Bridge Fishing On The Charles River

Bridge Fishing On The Charles River

Bridge Abutments

Now I talked briefly about how bridge abutments are good for fishing when fish go deeper and have to hide to cover. the reason for that is they want to be deeper. They want to be on drops. they want to be on cover. they want to be in slack water. now today the tide is going this way toward the ocean, which is obviously at the city.

This is going more of the Charles River, as you see here, there's actually two bridges. One is a walking bridge and a bridge for cars. the last one is actually the railroad bridge, which has pretty much actually... Yes the railroad bridge has all the abutments. If you look over here, you'll see there's a walking ramp that goes around the both of the bridges here and to the other side.

I used to travel with my bike here all the time going up and down this strip here, which is actually a state park. It goes all the way to Boston and leads to the Charles River Esplanade where I do a lot of my bass fishing. I'm going to be fishing right from there. 

Illegal Bridge Fishing

Since the water is going out you can actually see the waves going outward from the abutment. right here there’s  gonna be some bass. right here and right here and maybe even over here too. guess what bridge fishing is little different. In most states, it's actually outlawed. in Virginia there's fantastic spots to actually fish off the bridge and just make a killing at the right time for striped bass and pretty much any other fish.

if a police officer sees you, he's going to pull you over this side and say. "Sir I don't know if you know this but fishing off bridges is illegal. There's a sign right over there. Don't know if you saw it but don't do it again."

I think railroads are even worse because they don't want you on them. fishing is illegal on a bridge. If a train comes through there, you got nowhere to hide. You can't run all the way to the side in time. you can’t run back. all you can do is jump off the side and hope you can hang on to the abutment and get back up or you're going for a swim or even worse.

You're right on talking about that. i think the the third option, nobody should take that option.  I'm gonna be fishing for something here using a plastic worm. Once again, I forgot to bring my Texas style bullet weight. So I didn't get that lower down, so it's only floating while we move in the  wind. 

As you can hear it's windy, so there's also a movement in the air. this pushes fish to one side or the other of the abutment because.

Let's Do Some Bridge Fishing!

So I'm hoping that there's some fish closer to the surface or I can get it right up against that bad boy and let it drift down. They might come out to get a glimpse of it free floating. it will look more natural and that's a good thing. It is a zoom trick worm so it will do its job at tricking them, but they can't see it. that's not a problem. So I would suggest you actually use a weighted worm to do this or a Carolina rig.

right now's a great time in the fall to  use baitfish. So we have some medium to deep diving crankbaits that go between 6 and maybe 10 feet somewhere in that zone. you're going to find those fish here. it's probably no more than 20 feet or less. Actually I think it's close to the 15 foot mark. We will actually see when I go over there.

I've never fished this spot so let's try to spread fishing action. now will tune back in if something happens, but might be a little tough, it's chilly. it's windy. I don't have weight on my worm. by the time I'll throw my countdown minnow 5 and see if that works too, but we'll see.

Here we are at the bridge abutment. here on the sidewalk thingie it goes around. it's pretty cool. I can finish both sides of the abutment and the inside and possibly the outside. If I had something heavier I could actually get to that second one, which is pretty cool. If I actually come here more often this might be my new spot especially if I can get some action going.

there's some cyclists rolling by and you have to watch your back around here. It can get a little dangerous. so when you fish here I have nowhere to prop it up. you'll need to be on a tripod. I didn't bring that. maybe even if I did somebody would knock it over. I don't want to be swimming in this cold water to get my iPhone. anyway so I'll check you back in if I get some action.

Back again and it turns out not getting any bites here. maybe it's because of my weighted bait. I check the bait now and it's just floating away as soon as I hit the water. I'm pretty sure that they weren't able to see it so I tied a weight on there with a rock right around the corner. this is what I came up with...

Check this out, obviously this rock is a little close to the worm. if I had above two feet up 
from where it is right now turn the feet up it would turn into a nice Carolina Rig. my hands are a little cold. my slip knot kinda slipped and went up the line. I have no time for this so this is the way it's gonna be out there so I can get something that strikes but no action. I did learn about what's at the bottom because of the rock.

There's a whole bunch of hydrilla down there. There aren’t many rocks. there's some like sticky mud as well. so it's a little interesting is the key word is actually just to the outside of the the abutment. behind the abutment there is hydrilla  growing, which a bass may find is nice structure. any like a trees or like piece of concrete blocks down there is good for bass.

I didn't feel any of that  behind this abutment. It might have little pieces of the the bridge during the original construction that fell aside. they decide they're just gonna leave it there and that's cool for fish. it's right here and they did their job pretty well.  it's pretty clean or just went down the river in one of the many storms that happen here. it goes when the storms happen. if it goes up drastically as you've seen from the floods.

So I gave it a try and will be back with some proper gear so my hands and body won't freeze. I'll actually have a real worm weight too.

So thanks for checking into the video. if you liked it go down below  and subscribe then comment saying, "Dwight go buy some weights man, you don't got weights at home?" Which I do. I will remember to put in my bag and the bag in my pocket. make sure you bring them when you're doing this kind of stuff because that's just messed up man.

Also go to the website fishingatwork.com and you can choose 10 step process to go fishing at work PDF. also you'll get all the great information when you sign up for the email list. I created a how to catch more bass PDF as well, which is complete. So hope you can go bridge fishing better than I do in your local area.