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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing Article Summaries |
Fishin' in the Belgrades = Summertime Fun!
By Mike Guarino Hey, did you notice the sun came out on Saturday? It's been so long since I've seen it; I forgot what it looked like. The weather this summer has certainly been indifferent to the needs of vacationers and anglers alike! Mother Nature isn't always fair and obviously she's been in a pretty bad mood lately. As my kids would say, "What's up with that?" But there is good news on the horizon and fishermen are going to take advantage, we just needed to pay our dues last week. In addition to all the rain, I was surprised to find the water temperatures dip so quickly, dropping from 82° all the way to 71° in about ten days. That's pretty significant. On August 10, I put my boat in at dawn and had to wear a winter hat to keep my forehead from freezing while zipping down lake. Sometimes you can feel fall in the air during August, but forcing me to wear my winter Patriots hat is pushing the limits! The amount of rain that's fallen in the last few weeks has done more than wreak havoc on people's docks and shore frontage; it's played with the minds of anglers too. However, there are some positives that can be taken from high water levels. First, all this water has to flow somewhere, meaning streams and brooks that flow into the local lakes are really rocking. The heavily flowing water creates a lot of oxygen and the bait and game fish in the lake will find the flows. Fishing the confluence where a brook meets the main lake can be very productive right now. Keep in mind that in August anglers are usually searching out deep-water humps, thermocline layers or shady spots that might hold fish. This year is totally different. Another positive aspect of all this rain relates directly to bass fishermen. When the water levels rise and heavy rain creates run-off, it washes a lot of worms, salamanders, grubs and other gross critters into the lake. While the fishing has been tricky lately, fishing plastic worms and salamanders near shorelines with heavy run-off has been successful. On last Thursday's trip the smallmouth fishing was so-so to say the least. The worm bite was fine, but we were catching way too many small bass, which can happen this time of year. The bigger bass were suspended over deeper water and we didn't want to troll. So we switched to tubes and jigs and hit some 10-15 foot sunken rock piles and humps. It didn't take long to find some bigger smallies. We had to work for them, but they were there and enough fish cooperated to make it a fun morning. The interesting thing about that trip was that almost every single bass we hooked barfed up a crayfish or had a crayfish still in its mouth. During this time of year, fishing tubes or live crayfish can save the day sometimes. If you find yourself catching lots of small bass in an area that usually produces decent fish, try sliding your boat out to the nearest deepwater structure. You'll need to be patient, but there are bigger fish out there. TURKEYS! Have you noticed that recently there are flocks of wild turkeys everywhere? We saw 22 birds on Route 27 last week and another flock of 18 walking through the cemetery on 135. All this rain has had a positive impact this amazingly ugly but cunning bird. The rain has brought a lot of worms and grubs to the surface and the turkeys are "stuffing" themselves worse than my buddy Mike eating a Day's Store Italian Sandwich. I'm sure the birds are happy for the easy meal because they had a very difficult winter in '08. Good luck this coming week (stay safe and dry!). Mike Guarino can be contacted at | ||
