Plunkett Reservoir

[bogtrotter]

Eager to expand my repertoire of the lakes and ponds that I fish, I gave Plunkett Reservoir in Hinsdale (which I've never fished before) a try today.

After church and Dunkin donuts and coffee (the breakfast of champions) over my Sunday paper, I drove down to Hinsdale listening to the Polka Spotlight on 88.3 FM ("The Saint") out of Siena College, and aarived at the Reservoir around 10:45 AM.

I found a parking spot in front of an electrical transformer on the Persip Lane end of the Reservoir and, although the edges looked a little sketchy, was able to get out on the ice with dry feet.

The weather during the day was "variable " as the meteorologists would say. 

It started out partly sunny, 29 degrees and with a light (10 mph?) wind from 10:45 AM to 1 PM. 

Next from about 1 to 2 PM, it clouded over completely, the wind picked up (to about 35 mph) and began to snow pretty hard.

Then it cleared up a bit, the wind died down, the snow stopped and the sun came out for the next hour.

There was 14 inches of "mealy" ice on the Reservoir.

No one else was out on the Reservoir the entire time I was there, although I did chat for a little while with an Asian gentleman who was walking his two poodles along the road.  (He was the only person I saw on foot, as opposed to driving by, during the whole day).

I set up my tip ups and a dead stick in an arc about 200 feet out from the patch of open water flowing below the "pipe" that runs under the road - - mostly by chopping out old holes left by someone else in the not too distant past.

(After my lackluster performance jigging on my last two outings, I just couldn't work up any enthusiasm for using my jig rod today).

To make a long story short, with the exception of one tip up that kept getting wind flags (to the point where I eventually just left the flag up), I did not get any action at all on either my tip ups or dead stick.

Around 12 noon, I broke out my chuck wagon and cooked and ate lunch - - consisting of beef stew, diced chicken breast and vegetables (sauteed in olive oil, dandelion wine and a little hot sauce), a bottle of Smithwick's red ale, an orange and some home-made trail mix - - while listening to Rock 102 FM out of Springfield.

Then, around 1 PM, I strapped on my ice skates and skated a counterclockwise loop out and back.

The quality of the ice wasn't great (albeit a bit better along the shores), but it was kind of fun skating "out" toward the dam, with the wind at my back.
However, the return trip against the wind, not so much.

After making it back to my base camp around 1:30 PM, I fired my fire bowl up again, and heated up a pot of coffee (with milk and sugar) and used it to chase down some chocolate chip cookies.

Around 2:45 PM, I began collecting my gear, and made it off the Reservoir around 3 PM.

Unfortunately, although it wasn't obvious (with the wind and snow and all), it must have warmed up while I was out there - - because the ice on the edges (at least along the road) were shot, and I had to walk through a short space of calf deep water to get back on shore.

If you go to fish Plunkett Reservoir in the next couple weeks, it would not go amiss to brink a plank along with you to span the gap to shore.

After I started up my car, the thermometer registered 39 degrees, but within minutes, as I drove home, the sky clouded up,, it began snowing again and the temp plummeted back down to 29 degrees.

When I eventually made it back home a little before 4 PM, I decided to wash away the stink of my first "skunking" this season by fishing my standby stream at Greylock Glen in Adams for about an hour (during which time it remained partly sunny, with occasional flurries, and 29 degrees).

Fortunately, my "old reliable" stream came through for me, and I was able to land six brook trout (ranging from 3 to 5 inches) to make up for my flagless day on the ice. 

[IceDog88]

Well today was definitely not a good day especially with the wind and it drove me off by 1pm and headed home. I actually was looking to possibly fish there within the next week and having the edges going doesn’t look good. Well at least you salvaged some of the day by getting a few fish. I only had a couple of small perch and a pickerel.

[Ole Polanski]

Heyyyy Jim...  TY... Gotta love them "Ole Reliables"!!!  ATB...

[Mogli21]

Got onto Plunkett yesterday and today.  Was hoping to bump into you again after meeting you at Windsor lake.  No action on tip ups, set off the jaw jacker once, but no fish,  jigged lots of small(4-5 inch perch).  Saturday went in the after noon and went this morning till noon.  Ice was about a foot thick.  Got crazy footage of a swarms of like a hundred small perch I held at my holes by the cove with swamp grass right between the camp and the boat launch, for the whole time on saturday, today the record button didn’t work but the school was still there.  Got cool footage of a few pickerel coming through for like five minutes on Saturday along with a catfish.  A red breasted rushed ahead of a pickerel to take my jig, other than that it was a cloud of picky hard to hook tiny perch.  Will have to post clips when I get the files pulled from the camera.  Now to see if I Cna get it to work again.  And yes had to use a seven foot plank Saturday, extended to ten for Sunday.  Once the sun was fully up you could hear the ice turning to slush so rather than getting stuck out there we picked up.

[IceDog88]

Great report and glad you had some fun watching those fish. To bad you couldn’t catch some of them. Glad you got off the ice okay

[bogtrotter]

Got onto Plunkett yesterday and today.  Was hoping to bump into you again after meeting you at Windsor lake.  No action on tip ups, set off the jaw jacker once, but no fish,  jigged lots of small(4-5 inch perch).  Saturday went in the after noon and went this morning till noon.  Ice was about a foot thick.  Got crazy footage of a swarms of like a hundred small perch I held at my holes by the cove with swamp grass right between the camp and the boat launch, for the whole time on saturday, today the record button didn’t work but the school was still there.  Got cool footage of a few pickerel coming through for like five minutes on Saturday along with a catfish.  A red breasted rushed ahead of a pickerel to take my jig, other than that it was a cloud of picky hard to hook tiny perch.  Will have to post clips when I get the files pulled from the camera.  Now to see if I can get it to work again.  And yes had to use a seven foot plank Saturday, extended to ten for Sunday.  Once the sun was fully up you could hear the ice turning to slush so rather than getting stuck out there we picked up.

Yes, I'm sorry our paths didn't cross this weekend, but glad to hear you had at least marginally better luck than I did. 

Cann't wait to see the vide of the school of perch, the pickerel and the catfish.  Sounds pretty cool.

On the other hand, the extent of "planking" that you had to do to get on and off does sound a little intimidating - - so I'm relieved that at least I didn't have to put up with that where I went yesterday (Pelham Lake) and today (Mausert's Pond).

[Mogli21]

Ill try to get the footage up this Sunday.  Did you lose any tackle? I found a tackle box frozen into the ice I was able to pick out of the ice.

[bogtrotter]

Ill try to get the footage up this Sunday.  Did you lose any tackle? I found a tackle box frozen into the ice I was able to pick out of the ice.

Thanks, but no, the tackle box is not mine.

I'm looking forward to viewing the footage, though.