Diggin' up Donkeys (S5, Ep. 2) Mixin' it Up - Springtime Bass Fishing in New England #largemouth

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:02]Are you ready to dig up some donkeys?

[00:00:05]Stick around.

[00:00:13]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hey folks, Keith here at Chicken Thigh Fishing. Welcome aboard season number five. It's another spring day in New England.

[00:01:32]Wacky, wacky weather we're having. So, we're going to see how much that's got the fish messed up.

[00:01:37]But, we're going to give it a shot. I'm glad you're here.

[00:01:40]Let's dig up some donkeys.

[00:02:01]>> All right. Well, I started off with a spinner bait and I like to do that a lot anyway, but also when it's a breezy day and I'm not sure how much I'm expecting today.

[00:02:11]Um a lot of fish are still on beds.

[00:02:15]I've been picking a few off here and there. It's my first time at this pond this year.

[00:02:19]Uh we're on Thorndike Pond in New Hampshire.

[00:02:22]And uh the weather has just been kooky.

[00:02:25]I mean, yesterday was over 90 and today it's 56.

[00:02:30]Uh and 90 is like ridiculously hot for New England in May. And uh today is much cooler and there's a pretty stiff breeze.

[00:02:39]Um so I'm not sure what to expect today, but we're going to mix it up till we hit something.

[00:03:14]All right. So, nothing on that spinner bait and I just came through a shallow rocky cove with the uh square bill for quite a while and not even a bump. So, I'm going to I'll poke around the transition where this cove drops off uh with a swimbait and see if we can dig anything up that way.

[00:03:34]It's been a slow week. Let's hope it heats up.

[00:04:09]>> And the first fish comes on a lipless crankbait, but it ain't no bass.

[00:04:16]It's a pretty perch.

[00:04:22]Yep, perch.

[00:04:50]There's another pickerel in my boat.

[00:05:13]Well, now.

[00:05:15]You know what I always say.

[00:05:19]That is not the fish we're after.

[00:05:27]Well, someday that's going to be a donkey.

[00:05:51]>> Every time I come here is a dude over there making that noise.

[00:05:57]It's crazy as a loon.

[00:06:20]All right, that is not a perch.

[00:06:24]That is most assuredly not a perch.

[00:06:32]Wow, this could be a good fish here.

[00:06:42]Wow, that is a fired up fish, boy.

[00:06:51]Wow, that is not a big fish, but that is one fired up fish.

[00:06:56]Woo, doggie.

[00:06:58]Not a bad one.

[00:07:04]Nice little guy there, but boy, he fought an awful lot bigger than that.

[00:07:11]Nice fish.

[00:07:14]Very pretty. Awesome coloring.

[00:07:19]Thank you, sir.

[00:07:21]And that one came on that red eye Uh I believe that is the natural bream pattern of the 3/4 oz Strike King red eye shad lipless crankbait.

[00:07:36]I honest to God thought that was a big fish.

[00:08:06]>> Oh.

[00:08:08]Oh, that was a great topwater hit.

[00:08:12]>> [laughter] >> Great topwater hit. Too bad that's not going to be on the camera.

[00:08:34]Stay down.

[00:08:40]Wow, these fish are fired up today, boy.

[00:08:45]Get the boat.

[00:08:47]All right, now we're talking.

[00:08:50]I got to get out of these rocks while I deal with this fish.

[00:08:57]All right, so I just threw way into those shallow rocks.

[00:09:01]And this guy came on the Aventa wood GT crawler.

[00:09:09]Awesome awesome topwater bait.

[00:09:12]Anything by Imakatsu is top notch.

[00:09:20]And I'm going to make it a point this year to fish with a lot more of the stuff that I sell on my eBay shop.

[00:09:26]So, if you like something that you see that I'm fishing with >> [clears throat] >> and you want to give it a shot, I'll let you know if it's available in my eBay shop. And I do have multiple of these.

[00:09:42]And this is going to take me a minute cuz he beat this thing up good.

[00:09:47]All right.

[00:09:48]Here's a first halfway decent fish of the year right there.

[00:09:52]Good-looking fish.

[00:09:56]Now, Aven ta makes a whole lot of topwater lures and big lures and matter of fact, if you watch the channel, you know the Bull Leonard is one of my favorites.

[00:10:05]But they also make the Aven ta and the Aven ta wood, which is made of wood, and the Aven ta wood GT, which is a smaller version, and is designed to be aerodynamically cast efficient and accurate. And uh so I just tossed that lure over some rocks that I have no business being in with the boat, especially in the wind.

[00:10:28]And wouldn't you know, that boy blasted it.

[00:10:36]See if we can do that again.

[00:10:47]Oh.

[00:10:48]There's another.

[00:10:51]OH, HE CAME OFF.

[00:11:25]Here's a little smallmouth.

[00:11:33]Yeah.

[00:11:37]>> Little smallmouth on the uh 6th Sense um 77X Swank hybrid shallow crankbait, very similar to the Hybrid Hunter from Strike King that you always see me use.

[00:11:52]Little smallie.

[00:12:09]Oh, yeah.

[00:12:12]Oh, he's a mile away.

[00:12:19]>> [laughter] >> If I land this fish, it'll be amazing.

[00:12:34]Wow, is he far away?

[00:12:40]I got my cast caught in the wind and it casted a mile and a half. He was a long way away when he took that bait.

[00:12:49]All right, and there we have yet another bait.

[00:12:53]I tossed a um perch swimbait from Real Prey Swimbaits.

[00:12:59]I picked this up from Joe from Real Prey at the uh New England Fishing Expo this year.

[00:13:05]And uh there you go.

[00:13:08]Largemouth bass. Woo, buddy.

[00:13:27]Oh, yes.

[00:13:33]Oh, another one that's far away.

[00:13:49]That's a good fish.

[00:13:58]Yeah.

[00:14:00]Woah, he was sitting right under a tree and I dropped the ChatterBait in there.

[00:14:05]Oh.

[00:14:07]Woo, he must have been sitting right under that.

[00:14:16]And that there is a good fish.

[00:14:19]All right.

[00:14:26]Nice, strong one.

[00:14:29]Good fish.

[00:14:34]That felt good.

[00:14:35]I've been throwing a few baits and I've been over here for probably 45 minutes with nothing. I just started throwing a different crank bait, a spinner bait, and I saw a lot of overhanging trees and docks on this line.

[00:14:50]So, I pulled out the uh Z-Man Big Blade and I just dropped it right under an overhanging branch and as soon as it hit the water, he sucked it up.

[00:15:04]That felt good.

[00:15:15]Ah, there's another one.

[00:15:21]Oh.

[00:15:22]There goes one.

[00:15:24]He was right under the dock next to the tree.

[00:15:29]Oh, these are kind of summertime patterns here.

[00:15:33]I would not expect them to be there in this earlier this spring.

[00:15:42]But then again, if I could figure fish out, I'd be a wealthy man.

[00:15:50]Let me try that again.

[00:16:19]There's another fish or what?

[00:16:21]On the ChatterBait. I'm bouncing that ChatterBait off these rocks here.

[00:16:26]And uh I hit about three or four rocks and this guy picked it up after the last one.

[00:16:33]Nice.

[00:17:05]Yeah.

[00:17:18]All right. There's one on a spinner bait.

[00:17:25]That chatter bait slowed down, so I went back to the spinner bait.

[00:17:28]Little guy, but we'll take him.

[00:17:31]3/4 oz bluegill from my favorite Rocky Ledge Tackle, now discontinued.

[00:17:40]But, I still have some left, thank goodness.

[00:17:43]Cuz they are my favorite.

[00:17:58]Good fish.

[00:18:00]Oh, yeah. Right under the tree.

[00:18:09]That's not a bad fish, right under that tree.

[00:18:23]Nice.

[00:18:24]Toss that spinner bait in under that tree, it was sitting right there.

[00:18:28]Beautiful.

[00:18:34]Beautiful.

[00:18:39]Suck that I love when they hit it, right when it hits the water. We picked that right spot under a tree.

[00:18:45]Nice.

[00:18:48]Nothing big, but hey.

[00:18:51]Ooh, when you can catch a bunch of fish in the springtime up in New England, that's a good day.

[00:19:10]There's one of them.

[00:19:15]Ah.

[00:19:17]He got off.

[00:19:24]Oh, that one got off.

[00:19:30]So, all I'm doing is throwing at docks and rocks and overhanging trees.

[00:19:36]Just kind of poking around and I did not expect much to happen today, but nothing huge, no giants or anything, but pretty happy with the numbers.

[00:20:20]Ah.

[00:20:26]Ah.

[00:20:43]That's a five, all day.

[00:20:48]All day.

[00:20:50]All day.

[00:20:55]Best fish of the day right there.

[00:20:58]Golly.

[00:21:10]>> Ain't that always the way? Biggest fish of the day.

[00:21:15]Should have checked my line.

[00:21:34]That was a big fish.

[00:22:20]There's another one on the top water.

[00:22:24]Small guy.

[00:22:32]Small mouth.

[00:22:34]Small Small mouth.

[00:22:37]Look at the size of the lure he's using.

[00:22:42]Yep.

[00:22:43]So, that came on the Defiant Bird.

[00:22:49]Which I just picked up at the New England Fishing Expo this year cuz I was working it with my eBay shop. I brought my eBay shop to the expo and I met a nice fellow by the name of Randy who runs Craze Outdoors and Randy travels the country and does expos and outdoor shows and he's got a lot of good stuff.

[00:23:17]Yeah, little guy there.

[00:23:19]Eating that big old bait.

[00:23:22]And so I picked up this defiant bird from him because I'm just an addict to topwater crawlers and uh that's the first fish I caught on it.

[00:23:34]It's a fine looking lure and it feels really solidly made and the wings feel super strong so I think I'm going to like its durability.

[00:23:42]Hopefully.

[00:24:04]Well folks, that's it. Time to get out of here for the day but we will be back here this year plenty of times I'm sure.

[00:24:09]I come here a few times a year.

[00:24:11]Had fun. We didn't hit any real big ones and the biggest one we hit broke us off and ran away with us better bait so that's fishing.

[00:24:20]It was good to hit a bunch of fish.

[00:24:22]First day this year I've hit that many fish and we hit them on a lot of different baits. Fun times.

[00:24:31]Love it.

[00:24:32]Welcome spring and welcome season five.

[00:24:35]I'm glad you're here. We're going to have a whole lot more donkeys for you coming at you this season. Me and Brian and all the guests we're going to have.

[00:24:44]Looking forward to it. We'll see you next time on Chicken Thigh Fishing and until then stay fishing my friends.

[00:25:07]>> Woo!