Today was a gorgorus day both outside and on the water. It was a bit chilly to begin with at 7 am but it warmed up fast as the sun became hotter as it rose in the Eastern sky. We put the boat in the river at around 7:30 am and headed up stream looking for some early season northern pike.

 All the rivers in Rhode Island are running extremely fast and hard right now due to huge amount of rain we had recently. Some of the rivers in the state have seen historic flood-stage waters this past week, some not seen in over 100-years or more. Fortunately, the river we were fishing wasn't too bad so we decided to keep going and give it a shot to see if the pike had moved up into the river system as they usually do at this time of the year.

 We began tossing Mann's Minus-1 surface swimmers with bucktail on the rear treble hook. This plug works the surface nicely and leaves a nice "V" wake as it moves across the top of the water. The first swirl came as we approached a point of grass that juts out into the river as it makes a sharp turn. The fish swirled three times at the lure but wouldn't hit it. None the less, this was a good sign that the fish were here.

 Switching over to a big Bay State Lure spinnerbait in black with a chartreuse skirt and a chartreuse twister tail on the stinger hook, we started working the edges of the weed beds that were still up in the river. The grass weed beds in the channel don't die over the winter time as the water is deep enough to keep them there. They don't seem to grow any as they soon will, but it's nice having that grass line there to fish this early in the season. One of our clients soon got a good strike and hooked a decent fish. When we netted it, it was 32-inches long and weighed about 9-pounds or so. His partner also had a hit but missed it on two consecutive strikes. I guess he was just a little bit too slow on the trigger as he set the hook.

 We then switched to 8-inch Ron-Z lures fished on the surface. The first fish that was taken was a 2-1/2 lbs largemouth, and that was followed by a 24-inch pickerel. The pickerel bit the Ron-Z lure in half. Not much you can do about that as it's part of the game fishing here for big pike this time of year. You also wind up getting some pretty nice pickerel as well. Sacrificing some plastic is as normal as the sun coming up in the morning. The best color Ron-Z seemed to be a pink-color, rigged with a single hook in the head and fish along the surface in a quick snapping motion. 

 Just before noon time, we boated two more northern pike, both were about 12-lbs or so. Not bad for just 4-1/2 hours of fishing on a cool March morning. Besides that we had to deal with a lot of water coming down the river from all the rain. Many of the usual spots we fish weren't fishable due to fast running water. In a few days, hopefully next week, the river will be back to a more normal flow and the fishing will light up here as it usually does every spring. 

 We have a few more trips booked this spring for this type of fishing as well as fishing for tiger muskie, German Carp, and big largemouth bass during the summer months at night. If you've never done this you need to try it just once to get hooked. We slow troll big and I mean big swim baits behind the boat with the trolling motor just fast enough to make the lures swim enticeingly across the surface. Last season our biggerst largemouth during the summer, the first week of August was just over 9-lbs. NOBODY IS DOING THIS TYPE OF FISHING HERE and its a wide open opportunity to get a real trophy. Besides, during the night no one is there to even see you when you are done.

 Watch for our new page on this site about our freshwater guided trip offers for early spring, late fall, and mid summer months.  Rhode Island has some of the best freshwater fishing in New England, no one pays any attention to it at all.

Captain Jim White