Fishing Report: Wequaquet Lake, May 11, 2018

Date: May 111, 2018

Time: 7:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Location: Fishing Spot: Wequaquet Lake, Barnstable, Massachusetts

Weather: Sunny and calm to start… but the wind came up and was whipping 10-15 mph. I got lots more practice on the trolling motor today.

Air Temperature: Mid 60’s

Water Temperature: Low 60’s

Notes:

This was the second tournament of the year for the South Shore Bassmasters.

Wequaquet Lake was another new lake for me. I’d never fished here before but I still felt confident that today was going to be a good day for me. The weather had warmed up a bit. I’d done some research online about the lake and felt that I had a workable approach to the day.

I had a feeling that there would be fish up shallow and on flats either spawning or getting ready to spawn. I started the morning by casting a spinner bait and a swim bait in 4-8 feet water on a calm flat. I was seeing smallmouth bass following my spinner bait a few times but none of them would take the bait. I wasn’t having any luck with a silver swim bait either.

I trolled around a point and started using a black jig and blue trailer combo along contour lines in about ten feet of water – which didn’t turn up any fish either.

I figured I’d move closer to shore and try to see if anything was up close or around any docks or walls etc. This was when the WIND STARTED BLOWING… argh I hate wind while fishing… The wind was incessant and becoming stronger and where I was on the lake gave the wind a clean shot at me.

I moved out into the middle of the lake to a location where there were some humps that came up from 20 feet to 4-6 feet. If I was going to get blasted by the wind I could at least make it work for me by using the wind to float me across the humps. I dragged the hums with same black jig and also a jerkbait. No luck…

Next I moved to spots on the lake that were behind points or islands that would block the wind to some extent. It was really blowing hard and was incessant. There were no breaks. It just kept blowing.

As the day wore on, I cruised around a bit and tried a few more locations. I managed to find a few fish but for whatever reason I couldn’t seem to hook the ones that counted. The seemed to be picked up my bait but not ingesting it. I’d feel a fish on the line. I’d set the hook. The fish would let go… I lost my best fish when it spit my spinnerbait when it jumped about ten feet from my boat.

I really struggled today in the high winds… I have a 70 pound thrust trolling motor on my bass boat. It has 5 speeds, 1 thru 5. I typically have my trolling motor set to 4 as it provided enough thrust to troll me around under most conditions. Today, not so much. At the 4 setting, I was unable to hold my position in the wind… the wind would slowly push me backward such that I was unable to actually sit on a spot an work it at all. Setting 5 is like hitting a rocket booster when you push the petal down. It’s so strong that it’s difficult to use as the initial thrust will knock you off the boat if you aren’t ready for it. You also have to constantly steer as the high speed takes the boat off it’s line rather quickly.

Most fish caught today during the tournament, and there were some big fish and bags caught, were bed fish… the anglers were able to either drop their power poles or utilize their stronger, high tech, gps-enabled trolling motors to be able to work a spot and catch those bedding fish.

The 2 fish I did land didn’t count… the first was a smallmouth bass that wasn’t much bigger than the black senko I caught it on. The second was a nice 4 pound Pike ! I’d zero’d for the tournament but not for the day 🙂 And, again, I learned a lot and saw a new body of water too !

Some Photos of the Day: