Catching Some Little Ones As If One Might Be Good Sized

Fred Matero with one of his two little Harvey Cedar's fluke.

We had a serious problem with northeast wind yesterday. First thing we did on the island, after stopping at Fisherman's Headquarters, where I bought some hooks and sinkers, was grab a look at the surf, and it was all a rage. I hadn't expected it to be so bad. Next, we rode all the way to Barnegat Light and got a look at the jetty. The end of it appeared unfishable, waves breaking all the way across, and all the way back our way to the middle, water was on the rocks. If we were to go out there and fish that middle portion, which is the least we'd have wanted to do, we'd have probably got soaked. Not only with the temperature not quite 70, but with a backpack I want to keep in good condition, Fred's gear, and our preference for accessing the rocks without need of cumbersome Korkers cleats, though we each had a pair of them in Fred's SUV, the rocks weren't something we felt eager to hike out to. In fact, we abandoned our plan to do that altogether. 

We went to our bayside spot. I cast a jig & Gulp, with a Z-Man Elaztech tied above that jig on a dropper loop. I wasn't expecting anything, but last Fred fished here recently, a 20-incher got caught, and he had one on, so I did make the best of each cast. And on one of them, I got hit right in close before I would have lifted for the next cast, lifted to set the hook, and had what felt like a 16-inch fluke on for a couple of seconds. Fred witnessed all that, but I told him the same anyhow, and he said, "You never know. When the guy hooked the 20-incher it felt like nothing till he got it to the surface and it ran."

I finally got my rig snagged, broke off the jig, and switched to bait in vague hopes of a nice tautog. It's rare that a really good one gets caught here, but the place draws a contingent of regulars that fish here all the time. Maybe they're just hooked, regardless of what gets caught, and what gets caught, in fact, are always little fish. But the jetty isn't too far away, and keeper tog do get caught on it. Sheepshead, too, though the sheepshead are relatively uncommon. So, who knows? I had it in me to give it a sincere try, more than I did last time. And I did hook something somewhat nice, like a 12-inch tog, big enough that I had to work the reel & rod hard to keep it out of the rocks, which I failed at doing! It got snagged in such a way that I could feel its body pulsing--not exactly a "little" fish--but I still couldn't get it unsnagged, not even by giving it slack for long periods of time.

In the meantime, one of the guides on the Tica Fred was using for baiting tog broke. The ring had popped out of the metal frame. He told he figured he could glue it. Told me about the brand he'd use, though I forget which epoxy. Then things got worse after he continued to use it and that ceramic ring broke. He felt disappointed because he's going to Florida soon and wanted to use the rod there. But he told me he had been looking for an excuse to buy a new Tsunami rod. I told him I had bought my Tica to replace a Tsunami. I didn't tell him this, but yeah, a Tsunami that was of the same size as my Tica. I couldn't remember, though, and still can't, what went wrong with the Tsunami. 

At the end of our excursion, we would stop back in at Fisherman's Headquarters, where Fred left his Tica to be repaired, because there's no point in trashing an otherwise good rod because of a 20-dollar fix. It will take longer to get done than when he leaves for Florida, however, so he has his excuse.  

I caught some little fish as I continued to fish as if one of them might be good sized, and I enjoyed it. I guess when you're open to the water in front of you, what comes out of it, in fact, feels good. Fred had told me about a spot in Harvey Cedars, and that it would be best to fish it before the tide gets low. Since the tide was on its way out, I felt ready to go, but I gave our spot my blessing, as if, just maybe, it would yield a nice one some day. 

The Harvey Cedars spot has no tog and sheepshead structure. It's open water of at least six feet, near the Intracoastal Waterway channel. Fred hadn't been there in years, but he's caught small fluke, weakfish, and I believe he said cocktail blues. Today, we get some bites from small stuff that resulted in Gulp twister tails being bit off. I got a couple of hits on the Elaztech teaser I think were small fluke. You know that's where the hit came, when the Elaztech is no longer straight but pulled down into a curve on the hook. And by fishing the cove pretty hard, Fred ended up with two small fluke. 

Black Seabass

From the spot where we caught a number of small ones.

Bergal, also known as cunner.

Northeast Wind Probably Not as Bad

 

Feeder Creeks Make Low Water an Opportunity

Nine-inch pike hit large Smithwick plug.

Yesterday, on the way to Round Valley Reservoir for a dog walk and photo shoot with my wife and black Lab Loki, and on the way back home from the same and ice cream at Polar Cub, I thought hard on what to do about fishing today. When we drove the bridge over Rockaway Creek, I took a good look at that stream's low level and knew exactly where I wanted to fish. Somewhere along the Passaic River by walking the bank. 

After we got home, I texted Brenden Kuprel, asking him if he'd been fishing it. He got back in minutes, saying he'd caught a small pickerel and had a blowup on a Whopper Plopper. I told him I'd be fishing it tomorrow and that he's welcome to meet me there if he wants. He told me he wasn't sure what he was doing tomorrow, but one thing and another happened, and today we decided on meeting at a bridge over the river. 

The river gets some pressure there, but as Brenden put it, mostly "within a hundred yards of the bridge." We headed downstream, and our passage was probably possible only because of the low water. A lot of little creeks feed into the river, and getting across them is probably impossible when water is higher. With us included in the river's ecology, those creeks protect the resource, and make low water an opportunity. 

But what happened to make today opportune? Well, it was the fish Brenden didn't hook. The one that went after his spinner with more than a little drama. He cast a big Colorado-bladed inline spinner, and I saw the blowup on it, too. I think the fish had to have been at least five pounds. Likely more than that. We fished the area thoroughly, catching a few little nine-inch pike apparently stocked recently, and made a mental note to fish the spot on the way back. 

We must have worked our way downstream a half mile or more, before we turned back. That involved crossing at least a half dozen little feeder creeks. Avoiding deep mud in the process. Once, I stepped onto a log  in the mud, then tried to leap up a bank, falling instead, so that my face got planted where my feet would have gained traction, Loki the black Lab licking it profusely.

Good dog! I got up as if it were nothing, because I could walk straight, nothing turned in the wrong direction. Other little creeks I cleared as if I have decades of good balance left. 

Before we began making the march back out, I had almost hooked a pike that impressed me as being about 18 inches long. I had my drag set light. I loosen drags at home to take the stress off them. Perhaps they'll last longer. But then I have to remember to tighten them down, or something like today's lost pike happens. I tried to set the hooks and my drag screeched, rather than the hooks actually getting set. 

Back at the spot where Brenden got hit by the big one, I caught yet another little pike, about a foot long. Brenden had caught another little nine-incher and a couple of little yellow perch back along the way. 

It wasn't an outright skunker. The pike we caught were too little, but at least they made their presence known. Above all, the big one that blew up on Brenden's spinner. And the one I had one for a second would have been OK catch, too. I've never caught a pike bigger than 20 inches from the Passaic, but I always find the river compelling. So does Brenden, who lives near the river, and has caught four pike better than 10 pounds, so far.    

Large tree virtually growing out of the river.

 

Passaic Pike

Lake Wallenpaupack From Shore: Schuman Point and Other Spots

Lake Wallenpaupack is like any other lake where you can find shoreline access: Chances are good some of what you can get to will hold bass and other gamefish. I didn't know it for a fact before I got up there and tried a few spots, but it didn't surprise me that I caught a couple of fish. We stayed at the lake region for a few days beginning on my wife's birthday, and instead of blowing 500 bucks on a charter, I got a three-day license and fished a little for two days while Trish sat comfortably and read. If I want to get serious about smallmouths, I can rent a Stumpknocker from Dow's on Lake Hopatcong. I just felt curious about what I might catch where probably just about everyone else gets skunked.

When I began fishing late Sunday afternoon in a little cove commandeered by a marina, a couple of other guys had been fishing, and as they left, they told me they'd caught nothing. I like to piece things apart as if I'm looking in every corner for an old coin. That dock in the lower left of the photo, below, was the object of my deconstruction, and if I fished with the lackluster gusto of most fishermen, I wouldn't have engaged in a process of covering every inch in the attempt to get whatever bass that might hide underneath docks and boats interested. Most fishermen fish as if they don't believe any fish exist. 

I caught the bass photographed above on a Yum Dinger rigged Wacky. Little bass. But a bass. I also tried to set the hook into another one that took the same worm, but missed that hit. Hooking a three-pound largemouth didn't seem out of the realm of possibility to me.

On Monday, we planned on hiking the Schuman Point Hiking Trail, but decided to wait until Tuesday morning to hike it entirely. Instead, we hiked directly to the lake from the parking lot, where I did more thorough fishing and Trish read her book. As you can see in the photo, the reservoir's water level is down three or four feet, and many of the rocks are good material for holding smallmouth bass, easy to assume more of the same exists under the water. Judging by my losing two Yum Dingers to snags, I would say so. 

I used crayfish-colored worms. I saw more a few dead crayfish. Apparently, there were thousands of them among the rocks.

Having switched to a Husky Jerk jerkbait, I covered range a lot quicker than I had been doing with the Wacky rig. I worked my way down to the deadfall you can barely see in the middle of the photo, where I caught a small northern pike I didn't photograph. Taking it all the way back to the camera I left behind might have killed it. Only about a foot long, the fish seemed really delicate. 

Before I fished the next spot Monday afternoon, Mangan Cove, I had already imagined most of the bass are deep. In close to shore where my casts might have reached 10-foot depths at most, the fishing will probably be a lot better in October. It's probably good in May, too. At Mangan Cove, the situation was similar, with rocks and rather shallow water. I got three pulls on my Yum Dinger from sunfish, rock bass, or tiny little smallmouths. 

The water might be clearer in October, too. Its green hue seems to be caused by algae, which gives it a rather cloudy appearance. Also, unlike in the finger lakes we visited three years ago, we found no weedbeds. I would have felt very confident in finding some largemouths had we found weeds. From what I've read, though, smallmouths outnumber largemouths here seven to one. Given the amount of rock we observed, it's no mystery as to why. 

If, for whatever, reason, you're interested in fishing a lake from shore, you can catch some fish if you persist at it. During the spring and fall, you'll probably do better. Just before my wife and I headed home, we hiked the entire Schuman Point Trail. About a half mile down lake from where I had caught the northern, we took a break by the water. A guy in a bass rig was casting a jerkbait about as far out as I could cast one from the shore edge, which gave me the impression that the water must be shallower than 10 feet, or he might have been casting a diving plug. I watched him as he made his way with a bow-mount electric, and I watched him as he hooked up, caught, and released a smallmouth of about 13 inches. I hadn't brought my rod, even though my license was still good. I just wanted to hike the three miles and get on the road. But, yeah, I kinda wished I had.  

Bottom was less rocky in the little cove.

Schuman Point Trail straight down from the parking lot.

Mangan Cove

Finger Lakes from Shore

 

What Outings Present You as the Given

Our single fish, about 14 inches.

I got up at 3:45 a.m., put on shorts, a T-shirt, water shoes. Fixed eggs and coffee before I put a Woolrich shirt over my shoulders, a light jacket over that. Temperature was 59 degrees as I drove out of Bedminster. When I arrived at Cronk's, it was 56 and raining.

I got the dolly and put it on the back seat. I put ropes up front and back, the rachet strap beside the car, passenger side. Beside the back seat. Everything was quiet, Loki the black Labrador loping about leisurely, no evidence of my having stirred Brian's dogs. I had said we have a good track record in keeping quiet, when I submitted my request to secure the squareback canoe early. As it turned out, I would later be told to back in, in the future, as the lights did wake up the dogs. I just hadn't heard them. 

Oliver pulled into the drive. I put the blanket on top of the car and two pool noodles. We put the foam plastic on the gunwales and popped the canoe on top. The rachet and ropes were a breeze. 

Still 56 at Tilcon, we found carting the canoe in--heavy marine battery, Minn-Kota, and all--so easy and efficient everything felt dandy. Rain continued to fall, but surely temps would rise well into the 60's, towards that forecasted high of 70, and the rain would soon end. I had put my rain jacket on over the other. Oliver didn't bring rain gear. 

And the bass. Oh, they'd hit in these conditions. There's a hurricane off the coast!

I know. I'm always neutral when I approach an outing, but I did think fish might be active. Who wouldn't think they might be on a morning like this one? As it turned out, they not only definitely were not active, we couldn't even locate but a single salmon on the sonar graph as we crisscrossed over the 50-foot deep basin looking for them. Where did they go? (We never saw any on the graph in 35 feet, either.) Today the lake level is down about two feet, so most of the basin registered at 48 feet, some of it 49. We had Kastmasters to try jigging with. 

I told Oliver today that Tilcon is my favorite lake to worm for bass.

"Yeah, because we always catch some."

And we wormed plenty. He did have one on that took his Wacky worm twice, so probably a pickerel but who knows. I never got hit. Only sunfish played with my Chompers. I get that worm into all sorts of tight places, love the exercise of accurate casting, but today I couldn't help but feel bass had all but entirely vacated shallows. The water temperature was 77 and misting against the 56-degree air. So I tended to cast a little way out from shore. The worm dropped a good 15 feet, but still. Nothing happened. And we had a trying time keeping out of the wind, running out of spots to cast to.

So we trolled towards the back of the lake where a whole lengthy shoreline would be out of that wind. I got hit pretty quickly, missed it, using the standard Hot 'n Tot that gets down 15 feet.

We rounded the flat, and I said to Oliver, "Good chance of catching one here. We've done well trolling along the weeds here before."

Before we would turn right and head down along the shoreline, I ripped my crankbait through some weeds and a second later felt that whomp we all troll for. The bass would have measured about 14 inches. 

We trolled, and we passed up a lot of nice looking worm water, which I couldn't help but tell myself we'd revisit, give it the chance it seemed to cry out for. We crisscrossed the basin I told you about, nothing there, and then we gave up. It was still raining. When we eventually got in the car, the temp was 59, so it had never got out of the 50's. When we hit the gravel, Oliver checked his phone and said, "Four hours."

I thought more like two, but yeah. We had given worming a real chance. If we would catch more fish, probably trolling the opposite side would have been the wise move, but were soaked, my shorts were soaked and I even felt water on my back despite my rain jacket. Shivering. 

It's a tough day when you're reduced to the like, but you don't resent it, if you're wise. Take the good with the bad and get on with it; if you start putting conditions on what outings present you as the given, you're a fool. I relished my complaints with a smile. I did complain. But I knew we'd get in that warm car and it would all vanish, and when it did, we could almost have been still out there. 

Hurricane's at sea, but it was stormy out there.

Rocks in the background. I would have used my long lens, but I was concerned enough about the camera getting wet as it was.

Clouds and Wind

 

Scouted West Branch Delaware River Above Cannonsville Reservoir

 

West Branch Delaware River miles above Cannonsville Reservoir.

Every summer, my brother David camps near Roscoe, NY, with his wife Carol and his friend Steve Cane and his family. Last week he invited me up, and I got there Saturday at three p.m., after stopping in at The Beaverkill Angler for a couple of size 24 blue winged olives, a size 14 Isonychia, and a sulfur-shaded Cahill, size 16. David had our destinations planned, referring to a map that shows parking and access. Steve would stay behind.

I felt surprised at how narrow the river. Smaller than much of the Farmington in Connecticut. We drove for miles upstream before we found one of the spots. What I saw felt unpleasant, as the stretch accessed by descending a thickly vegetated bank on a narrow trail was muddy with carp visible near the surface. The water barely moved at all, low because of the drought. I assumed carp had muddied it. 

A little non-plussed, I turned back, got in Dave's truck with him ready at the wheel, and from there we rode to the next spot, photographed above. From the bridge, we spotted a smallmouth of about 16 inches--and more carp. At the least, the water wasn't muddy. David wanted me to get the temperature with his thermometer. He knew something was amiss, and he did not want to fish trout if the water was above 65. 

It was 23 Celsius. Way too warm. And why was that when Pepacton Reservoir, I thought, was not far upstream?

We drove on downstream to the next access point where the thermometer read 25 Celsius. The stretch was about a foot deep. Dave spotted a sip riser. I saw it when the fish came up again.

"It's a rainbow. About 11 inches long," he said.  

David had a little blue winged olive tied on, too, and either of us could have casted for the trout, but neither of us was really tempted to.

David had checked the latest fishing report from Hale Eddy, which claimed the water temp was 55 degrees F. That I couldn't wrap my head around, given that I believed the cold water release from the reservoir was upstream, but I wanted to find out what was up as much as David did.

On the way there, we passed by Cannonsville Reservoir, so I figured the East Branch Delaware flowed pretty close to the West Branch at this point. We got to Hale Eddy not very long after, and before I could even get the thermometer in the water, I felt the coolness of the water in the air. I let the thermometer sit a while, not convinced it worked, and then read 12.5 degrees C. About 55 degrees F. It works. And I clearly understood--at last--that of course it's the West Branch flowing from Cannonsville Reservoir. We had been scouting the river where it's not a tailwater, but there are trout up there, as signs nailed to trees indicate, though I'm not altogether sure the trout David saw was a rainbow. I found information from the State of New York only on the stocking of browns up there, the information also stating that a wild brown trout fishery exists.

We walked the bridge and otherwise observed the water, finding no bugs on it, seeing no rises at all. So we fished pheasant tail beadheads, at first about five feet under indicator floats, then freestyle. I took my float off when I approached a couple of big rocks creating slack water and seams where it's shallower but interesting. On my second drift, I felt a knock and reared back on nothing. I drifted that run inside and out about 35 more times and never replicated what I had felt, and I swear I had seen the line jump, too. Maybe I got hit. 

We continued to fish the deeper run, both of us without indicators, but nothing happened. We had pretty much run out of time. I guess we could have tried to dig up another access point, but not only is it clearly evident why fishing the river from a drift boat is advantageous; it proved best we got back to camp when we did. I ended up arriving home in New Jersey just before dark.  

Below Cannonsville Reservoir the West Branch Delaware is a much wider river.

Pepacton Reservoir

The Natural World is Always There for You

You begin a long canoe float with the normal anxiety of everyday life, as if that's all the day will amount to. Towards the middle hours, I felt I didn't have it in me to let go, empty myself, and be filled with that equivalent of necessity that moves like aquatic vegetation undulates in the flow. But it happens, inevitably. I had been gone too long for it not to.

My guess? We did about six miles. I met Brenden Kuprel, 9:00 a.m., at the Confluence. There we left his SUV, riding to Neshanic. The road mileage isn't that much, but the river twists and turns, and we got out of the canoe shortly before 4:00. It wasn't a direct float-through, as if we only moved a mile-an-hour. We anchored a lot.

I had doubted we needed the extra 10 pounds! Thankfully, Brenden thought the anchor an OK idea. Without it, we wouldn't have caught nearly as many fish.

The total for the day was 43. My single largemouth (my first fish), my 13 smallmouths, Brenden's 28 smallmouths and his single green sunfish, which he, too, thought might be a warmouth. (I used to confuse them with warmouths, and I still haven't completely clarified the issue for myself.) Brenden often way outdoes me. He's an excellent angler.

The biggest was that 19-incher photographed above. Brenden caught a 16 1/4-incher, and we watched as a 15-incher leapt and shook the hook of his Ned Rig. At least, I think it was a Ned Rig. Earlier on, he used a round-head jig with, I think, a little paddletail. He did well with that, too. I did fish a Ned Rig some, and got hit, too. But I caught all my fish on four-inch Yum Dingers and Senkos rigged Wacky. 

Shadows amounted to many of the fish caught, maybe more than half, but they weren't the only spots where we caught--and saw--bass. Shadows are pretty hard to come by under high-noon sun, but even where the river is otherwise shallow, we often pulled bass as big as 10 inches out of them. I set the hook on one of them, missed that hit, and reeled back towards the boat with the bass following! I stopped the retrieve, the bass swooped on the Senko, I let it swim swiftly a couple of yards and set the hook. I released the 10 incher, and Brenden said, "I think they're revved up because they come from being in ambush mode." It wasn't the only bass that behaved similarly. 

I paid close attention when we floated over long strands of aquatic vegetation swaying back and forth in the current, because I figured there must be some bass hiding in the shadows, not to mention that we saw a lot of baitfish among the greenery, but we never clearly identified any bass, although I saw some fish nine inches long tear out of there as we passed by. Could have been baby suckers. I'm not sure. Tons of vegetation inhabits the lower South Branch. Some of it is attached to bottom six feet down. It gives you a primordial feeling from a river flowing for many thousands of years. 

Otherwise, the river remains rocky, and it's that rock that holds smallmouths, although some will be seen--when the water is as clear as it was yesterday--swimming leisurely through perhaps three of water amounting to a gravel-bottomed, mid-river flat. We saw a couple of them 18 inches long or better doing that. Others were 14 or 15 inches, 13. And although many of the bass we caught wouldn't have measured much longer than seven inches, plenty of them ranged from nine to 13 inches. We caught a lot of fish yesterday, but think of all the bass we passed by!

The amount of deeper water impressed me. Water six feet deep, even as deep as about 10 feet, is common once you get past about the halfway range between Neshanic and the Confluence. Much of the river back there isn't accessible any other way than by floating, and even then, the river is wide enough that you're pretty much limited to fishing one side. (Often enough, one side is the deeper.) Some places move slow enough that, without wind pushing you around, you can paddle across and back upstream.

By the time we approached Studdiford Bridge, I'd got worried about the amount of sun my legs had absorbed without sunblock. It was just a passing concern, but a good one to have heeded. I was in the zone by then--the kind of feeling inviting you to stay forever. It suggests that perhaps some day each of us does leave ordinary life for a good long stay in eternity, although I've always believed--at least, since my 20s when I discovered the possibility--I'll come back, because the earth is always there to let me know it's just as good, if I will only go out to meet it. You don't feel it in the ordinary confines of civilization. 

Besides my legs frying, my wife had expressed concern (via mobile device) about what time I'd get home. Again, like at the shore when I visited Fred Matero the other day, I got the message just as I departed. I had told her I guessed four or five, but she wanted to know for sure. I told her, how can I know that? Just the same, getting back before five felt like a good idea, although nature's intimation had superseded my minor concern for scheduling. As it always will if you do enough to go deeply into nature. 

We passed through a lot of deep water towards the end of the float where, had we anchored at it, we could have caught more fish, though we had caught plenty and big. Soon, we saw the bridge over the North Branch at the Confluence. It's not a sad thing to go back, because you know the natural world is always there for you.   

Nice one maybe a little better than 13.

About 12 inches.

Big enough to make commotion.

Can anyone identify the species?

A better one of the little bass.

This one fought super-hard fought downstream.

Sixteen and a quarter.

North Branch

 

I Still Believed Fish are at a Premium in this Lake

Brian Cronk and I fished yesterday late afternoon and evening, but the post is coming only now because I got up this morning and did a South Branch Raritan float trip with Brenden Kuprel. (The story of that pretty much all-day trip should be out tomorrow.) 

Yesterday, we fished about three and a quarter hours. The weather beautiful, we nevertheless found the fish pretty deep. The lake is about 30 feet deep at best, by what we can tell, having given it a pretty good scan. Brian felt enthused yesterday about the possibility of the lake's getting stocked with trout, but of all the holdover lakes, I think White Lake in Sussex County is the shallowest at--I believe--40 feet. Shepherd Lake in Passaic County is--I believe--45 feet, and is also listed by the state as a holdover lake. 

I'm not so sure trout would holdover in 30 feet of water, but Brian might be correct. I can cite some evidence in his favor. Ever read Round Valley Reservoir reports in The Fisherman during summer? How deep are the rainbow trout? About 30 feet. 

So, maybe.

There is abundant evidence of herring here. The lake's 40 surface acres or so were dappled by nervous schools of them yesterday evening. 

And like last time, we worked shorelines. At least we did at first. I had just a few hits, and Brian might have got his Chatterbait knocked. I fished a Chompers worm on an inset hook. No weight added. For any of you not familiar with my technique, I like to let the worm sink slowly. Most hits come on that initial drop. A fast-sinking worm is just another thing to chase down when bass take it easy during summer. But from yesterday, the hit that stands out in memory came when I slowly began retrieving the worm back to Brian's boat. A distinct knock I believed came from a pickerel. I stopped retrieving, felt the fish on, allowed slack, tightened--and set the hook into nothing!

"Son-of-a-bitch!"

I still believed fish are at a premium in this lake. That's especially why the loss burned. But as things turned out, we fished too shallow, anyway. The worm was getting down 10 feet some of the time, but even that. 

As I say, the weather was beautiful, but we found fish deep despite the moderation in temperature. By trolling. Right when we got started, by departing from a corner to proceed down lake along a weedline, I got hit about 12 feet down. The fish shook off. I caught the 19-incher photographed below further down lake and maybe 14 feet down. Brian hooked a bass I guess would've weighed nearly three pounds. The fish had suspended under a dock floating above 14 feet of water. It gave a clear account of itself by leaping...and throwing the hooks. Brian had tied on a lipless crankbait. I used the standard. A Hot 'n Tot by Storm. That plug gets down 15 feet, probably deeper with enough line out. I missed a couple of other hits about 15 feet down, and had a smallish pickerel--maybe 17 inches--on until it shook off in view along the boat. (The water is pretty clear.)

We had worked that weedline up and down a few times when I said to Brian that perhaps we should work where he wanted to fish next. He said we could follow the shoreline back to the ramp. It's steeper than the side with the weeds, although for less than a hundred yards, there's another weedbed, but the water drops off quicker. Most of the way back towards the ramp, the water drops as quickly to 20 feet as does at Tilcon Lake. 

Brian believes the lake must have once been a sand pit. Makes sense. There's concrete production within earshot. 

So I tried to maneuver us close enough to shore to get our plugs about 14 or 15 feet down, but I couldn't get too close without hanging up on deadfalls. I think I could have been running my plug over bottom 20 feet down, when, approaching another corner, I felt the kind of thump I don't associate with knocking stuff on bottom. I set the hook. The fish started moving--heavy--towards deeper water, and I believed I had hooked a bass that might go five pounds. It was give and take to the boat, some pretty serious weight feeling like a tow, but it proved not to be too serious. At 24 1/2 inches, the pickerel weighed three pounds and something or other. 

I did measure the length. 

We got to Brian's favorite spot with just enough sunlight to make it all possible. Brian had told me they want you out of there at sunset. I took that to mean trailering up.

I had completely forgotten that the particular shoreline does not drop off quickly compared to others, and we had some trouble catching weeds. When we managed to get the right depth, it wasn't a minute before, once again, I hooked a big one. (Three pounds and some.) A pickerel right at 24 inches. I just can't seem to get beyond the vicinity of approaching four pounds with a way to go yet. 

Brian switched to a Hot 'n Tot. He's bought some. 

I've been using the same two for over a decade and have caught on them countless pickerel and bass trolling. I make friends with my plugs. Why not? Starting to look like others are making friends with AI. (I make friends with AI, too, but I think I got off topic...hint, hint.)

Brian hooked up within minutes. A pickerel of about 19 inches leapt, throwing the hooks.

The sun set. The boat's bow met sand. A police vehicle had driven off, but I said, "You never know, it could come back." 

Nineteen or so Inches

Twenty Four Inches

Painted Turtle

Last Time

 

Good Day Forgetting Online Tedium

Nearing exit 67 where I would leave the Garden State Parkway, I got a text. When I got to Fred's house, he was outside awaiting me as he always does. We shook hands and began to catch up. I moved stuff from my car to his Subaru, but I also checked on that message. It was from my wife, telling me she had overlooked getting her car inspected last month. Put me in a tizzy. It took me awhile, but I re-slotted my schedule, all in my head, realizing I can probably get the car inspected in Randolph on Saturday...after I drop my canoe off. Back where I store it in the vicinity. Good thing I had that pinned down, although I didn't think to simply check my mobile device for the inspection station hours so I could be more sure. 

I suffered the four hours or so we fished the jetty, because of the insecurity of so much I have to do. Not just reminded of that, but having to shift plans. Computers are scary to me, because--in my experience--they always go wrong and I'm left to my own devices in setting them right again, until I have to seek professional help to get a computer fixed. The last I did that, the problem got solved in three minutes right at the front desk, and I wasn't charged. I've had bad experiences in the past. 

Right now, I'm stuck in the middle of building the new website, because my cursor became white against a white background in text blocks, so I can't effectively type. It's driving me nuts! I've been back and forth with support services for a week, and I can't imagine how the problem will be solved, besides maybe scrapping all my work and starting a new trial website. But then, will that one present the same problem? For the first week of working on the new site, the cursor worked fine, and I got a lot done.

It's not good for mental health to feel you're screwed by technical issues. I'm not a very technical sort to begin with. I'm a writer, and besides what I do for recreation, and the hobby of photography, I'd rather not do much else. I want to spend my time reading books and writing them. Reading my The Fisherman every month, too. Angler's Journal and The Flyfish Journal when they come. I don't want to wonder why in hell I'm singled out in this universe to have started building a website only to be unable, at least thus far, to complete it. From what the support service tells me, it happens to no one that all the hurdles are leaped and the problem remains. 

I'm one in a million.

So I was happy when Fred came up with the plan of moving on from the jetty at Barnegat Inlet to fish the beach on our way out with jigs for fluke, and then a certain bulkhead for triggerfish, blackfish, any possible sheepshead, and fluke. He had caught a fluke on his first cast on the ocean side of the jetty. Besides that, just a tiny seabass! We've always done well before. 

Fred said he got a hit as we fished the beach, if I remember rightly. When we had walked in, there was a guy doing well on live killies at the end of a groin that cuts across at a 45-degree angle from the end of the jetty. The wind wasn't bad. From the northeast and very light. When we had left the beach and got to that bulkhead, the surface of the water was flat. I caught a little seabass on one of Fred's previously frozen sand fleas and that was it, besides Fred's Gulp jig getting hit once. Someone else fishing there with a Gulp Jerk Shad had caught a keeper fluke.

I finally called it on the fishing. I'd felt better leaning against the rail and getting some interest at least from little fish tapping on that bait, but I got tired of it, nothing of any size intervening. For a moment, I had felt as if I'd rise out of my worries, but I fell into feeling pissed off about pressured fish! It's a weekday, yet the rails were crowded with fisherman, and though I have nothing else against people getting out and fishing, it can be annoying when no keepers seem to exist where they can be reached. I had felt good for about five minutes back on the jetty, when I got it in my head that if I persisted and covered ground, I might catch a sheepshead. But I lost three rigs to the rocks in about as many minutes in the attempt to do that, and it put me off.

Sure enough, not long before we left, someone came from the jetty end, done his morning's fishing, with a keeper bag containing a nice sheepshead and a keeper blackfish, so my intuition wasn't exactly groundless. I just wasn't aligned right to do it today.

"I think a nice cold Coke will do me well," I told Fred.

So we rode to the Neptune Market, got soft drinks, and sat out in front of the store on a bench and talked and talked. I began talking about pressured fish. I think that's how I got started. That led into problems of access, and from that, the pressure radical environmentalists are putting on recreational fishing. Fred mentioned PETA, which got me even more riled up. I'm only outlining what was said. I'm not going to triple the length of my post. But Fred made a really good point about our teeth betraying the fact that we're genetically suited to being omnivorous, and that led me to say something that made eating red meat sound like an exercise in metaphysics.

Just the same, to limit fish to aquaculture and commercial interests, picking on us recreational fishermen because we're somehow not serious, that won't go away. I can get very pessimistic about a dystopian future. 

I felt 100% better. We didn't talk about happy things, but we talked openly, and that lifted the cover off all the garbage stewing in me. My blog, Litton's Fishing Lines, is among the computer problems I mentioned earlier, too, as I really screwed up by offering you guys (and gals) "thin content" and "dodgy links" before I began to learn about Search Engine Optimization. That's when I promptly informed you I had to quit doing that. A lot of people liked those links! But now I have to go back and delete all those unindexed posts, because for the past four months, the Googlebot has not been indexing my new ones! You find them on other browsers and in the blog per se, but not as individually indexed for Google searches. 

We talked all the way back to Fred's house and some there. Turned out to be another good day when I forgot all the tedium of the online world.       

An old Sea Ray in the background.

Miss Barnegat Light

Four Years Ago

 

The Value of Being Out There

This outing I managed to get up for shortly after 5:30 a.m. I had mistakenly set my alarm on p.m., so fortunately I woke up anyway, seven minutes later than intended. I drove some 15 or 20 minutes further than yesterday. By the time I parked, the sun had lifted slightly off the horizon but trees obscured it. I knew both sides of the river, and even the middle, invited my little eighth-ounce topwater plug, and it got hit on the first cast right along the edge between shallows and seven- or eight-foot depth, gravel and rocks on the bottom. I used to think nothing would hit a surface plug over the depths, until Jorge Hildago showed me up by catching a 19 1/4-incher on a Whopper Plopper.

The outing was a lot like yesterday, other than that I didn't need to walk as far. Engrossed in the fishing, it once occurred to me, as I approached my gear set down on exposed gravel--from having made my way downstream and out of sight of it--that "this," my foraging around for the bass, is all that expensive gear will ever be worth. I did find it curious how I concentrate value in things I own, when I can be a little undisciplined about maintaining the value of being out there. I mean, after all, what's my camera really "worth"? I've owned it nearly 10 years, had bought it as a refurbished model to begin with, when that model had been on the market a long time already and had "lost" value. I probably couldn't get $300.00 for it on eBay now if I tried. On the market, it's worth about two dinner meals out with my wife, and that makes you think again of making the best of an event such as fishing the river. Two hours and some there. That is comparable to a dinner out. 

Still, the camera is worth better than 300 bucks to me.

I enjoyed a lot more action than yesterday. It's a curious thing, because a friend had texted me after I had got home and settled, that he had been fishing not far downstream and had made his way to where I began fishing yesterday shortly after I had left, come home, and had to return to that area of Somerville to buy dog food, which I failed to mention yesterday. Had I made myself aware of Loki's need, I could have bought the dog food on the way home. As it turned out, my wife texted me--minutes after I did get home. The friend did really well. That made me want to give it another try, but I didn't want to return to the big river. I'd fish a spot on the South Branch Raritan, instead. Regardless, the value of being there had me in its grip!

I ended up catching a little smallmouth and four little largemouths, all on that eighth-ounce popper. Also a longear sunfish, or so I call whatever species it is, the most common in streams, and a green sunfish. Haven't seen a green sunfish in a long time. Given the choice between a four-inch and five-inch Yum Dinger, I chose one of my five-inch crayfish-colored ones, because that's how I've fished the river successfully for more than a decade. As it turns out, after a couple of other missed hits, I watched as an eight-inch smallmouth pulled that Yum Dinger off the hook and off the O-ring I used to mount that hook, in water a little too deep to wade and try to find that worm. After that I fished a four-incher, and I also drove to a different stretch and fished it there where nothing was doing, but a gal and guy showed up with three more Labradors...which is when I decided to make my exit. Wasn't going to entertain Loki without holding him on his leash. 

Done fishing the South Branch, the sky had begun to cloud over. I stopped at the Lamington River on the way home. I wanted to see if any bass hang out in the pool Trout Scapes LLC created by removing the Burnt Mills Dam. Since the sky was completely clouded over, I went back to fishing topwater, but all I caught was a longear. I also waded across the river, Loki wading across with me, so I could get casts into the big eddy.

Nothing.   

Lamington River

 Bluegill

Attention Paid to the Doing

Old railway stanchion.

Seventy-eight degrees when I left Bedminster at 8:20. Once I got on the Raritan River, where it flows wide at U.S. Highway 206, I started to feel I should have arrived before dawn. I wanted this outing to be the relaxed kind of thing when getting up a little earlier than usual is all that's called for, but wading into the water, I felt the day had already moved along a little too much. 

I did find some shadows, and I began casting to them with my light rod and four-pound test tied to a little eighth-ounce topwater. I cast a good distance into those shadows. Fished them pretty extensively, but all I got in return for my efforts--besides the exercise of exploring the water--was a bounce from a sunfish. 

When I got out of the water to fetch my other rod, I noticed my upper back was in good shape. It's improved since I left the supermarket, and I not only feel younger, I have the kind of free motion that's contrary to age. Instead of being "careful" (distrustful), I leapt off a high bank onto the gravel below and my knees absorbed the weight without any problem. The world's more like a playground again. I have a lot of good things I can say about working for a wage, and the book I hope to get published fairly soon goes into detail from both sides of the issue, but whether you take a good attitude to the job or not, the job's a burden (who would disagree that it's a "job"?). I'm finding that with that burden lifted, I'm starting to come back more into my own, which isn't to say I didn't make my job my own, but you know what I mean. Without it there's space to grow back into, like when you lived free as a teenager.

I had hiked three or four hundred yards upstream with Loki the black Labrador, when I got snagged, broke off, and had to shuffle back downstream in water over my knees to my tackle bag a hundred feet or so. I retied and went back upstream to cast and get snagged again eventually. But in the meantime, I was aware of my outing as if it were someone with us, with Loki and me, offering me the invitation to accept the health this wildness gives...regardless of the brutal fact of pressured fish. 

Yeah...I'm good with that. I accept, but I didn't like it that I had caught only one bass. An average stream smallmouth I didn't even want to photograph. I put the end of my six-pound test under the line keeper on the reel spool after that last breakoff, but I did feel it had been a good morning. To come out here and mess around in the river got me away from everything else. I paid attention only to what I was doing and it felt good. There was nothing to it this time. The two hours passed easily, although I made efforts that others might not. A better outing in that way, compared to the previous, because although I caught a couple of nice largemouths in short order, I didn't feel right in the way I felt right today, and soon my conscience bugged me while I continued to explore that pond...and I left much earlier than I had planned so I could get stuff done. 

I didn't even think about stuff today. 

The smallmouth took a four-inch crayfish-colored Yum Dinger, all except for the yellow tail. Besides that bass, I had a strong tap that might have been another one. Pretty sad results for a river with such beautiful boulders in deep, clear water that gobble up lures, instead of bass you're sure are there gobbling them up. I even saw one I thought was a carp come mosey beside me a few paces distant, and though I put the worm out in front of the fish, and the fish took interest in it, I got no take. Probably 16 inches. I did catch one about that big last September here, although I'm sure there are more and bigger than that.

I doubt it's the heat that's responsible for today's demise, but something is. I fished hard for a couple hours. Enjoyed it, and that's what matters...even though you can't help but want to rack up some bass when it's been awhile since you've done that. 

When the thermometer settled as I drove homeward, it registered 90 degrees. A fast rise in temperature. It's 96 out there now as I write.     

Support for U.S. Highway 206

Last September

Poppers Sometimes Work in the Chop

Plans changed a couple of times yesterday, but I got out and fished as I set out to do. I just didn't fish for very long, when I had expected a topwater bite after sundown. I left long before then. The fact that I'm not getting as much done as I'd like to started gnawing on my conscience, so I left before that bite might have materialized, set upon waking up earlier this morning than I would have. I got the grocery shopping done, and I managed to get back home before 10:00 this morning, when I set upon the task of cleaning the oven once I got the groceries put away.

Instead of fishing where I knew rocks and smallmouth bass exist, I tried what proved to be a shallow pond of maybe six acres, weedbeds existing out in the middle of it away from the shoreline. I found that out once I switched from a topwater plug to a Yum Dinger and soon caught a 15-inch largemouth by casting straight out, rather than close to the shoreline with grass overhanging the water. The depth out there is about five feet, judged by when my line would go slack, the worm having found bottom. The water drops from the shoreline edge surprisingly fast, though, giving you the illusion that it might be deeper out there.

Poppers Sometimes Work in the Chop

I had begun with a 3/8-ounce Rebel Pop-R despite direct sunlight and wind on that water. The outing was supposed to be about topwater fishing, but I realized once I got there that I had arrived a lot earlier than would have been convenient. 

I've done it before. Summonsed a largemouth to a topwater plug with sun on the water and wind creating chop. By using a popper made by Adam Mihara. It seems to me the trick is to pop a plug steadily and hard, retrieving at a slow to moderate pace. My friend Brian Cronk's favorite topwater is the Zara Spook and he does well on it, but I'd think twice before trying to walk the dog through chop, though a prop plug like the Hedden Torpedo might work. And a gurgler like the Heddon Crazy Crawler might be an excellent choice. My son and I had some success with Crazy Crawlers in choppy water many years ago on Lake Musconetcong.

I could have otherwise tried a Chatterbait, but I had left mine in the car trunk and wasn't interested in walking back. 

Where the pond gets narrow, I cast all the way across, leveraging power with my 7-foot medium-heavy Lew's Speed Stick. The 20-pound Power Pro braid I use is low diameter and generally casts well, but I got a bad wind knot yesterday, though I managed to untie it. My best cast had me retrieving away from the bank where it turns at a corner. I popped and retrieved just a yard or two before the bass pounded that plug, and I believed I had a smallmouth on, it fought so hard, though it proved to be a 16 1/2-inch largemouth. 

I doubt any smallmouths exist in that particular pond with the weeds and mostly earthen bottom, though I could be mistaken. A bunch of open water spaces are connected, marshes in-between. Smallmouths are more plentiful than largemouths, when you take the whole into account. 

In the Chop