Hit the pond at about at about 6:45, late start by design, last time we fished first light we didn’t get a bite til 9:00 or so, lol. Fished with Salmon Stalker and Tom Osborne.

Lake is cooking up, we had temps as high as 57 degrees up north, but more normal 49/50 down south, the bite is not cooking up, but improving for us..

It was a good, but unusual bite for us, "2 fish on" before we finished setting up (first time for us this year) also "2 fish off" (same 2) as was the case all day. When you get fish on before you finish setting up it’s always a good sign and it was a good day for us. We heard that one of our favorite spots was cooking the day before, so we started there, we picked up 5 or 6 fish at our first honey hole (thanks Charlie Charters) It was like the Derby, allot of folks must have got the same info, allot of boats in that area, most picking up a few fish.

When that spot cooled down we continued on down the Lake, trolling all the way from 3 mile to Ship. We continued to “pick up fish and loose fish” all the way to Ship ???????? We must have lost 2 for every one we boated, all 3 of us could not keep a fish on, many times right up to the boat and off, a few were 23/24 inch fish, ****.. I changed to bigger hooks and it helped, but these same spoons and hooks had caught fish normally so far this season, until today ????

Fish still are from Surface to 15 feet, feeding mostly on Midges I think, glow spoons did very well but tandem streamers were slow, best bite was on "small" Maynard’s and "small" Nymphs (Wolly Bugger, Hornberg’s) and a SSS DB, etc. Hard to pick the right bait, we changed back and forth all day, best spoon was DB SSS, but that lost the most fish too, better when we changed to a size 6 hook ?? Lead core off the boards are still king by far as they accounted for maybe 90% of the bites. How many bites did we get, well we went thru my 24 releases for the boards almost twice. A good amount of the Salmon boated were short, maybe 40% and the biggest fish were lost, best Salmon in the boat was 21” (photo later) best Bow was 17” (fat) best laker was 22”.

Thinking of calling Winni--"Mini Winni", man there are a cabootal load of short Salmon in that Lake, they will take a beating Derby weekend !!!!!

Final tally, we did do double digits in the boat, I guess we were lucky to do that, “in the right place, at the right time and/or just plain lucky”. Most of the boats we were talking to were having an extremely slow day. We did run out of luck on the return trip however, we trolled from Ship to 6 mile with only one fish, inspite of improving chop, etc. Got off the water at 5:00, long day but good endurance training for the Derby, lol.

Thanks Tom and Joe, had a great pre-Derby day, but still don’t have a clue where to fish Friday.

Be back up Thursday, open the camp and fish the afternoon. Trying to get a group together at Giuseppe’s (great food) for 7:00 Thursday night, downstairs if possible.

Happy Mothers Day to all those moms and wives who put up with all us absentee husbands, etc.

Big John

Sounds like a good day. I've only been out once this year. Hopefully i'll be out this week at some point to work out some of the bugs.

Whenever you can get out on the water it's a good day. Get out man, it will be September 30th before you know it. I've fished more early spring than ever before, had more bugs and caught less fish too, lol.

But it's great to be on the water, get out there.

Big John

fished Squam dawn till 2 pm. Friday, surface down to 30' ... all we caught was the bottom... the guy running the tour barge said no one is catching much only a few rainbows.

J.R.
That is what I hear from every fisherman that I speak with comming off Squam this year. Hopefully it will turn around.
A lot of bass boats on the lake this week end.


Louis

I'm holding off on Squam again until Big John tells me things have picked up over around Deephaven !!

John : A couple of us Rednecks might be able to join you at Giuseppe,s thurs. Cal P.

It's by inviation only, only kidding Cal, looking forward to it.

Big John

Hey Cal at least wait till I get to the house LMAO I still have no idea where the heck Gissupees is LOL Can a dumb frenchman come too??????? or a couple of us LMAO Take Care God Bless LOL Dave Who is going nuts waiting for thurs to get here and class to get done so I can get down there and meet up with my fishing house club members LOL

Dave ; You and the Berlin crew are the other "Rednecks" I was refering to! ha ha. I don,t know where Giuseppe,s is either , but we,ll find it. Cal P.

It's easy to find, it's allmost across from AJ's Bait, take a left at the lights as if you were going to AJ's, take a quick left into the parking lot for Mills Fall, it's in the Mills Fall building, 2nd floor can't miss it. If you know where AJ's is (and who doesn') you'll find it.

Great food (and drinks) Salmonitis works there, Travis's Mother and sister, as well as a few of Salty's grandaughters all work there too.

Big John

Cool Hopefully I can sweet talk my professor into letting head out early LOL Maybe if i beg LMAO Either way very much looking forward to the derby and the guys I'm staying with Should be a Great weekend, Plus I'm bringing my Dad who always seems to have a golden horseshoe stuck up his backside LOL Take Care God Bless LOL Dave Who's gotta bring the wifey out for supper (gotta keep her happy cause I'll be fishing alot more after the derby LOL)