"The fish bite twice a day - just before we get there and just after we leave" - Unknown
The Millers is a great smallmouth River and anyone who has been there can vouch for that. Lots of "Snapper" bass in the 6 to 8 inch range are always willing to do battle with you but you may be looking for something more. If you want larger smallies you have to ditch your trout flies and go with something bigger and heavier to get down to where these fish live. Here are a few tales of some encounters with big bass on the Millers.
The photo above is of a women I guided one hot, humid June day. The scene is at the Bridge Street Pool in Erving and I set her up with (you guessed it) a size 10 black wooley bugger which is simply a great fly. It had a weighted body to get it down to the depths of that pool and it worked because after a 10 minute battle she cradled and released a 15 inch smallie. BTW, this pool gave up the largest SMB I've seen on the Millers that tipped the scale at 4lb!!! The hardware fisher had a single hook lure and easily released that fish.
Let's go upstream to the Kempfield Pool (just downstream from where Whetestone Brook joins in) and I'm fishing a black Marabou Leech when something BIG smacks it and tears off downstream. There is no happy ending to this story because it threw the hook after a 10 second battle but not until it tore off about 50 feet of line off my reel. A big brown?? I think it was a big smallie.
Now, let's wade upstream to the very head of this section. There is a HUGE boulder near the middle of the river (you can't miss it) and across from that boulder is a series of large brown rocks. I put a large, heavy stonefly nymph against one of those rocks and had a massive hit which took line from my reel as I ran after it. There was a flyfisher fishing right at the bend in the river and he netted my fish. Was it the mother of all Millers brown trout? Nope, but a 16 inch smallmouth!!!!
Then there was the time when I was fishing just below the Holtshire Rd bridge to a steadily rising fish that was tucked right up against one of the bridge supports. Nice brown I thought as it sipped in my comparadun. Wrong again. It was a smallie of around 14 inches that went airbourne before running out of gas after a good run.
I've caught others in that river but these are etched in my memory just like the brutes I've lugged out of Wachusett Reservoir.
There are many mid sized rivers in eastern and central Ma that have smallmouth bass and are begging to be fished.
Ken
10 comments:
One afternoon on the kempfield section I heard splashing behind me, turned around to see a smallmouth on the bank. Eventually he wiggled his way back in the water and immediately ran back out. After wiggling back in again, a brown trout about the same length came darting out the depths and got the smallie half way down its throat whilst beaching himself on the bank. Craziest thing Iv ever seen on the millers. Eventually I got them back in the water and the brown continued his feast
A nice calm and cool morning on the Millers. A few bass made it even a nicer way to start the day.
Way to go Bill!!
Ken
Hi Ken,
I sincerely hope that you are well and that your readership will soon find you posting to the Forum regularly. In the interim, do you need assistance? As you may know, Blogger allows you to appoint 'additional authors' who can contribute new pieces directly to the Forum; some of your longstanding commenters might be willing to serve temporarily in this role.
Of course there is no need to post this suggestion if it is not to your liking. And yet it seems a shame that the Forum, which you have worked so hard to build over fifteen years, will quickly lose readership without new content.
Anonymous,
First, I took most of the Summer off by including some birding with fishing. I have enjoyed it!! I'll be back but I don't know when. When you are the boss you can do that.
Second, there will be no "additional authors" on this blog. I will not share the editorial chair with anyone else. I've seen this happen on other forums and sooner or later the blog develops a split personality which is confusing. I've been doing this for 16 years and it has worked.
Best,
Ken
Hi Ken, this summer’s rains and the resulting heavy flows shut down my wading upstream/pocket picking for trout style of fishing. The weather forced me to consider other options if I was going to fish rivers. I had enough of still water fishing after last summer’s drought, so I began swinging streamers across and down. I completely underestimated how addicting that “tug is the drug” thing could be when it comes to the feisty Small Mouth. They are just plain fun!
Hi Ken, it’s been a while since I’ve checked the comments… Glad to see that you are well. I visited the Squannie last week and caught two nice fish, one of which was a dark holdover rainbow. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but it looked like he was starting to develop a hooked jaw, which I’ve never seen before. Have you ever seen rainbows develop a hook jaw in the fall?
Anonymous,
I've seen one hook jawed bow on the Swift about 8 years ago. It was huge, about 24 inches and must have been a two year holdover. That's it!!
Ken
I once caught a 24 inch bow on the Swift in eaery November about 6 years ago that had the start of a hooked jaw. That's it.
Hi Ken - hope you are well! Realize you took a much deserved summer break. Just checking to see if you’re planning to return to the Forum anytime soon. Also, MA fall stocking has officially ended and am curious if you’ve been able to get out and how you and your readership are doing?
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