It’s hard for freshwater anglers — this fly caster included — to resist the fabulous trout fishing available to all of us now, thanks to the heavy stocking of 500,000 trout raised by MassWildlife.
But a special coterie of anglers — instead of casting flies, Powerbait, or worms to brookies, browns and rainbows — is now using stick baits, curl-tail grubs, crank-baits, spinner-baits, swim-baits, skirted jigs, glide-baits, hollow frogs, tubes, Alabama rigs and soft jerk-baits to pursue the love of their life — the largemouth bass.
They have no need to follow stocking trucks or go online to check published stocking schedules. And instead of competing with other fishermen for space on often-crowded waters, they typically find solitude on warm-water lakes and ponds loaded with native fish. Those who learn the secrets of bass fishing often measure their catch in pounds rather than inches. They’re getting really fat now as they ready to spawn in May.
Some bass fishermen, like Blackstone’s Chris Hogue, devote much of their lives — and discretionary income — to the growing sport. Hogue is one of those heavily investing anglers who could have used the money he spent on his fully equipped boat to buy a decent car.
I ran into him on a local “secret” pond this week and marveled at the two 7-pound-class bass he had caught — and kept alive in his live well to later release. As a tournament bass fisherman, Chris is a dedicated student of the sport. Putting in the time and willingness to experiment that are both keys to success, he regularly catches such fish, some even a couple of pounds larger. He deserves a full feature to share his secrets — well, at least some of them.
While the trout we catch are almost all raised in hatcheries, our largemouth bass all amazingly sustain themselves. Surprisingly, they’re not native to our region.
Largemouth bass originally existed far to our west and south — only from extreme southern Ontario and Quebec down the Mississippi Valley to Florida and northeast Mexico. We can thank our state’s fisheries commission back in the late 1800s for bringing them here, along with bluegills, to provide angling opportunities during the summer months. While introducing non-native species like carp is usually a disaster, most anglers are ecstatic that our fisheries people broke this now-standard ecological rule. You can bet, though, that if native frogs, dragon flies, damselflies and bait fish had their say, none would voice approval of that introduction.
While bass don’t grow to world record proportions here because they slow down their growth during our winter, they can still be quite impressive in size. Our state’s current catch-and-release record was 25 inches long, and likely is still swimming in Concord’s White Pond.
For comparison, our catch-and-keep record largemouth, taken by Walter Bolonis, reportedly at Sampson Pond in Carver, back in 1975, was 28 inches long and weighed 15 pounds, 8 ounces. You might want to fish there — or on some of the other nearby waters. I emphasize fishing nearby ponds because numerous reliable reports suggest that this state record actually came from another pond in the vicinity.
Several credible fishermen assert that our record largemouth was really taken from the Agawam River, also known as Agawam Mill Pond in Wareham during ice-fishing season. That water historically has been loaded with fat herring, which accelerate bass growth. Fishermen, like serious deer hunters, though, seldom want to give away their honey holes for great trophies. It’s easy for popularized areas to be quickly ruined. We consequently joke with good reason about fishermen’s tendencies to both exaggerate and modify the truth.
I wish we could ask Walter Bolonis about where his historically important bass was truly caught. But no matter, Sampson Pond annually gives up numerous heavy bass because of its reputation — and the added efforts devoted to fishing it thoroughly. In fact, shortly after Sampson Pond was attributed with giving up the new record, enough fishermen hit it hard enough to record several 10-pound fish and one remarkable bass in the 13-pound class.
The 302-acre, elongated pond, which constricts in the middle, like a figure-8, is a typical warm-water bass sanctuary, averaging about 8 feet deep. Its shallow depths plunge no more than 16 feet. It’s not considered fertile water, though. This natural pond was enlarged when a dam was built for a foundry. Its bottom, like many waters around Cape Cod, is mostly sand and gravel. In summer, about 10% of its surface is covered by aquatic vegetation, providing good cover and spots to cast weed-less lures.
Shoreline homes and cranberry bogs take away some of its wildness — but not its productivity. Its source is drainage from an adjacent cranberry bog and Tilson Brook, which flows into Sampson Brook. Access, suitable for boats and trailers, is easy from a town-managed, paved ramp off Main Street in Carver — if you have a town sticker. Car top boats also can be launched from the town beach on the pond’s south end. The pond is challenging for first-timers, though, because there is a good number of hull-denting boulders in its shallows.
While largemouths are the main attraction, Sampson Pond also has pickerel, perch, bluegill, golden shiner, crappie, brown bullhead, pumpkinseed, banded killifish and American eel. The latter can be delicious when cooked right. It’s one of the “secret” ponds of yellow perch fishermen, who take many of these delicious fish over 10 inches long.
For historical fun — and another chance at a record-class bass — you might want to fish Wareham’s Agawam River/Agawam Mill Pond. It has more than 500 acres of spawning and nursery habitat for herring in the pond and its impoundments.
But there are many other well-known state waters that have given up huge largemouth bass and many sportfishing awards in recent years.
Included are the New Bedford Reservoir in Acushnet; Metacomet Lake in Belchertown; Cliff Pond, Greenland Pond, Higgins Pond and Seymour Pond in Brewster; Nippenicket Lake in Bridgewater; East Brimfield Reservoir in Brimfield; Quaboag/Quacumquasit Ponds in Brookfield; Schoolhouse Pond in Chatham; Cheshire Reservoir in Cheshire; Robbins Pond in East Bridgewater; Great Pond and Herring Pond in Eastham; Hinkley’s Pond in Harwich; Long Pond and Great Quittacas Pond in Lakeville; Waite Pond in Leicester; Long Pond in Littleton; Johns Pond and Mashpee-Wakeby Pond in Mashpee; Crystal Lake and Gould Pond in Orleans; Onota Lake and Pontoosuc Lake in Pittsfield; Big Sandy Pond, Billington Sea and White Island Pond in Plymouth; Leonard’s Pond and Mary’s Pond in Rochester; Congamond Lakes in Southwick; Glen Charlie Pond in Wareham; Webster Lake in Webster; Williams Pond in Wellfleet; Chauncey Lake in Westboro; and Pearl Lake in Wrentham.
Of course, there are many other “secret” waters holding trophy bass that I’m pledged by trusted friends not to reveal here, too. But much of the magic of bass fishing is really experienced in exploring and discovering your own trophy waters — and learning the secrets of how to fish them yourself.
—Contact Mark Blazis at markblazissafaris.gmail.com.
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