[PECo]

I fished Hanover Pond for the first time, today, with jbrown815 (aka Jason). He had the day off from work and had never fished from a kayak, so I loaded two kayaks onto my Saab and met him at Habershon Field. When we launched at 8:00 am, the air was cold, the sky was sunny and there was little to no wind. The water was murky and cold. Jason paddled La Calabaza and I paddled El Habañero. We headed clockwise around the pond. I had a buzzbait and a wacky rigged five inch Senko tied on. Jason threw a Texas rigged four inch Senko. When I got to the dam on the southeast end of the pond about 35 minutes after we launched, the wacky Senko got me the first fish of the day, which was an eight inch largemouth bass:



About 10 minutes later on the south end of the east shore, Jason boated the first keeper, which was a 12 inch largemouth:



Sorry about the blurry photo, Jason. We worked our way around the shallow east shoreline for another 45 minutes before we decided to try something else. Jason tied on a Rapala and boated a decent yellow perch on his second cast toward the middle of the pond. I swapped my buzzbait out for a Rapala and we began paddling toward the west shore, where the Quinnipiac River enters the pond. However, I stopped when we were in the middle of the pond near Habershon Field, because I could see the well defined edge of a weedbed and couldn't stop myself from throwing the wacky Senko at it. A fish picked it up off of the bottom on the first cast and I knew that it was a decent largemouth when it began to tow El Habañero around. It was 17 inches long and weighed three pounds, two ounces:



The wacky Senko also got me a decent yellow perch:



As we continued to work our way to the west end of the pond, I had two keeper largemouth spit the wacky Senko before I could boat them. I also spotted a few decent sized carp. The water got clearer as we approached the mouth of the river. The weeds disappeared from the bottom after we entered the river channel and so did the fish. We paddled under the bridge and about 25 yards up the river before we turned around. When we got back to the main body of the pond, we saw that Fishface (aka Tim) had arrived. Again. He had actually showed up at 11:30 am, but discovered that he had lost his paddle. He left to buy a paddle at Dick's before coming back at about 12:45 pm. After Tim joined us, we headed across a wide area of shallow weeds to the north shore of the pond, where I found a school of short largemouth. Out of the five that I boated, only one was a keeper and it was barely 12 inches long:



A little way down the shore to the west, Tim boated a 15 inch largemouth:



At this point, it was 2:00 pm, and I decided that I would throw a weighted Texas rigged Baby Brushhog into the weedbeds in front of Habershon Field. As I slowly made my way over there, I got only a few yellow perch nibbles on the Baby Brushhog. Jason had to leave at 3:00 pm, but Tim and I stayed out on the water. I picked up a 12 inch keeper largemouth in the shallows next to the parking lot at Habershon Field, but with the wacky Senko and not the Baby Brushhog:



I made my way back over to the dam, where I got a 16 inch, two pound, 14 ounce largemouth with the wacky Senko:



Soon after, Tim pulled up a short largemouth and I got a 13 inch, one pound, two ounce keeper:



At this point, I had caught all of my fish with a slowly fished wacky Senko. The largemouth had picked it up off of the bottom and the perch had gotten it on the retrieve. I decided to try a Rat-L-Trap and, sure enough, it got me another yellow perch:



As the sun began to drop down in the sky, we headed back toward the dam:



I boated a short largemouth right before Tim got a 16 inch, two pound, five ounce largemouth:



We got off of the water just before 7:00 pm. By that time, the air temperature had dropped dramatically and we were both pretty cold. I ended up boating eleven largemouth, of which only five were keepers, and four or five yellow perch. After not fishing all week, it felt great to get back out on the water. And even after 11 hours on the water, I'm hoping to get back out again tomorrow.
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[slim2043]

Nice job out there! I find ponds like Hanover and Batterson, throwing a crankbait will always land you perch more often than bass and throwing the soft plastics will get you more bass.
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[JohnJ]

Thats my home pond, nice to see some decent bass which have eluded me recently. Careful though, the giant carp have been known to flip kayaks and smaller canoes.....

[DirtyDawg10]

Nice job guys!

[PECo]

Tim - The yellow perch kept pulling my wacky five inch Senko around, so I told Tim to tie on a curly tail grub jig and pull up the little suckers. He actually did and boated half a dozen little yellow perch in the channel between the weedbeds in front of Habershon Field. Between me, Jason and Tim, we could have had a stringer of eight or nine decent (i.e., 10+ inch) yellow perch. The perch in the photo on my Hawg Trough went into full defensive posture; it raised all of its fins and puffed it's gill plates out.

JohnJ - After the adventure that Tim and I had with his snag hooked carp at Batterson Park Pond the other night, I'm hoping that I'll snag hook one, too. I think that I had more fun with the carp than Tim!
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[slim2043]

That's pretty much where I have caught all my perch there... Guess they don't move around too much.
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[jbrown815]

Perch are better than nothing. I still had a good time and would enjoy going out again. There or otherwise. PECo promised to get me a bigger bass...I'm planning on making him fulfill that

[PECo]

I showed you how to wacky rig a five inch Senko. That'll definitely get you a bigger bass.
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[jbrown815]

I looked for your o-ring tool at dicks...no luck. I'm nervous rigging that way without.the o ring for extra support... :-/

[CatDaddy]

peco, you use the o ring so the hood dosent tear the senko? that does not take away from the natural action? im curious couse i run through senkos like you wouldnt beleive!
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CatDaddy

[PECo]

I still run through Senkos like you wouldn't believe, but at a much slower rate now. Largemouth bass don't seem to care about how it looks. The action on the sinking Senko with the hook through the o-ring might even be better than it is with the hook through the Senko. Plus, since the hook is totally exposed, I rarely miss a fish that bites. I was surprised/shocked/flabbergasted/incredulous when the two keepers spit the hook. That rarely happens.
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