Charles River Fishing Report
Probing The Weed Beds Of The Charles River In Waltham
I put my kayak in at the Woerd Avenue boat ramp - nice access point with plenty of parking. It was around 4 p.m. so the shadows were starting to lengthen over the western bank, providing some shade from the sun.
There is a boat rental place just downstream, so there was a constant stream of kayakers and paddle boarders but since I was working the weed beds and other structure on both banks itwasn't much of an issue.
In addition to lily pads, this stretch of the river has invasive plants, including milfoil and water chestnuts. The water chestnuts actually form more of the surface mat than the lily pads in many places.
I started throwing a weedless Zoom Super Hog creature bait and got a surface blow up in the pads within a few minutes. Soon after I landed a nice chunky 1.5 pound largemouth. A smaller one, just under a foot, came a while later from next to a boat dock.
Lost another dink later as I explored the shoreline and a cove downstream, and had some other missed bites and blowups (threw a frog for a while on my other rod), but no more fish landed.
The river is quite wide in this section with some nice fallen tree structure in addition to the weed beds. I wished I had more time to explore but the sun was setting and I needed to get home. The evening bite no doubt was even better.
I talked to a two guys in a jon boat who had landed a few LMBs in the 2 pound range on Texas-rigged plastic worms.
I'll definitely be headed back here to explore more, particularly in the fall when the rental paddling crowd has diminished, and see if I can pull some bigger fish out of the weed beds.
- Added By: frambrett on 08/29/16 06:38 AM
- Location: Charles River
- Report Date: 8/28/2016
- # of Hotspots: 1
- # of Photos: 1
- # of Fish Caught: 2
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frambrett posted in MA Report Catches
Pulled from the weed beds Catch
- # of Fish Caught: 2
- Water Type: freshwater
- Type of Fish: Largemouth Bass
- Fish Length (Avg): 12 inches
- Fish Length (Max): 14 inches
- Fish Weight (Max): 1 lbs. 8 oz.
- Bait Type: Creature Check Prices
- Bait Details: Zoom Super Hog - Candy color
- Location Details: Near Woerd Ave. boat ramp
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Comments
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Hubby and I went there about two weeks ago. We went away from downtown since we were in our 17' Tracker. Hubby caught two bass, one had blood on it's tail for some reason. I caught a good size sunfish and something else that I have no idea what it was. I was just using my micro rod/reel with a small topwater lure. It's a great place to launch smaller motorboats.
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The first time we went, we went in the same direction as you. Lots of pads there. We had ALOT of blow ups and bites on frogs and toads. Didn't land any though.
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I'll take your advice and paddle towards downtown next time - my instinct was to paddle in the other direction because of all the kayakers and paddle boarders coming from that way!
Not sure about northern pike in the Charles, but they are definitely in the Sudbury River, particularly the Fairhaven Bay stretch. I think I hooked one last year near the Route 20 bridge, based on the type of fight (racing back and forth parallel to the boat multiple times, no jumps) but he broke or bit through my line. -
I've fished that stretch twice, very scenic and productive fishery. The first time there we only caught a couple bass and a pickerel. The second time we headed towards the city opposed to the other direction, and we caught a lot of bass from shoreline cover.
We had great success on soft plastics.
I'd like to get back there. I read somewhere, if I'm not mistaken, there are pike somewhere in that river?
Can anyone comment on this?