[JOHN G]

In a little "mini-meet" , reminiscent of some of the old get togethers, I met up with Marty and Gregg on one of our reservoirs, and we used two boats, with Gregg alone on our boat, and I joined Marty on his boat.

If you know anything about Marty's "Queen Mary" boats, they are big AND heavy, and launching was a rough thing, as, the water was down a bit, and there was a wall of sorts of blown in leaves and weeds that had frozen up along with two logs, so it took all of our ingenuity and strength to get both of the boats out on the water.

When we did , we were greeted with 37 degree water temps! A hair away from freezing up, meant deep fishing and slow approach, and understanding that you were only going to get a couple of bites each and hoping to capitalize on them.

Well, that is how it went down, as Marty managed to get one in the boat and Gregg added three to the till, and I had a multitude of teaser bites but couldn't hook one up.

here are some photos:

We kept close to each other all day, as falling in the water right now would be disastrous, not only the 37 degree temps, but we often crossed over 130 foot depths ( wouldn't like to end up down there!!).....

the wind was blessedly totally calm all day which allowed us to slowly work our blade baits and drop shots...keeping close watch on our sonars all the time: we mainly targeted dropoffs into 40-50 feet of water....

As is always the case with this type of fishing on a large reservoir in a rowboat, we rarely saw fish arches and just had to trust our knowledge of the contour maps combined with sonar readings. So great to get out in early January and get a jump start on the year....Gregg and I had already been out on Jan1st, so we have a good jump on 2021!

 

[NYCAngler]

Wow! Great to see you guys back out on the water. Hopefully this is a sign that 2021 is going to better than 2020.

 

[SlowFISH]

Nice job there guys.... so 2questions....

1. Since Gregg was in a boat alone.... did he still win the coffee bet?
2. Did Marty share any secret baits? If so - was it before he caught his fish or did he hide them till he had a lead?

LOL!!! great to see people out there freezing their chops off!! Nice report.

J.

 

[Lunkerboss]

Was glad to finally get out, as the recent cold & windy weather has kept me & others land locked. We did good all things considered, as I was fishing with two young warm weather fishermen. They don`t make fishermen like they used too, & they only lasted 5 hours on a beautiful winter day.:laugh: They needed hand warmers, even though they wore gloves. I went gloveless & even put my hands in the water to show them how warm it was. 37` is not cold. Was happy to get a few bites & land a decent fish. We marked no bait & only a few scattered fish. Anyway, I wasn`t skunked fishing with the handicap.:laugh:

 

[Lunkerboss]

Nice job there guys.... so 2questions....

1. Since Gregg was in a boat alone.... did he still win the coffee bet?
2. Did Marty share any secret baits? If so - was it before he caught his fish or did he hide them till he had a lead?

LOL!!! great to see people out there freezing their chops off!! Nice report.

J.

No, I won the coffee, because I had lunker. No secret baits, but secret spots which are no longer secret.:laugh:

 

[Special K]

Nice day out. You guys are diehards. Congrats!

 

[SlowFISH]

No, I won the coffee, because I had lunker. No secret baits, but secret spots which are no longer secret.:laugh:

AAAhhh - problem is Marty I know you claim every part of any lake you fish is a secret spot.... nothing but trickery from you!!! LOL!!

Glad to see fish caught!

J.

 

[Richie T aka Tommy]

Good job getting out and hooking a few fish.

 

[Gregg]

Not a fan of the cold but a bigger fishing nut so....

I had the big bag they welched on the coffee! LOL :laugh:

 

[hydrasport92]

Great job fellows. Up ere in the frozen country I always envy your early starts and strong wills. Between working in an essential job, which means six days a week scheduled,I only got out three times last year. Really hope this year starts to turn around since these 6 day weeks are getting to me in my senior years. Thanks for the post.

 

[JOHN G]

Great job fellows. Up ere in the frozen country I always envy your early starts and strong wills. Between working in an essential job, which means six days a week scheduled,I only got out three times last year. Really hope this year starts to turn around since these 6 day weeks are getting to me in my senior years. Thanks for the post.

hang in there, things will get better...I am retired, so I have a lot of leeway....I went back to keeping journals again, last couple of years: in 2020, I had 47 outings.....already have 2 in 2021....what limits me these days is that it is not always easy for me to fish alone, so , I have to mix and match my partners, and of course, last year, wasn't easy in that regard because of Covid.

 

[JOHN G]

Jason: we took off in 3 cars in 3 different directions, so , no coffee, but Gregg would have won, hands down.

 

[Special K]

Good thing you guys got out, real cold is supposed to settle in next week.

 

[JOHN G]

yes, ED, don't see any possible days this entire week, high winds, almost every day.....

we really need very low wind days now, not only to be warmer, but mostly, because we are fishing so deep and so slow...if we were on a bass boat and had spot lock, it would be different, but with oars, it is a challenge.

Many people wonder: why don't you use anchors, but the answer is simple: since we are mostly targeting rocky cover, you get stuck a lot, and would have to constantly raise and lower the anchor and we are talking hand over hand from 40-50 feet down.

 

[Special K]

We have to get out this year either on Candy or Lilli.Did pretty decent on both last year. Just have to watch the wind with the little boat.

 

[mark k]

very nice that the old gang got to fish again... I would have had gloves on - I wish I didn't need them but my hands don't do well in cold temps!

Mark

 

[JOEY T]

Way to guys! Hard core fisherman for sure.

 

[JOHN G]

looking back on this post, as predicted, right after this day, the weather took a great turn for the worse, and winter happened, and all of our waters froze up finally, so we haven't been able to get back out since then, however, we are now experiencing a warming trend and things are starting to melt rapidly, so, hopefully, it won't be long before we get out again.

 

[SlowFISH]

Well to set your expectations - I drove by a few resi's today.... Kensico main lake / Majority of 684 portion of Rye Lake is open - but the arms are iced up good.... no daylight from areas like KE2 for quiet awhile. Drove past CR as well... all iced up with exception of one tiny spot in the middle... so I'd guesstimate we are still a solid 2 weeks before there are any major shifts in the ice opening up - as it's warming up some now (except today of course) - but I don't' see any 60 degree sunny day or two stretch coming which is usually what it takes to get things going.

J.