Sudbury River, Lincoln MA Fishing Report

Adventures On Fairhaven Bay (Our First Pike!)

I may have been quiet on the site these past few weeks, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been getting out there. Truth be told, not a lot has happened fishing wise since my June smallmouth bass crusades. Our Striper trip to Long Island sound was somewhat uneventful (we caught a few nice Blues and one short Striper), and I spent most of July and August stuck at work. Late last month however, in desperate search of new Bass territory, I followed up friend’s reports and started hitting the Sudbury River with my Dad.
Fishing from our Kayaks, we happened to stumble our way into Fairhaven. While casting around for Bass, Dad suddenly shouts “Hey, I think I got a fish.” He reels it in a little more, and suddenly his Bass rod bends over like a yoga instructor! After fighting this large mystery fish for a few minutes, a Northern Pike comes boiling out of the water on the end of his line! Turns out he snagged it just above the eye while tossing around his trout size Acme Phoebe. After fighting the fish for a few more minutes after that, I work the jaws of my grippers around the fish’s lower jaw. And just like that, Dad catches his first Northern Pike, on a trout lure using 8 pound mono test with no leader.
Energized (for obvious reasons) I headed back to Fairhaven the next night with a few surface lures and crankbaits hoping the fishing gods might be half as kind to me. My efforts that night would only land a few small Bass and a black crappie of all things. At one point however, I did tangle with a decent pickerel (which was characteristically able to torque itself of the Heddon Torpedo), and what may have been a small Northern.
Moving on to last Sunday, Dad Myself and our friend Tim headed out to Fairhaven hoping for more action. This time, we all pulled up one bass, mine being 1.5 pounds (on a Heddon Super Spook Jr.) Dad’s being 3 pounds (on a Salmon wobbler of all things). I also somehow managed to pull in another Black Crappie, this time on a Crème worm.
Fast forward to today, this did not get off to a hot start. I woke up late, not getting to the river until 9am. I threw the whole gamut of hard lures, pulling in another small Bass in the process. After much frustration cleaning the weeds of the lures, I switched to the soft plastics. Out of complete frustration, I tied on 5 inch black Yamasenko on a worm hook figuring “what the hell, it works up north.” As the increasing wind pulled me up river back toward the launch, I was about to throw I the towel when I figures I might as well fish my way back to the launch.
Not far from the bay, my rod suddenly won’t come back up with my hand, and starts moving all of its own accord. My first thought was “Oh great another rooaaawww JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE HELLL IS THAT @#$%ING THING?!?!?” This is what thoughts turn to when torpedoes with fins suddenly leap out of the water. One massive splash and power run later, and I knew I had a pike. Since I had the fortune to have 12 pound test instead of 8, I was able to dictate the terms of the fight a little bit more. This still meant letting the fish make long runs and pulling it back to tire it out, Eventually I was able to wrangle it’s head above surface and work the grippers around the jaw.

One 35 inch 6.5 pound pike in the books! My first Northern and so far one of my best freshwater fish period.

• Added By: nefisherman92 on 09/24/15 05:57 PM
• Location: Sudbury River, Lincoln MA
• Report Date: 9/3/2015 - 9/24/2015
• # of Hotspots: 4
• # of Photos: 9
• # of Fish Caught: 8
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