Lake Z, MA Fishing Report

Name: Ice Out Slug-fest
Rating: 5

5 Rating based on 19 Reviews

Ice Out Slug-fest

After driving around the metro-west area and Wellesley for 1 hours and finding 0 open water, Mr. Awesome and I ended up at Lake Z. This place was wide open but shallow everywhere. We hit the north end since its been out of the cold north winds and the warm wind was blowing in that direction.

The water was 46.3 degrees. Pretty unbelievable given the weather we've had. We started out "deep" but it wasn't working.

I finally caught one on a spinnerbait but it was probably the smallest of the day. First bass of 2015 though and we figured things out after that. Mr. Awesome banged a crankbait off a sunken branch and the lunker of the day at around 4.8 lbs. absolutely choked it.

We noticed a few spots had small rocks and wood / branches in 3' of water with a sandier bottom a little off of the shoreline. This is where most of the fish were and they were absolutely stacked. The next 2 hours were lights out. We caught fish every other cast for 2 straight hours. We lost count but easily boated 30-40 fish mostly between 2-3.5 pounds. We didn't catch a single non-keeper the entire day. All but 2 of the fish were in an area totaling around 150'. We caught 10 in a row off of a single stump.

The weather and 46 degree water played a huge part but we found the needle in the haystack and had them completely dialed in. Most fish choked the entire lure. All but 1 were caught on spinnerbaits, crankbaits, and lipless cranks. I caught a few that had the entire spinnerbait in its throat including the line tie.

We made some small adjustments that made a huge difference. We fished as slowly as possible but kept the bait moving. It had to be bumped off of structure and needed a little color. Crankbaits had to have a tight wobble and flat sides.

We caught so many fish we decided to experiment to make sure this wasn't a fluke. I switched to a square bill with a wide wobble and while I still caught a few fish, they were barely hooked on the rear treble. Mr. Awesome threw to the same spots and he caught more and got his bait got choked. I switched spinnerbaits to one with bigger blades to slow it down and only then consistently caught fish on it. We kept switching lures, colors, and presentations to keep them fired up.

I guess fish sometimes do go shallow in cold water.