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Author:
PECo
Date:
May 08, 2014
Subject:
Housatonic River - Shelton 05/07
Message:
NWDarkcloud (aka Bob) and I fished the lower Housy from 8:00 am to 1:30 pm. High tide was at 6:42 am and low tide at 1:35 pm. It was sunny and warm, and there was very little wind. The water temperature ranged from 53 to 55 degrees in the river and up to 58 degrees in the shallows of the cove at Two Mile Island. We launched at Sunnyside in Shelton and worked our way downriver. We passed several boats across from Beacon Point Marina, but didn't mark any fish on the fish finder and didn't see them catch anything. We saw a couple of boats in the cove at Pine Rock Park and marked a few fish on the north end of the cove with the finder, but not enough to make us want to stay. We headed downriver to the power plant; nothing. It wasn't until we went under the Route 95 and Route 1 bridges that we finally found some fish on the Milford (i.e., east) side of the channel. We quickly caught a dozen schoolies with jigs: [img:cf5f55dccc]http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/1710/4v71h.jpg[/img:cf5f55dccc] Unfortunately, the outgoing tide made the current rip through there. I had my 80 pound thrust Minn Kota iPilot trolling motor on Spot Lock and it was running at full throttle just to hold our position. I didn't want to overheat the motor, so we went looking for fish in calmer water downriver. We went to the cove that's just past the red 12 buoy, but didn't find any. On our way back upriver, across from the green 23 buoy, Bob spotted a lone seagull diving on and catching a baitfish on the surface. I threw an unweighted tandem-rigged (i.e., pre-rigged with two hooks) nine inch Albino Shad Lunker City Sluggo at it and caught my first ever topwater striper: [img:cf5f55dccc]http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/343/vff3.jpg[/img:cf5f55dccc] Unfortunately, it ended up being the lunker for the day and our only fish over 20 inches long. After Bob caught one with a jig, we headed back to the spot where we had caught our first fish of the day. The current was more manageable, but the fish weren't there in the same numbers as before. Bob managed to boat a couple of more schoolies with a jig before we decided to go looking for more fish upriver. To make a long story short, we searched for fish all the way to the upriver side of Two Mile Island without marking any significant numbers with the finder, By that time, dead low tide was approaching and Bob's blood sugar level was dropping, so we decided to leave and grab some lunch. Of course, now that I've heard water was flowing over the Derby Dam and there were some bigger fish being caught up there, I'm kicking myself for not heading up there to check it out.
Author:
stripertime
Date:
May 08, 2014
Message:
most of the small bass are gone its time for big bass up the 2 rivers
Author:
PECo
Date:
May 08, 2014
Message:
[quote:5bb6aaeaab="stripertime"]most of the small bass are gone its time for big bass up the 2 rivers[/quote:5bb6aaeaab] I've only fished the lower Housy for schoolie stripers during the Winter. I didn't come back in the Spring last year for the keeper run, so this is my first experience with it. I don't fish from shore or at night, so where do you typically find the bigger fish by boat during the day? Should I head up to the boat exclusion zone at the island in front of the Derby Dam or search the shallow flats downriver?
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