The Massachusetts and Connecticut tour - June 2019

by

Wayne Boon

The 1st installment of Wayne’s epic adventure can be found here: PART 1

The 2nd installment here: PART 2

The 3rd installment here: PART 3

PART 4 - The Conclusion…

Thursday June 27th - After spending the night with Martin on his swim #2 and catching a lovely teen mirror in the early hours... I broke the kit down and got a good early morning sweaty workout carrying it all the way up the hill and loading it into the Jeep.

Grabbed a quick coffee before I took a drive out to Lowell and hooked up with long time Massachusetts carping friend, Scott Osmond for lunch at one of his local restaurants.

Wonderful conversation and time spent catching up (it’d been a few years since we were last in each other’s company). Talked much about the “big fish mentality” and what it takes to consistently find the big ones as Scott regularly does… Why the pursuit of big fish are all important for some anglers and not so, if at all for others.

More importantly, we chatted at length about our respective families, future plans and past accomplishments and set backs etc. Yeah it was really nice to get caught up over lunch with my good friend.

After a very welcomed, Chicken taco lunch, Scott showed me around a few of his regular fishing holes. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hit the river because it was still in a pretty bad flood stage alert following storms earlier in the month, so we visited a couple of his local ponds within an easy drive to see if we could see any fish….

The next few hours were a challenge due to the weather conditions until we arrived at a small lake where some nice fish were visible via the polarized glasses. After a bunch of attempts, and much patient advice from Scott, I eventually caught a beautiful common. To follow on from that, I have to give a huge thanks to Scott for re-introducing me to an old favorite technique of mine, free-lined bread to showing fish.

To say I was thrilled about this capture was an understatement. I remember looking over at Scott to see big ‘ole happy smile on his face just as the bread disappeared in to the front end of the dark shape I’d been following for the last 5 minutes… I knew I’d got this hook set just right and would hook up even before I lifted the rod into the fish, YES!! As I knew it would, the rod bowed right over as the fish bolted off on it’s first run… This moment brought back so very many awesome and wonderful childhood memories that I got quite emotional as I looked over at my friend a 2nd time with a respectful nod of the head.

This capture spooked most of the rest of the fish in the area so we decided to move onto another lake on Scott’s almost daily route where he caught a couple of fully Scaled Mirrors during our walk around the lake’s perimeter.

The above photo shows the 1st Fully and the following photos/vids cover the 2nd Fully Scaled Mirror…

Free-lined bread is definitely back in my angling life as one of my favorite methods…

We parted company with a hug and an old fashioned handshake at the end of the afternoon…

I ended up fishing that same lake all night with bolt rigs on the deck with no bites… but fantastic memories of a beautiful Massachusetts’ sunset and sunrise while hanging out with a Mallard and her ducklings…. Thanks Scott! It was great to see you again mate!

Even though no fish were caught, I really enjoyed staying in this very quiet cove of the lake.

I started filming the Ducklings after a large catfish tried to take one of the youngsters. The swirl and commotion that ensued when momma Mallard kicked into high gear was amazing! In an instant, she put herself in between the ducklings and the catfish and proceeded to literally beat the living daylights out of that catfish, which wasn’t giving up either! Wish I’d be ready with the camera to capture it all…

Friday June 28th - Found a local Dunkin Donuts store for a welcomed cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich before driving to an old Mill Lake near the Blackstone River that John McGreevy had mentioned I should visit a few days back. Have always wanted to fish this awesome river (Blackstone) and today was probably my best chance whist I was on the way back into Boston…

I started on the lake and moved around various pegs but unfortunately, it was stinking hot and humid weather... So I ended up talking a walk down to the near-by river… I managed one little common from the river just beyond a super oxygenating weir/waterfalls.

Saw a few little mirrors but I couldn’t interest them in this weather with anything I had to offer...

Drove to one of the previous “Mirror” swims for the night where I enjoyed the sunset and saw some rises (probably not carp) but no fish ended up on the mat this time unfortunately.

I really didn’t mind as the whole trip had been so awesome, I was winding down and getting my head around the trip back home to Los Angeles to be honest…

Saturday June 29th - John Mcgreevy and Bob Harnish joined me around 5 am and we all fished until midday before they left to get some Saturday afternoon family time in… Still no fish from this amazing swim but that’s the way it goes sometimes…The weather/air pressure was against us.

Decided to pack up about 2:30pm myself and drove about 30 minutes to a brewery I found last week.

I had a wonderful lazy & chill afternoon over a couple of pints of beer and a lovely Jambalaya.

The afternoon hours were whittled away getting caught up with some emails and posts etc. before walking lunch off only to fill up again with a coffee and a large blueberry muffin lol…

I decided to spend one more night session in the mirror swim and got the lines in for 6:30pm. Last time in this swim on this trip. Fingers were crossed!

One good fish slipped the hook and another scrapper teen ended up on the mat for the night.

Talked to my wife and support team, Rachel who had booked me a room for my last night tomorrow in Boston. The hotel was very near Fenway Park which is also near tomorrow’s fishing venue too…very cool… :) I’ve always wanted to see that area of town. I fell a sleep looking forward to Sunday’s exploits…

Sunday June 30th - Met Tim Columbo at the Muddy River swim at 8am, parking in this section of town is “fun” and then risked life and limb dodging the traffic while crossing a dual carriageway on the way to the river. It was great to see Tim again, it’d been a while… and his brother Martin joined us a few hours later. we had a great time.

Well stoked because I caught a couple of commons in the iconic swim I’ve gotten to associated with Winter in Boston via John, Bob and the Columbo brother’s posts over the years. Thanks for helping me cross that little goal off of the list guys!!!

We wound things down around noon to allow the guys some Sunday afternoon family time… and I got to the hotel near Fenway Park at 2pm but they wouldn’t let me check in until 3pm so after finding somewhere to park (no easy feat in this neck of the woods) I sorted all my tackle out, repacked my suit case & carry on and cleaned the Jeep. Time well spent! Got to the room, a lovely place (thanks Rach!!) had a shower, a quick power nap followed by a great meal with a live fiddle and guitar band at an Irish Pub within walking distance.

As comfy and convenient as my mobile hotel ‘Jeep Trail Hawk’ had been over the last couple of weeks, I really appreciated a great sleep in a real bed!!

Monday July 1st - Up at dark ‘o clock to get to the airport to return the Jeep and check in for my 8:03am flight back home to Los Angeles…

The very comfy, Hotel “Jeep Trail Hawk” from NJ

What a wonderful couple of weeks it had been! I couldn’t of asked for a better introduction to Massachusetts and Connecticut with such a welcoming crew of anglers! I absolutely plan on a return visit asap.

Thank you so very much for taking the time to read a few of my scrambled session notes here about the trip… I hope you enjoyed all 4 of the sections of the blog…

Wishing you all the 3 B’s (Be Safe, Be Happy and Be Lucky) out there…

Wayne :)

Massive thanks to: Martin & Tim Columbo, John McGreevy and family, Bob Harnish, Clifford Sharp, Scott Osmond, Joel & Melissa Harber, Pat Fallon, Nate Scannelll, Chris Breeds, Don Low, Ryan Edwards, Mark Fullbrook, Cody Cutler and Dean Brooks.