A Week of Smallmouth, Shad, Trout and more!

This past week I took an early morning to spend a few hours on the lower Hammond to see if I could catch a few sea run trout.   Unfortunately, I didn't catch any, but I did manage to catch Yellow Perch, a small smallmouth, and a gaspereaux.    The gaspereaux being on the river usually indicates that the best time for sea run trout has passed on that section.   It also means the shad are probably passed as well, as the gaspereaux usually come in after the shad.

After the very late winter, it seems, at least to me, that the trout and shad seasons are passing us by fairly quickly.    I wonder if late winters typically mean shorter seasons on those species?  

So with this in mind I took off to another local spot on Friday morning looking for pickerel.   While the only pickerel I spotted were dancing in the flooded bushes, not interested in my lures, I did have my personal best smallmouth day ever in kayak!    Note, I easily admit I'm very raw when it comes to smallie fishing, so the catch may not be impressive to many!   3 smallmouth ranging in size from 16" to 17.5".    For me those are great catches!

Finally, yesterday I launched on the Kennebacasis with some friends searching for shad, and possibly a trout.   The conditions were not what we expected with a very strong head wind pushing us back up river for most of the day.   Instead of a nice drift with the current, we had to paddle the whole way to make any progress!    Regardless, I managed to catch the only 2 shad of the group, plus I landed 4 very nice brook trout, and even a small yellow perch!  

Most of the guys had a shad on at one point, but were unable to land them.   Thats the way it goes with shad fishing much of the time, their mouths are so soft that it is very easy to haul the hook out of them if your not careful.

Next weekend I'm headed to Long Lake with a couple of the other kayakers to chase trophy land locked salmon and lake trout!    Having never caught either before I can't wait!!!