 inches long, it weighed only two pounds, 11 ounces. I would normally expect an almost 19 inch long largemouth bass to weigh 3-1/4 pounds. Funny, it didn't look that skinny to me! I ended up heading down the southwest shore and fishing any laydowns I could find. At 7:11 pm, I threw my wacky Senko tight to a large branch and boated a chain pickerel:



I paddled to the other side of the branch and decided to see whether there were any more fish in the laydown, so I threw the wacky Senko right into the middle of it. I got a hit as soon as the Senko disappeared under the branches, but lost the fish and the Senko. At 7:16 pm, after I put another Senko on the hook, the breeze had pushed me back to the side from which I had gotten the chain pickerel, so I tossed the Senko about two feet away from the laydown. I got another hit as soon as the Senko hit the bottom and boated a 15 inch largemouth bass:



Whoo Hoo! The sweet thing about that fish is that it still had the Senko I had just lost in its mouth! Somehow, though, it managed to lose the O-ring. Anyway, I worked my way down the southwest shore until the sun began to set behind the clouds. Mark paddled over and we began heading up the northeast shore, back to the spot from which we had launched. Did I mention that it was a beautiful evening?:



At 8:01 pm, I caught my "Just One More" with the LIVETARGET frog:



It was just a 13 incher, but it sure is nice to catch a fish right before you get off of the water. Although the fishing was generally slow throughout the day, I have to say that I really enjoyed my Father's Day.
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[x182dan]

nice job guys!!!! Senko sam at it again! That spot you picked is the main launch point for long meadow. I was out on monday it was slowwww. Managed only a few.
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