Whitman's Pond Bass And Panfish - April 26 2015

[Smallie_Stalker]

My son Josh and I went out to Whitman's Pond in Weymouth MA today to fish for some Bass and panfish.

I have been fishing for Bass and other species in Whitman's pond for 23 years. The bass are generally very healthy, as are the various species of panfish. There are a wide variety of species of fish in this pond, so it makes it an ideal place to take kids on their first outing, or a more experienced angler looking for some small water action for some bigger gamefish.

We caught only 1 bass, but we did manage a few bluegill and crappie and one pickerel.

Air temps were in the low 50's. The water is still very high, and even through my thick rubber hip waders felt pretty chilly. It was also darker than I expected it to be. We fished the area on the Middle Street side of the pond which is the southwest corner. Unfortunately there is no easy public access to the northwest side.There are some good drop-offs in this southwest corner area, as well as vegetation and lily pads which haven't broken the surface just yet. In the warmer months, especially after the pads start to get thick this is a solid section of the pond to fish for bass.

Despite the cooler, dark water we decided to take a one-two punch approach to start so I started by throwing a jerkbait  while  Josh threw a lipless crank. Using the lipless crank like a search bait at first he was able to snag some of the vegetation so we could see which spots still had dead and brown grass and where the grass was starting to turn green. We concentrated on the areas where the green grass was consistent.
We didn't get the first bite until a little after 11:30. Josh had been changing up the way he was retrieving the lipless crank and had gone to a lift and drop when the only bass for the day hit. He did a great job playing the fish, and when he brought it in it was a very respectable 1 pound and 11 oz. on the Rapala digital scale. The fish was on the deeper side of where the outside edge of the pads would be if visible, where there is a drop into about 8 feet. We fished until about 12:45 for the bass, throwing jigs, swimbaits and even tried dragging some Power worms slowly around for a short time but we didn't get any more bass to bite.

We made the switch over to the lighter tackle to give the panfishing a shot and here we had much more success. We fished small non-lead jigheads tipped with Power Bait Maggots and some small crappie tubes under a slip float around the spots we knew had fresh grass and deeper water nearby. We caught  a good mix of bluegill and crappie from about 6 - 8 feet deep. All in all I would say about a dozen fish between the two of us.

Before we left a little after 2:30 I tied on a Strike King Bitsy Pond Minnow crank bait to make a few last casts. I hooked into what I thought by the fight might be a big gill or crappie, but it turned out to be a pickerel about 15 inches long.

Overall I had a good time spending a few hours with my boy. The bass fishing could have been better but I will take what I can get.

Given the high, cold, dark water what would you have done different?

[Lipripper]

Nice report Smallie and you did about all you could and you and Josh had a good day together and caught some fish even if the bass didn't want to bite.

[Mike Cork]

Great report Time with Josh, catching fish, it doesn't get better

[Pferox]

Sounded like a great time.  Heck catching fish always comes second when I'm fishing with family.