[PECo]

I fished Keeney Cove with TurtleKiss (aka Kira), today, from 10:45 am to 6:00 pm. From the flow of the water through the culvert under Point Road, we caught the tail end of the outgoing tide. Kira motored around in Dinghbat and I pedaled The Other Woman. There were only scattered clouds in the clear blue sky and it wasn't really that cold. It probably went from the low 50's to the low 60s while we were on the water. The water temperature ranged from 53 to 56 degrees and it was extremely murky. It looked like a cappucino; I could see my lure down only less than a foot. I had only two setups with me. I threw a Silver Pearl 2-1/2 inch Gulp! Minnow on a 1/16 ounce round jighead and a white 4 inch curlytail grub on a 1/8 ounce shakeyhead jighead. To make a long day short, we fished the middle cove, then the upper cove, then the middle cove, again, then the lower cove, then the Connecticut River just outside of the cove and then the lower cove, again. Here's the middle cove right after we launched:




Only 15 minutes after we launched, I caught a 17 inch, three pound, two ounce largemouth bass with the minnow jig:



And 10 minutes later, I got a sunny with it, too:



We didn't get any more hits in the middle cove, so we headed through the culvert under Route 3 to the upper cove. We decided to head upwind to the far north end of the upper cove, At low tide, the depth in the upper cove mostly ranged from only one to three feet. Here's a view of the upper cove from the north end, looking south :



We didn't get any hits at all in the upper cove, although we saw several splashes in the shallow water that we think were caused by carp, even though we never saw them in the murky water. We soon gave up and headed back to the middle cove, but struck out there, too. By this time, the slack low tide was just beginning to turn and we headed over Point Road to the lower cove. At 3:30 pm, I caught a surprise with the grub jig:




It was an 18 inch northern pike. The water that was slowly starting to flow into the lower cove from the Connecticut was nice and clear; we could see the bottom three feet down. It definitely helped the bite, because I caught a short largemouth bass with the grub jig immediately after the pike:



And then 10 minutes later, I got another 18 inch pike with the grub jig:



And then 15 minutes later, I got another short largemouth bass with the grub jig:



Meanwhile, Kira, well, she'll have to tell you how she did:



Out in the Connecticut, I got a skinny 12 inch yellow perch with the grub jig:



I also had a close encounter with an approximately two pound smallmouth bass in the Connecticut, but it just grabbed the curly tail of the grub jig before swimming back down to the bottom. As we went back up the lower cove on our way back to Point Road, the grub jig got me two more short largemouth bass:




I had a great time on the water today. It was so much fun that I didn't realize it was already 6:00 pm when we got off of the water. Looking for fish sure beats hunting for eggs!
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[DirtyDawg10]

Not a bad day. Glad to see the bite is picking up over there.

[chuckc]

Nice report. Water looks really low from the pics, hopefully we get some rain this week.
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[SeaDog1]

Hi Phil,

WOW! Your on a hot streak !
Nice mix of fish!

I spent an hour at Woodcreek and Winchester yesterday to see if the Crappies have come into the shallows -> used small live minnows!
Nothing -> Not even a nibble!

Drove home by West Hill -> DEEP must have stocked the pond recently as trout were rising all over the boat basin.
Should be good there come "Opening Day".

SeaDog1

[PECo]

Compared to the flood stage levels we've seen recently, the water level is low, but I think that it's actually really high compared to its normal levels right now. At slack low tide, it came up to within a couple of feet of the bottom of the culvert that runs under Point Road. I saw DirtyDawg10 (aka Derek) paddle his kayak through there once. There's no way that he could do it now.
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[TurtleKiss]

Phil's white minnow/grub offerings definitely seem to work. I brought 5 casting setups, none suitable for throwing such light baits in heavy wind. I'll have to remember to dust off my trout rod and bring it to future windstorms.

Threw spinnerbaits most of the day...they've been working for me lately, elsewhere, in deeper water. I also tried jigs, various creature baits and worms. Spent a considerable amount of time trolling my homemade umbrella rig through the channel too. One pass picked up a mess of other people's fishing lines and 3 weights, 1.5-2 oz each. Cajun braid is some strong stuff. I also scored a firetiger Bomber from high up in a tree. Thank you to those of you who suck at casting.

No fish to report, but no complaints either. If anyone sees any bedding bowfin in the Hartford area coves, please PM me immediately with coordinates.
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Kira

*~ "Not everything about fishing is noble, reasonable and sane..." -Henry Middleton ~*

[fishfinder]

Phils out there fishing and you're out shopping!! Typical woman!!! LOL, Great report you two. I love going fishing and finding a bunch of stuff while Im there.
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and standing on the shore like an idiot!

[MarkO]

Great post guys!

[PECo]

Kira's absolutely right about needing the right setup to throw light lures effectively. When you throw a light 1/16 ounce minnow jig, you should use fluorocarbon line in order to get the jig to sink down in the water. I use 12 pound test P-Line Fluoroclear on my Shimano Stradic FI spinning reel. It's about the heaviest fluorocarbon line that I can use, because heavier test fluoro has a tendency to spring off of the spool on a spinning reel. With the cool temperatures and high winds that we had, I got two unrecoverable birdnests and had to cut off about 25 yards of line.

I forgot to mention that I had the 1/8 ounce curlytail grub jig tied onto 50 pound test PowerPro braided line. 1/8 ounce is just heavy enough to pull heavier test braided line down in the water, but after I lost the jig to a snag, I couldn't find my 1/8 ounce shakeyhead jigheads and used a 1/4 ounce shakeyhead jighead, instead. 1/4 ounce is plenty heavy enough to pull heavier test braided line down in the water, but you have to retrieve the jig a little faster to keep it from snagging on debris that's laying on the bottom.
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[snap fisher777]

When I fish at keeney cove i fish the actual round cove lake itself. Not the point road area. Is the actual lake itself the part you did not catch anything? In other words did you catch anything near the route 3 bridge?

[PECo]

No, we didn't get any bites near the Route 3 bridge, but there were a couple of fishermen who had bait under bobbers on the northwest shore of the middle cove and got at least one nice black crappie.

BTW, I saw more than one fisherman who had more than two lines in the water at Keeney Cove. Early in the day, I saw one fisherman on the shore who had four bobber lines in the water and was casting a fifth. I saw another fisherman in a boat who had two bobber lines in the water and was casting a third.

I told the fisherman on the shore who had five lines in the water that he was allowed only two and that the DEEP might confiscate his equipment if a Conservation Officer saw him. When I pedaled away, I warned him to pull his extra lines out of the water if he were to spot a green DEEP truck on Point Road. When I saw him a couple of hours later, he had been joined by a fishing partner and together they had only four bobber lines in the water. I never really considered calling the DEEP's TIP line, and felt almost vindicated when I saw that he had become compliant by adding a fishing partner and not casting the fifth line. What would you have done?
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[abe]

hey PECo i live right on keeney and i see that all the time down there. my self i wont do it nor will i ever. also if you dont mind could you up load a pic of what your two sets ups where so i can just see what they where hitting on.

[fishfinder]

I dont care about that as long as he;s not hogging an area where some others are also trying to fish and not keeping more then his or her share of fish. Maybe he doesn't get out much at all, doesnt have much time to stay out this day either and just wants to bring home a few fish so a few poles brings that chance to possible. I dont throw more then 2 myself and thats usually only when throwing chunks for blues or stripers and sitting back and relaxing in the sun or early in the morning after throwing plugs for 1 1/2 hours.
_________________
There's a fine line between fishing....

and standing on the shore like an idiot!

[snap fisher777]

PECo I fish near a thing that looks like a hut or something down at the cove. I would go down there sometimes. did you catch anything near that area?

[PECo]

I saw a hut on the east shore of the upper cove, just north of Route 3. Is that what you mean? If so, no, we didn't get a single bite near there or anywhere else in the upper cove. It was really, really shallow near there at low tide.
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