Conference wahoo::fishing

    YO, 
        sloooooooooooow is the word. Rubber worms and grubs have been
    producing for me being worked reeeeeeeeal slooooooow. The water
    levels here in Mass. are better after all the rain we had.
    
                                                  NIGHTCRAWLER~~~~~~~~~

    For me the fishing in my favorite spots have been great in the heat.
    I know that it is suppose to be the oppisite but its not.  I have
    been doing most of my fishing very early or around dusk and in to
    the evening.  Dead worming and dead GITZITING ( if their is such
    a thing) has been great.  I put 11 in the boat on sunday!!
    
    GOT TO GO FISHING 
    HAVE A NICE WEEKEND 
    
    Les

    
    		10-4, GOOD BUDDY.  I agree that fishing in Mass. this
    
    	year has been great.  Check the chinese calendar, it must be
    
    	the year of the fish.  I've caught more of and bigger fish this
    
    	year than the last 3 combined.
    
    						THE SHARK

    Look Out Ya'll!!!!!
    
    It's actually the year of the Dragon. Get one of those fire breathing
    things on your line and you're in for a fight. :^)
    
    Hawaii-Harry
    

    	Don't know about all you out east, but the rain here is the
    royal pits.  Brings the water temperature down and drives the fish
    deep.  Give me some SUN and HEAT.  Let the fish come back up.  I'm
    getting tired of worms etc.

    
    After I pumped the last accumulated rainfall out of my bilge, the
    river level went right back up to normal ;-).
    
    I too am having one of my better summers after a sloooooow start.
    The bass have been at least as plentiful as prior years and bigger.
    
    I canoed the Housatonic saturday morning from New Lenox to Lenoxdale
    Mass. and caught a half dozen bass from 1-4 pounds.  The water
    was comfortably high all the way to the dam we almost went over.
    
    Nice trip by the way; saw a great blue heron, deer, and someone's
    abandoned pet goldfish grown big (dozens of foot long goldfish in
    the river).  The bummer was the signs along the bank warning you
    to catch and release due to *** Polychlorinated Bisexuals *** in
    the water.  I caught a few BIG yellow perch that would have otherwise
    made good eating.
    
    Bottom Line:  I think the water is at normal levels after the rains
    and if the temp. is above normal it hasn't hurt the bassin'; quite
    the opposite in fact.                                
    
    Steve

YO Steve,
             Polychlorinated bisexuals?! Is that some kind of runoff
    stream that dumps into your river from P-TOWN rendering it unsafe?
    WOW! Whats the story?
                             ps; agreed, the Bassin' is as good or better
                                 than previous years in Mass. Thanks
                                 for turning your bilge on. The water
                                 levels in the Blackstone Valley where
                                 I mainly fish went up 2 feet.....
       
                         NIGHTCRAWLER~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Trolling in Narragansett Bay this year is APPALLING. Everyone says
    that this is the worst year for fish in well over a decade. We've
    fished for about 5 weekends without a strike.
    
    Tally-ho,
    
    Ray

    Just wait until the water starts to cool. The fish will appear and
    they will be HUGE!
    
     The Doctah

    Hey Doctah,
           The last few times out, since the water temp has dropped
    about 10 degrees (for those of you not in New England our heat wave
    broke a couple of weeks ago with a blast of cool wet air from CANADA)
    the Bass I have been catching are FAT.  The ones I have caught are
    not real big in length but the bellies on them are real fat.  I
    guess the famous fall feeding frenzie will be starting soon.  I
    have read all about the great fishing the fall has to offer, but
    for me fall is just about the slowest time of the year for fishing.
    I would really appreciate all and any advice on improving my fall
    fishing.
    
    Les  

    Sure les look for help before the oct first tourny.  Tell you all
    about fall fishing at 4:00 pm on the 1st!
    
    Bassin Bob
    

    
    That's the spirit Bob!
    

    Hell all those people shoot their mouths off how they are such
    great fisherman and they will kick everyone's A**, then you see
    them asking for all the hits on fall fishing..  And boy it will
    be fall on oct1 on that lake!!  
    
    I will be glad to tell them anything they want to know after the
    tournament.  I just might come to this without a partner!!
    
    Bassin Bob
    

    
    
    	I have read/heard to "look" for a particular thermal line during
    	the hot days of summer and fish that depth.   I was looking for
    	that article to refresh my memory...does anyone know what the
    	heck that temperature is....I recall it to be 72 degrees.
    
    	Appreciate the help.......
    
    	Gitzit'
    
    	
    
    
    

    
           Yoo gitzit...
    
                Long time no see ..:^)  Anyway i feel there is no "magical 
           temp" example 72 deg. What i belive you have to look for is
           usually between 10 and 25 feet deep the temperature will begin
           to drop much more rapidly, falling perhaps 5 to 6 deg. within
           a fairly short distance. This is were you want to fish...i've
           got more info about this condition i'll leave on you chair. If
           anybody else is intrested send me mail.
    
                                                        kiver

    I believe this is known as the "thermocline", where the water temp
    takes a big drop of several degrees. Apparently the oxygen content
    is higher than in the warmer water above, making it more comfortable
    for the fish. Some fish are more sensitive to this than others (like
    trout and salmon).
    
    Ed

re: thermoclines

A few weeks back FFF (Chris Fletcher) and I had checked the water temps at
Pawtuckaway while pre-fishing for the tourney.  We were picking fish up on
worms & grubs at 10-12'.  When we tested the water temps, the surface was
almost 80 degrees while the temp was 72 degrees at 10-12 feet.  Dropping the
temp probe below 12' revealed a 4-5 degree drop to about 67 degrees (falling
off to 50 degrees at 25') thus indicating a thermocline.  It made sense as
almost all our fish were coming out of the 10-12 foot range. 

On the day of the tourney, water temps hadn't changed.  Our only concern was 
that a healthy cold front had passed throught the area the night before (air 
temps dropped from 93 to 65 degrees in 15 minutes!).  Despite the front, we 
were still marking fish at the same 10-12' depths, holding off drop-offs.  
So...our strategy was that the cold front apparently didn't seem to have 
much affect on these deeper fish, so we proceeded to fish the same pattern 
as the day we pre-fished.  

We went fish-less for the first 3 hours!  Despite marking fish on the LCR
and using every finesse technique we could think of, we were unable to land
a keeper (yea...we did catch a few dinks).  Finally, we changed our strategy
and headed to the shallows (much against our better judgement as surface
temps were 79-81 degrees).  In the next 4 hours we landed 7 keepers and lost
several others, all one top-water baits. 

So what's the moral of this story??  I dunno.  Except sometimes the fish 
just aren't where all the books and magazine articles say they should be.  
Temperature and pH probes and Color-C-Lectors all serve their purpose, but 
sometimes good ole instinct works better!

-HSJ-

Re: .16
    
	There are also 'thermobar's where the stratification has a vertical
axis as apposed to a horizontal one. Thermobars may be visibly detectable
by a debris line where flotsam is 'stacked up' on the windward side of the
denser water.

	The temperature variation within a short range also allows the colder
water game fish easy access to warmer water bait fish. Thermoclines and bars
tend to concentrate micro-organisms when the variation in water density is
sufficient making them attractive to bait fish.

					j_w_f_w_t_w_m_t_w_b_t_w_i_h_(ma)

    
    Thanks for the comments so far...and I have another input.
    
    	Out of the Field and Stream magazine I read an article that spoke
    	to this topic.  Although what was said about the temperature 
    	drops was in this article, it added that the cooler water cannot
    	hold as much oxygen and the fish will choose a higher temp water
    	with greater oxygen content.  It was also added that this mainly
    	held true when little sun would penetrate the water since the
    	fish were sensitive to the ultra-violet rays.
    
    	So the bottom line of this article was that during cloudy or 
    	high humidity days....fish the weeds regardless of water 
    	temperature.
    
    	Gitzit'
    

    Re .19>
    	I respectfully dissagree with the basic premise expressed in the
    preceeding reply. Cold water holds more oxygen than warm water.
    Paul

 Thanks, Paul. I was just gonna say that.

    
    
    
    	Paul....you are correct....the article stated that the plant
    	life was producing great amounts of oxygen so that the
    	result was that there was more oxygen than with the cooler
    	water.....
    
    	Geez................I can't even read straight..
    
    	Gitzit'
    
    

    
    
       gitzit tell them about that "2.5lb" monster you cought saturday
     morning fishing with me...wooops!!! was it 3.5lb ???? :^)  ha ha
     
                                                      great job/ nice fish
    
                                                               kiver
    

    Now that the 90 degree temp cycle in Mass has broke how did
    everyone do fishing in this high heat?
    
    I basically went shallow (less than 5 feet) with heavy cover, lily
    pads and heavy milfoil.  Using the sluggo and grass frog nailed quite a
    few 1 1/2 to 2 lb largemouths.  In all cases but one, each was caught by
    casting right to the very edge and dropping the lure straight down.  I
    also only went out from 4:30-8 AM and from 7-8 Pm.
    
    How about the rest of you, did any of you have luck going deep, if so
    what lure did you use?  Did anyone catch during the heat of day 12-2PM? 
    
    
    Brian

Deep??

If you call 25-40' down deep, well...I guess you can say I was fishing deep 
over the weekend for smallies.  I used a 1/4 oz smoke/black flake and smoke/red 
flake 4" grub on 8# test line.  It took 4-e-v-e-r to get to the bottom...like 
plenty of time to light up a smoke and grab a brew.

Action??

I've seen better, but we picked up a few in the 2-3 # range.  As much as I 
had hoped that there would be topwater action in the evening (the water was 
like glass), they remained either deep or uninterested.

-HSJ-

    I spent the another weekend on the noethern most sections of the
    Merrimack.  Fishing rivers is a way to beat the heat.  Rivers are 
    less affected buy weather changes.  My usual river patterns performed
    as expected even though the air temp was high - and the river 
    was a little warmer than normal.  
    
    -donmac

    
    
       Haven't had much time lately to do alot of fishing, 1 hour here and
    there.  I've picked up a few 1 - 2lb. bass and 1 3 1/2 lb.  Been using
    Mann's Shadow, jig/plastic craw, and plastic worms.  Hope to get out
    this week and do some early morning anglin'.
    
    Bear
    
    

    
    
    	I have been using a floating rapala...4" [?]...right at dusk.
    	Toss that baby...and....wait.  The fish WILL NOT touch it if
    	it is moving.  That seems strange.
    
    	I am fishing in about 6-8 feet of water...with plenty of weeds.
    
    	The fishing has been slow to moderate at dusk, the other times of
    	the day even slower.
    
    	Worming has produced little and gitzits have been worse. 
    	UNBELIEVABLE.
    
    	Gitzit'
     
    

	Talk about being hot........My club had a tourney last weekend in N.H.
and the heat was brutal....BUT, we caught fish, not deep but 6-12ft for 
SMALLIES...Rock piles where just loaded with fish.... If you stayed 20-30 ft
away they would hit just about anything, the best for us was a 4" worm on a
1/16oz ball jig....We also caught 4 smallies in the 2-3 lb range with a
chartruse spinner bait in 20 ft of water, buzzin it a foot under the surface 
this was first thing in the morning. But, I also caught one at 1:00 o'clock 
in the afternoon in 4 ft of water doing the samething. How do you figure?
Why weren't they DEEP???

Bigbird 
    
    

    Like DonMac, I head for the rivers when the mercury rises.  I was in
    the Berkshires last week - I figured I'd be getting some relief from
    the Tennessee heat.  Hah!  I spent one unproductive morning at
    Pontoosuc Lake before I picked up a canoe (Courtesy of this file and
    Frank Fontaine).  I spent the rest of the week on the Housatonic river
    (or at least as much of the week as my wife would allow) and couldn't
    have done better.  I like fishing rivers best to begin with - they're
    easier to read.  A river fish is looking for a) oxygen b) food 
    c) current relief and d) temperature.  If you can put 3 of these
    together, you usually get fish.
    
    I continue to be amazed at the diversity and quality of the Housatonic
    fishery.  And this place is practically abandoned!  Normally, I'd keep
    the best fishing spots to myself, but seeing as I don't live close, I'd
    like to see more people use this great resource.  I never saw another
    boat, and at the put in/ take out I never saw more than one other
    vehicle in 4 days.
    
    Now, none of these fish was a hawg but few weren't keepers either. 
    And, not just bass (although >50% were).  I caught huge yellow perch,
    pickerel, chunky panfish (mostly rock bass) and laregmouth up to 3#.
    I even caught a couple stocker trout in riffles here and there.  
    The best largemouth was the one I didn't catch.  I was reeling in a
    jig/grub and lifting it from the water to recast when a big bass leapt
    out of the water after the grub right at the boat.  The grub was at
    least 2 feet over the river and the bass only made it about 18" of the
    way.  If the angle had been different, he would have landed in the
    canoe.  In the midst of all this peace and tranquility, it scared the
    !@#$%^&* out of me.  Good thing the river was deserted, considering the
    loud obscenity that passed my lips.
    
    Anyone looking for more info on this place should send mail to
    MSDOA::CUZZONE.  I'd be happy to give directions and share a couple hot
    spots.
    
    -SSS-

    Last weekend I caught three 2-3# smallmouth bass on worms suspended 6
    feet below the surface in 12 feet of water. I was at the tail end of
    their feeding time in that spot both times.