anyone been to the quabbin yet

[e-sea-e]

wondering what the water temps were, specificaly in and around the coves and main lake area near gate 43.

thanks!

[ssully]

e-sea-e,

Saturday morning out of gate 8 the water was reading 42 degrees.

Picked up 5 salmon, 3 on flies 2 on spoons just under the surface.

[e-sea-e]

hey sully I have been thinking about heading out there this weekend for smallmouth, but with the temps that low I may wait a week. I have always wanted to try a salmon trip out to the quabin, but I have no idea how to fish for them. I am assuming you trolled the spoons slow, and maybe the flies too. can you give me some advice on what methods work the best and what the better lures are?

I would be running a 14 grummand with a 7.5 HP motor and a 45lb thrust trolling motor with fish/depth finder.

Keep in mind I am a complete newbie to this fishery. Feel free to PM me. Thanks!

Eric

[ssully]

Hi Eric,

No problem. We went out of gate 8 and picked up 5 salmon in under 4 hours trolling. Three on flies (gray ghost tandem) and two on lures (T-spoons bright yellow w/brown & spots).

The salmon are still on top to just under the surface. I was using a 325 gr. Cortland QD line on my 9wt. For lakers you'll have to go to the bottom with shiners. Either with weights and still fishing or trolling with downriggers.

You can troll shiners for salmon as well. If you stop at Flag's Flies on 202 just off of route 2 he has the rigs you need. It's essentialy a 6' leader with a treble hook on the end that goes in the shiners butt hole and the front hook (single) is hooked in the shiners lower jaw. Just add a few small split shot to vary the depth. Gate 8 bait will carry them as well.

Almost forgot the water is 10' above normal, at least until they decide to open the flood gates.

Here is a link to another board that I posted a few years back regarding this subject. I hope RT doesn't have a problem with this if so apologies in advance.

http://www.flyfishsaltwaters.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=000251&p=#000000

Hope this helps. Good luck and let me know how you do.

[Soundking]

ssully,
That thread just taught me a ton on salmon fishing in the big lakes...thanks for the link! In feburary on those warm days, I had fairly consistent salmon fishing in white's on kastmasters...if I had my waders I know a fly would have been much more effective. It was cool to watch them do their thing...it was very much so sight casting too. They would cruise along the edges of the ice (there was about 60 feet between the shore and the ice) and you could see them swirl on something, or poke their heads up almost like they were rising. I would wait until they came around the point to me, make an educated blind after roughly calculating their rate of travel and within two casts I would have fish just follow it and check it out literally right to my feet. It seemed like if you really sped it up when they got on it, they would crush it. Salmon rock!

E, we should get there at sunup and fish for the salmon in the AM...like I told you man, salmon are so much cooler than bass!

[e-sea-e]

JJ, i think the plan for sat will be to see what the bass are doing around gate 43 first, as I need to see where the lake is at for the bass so I can figure out when they will really be getting into prespawn/spwn patterns and plan to go back. then we'll head to gate 8 to troll for salmon. give me a shout and we'll plan it out.