The Cottage Chronicles: Episode 9 - Fall Fishing Finale

Intro

Welcome to The Cottage Chronicles, a show about fishing, family, and finding your way. I'm your host, Neil Colicchio, founder of New Dawn Tackle Co.

Before we get started, I'd just like to ask you to subscribe, like, comment, or leave a review depending on how you're consuming this episode.

We're just one episode away from double digits.

This is not a monetized or revenue-generating show, but I do use it to talk about my business on most episodes. So if you support small businesses like mine, or if you're a friend or family wondering how you can show your support, any interaction helps.

Holiday Shopping and Business Updates

The next order of business is holiday shopping and I haven't started mine yet, but I have written a holiday guide for freshwater anglers. I've also got a couple guides on the blog for building up your tackle options if you want to create species specific tackle boxes.

If you're looking for ideas to get for the anglers in your life, even for the most selective among them, I've got you covered. Head to newdawntackleco.shop to check out the guide and for loads of other fishing gear including New Dawn Tackle Co. hats and beanies.

It's been a long time since I've given a shop update on the show or on the blog, so I've got a small one to cover before we get into the fun stuff.

The holidays are coming up, tax season soon after that, so I am trying to move some fishing tackle. Business continues to be pretty slow. I'm still looking for some dealers. I'm still looking for merchandise options that won't charge me $30 for a t-shirt.

And in the meantime, I'm working on making some small spinners. I've got to get back to tying bucktails and I still have an airbrush waiting to be tested along with some crankbaits that are still unpainted.

I just received my invite to a virtual dealer show in December, so I'm hoping I can use that to get a head start on 2025. I've just started looking at price lists and I'm stoked to see a lot of newer options as well as some deals on older standbys.

I've got a lot of research to do over the next few weeks.

I spent a lot of 2024 chasing cool lures, but I didn't have an end game in mind. So in the year ahead, I'm thinking of doubling down on more novice friendly options. I want to write some more guides. I want to spend a little more time on the blog. And I'd like to develop some more kits. That's always been a goal of mine for this business.

I'll continue to experiment with new products and see what sticks and what interesting stuff I can bring in. I really want to be more intentional about uncomplicating things - stocking products at work and those that are easy to work. Simple straight retrieves, few moving parts, and easy rigging options. That's the goal... high quality utilitarian products that you can count on.

I want to build some lures and pour some soft plastics because those are skills that I want to learn. I like the idea of experimenting with different lure weights and fine tuning how they perform and what components I use. I also think I could put my BFA hat on and come up with some really cool color options for soft plastics. Maybe even include some custom jig heads or like what I was trying to do with my jig combinations earlier this year.

In short, the dream of New Dawn Tackle Co is alive and well.

I've been slower in publishing new posts and new episodes while I plan my next moves. I'm getting ready for my first guest appearance on another show, so I'll share some more details when that comes out.

Once the water starts to freeze and once I get through my first tax season with this company, I'll spend more time doing research, writing, and bringing in some more products. For now, I'll keep a wet line in an open mind.

If you're still listening and you're not sick of me yet, thanks for sticking with me.

Stocking Season

Without further ado, let's kick things off with an update on stocking season. Fish stocking that is, not the red ones that hang by the fire.

My fall trout season began around the first week of October. I started with spinners and spoons casting out the head and tail ends of any moving section of water. I gradually explored every bend, break, and hole while depleting my tackle collection.

The river is unusually low this year. The flow of water over the dam has slowed to a trickle. The tree roots along the bank are completely exposed and most areas have two feet of dry river bed between the roots and the edge of the water. Even without waders, I'm able to walk further upstream than I have ever been before.

The other day, was walking upstream to find a shallow pool where I could test my homemade spinners. I paused at a fork in the river to take a few casts. The main run was no more than a foot deep, with rocks big enough to conceal plenty of stockies. Outside the fork was a pool that extended about 20 feet back.

While I made my way along the bank, my sunglasses slipped from my nose and I looked down to adjust them. As I pushed my glasses back into place, I saw an orange crayfish belly up in the rocks.Taking a cue from fly fishing nerds, I figured it was a good time to try to match the hatch.

I had great luck this summer with Ned rigged TRD CrawZ. So, I thought I could entice a river bass or a pickerel by tying one on and moving to my favorite pickerel spot.

There's a straight run of river between the sandbar and drainage culvert that holds pickerel all year round. If anything was going to hit a craw, it would be there.

Sure enough, two casts led to two small pickerel before sundown.

Following the successful pickerel outing, I took another trip just below the culvert to a couple pools where I'd missed trout before. I tied on a few spinners and had a rainbow trout follow me into the last three feet of water before I broke off and headed back to my pickerel spot.

Once again, I tied on a craw and cast upstream to hook a pickerel that came unhooked just at my feet. I scurried over to the next pool above the log jam and cast at the standing dead tree on the opposite bank.

A few casts went without a bite or a follow, so I walked a bit further along the bank and hopped down to the water level. This time, I cast directly across to the pool on the opposite side of the sandbar. As I bounced my craw along the river bed, a fish took off with it.

I thought it was another pickerel until I saw it jump. The silhouette was a dead giveaway that I'd hooked a trout.

My lone trout of 2024 was a fat 14-inch rainbow caught on the most unlikely of baits, proving once again that the Ned Rig is an unstoppable force.

I've said it before and I'll repeat it. I am an amateur. Until recently, spinners and spoons were the only lures to ever leave my tackle tray. I've yet to master other lure styles. Ned rigs and soft plastics in general weren't even on my radar before this season.

I've now caught my PB Largemouth, my first crappie, and numerous other fish on Ned rigs. I've also dropped or missed more fish this season than in the past 10 seasons combined. I've dropped a lot of fish due to the combination of stretchy mono my tendency to crimp the barbs in all of my hooks.

The Rematch of the Century

About a month ago, I was exploring a fallen tree that blocked the river just upstream of my favorite boat launch. Earlier in the year, someone sawed a relief cut in the let debris and water through. There's plenty more river beyond the tree, but it wasn't accessible unless you launched further upstream or got out of the kayak and carried it around

On my first trip to the tree I had a Z-Man Finesse TRD in Firecraw tied on for crappie. This had been my lucky crappie color all summer long, and I figured this tree and others nearby would be loaded with fat black crappie.

So, I took a cast to the base of the tree where the roots met the bank. My jig head bounced off the tree and landed in the water at the corner where the two surfaces intersected. As it hit the water, a largemouth bass gulped it down and fought me for a minute before shaking the hook right at the boat side.

I took several more casts, but I'd missed my chance. It was late in the day and I didn't intend to haul my kayak over the tree, so I turned around and called it a night.

Shortly after that trip, I took a kayaking hiatus and decided to focus on trout and the final wedding of my 2024 wedding gauntlet in Phoenix. Fortunately, I'd planned ahead to ensure that I'd have a free day off after flying home from Arizona. Even more fortunately, the temperature that day was in the 60's. It was the perfect day to get back in the kayak and paddle back to the tree.

When I got there, I took my first cast straight at the corner, the same spot where the bass was hiding last time. I had my Firecraw TRD nedrigged once again, but this time it came back without so much as a follow.

Turning to my left, I noticed something new this time. The tree was now fully severed where the relief cut was visible last time. Without hesitation, I flipped my bail open, grabbed my line, and side-armed the jig directly between the two remaining halves of log.

Splash!

Just like the first time, a large mouth rocketed to the surface and took my jig right to the center of its palate. Do fish have palates? Anyway, the hook set was perfect.

Leap, splash.

This was more like it. A proper airborne drag-screaming battle.

Ever wonder why people spend hours targeting river bass when they could just cruise a pond and rip 20 pound braid through the lily pads? Fish like this are the reason.

It was no trophy bass. It weighed only a pound or two tops, but it hit with as much gusto as any pickerel.

I love my time on the water, but I've got to admit that I fish every so often just to fight the algorithms. I need to get new pictures, new videos, and new ideas for the podcast. I talked about this a few episodes back with the microfishing segment.Things have improved a bit since I've paid more attention to that habit, it's just the reality of running an internet business.

With that said, I knew this fish was going to make it into the podcast as soon as I landed it. It was absolutely poetic. After months of experimenting with different weight, different colors, and different retrieves, I'd landed on the right combination of jighead, plastic, and color to land a bass on the very first cast... not just any bass, but one that I'd found, missed, and analyzed for weeks before besting him in the rematch of the century.

I've been thinking about this lately, and I wonder whether the tendency to daydream about a fish and replay these battles is actually tied to a deeper sense of nostalgia. While we might not always show it, anglers are among the most sentimental and nostalgic people you can find.

Think about it. Favorite lures, favorite colors, rods and reels that get handed down from one generation to the next, and secret spots will only share with people who will preserve the secret for generations to come? We're a pretty sappy bunch when it comes down to it, and I am no exception.

This trait is usually a benign one, but sometimes it materializes. Once in a while it results in a project, or it might result in a series of YouTube rabbit holes and long hours of research to satisfy my curiosity.

Most recently, this affliction hit both my dad and me around the birth of my his first grandson. I think I was still on paternity leave boat building videos led me to a community of makers that refinished small aluminum boats mini bass boats.

My dad, a lifelong angler himself, has been holding onto a 12 foot aluminum boat since my grandparents sold the cottage. Built in the 60s, it's a sturdy vessel, among the heftiest lawn ornaments you'll find for the size. Surely it's capable of supporting the weight of two anglers, and a live well or a casting deck.

I was visiting my parents one afternoon and the baby was down for a nap when I queued up some YouTube videos of tiny bass boats. It started with simple seating modifications then casting decks, then full aluminum frames custom laser foam, rod lockers, and hand fabricated hatches. It didn't take long before dad was sold.

It took months of scouring Marketplace, and the internet at large my dad settled on a motor and a trailer for the old boat.

After scrutinizing some iffy listings nearby, he settled on a new trailer in a box and a four horsepower Mercury outboard.Trailering of logistics were mostly dad's pet projects for the past month or so. I only know what he sent by text or what he shared over dinner. I can imagine there were numerous four-letter words uttered screamed between the time I helped him and the time that we first hit the water.

When the day finally arrived, it didn't seem real. We loaded the trailer, to the boat launch, and found our spot in the line of people launching and landing their boats.

I took the first shot at starting the new motor only to stall and then flood it. After adjusting the vents in the choke and opening up the throttle a bit, I backed it right into the mud. You know what they say, time's a charm.

This time, Dad and I swapped spots. The motor started on the first or second pull. It roared to life while we sat in neutral. Dad slowly adjusted the throttle and the choke. He shifted forward and the boat jerked into motion. We did a wide circle in front of the boat ramp before riding upstream to the fishing grounds.

The fishing itself was uneventful. Dad lost a Kastmaster to a tree. and I snagged a Ned rig on the bottom. We didn't get any bytes or follows. A bass boat hanging around the next bend caught something, but I didn't see what it was.

The thing is, I didn't expect to catch anything. I was half expecting us to get stranded on a sandbar or to flood out the engine and have to paddle home. The goal was to get the boat on the water. Period. Honoring the legacy of the cottage a gift that my father got from his father, were just fringe benefits.

I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you we put the boat back on the water a week later caught a few bass - five largemouth bass between us. I caught three and I caught two. It was his first time at a spot that I'd fished by kayak for a few years. It was my first time fishing at a water level that was so low.

We bottomed out a couple times at a spot that I knew was sketchy, but I didn't realize how far out it extended. Aside from that spot and a comically bad attempt by each of us to back the trailer up to the boat launch, the trip was objectively a success.

Consider that my dad catches most of his bass on vacation these days. With the cottage for bass from the shore nearby is a fool's errand. He and I live a town so we're usually fishing the same bodies of water.

This was the first local trip that I can remember both of us catching a bass in years. Dad hasn't joined me for a kayak adventure yet.

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, it's only appropriate that I give thanks that my family has this and my dad is willing to humor my weird YouTube binges oddball hobbies.

Sometimes, we go on adventures with just days or mere hours of planning. After I graduated from college, we jumped in the car and drove 24 hours straight to Orlando. I'm getting sappier in my old age, but I'm glad that Dadventures are still alive and well in my family.

Home Sweet Home

While I was thinking about the boat and our sometimes unconventional adventures, something else struck me. For years, I've thought that Florida was about as close to fishing nirvana as an angler could get. still pretty convinced of that. This grass is always greener mentality caused me to overlook a lot of the great fishing opportunities closer to home.

Regular listeners will know that I've developed a bit of an infatuation for the Wachusett Reservoir, despite fishing it only once or twice this year. In addition to my typical bass and trout fishing, fishing there opened me up to new species like lake trout and smallmouth bass. A couple of hours further away, I've got access to bodies of water like Lake Champlain, the Ossable River, and countless other streams, rivers, brooks, and ponds where I can find species like sturgeon, that I've never even attempted to catch.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when I consider all of the saltwater fishing opportunities nearby. Not to mention scallops, softshell clams, cohogs, lobster and crabs. Seriously, I could fish for a different species every day.

I've fixated far too long on the idea of fishing when the weather is nice and the conditions are pleasant. Naturally, Florida seems like the ideal location to fish where the temperatures are warm year round. In stark contrast stands New England our cold dreary winters sandwiched between two seasons of mud and sticks leaving only a couple months of the year for comfortable fishing.

When my wife Lauren was still pregnant, I started fishing every single day that I had at least an hour or two of free time. No matter the temperatures of the wind speed no matter how much precipitation was in the forecast, I was dead set on getting all the fishing time that I could before the baby was here.

I took a couple months off between the birth of my son and his first week of daycare, I was back at it with a renewed sense of confidence in March. I fished river banks until the ice was thawed enough to put the kayak in in the early spring. At that point I got soaked fishing in the rain for fat perch and big pre-spawn bass. By summertime, I was well equipped with my Teflon pants and my rain jacket and by autumn I waded knee deep in the surf at Plum Island to fish for stripers.

Most of these trips weren't really significant in terms of fishing. Not one of them resulted in a PB. Some didn't result in any fish at all. However, they tested my resolve. They challenged me to try new tactics, push through the frustration.

I'm not the saltwater angler that my grandfather was. I've never caught monster or cod like my dad has. On my best day, I might be able to pull a couple of freshwater techniques or lures out of my bag of tricks and teach a buddy or my brother a thing or two about fishing.

But I'm a New Englander, born and bred. These waters are part of me and part of my story. My stubbornness knows no bounds and I've got a whole lot of time to hone my craft. With each new each PB, each encounter, I'm learning to master my home waters.

I will fish every season. I'll fish every single day that circumstances allow. I might never win a tournament and I might never even win the pool, but I'm going to take advantage of every fishing opportunity that I get.

I'm grateful that I have so many places left to explore. I can't wait to fish for new species, to write about them and to share what I've learned. The thought of offering new products, new techniques, and putting people onto fish me with excitement.

These days, I dream of fishing. Sometimes I dream about sitting in the kayak. Sometimes I'm fighting a monster and sometimes I'm just building lures or pouring plastics. I haven't had a dream about my business taking off yet, but it'll come. With enough conviction and enough repetition, it'll come.

Outtro

Thanks again for tuning into this episode of The Cottage Chronicles. If you enjoyed this episode, follow me on Instagram and Facebook, at New Dawn Tackle Co. to keep up on all the latest fishing adventures, recommendations, and updates. Check out my blog at newdawntackleco.shop for more tips and tutorials and check out the shop for all your fishing needs.

Don't forget to leave a review or drop a comment to let me know what you think.

Until next time, tight lines and happy fishing.