Changing Color of Wacky Worm Made a Difference

Gen Wong and smallmouth bass.

I favor the big smallmouth bass of Lake Hopatcong. That's not to say I don't favor other species, like walleye and hybrid stripers, but it's to say in part that when I think of big smallmouths today, I wish I had caught some yesterday. By big, I mean 18 inches and better. 

Largemouths? I love them, too, but I have a long standing disagreement with the Lake Survey Maps Guide. On a scale of 1 to 4, 1 being abundant and 4 pretty much being absent, Largemouths get a 1 for their showing in the lake, smallmouths only a 3. I like to think smallmouths should get a 2.

Or at least that my catches should continue to make it seem that way.

What's the odds that we just happened to cast in all the wrong places yesterday? That the fish were there among the docks and willing to hit, but we just didn't get our lures to them? After all, we hadn't been fishing more than a half hour or 45 minutes when a guy in a bassboat approaching us and fishing the same row of docks--as we went around him--boated a largemouth of at least two-and-a-half pounds. 

I fished Wacky, a crayfish color with fleck, on the light side and quite visible in the relatively clear water, in the shade or in the sun, and Brian Cronk and Gen Wong tried various Chatterbaits, jerkbaits, and plastics. 

Other fishermen have been doing well with bait. That means live herring. Jimmy Welsh at Dow's told me he's catching them, and Eddie Mackin's Rippin' Lips Guide Service told Brian yesterday they got 20 hybrids. 

I've caught bass around the docks as late into the season as a late October day when temperatures didn't even rise to 50. Getting skunked--Brian and I caught nothing, though Gen's little bass meant the boat didn't get skunked--seems strange. The lake's water temperature was 70.5 in the morning when I took it, and the air rose well into the 70's by 1:30 when we got off the lake. 

But it happens, and part of being an angler is dealing with it. It can seem ridiculous when you stand outside yourself and observe the apparent folly of your struggle. Why's fishing worth feeling any qualm? Besides, it's over and done. But fishing is no ordinary pursuit. 

Even though only fishermen know that.

Yesterday was a Sunday, however, which might at least give the illusion of an explanation. Even when my son and I fished on a Saturday or Sunday during late October and fished docks after fishing live herring into the early afternoon--and caught largemouths as big as 18 inches during more than one occasion--fishing pressure had diminished by that late in the season...or at least it wasn't as heavy as it was yesterday. I even wondered if the pressure has increased since a decade and more ago. Besides, the lake was surely hit hard on Saturday, too, so all these dock spots we fished had been hit hard the day before. 

All of them, I'm sure. We had guys in bassboats meeting us from both sides. Pressure can really shut it down, but again, we did witness that nice largemouth get caught.

We wouldn't go without having a couple nice fish on ourselves. We just wouldn't get those fish in the boat! With time running out and my upper back beginning to pain me, we fished a little cove. Gen had switched out his Wacky worm of a color that resembled my crayfish color. The water there was stained. "I don't think the bass can see it," he said of the worm he removed. 

Since I'm as slow to take advice as I am to make a change, I didn't immediately switch out my own. 

He caught that little smallmouth. I felt delighted it was that, especially with the bottom being muddy. Not five casts later, he hooked a nice bass. I watched as he played it, and I was about to get the net and pull its handle into place. 

I began routing around in my bag for the same worm Gen had taken. He hadn't brought any along. I had packs upon packs of Yum Dingers and some Shim-E-Sticks, and it frustrated me that it took some doing before I found the right one. He said something again about the need for bass to see the worm, and I pointed out they can feel it. To that, he said, "If they can see, feel, and smell it, you're three times advantaged," and I knew I could only get that worm on the hook. I couldn't argue against what Gen had just said. 

I couldn't argue against the "intel" we got from Joe Santiago, either, Gen having keyed his number by mobile device. I won't tell where the spot is, but it's very interesting and convinced me Joe knows his stuff. I've fished the lake for more than two decades, and I didn't know about the spot. There's another one I do know about Joe spoke of in some detail, which I haven't tried yet. 

Before docking at Dow's, we tried a rocky spot Brian knows about, which I also hadn't known about. It's a really nice looking spot for smallmouths, and I felt chagrinned that in all my years fishing the lake, I had never taken notice of it. But that's how it is with coming and going. When you're near the dock you don't investigate. At least I don't, but it is a form of laziness. Or just plain comfort: When you're headed out, you've got a distant goal to satisfy. When you're headed in--you're done.

Not yesterday. We fished that spot thoroughly, and Brian got a fish on. I saw his rod bent and tip jerking. The fish hit a jerkbait.  

 

Brian Cronk fishes.

Nice Smallmouths

We Always Used to Cut Sharply Around the Bend

Every May or June, Kevin and I pay a visit to a certain cove that used to produce big hybrids on the troll. I started fishing with Kevin in October 2021, and every spring thereafter we've tried the sinking Rapalas that used to catch them and some trout, too. But not since 2019 have friends and I caught any there.

We always used to cut sharply around the bend and motor all the way to a shallow cove where we've done well trolling especially for plate-sized crappie, though we've caught some pickerel and largemouth, too. About a mile-and-a-half distant. Maybe a little more. Today, my mind riveted on the features of the bank right where we would have left, and I decided we would work our way along, tossing Shim-E-Sticks rigged Wacky. I didn't know for a certainty that any of it would produce, but similarly as I remarked in another post recently, I didn't know spots here and there along the way wouldn't.

It didn't take very long before we got a clear signal. I put my worm right in the corner where a dock created a 45-degree angle with the bank. So close to the bank, I felt relieved to be able to subtly flutter the ends and let it sink into deeper water. And then, suddenly, I lost all feel, felt alerted and tightened my line. Then I set the hook. OK fish. A largemouth surfaced and threw the hook.  

So now the question was whether anything else would happen. It doesn't always, but we were already doing better than Brian and I had done on Furnace last week--besides the musky Brian lost. Hard to believe that's already been almost a week, but it's nice to measure time by fishing trips. People say fishing is always better than work. It has something on spending time at home, too. Which is work after all, even if my writing and photography is a hobby because it doesn't pay big time.

Does money define things?

There's no doubt it's work. To write well, one must work. But is it a business? Something always grates at me, anyway, when I think of writing as a business. If all my handwritten notebooks were published, they would be contained in about 500 books of 300 pages each. Wasn't all of Kafka's work published posthumously, that hobbyist? What about William Blake? And who doesn't know of Friedrich Nietzsche, after some 100 copies of his books got published before he went insane?

And stayed that way.

Don't you just love people who have to put you in a slot like a take-home striped bass. You're either a hobbyist or businessman. Can't be any other way.

We made our way along the bank. As if something would happen, though I maintained the presence of critical reason. I wanted more to happen. That was sincere. I wanted Kevin to get on a bass too, and three years ago, Kevin caught a 20-incher on a Wacky rig. He's caught other largemouths, smallmouths, panfish, perch, pickerel, walleye, and a seven-and-a-quarter-pound hybrid, as well. So he's used to catching fish. In fact, at the present juncture, he had never been skunked on Hopatcong.

Not much later, I felt a pickup and carefully tightened the line, observing that the fish swam directly towards me. I understood that meant an uncertain hookset, and I gave it all I had. Fish on. Kevin did a good job with the net, after I had extended the handle before we began fishing. Smallmouth bass. Eighteen inches. And then another smallmouth bass maybe a hundred feet further along. Sixteen inches. Again, it took on the subtle flutter, and it swam with the worm at a right angle to me. 

It was a wonderful day and our conversation was good as always. But something went a little south with my style after that last bass. I still hit targets on the tip of the nose. You can ask Kevin about that. But I ended up losing four more bass. One of them actually hit after we made a divergent move I thought thereafter had been a waste of time. That we should have stuck it out with the bass. Almost a mile of shoreline lay ahead of us. Pretty much out of the wind. That wind came up and stayed up. After it had been so nice. 

But mostly, it was the weeds. The shallow cove wasn't fishable. There was some kind of Scuba diving event going on where we caught smallmouths last year. And as I say, like Furnace Lake--much more weeds than last year. And that wind. A couple of other shorelines I just passed by, where we've caught bass in the past. We trolled all the way around Byram Cove, and where it was critical to get in close at the edges of shallows, we couldn't, because of weeds. 

I had a spot across Great Cove in mind that I gave up on before we would even try.

Kevin had the attitude. "You caught two good bass. There's no complaining about that."

It was a good day, and fishing the docks was tough. You really have to minimalize the water, hitting the targets and moving along. One of those bass I lost also came towards me, but to the side, and I didn't get a good hook set. The fish swam at high speed before I could completely get the curve out of my line. Another one was actually associated with weeds, so I believe it was a largemouth. (A lot of rocks exist around the docks we fished.) Again, I felt disoriented for a moment, as the bass had moved away with the worm without my knowing. I tightened up, set, and felt very heavy weight before the hook pulled out. All of them were good bass. 

I told Kevin, "When we fish in October, you're going to catch fish," which is true. We fish bait in October, which almost guarantees it.  

 

   

Early on, the smoke from Canada was thick.

Later, blue got through.

Kevin's Hybrid

 

As for Friedrich Nietzsche and Prime Meat

I suffered so much unconscious (and semi-conscious or I wouldn't know it) resistance to this outing, I was afraid something would go seriously wrong. I might have fractured my upper arm or elbow, but if so, it's a hairline break I'll just let heal. 

Last time I was hospitalized, it was a fiasco.

It was near the end after sunset when I had all but completely relaxed. Yes, enough to have lost just enough attention to slip. If the arm's broken, it might be why my camera isn't, as, without thinking, I went down in a way to lessen the impact. It hit hard. I had hung it loosely around my neck. Now I know better than ever why they say Nikon's D7100 is a beast. 

Victim of a high-speed motorcycle accident when I was 20, I decided to be less the victim by just letting my cracked rib heal. That time I had no doubt there was a break, but I can't remember exactly how I felt that break. 

I took two Tylenol for this one.

Now about the fishing. Skunked. Like on Cranberry with Oliver, not a hit. Oliver wasn't able to come today, and that got me bummin', because we had had such a great time on the pond recently, and naturally, I wanted another great time. I didn't realize I would go into nature alone and move from real unease into greatly confident self-renewal like I haven't felt in years. Go work at a supermarket if you want to be with people--like they'll tell you you need. That will rob you of self like nothing else will. 

I read Nietzsche on my breaks from cutting meat. 

In my car. 

Puts things in balance.

I'm given a black uniform, so the supermarket must be in on it.

Today at Dow's, Laurie got my shiners...and fatheads. It's the first time in 49 years of ice fishing that I've bought fatheads. I have bought them in the past from Dover Sports Shop (another one bites the dust), to use for stocked brown trout before dawn (and another one down, and another one down, and another one bites the dust, yeah!). 

Fatheads for salmon. The setup was right. But for only two tip-ups. I also jigged a small Kastmaster and set tip-ups with really big large shiners for pickerel. You never know, one of the many bass might hit, too, but nothing hit at all today.

I know fish have been caught, because I saw blood stains at two holes from as long ago as a week, can't tell for sure. 

Fish are out there. 

Another thing I'm pretty sure about. Fish get clued in to what's going on, in their own way. It's why I joked to Kevin Glenn that the flat at Lake Hopatcong State Park is a strip mine operation. Every year the pickerel and perch populations get rejuvenated but within days the action through the ice seems to freeze...not because all the fish get taken home. Only enough for need of good spawning get taken, but the fish that remain, they shun what gets set out for them. 

They laugh at little jiggy-wit-it, too.

As for Friedrich Nietzsche and prime meat, the man had a weak spot. 

He never understood women.  

 

State Park

 

Sometimes You Find Few Fish Feeding

Big day of fishing with Kevin Murphy. We met at Dow's Boat Rentals shortly after 11 a.m., when I walked Loki the black Labrador, then backed my car down to unload. A couple of guys hung out by the shop, while Joe Welsh entertained them with more of his antics--throwing live herring into the water where dozens of hybrid bass snatch them up instantaneously, splashing the surface. 

I figured with temperatures over 70, today's catches would match October 3rd last year, when Kevin's biggest hybrid weighed nearly eight pounds. As things turned out, Kevin felt really good about the fishing. He caught his first walleye and a lot of panfish and perch. It was a long and great day on the water, but I did feel disappointed. I wasn't the only one. 

"What have you caught?" I asked.

"Fishing sucks," the guy at the controls of a bassboat said. "We've caught two bass. We've been fishing for five hours." 

It happens sometimes that you find only few fish feeding. Whatever you do, results are sparse, so it's up to you to keep trying and make it good day. Perhaps you expected much better as I did yesterday, or perhaps you expected nothing, as I did last week at Sunrise Lake, and instead a little action is a very pleasant surprise. 

We marked fish like crazy along the deep end of the Ledge drop-off, most of them about 30 feet down over 45 feet of water, but even though I had live herring weighted and set under the boat, only one of those fish hit. The drag set loose, I heard the sound of drag giving and looked sharp at the rod tip. Seeing no bend or motion, I figured Kevin must have pulled on his line. Sometimes it really makes sense to voice concern! It was like 20 minutes later when I reeled up the bare hook. Then I asked if his drag had sounded off! No. 

I also saw the rod tip on one of the other herring rods start dancing, but by the time I tightened up on the line, nothing was on. Again, I reeled in a bare hook. On several other occasions I lost herring, too, though we had no evidence as to what happened on those occasions. I caught a couple of tiny hybrids out there. Little fish somewhere from seven to nine inches long. Many of the fish showing up on the graph were small but many were medium size along with some large ones. 

I had fished a Yum Dinger long and fished it hard. Around rocks. Among sparse weeds. Nothing ever hit. I fished the same spots that produced largemouths and a smallmouth last year. And I fished more spots than that. I remember how much I enjoyed catching bass on a couple of Yum Dingers. Enjoyed them a great deal. 

I also cast and cast a Binsky from another rod, and I did get knocked just once. I fished anywhere from about 10 to 35 feet down. 

I did catch a smallmouth on live herring from about 15 feet of water. A little one of about 11 inches.

Kevin caught his walleye within the first 20 minutes of fishing. He cast half a nightcrawler to the depths where I was casting live herring. I said, "You'll do better by casting to the rocks, but you might catch a walleye there." About 20 seconds later, he was hooked up to one.    

Kevin's Big Hybrid

 

Bestow Value on the Adverse Brave the Weather

I should have photographed Oliver Round fighting his 18-inch smallmouth bass. He's had a breakneck busy schedule at work without much opportunity to get out and fish, so it's especially unfortunate he lost that bass, though his having hooked and fought it, complete with aerial display, was a lot better than not. 

Caught the smaller walleye and a hybrid on an ultralight-light power, 5 1/2-foot spinning rod I built from a St. Croix blank that put me back $70.00--just for the blank--years ago. Six-pound mono. What a fight! The big one fought very hard on my son's Speed Stick, but the walleye that I'm pretty sure didn't weigh four pounds--I put it back--put up a great fight on that light rod. "Maybe a catfish," I said at one point, as if 10 pounds was dragging. 

The hybrid was 17 1/2 inches.

That big one in the photograph above? It's the third five-pound, 15-ounce walleye I've had weighed in at Dow's. Unless any of the three weighed six pounds before I had them weighed in, I've never hit the six-pound mark! I was so sure I did today!

Raw weather felt good because fishy. There's no doubt the fishing was good today, and I'm sure because of the weather. I know people think wretched weather is that. No matter how you romanticize it--and I do romanticize it--there's an objective element in its being adverse. I don't argue against that. I just know--otherwise--that you can bestow value on things adverse. And probably live to ripe old age, too...if not live longer than you would had you not been brave. 

Even cigarettes. Jeez, I confess I used to smoke. They are medicinal. I never hear anyone say that or write that, but they not only put off anxiety--if just enough to get an edge over it that lasts a bit--they put you in a meditative space. They will kill you, if nothing else will, though it remains likely something else will. Of course, they complicate one's health, too, so whatever kills you might not have if you didn't smoke. But a lot of medicines are adverse for health otherwise, which is not to say, either, that smoking is wise to take up. I really do not recommend it. I wish cigarettes would go away, because I hate to see people hooked on them. It's better to find out what causes you anxiety and deal with it. It's even possible that the attempt to escape anxiety by smoking only elevates that anxiety. 

All I know is that since I quit three years ago, I've desired smoking very little. It makes me feel I should have quit at age 25, but of course, I really should never have smoked. 

Nevertheless, to attest to smoking's medicinal quality, I began smoking in the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, aged 19, while suffering "the most severe manic-depression I have ever seen in all my 20 years of practice," according to the Director of Psychiatry of that Ivy League university hospital, Richard Brecht, who served as my doctor. 

My father knew whatever hit me was immense. He was not wasting a cent on anything less than great care. When Dr. Brecht told me about the severity of my mania, after I had come back around, he held my gaze unflinchingly, a big smile growing on his face. He was truly amazed, and I loved the man for loving his subject matter and admiring such survival of total annihilation. He started to talk about Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway--manic-depressives he admired, but this guy! Right in front of him in his office! 

But I took a cigarette from another patient on the hall and smoked it...Dr. Brecht never complained at all. Ah, smoking did help. But talk about things adverse! Many people think manic-depression is horrible, but if you yourself are manic-depressive, I doubt you really believe that. You suffer a lot of pain, but like they say, to suffer for the fish is a noble thing. Inherent to life itself is suffering, which might involve why the fish symbolizes spirituality, and to suffer all the more might be to move all the closer to life. To have more of it in greater abundance. Why else is suffering so closely associated with Christ? The artistic temperament overlapping with the qualities of illness facilitates the ability to romanticize manic-depression, and no matter what others tell you, they can't take that from you. Sturm und drang! Heavy weather, man!  

I had four days of fighting urges after I quit smoking. I just said no to them. Never bothered with any of the techniques. No drug. No nicotine patch. Just NO.

A little more on the great adversity, the best book on manic-depression I've read is Kay Redfield Jamison's Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament , but according to another book, Manic-Depression and Creativity , even Isaac Newton, the physicist, was manic-depressive, not to mention that the illness is that of the saints. (Often nicknamed the Divine Madness.) And rock 'n roll. Certainly.

The artists Jamison's book refers to are mostly writers and musicians, like poets Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, composers Robert Schumann and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Who wants to leave the world without letting his readers know just a little about him? I've got 30 years left, perhaps, but I don't want to pass on the opportunity when it arises. 

But more about the fish. They got caught on small herring. A point worth making. 

I always used to believe the big herring are better, but they told us at Dow's the small herring have been doing it. So we got a dozen-and-a-half small, a dozen large. The small ones proved to be better!

Besides fishing bait, I cast & cast a Binsky. Oliver cast a Sonic. No hits. Oliver did miss a hit along rocks on what I think was a Senko-type worm. My Yum Dinger only got pegged once by what I believe was a yellow perch. 

I did mark fish as deep as 39 feet, which really surprised me, but most were 20 to 30 feet deep. Water temperature 70 degrees at the surface, go figure with fish swimming as deep as 39 feet! All of the fish I caught came on no more than size 10 trebles as weight. The biggest came from the shallowest water, besides Oliver's smallmouth, which came from the same 15 feet or so. Don't know how deep the herring swam down otherwise.     

  

Released the smaller walleye

Teeth! They don't cut line.

Lake Hopatcong in the Fall

 

Brian Cronk Reaches 47 Birthday Celebration on Rippin' Lips

Brian Cronk's 47th birthday celebration on Eddie Mackin's Rippin' Lips pontoon--a fun time for all! I realized, as I left the parking lot where I live...to get there just on time, that my whole anticipation of Sunday involved worrying about the weather. Completely unconsciously, but I had.

Look at that blue sky in the photo. That's Gen Wong in the foreground, Ken from the region of Manasquan Reservoir behind him on the left, Max Wilson in the back, Brian Cronk on the right in the back, and Mark Licht with the great smile. Eddie Mackin was at the wheel, Joe Santiago behind me, Brenden from Ridgewood behind me. 

Brian had told me a few of the guys "on" Mayhem would be there, so should I take it that means they're staff members? I said so in a Facebook post, carefully framing my words with "from what I understand," and was trenchantly questioned, to which I replied, having pointed out how I framed my words with "from what I understand," that I don't take it Mayhem is a drug.

Mayhem is short for NJ Multispecies Mayhem Fishing on Facebook, and the New Jersey Multispecies Podcast. Joe Santiago is the Mastermind. Gen Wong and Max Wilson are onboard with him, in whatever capacity that is, be it staff or something else.

As for myself, when I was on the board of Round Valley Trout Association, I wasn't staff, so being "on" Mayhem may signify membership in some special way that's simply recognized and need be no more formal than that. So I say more here on the blog than I did on Facebook, though I don't care to go into edit function and revise my remarks on Facebook. 

Feel special if you've read these words. Everyone in America should fact check by reading Litton's Lines.

I don't know what capacity on Mayhem!

Except that it's some sort or other among more than the two who appear on the Podcast by what I understand! I may be mistaken.

Even at our first stop--Pickerel Point--a fish got caught. Smallmouth bass of maybe a pound and 3/4ths for Mark Licht, who let his live herring swim freely. Naturally, we hoped for a hybrid or plural of them. I've been in the same boat before, when I live-lined herring with my son during summer, and instead of catching hybrids (or possibly walleye), we caught a number of smallmouth bass. 

Second stop--a smallish smallmouth for Brenden. I lost what I believe was a crappie.

Byram Bay--as dusk began to gather, the catfish came alive. Just as Eddie had said they do, back when we fished Pickerel Point under intense sun and heat. Must have been four or five catfish caught, including a black bullhead of about 14 inches for me. I'm not entirely certain, but that might have been my biggest ever. I have caught yellow and/or brown bullheads of 16 inches. Apropos to Brian's birthday celebration, I caught those big bullheads in one of the Princeton Day School ponds. I fished those ponds through my teens more than I fished anywhere else. Brian was born in 1977, shortly before I abandoned them for the most part, going on to college and Long Beach Island commercial clamming. He fished those ponds obsessively during the 1990's. (I did then a little, too--we almost crossed paths.) Virtually no one else fished them. The syncronicity is spooky.

 

And...little white perch got caught. Little crappie. 

Summer is really here, my friends. When the Lake Hopatcong boat traffic resembles the traffic on the Manhattan grid, go with the flow and it feels fine! Made me want to buy a boat for the lake. Not just to fish and shoot photos from, but show my wife the sights! Can always bring a friend and his wife along, too.  

Eddie Mackin at the Wheel

Mark Licht & smallmouth.

Brenden from Ridgewood and smallmouth.

Tarnoski's King's Ransom

 

Dock Discovery for May Fishing Conditions

We pulled 12 fish over the Dow's rental boat gunwale, but like all of these I photographed, they were small. We never hooked a good-sized fish, though my remembering a 2020 outing in May on Lake Hopatcong with my son somehow led to discovery of future possibility. If conditions serve that possibility. I told Kevin Murphy early on about Matt and I catching 10 largemouths, four of mine over two pounds, one of them 20 inches. It's fascinating how that memory presaged what we would discover near the outing's end, as if we might someday fish under similar conditions again in May and do even better than Matt and I did that day years ago.  

Kevin I had begun unloading shortly after 6 a.m. The night before, I messaged him, saying I might phone in the morning. The weather forecast had improved since I had last seen it--no thunderstorms expected until noon--but no one knew what morning would bring. I actually woke up an hour ahead of my alarm when rain fell heavily. I went back to sleep and soon got up with that alarm--to peace, quiet, and humid warmth at 70 degrees. Kevin had left a message 15 minutes earlier and was on the road. I like his determination.

He arrived two minutes ahead of me. No sign of rain existed besides clouds hanging low. Later, as we persistently trolled plugs, the sun came out. When we docked back at Dow's at 2:22 p.m., that's exactly when rain began to fall, but for only about 10 minutes. Not very heavy; not very light. Otherwise, we escaped rain all day, and those promised thunderstorms never came. I had been told I might as well cancel for next week. but bottom line, I go by what the planet presents. I pay attention to the media, but I judge what I see out in the world itself.

Trolling to Begin With

Beginning in my favorite hybrid striper trolling lanes, I quickly surmised that with the 74-degree water and otherwise summer-like conditions, we weren't going to hook any. I took us through our second pass and abandoned that approach, imagining a certain cove would produce that fishes well for pickerel and crappies once the water warms well. Otherwise, I've done well trolling for big hybrids with the water as chilly as 57.

We trolled the cove, never getting hit, but Byram Bay proved to be productive for small fish. We began by casting Senko-type plastics among rocks--getting snagged a few times--where I caught my first smallmouth bass. Neither of us could buy a second hit, so we moved on to another rocky area that's produced smallmouths in the past.

I began there by fishing a Z-Man paddletail, almost catching a sunfish, but I soon went back to the Senko, never getting hit. We trolled out of the area, and I soon caught a small hybrid striper on my favorite Rapala Sinking Minnow, Kevin trolling another of the same plug. The rear treble of my plug got snagged on my portable graph unit's fabric housing, and I pulled it out with pliers, breaking two of the tines. So I switched out, using from thereon--when trolling--a smallish Rapala X-Rap.

More Than Expected

The forecast still had thunderstorms on the agenda. I decided that rather than doing our usual tour by following the far shoreline around and beyond Cow Tongue Point, we would fish the far shore of Great Bay, where we could easily duck back and dock at Dow's, if we heard thunder. 

"That shoreline produces fish," I told Murph. "We've trolled brown trout and nice pickerel." 

Instead of beginning with trolling, I immediately got interested in casting Senkos to docks and boathouses, a little underneath them, and between them. We ended up fishing a couple hundred yards or more of really interesting structure that I didn't remember discovering, besides once taking note of it when ice fishing almost two decades ago. It seems as if by trolling by, the spots never registered as worth casting to. 

Worth Waiting on Favorable Conditions?

We fished a long range of docks and boathouses pretty hard. All for one rock bass on a Senko. Why no bass, I couldn't guess, besides thinking they had taken to 16-foot depths at the bottom edges of weedlines. And why that on a low-pressure day when it's not quite summer, I don't know. Besides, I often let my worm sink into 16-foot depths. 

But for sure. That memory of Matt and I in 2020 re-emerged, and I said to Murph, "If Matt and I had thought of fishing here four years ago, we might have done even better!" 

Four years ago, wind blew very heavily from the southwest. Since Murph and I fished the western shore of Great Bay, Matt and I would have been out of the wind. That was requirement Number 1 of the conditions we faced. To get out of the wind. Second requirement--fish five feet deep or shallower. And plenty of water that shallow exists along the shoreline I had re-discovered.

And I knew about, not only this particular shoreline, but the similar western shoreline of Lee's Cove, too, where Matt and I have caught both largemoths and smallmouths on different occasions, but it just never occurred to me that day to try either area. So who knows. Maybe Murph and I will, once again, set back our spring Lake Hopatcong outing to mid-May like last year, when we did so poorly in Byram Bay and around towards Henderson Bay, besides an 18 1/2-inch smallmouth. 

If we can remember!

One Last Shot at Trolling

I knew about these docks and boathouses, have passed them by while trolling more than once, and yet they definitely served as a discovery. Similar spots surely exist on other lakes nationwide, too.

We got tired of throwing worms around. I couldn't quit for the day without one last troll. Kevin still felt eager. I caught my third smallmouth bass, really little at eight or nine inches. We put a couple of yellow perch over the gunwale, too. 

Nice to know the shoreline still trolls well, but will the docks ever produce?   

  

Even a little hybrid about a foot long takes drag on runs.

We caught a couple of white perch.

Crappie nearly a foot long.

Second smallmouth on Senko. I knew the floating mat was a bass magnet.

Largemouth I caught by casting underneath a big willow-like bush overhang. I lost another largemouth of about 13 inches on the jump that hit under there.

Rock bass.

Yallor

Apparently the orange floats are for sailboat laning.

Couple of boathouses in Great Cove.

May 2020

 From the Trolling Lane

Narrowing It Down to the Big One

 

Our Lake Hopatcong ritual remains potent as the 20th fall of my getting on the water there approaches. I've invested good money in renting boats from Dow's. On the way to the Ledge or possibly Sunken Island, Jimmy Welsh swept by us in his center console. I was certain he headed for Sunken Island, and when I saw him there, I stopped short at the right-angle turn of the Ledge, immediately marking loads of fish. 

As expected.

There was no wind. That made putting out unweighted herring easy. With four herring lines over the side, I also put a nightcrawler out, by which I quickly caught a white perch. And then herring lines ran though rod guides. I caught and released a 16-inch hybrid, then caught the 4.8-pounder photographed later in the afternoon (below). It had died in the livewell. My wife and I will have it for dinner tonight.

I missed the hit from another hybrid. Setting the hook too soon may be better than setting it too late. After that, I maneuvered the boat with my electric behind an island with no sun on the water. Overhead, not a cloud in the sky.

Kevin quickly caught a smallmouth bass of about 14 inches on a nightcrawler. Got that worm close to rocks. I ended up catching two largemouths on a Senko, losing a nice one on that blue-purple worm and missing another hit. I got a smallmouth on a live herring and a nice black crappie on another of the same. 

I very much enjoyed throwing the Senko. (Actually a Yum Dinger.) Fly casting isn't the only way for fishing line to satisfy. Putting a worm--repeatedly--right where you want it to go is fun. And once and awhile a bass takes that worm. 

We had two dozen live herring and I felt determined to use them. I told Kevin about the time I caught a six-pound walleye on the Ledge at about 2:00 p.m. shortly before my son and I would leave, under a cloudless sky. Today, I had caught what were as yet my only two hybrids before the sun rose. The sun came up shortly after I weighed my big one. No necessity existed that would limit us to that catch owing to the conditions, but I wasn't entirely confident that the Ledge would work out for us. But we would mark fish. 

So, well, we should work for them!

A slight breeze had come up. Unweighted herring rode pretty high over fish marking as deep as 33 feet, as the boat slowly eased along the drop-off towards Halsey Island. Water temperature was 64 when we got on the lake; now it approached the mark of 70 where it would be when we left. Obviously, the lake had turned over quite a bit, though today's heat ran contrary to that. I did miss a hit, and immediately thereafter noticed big fish marking only eight feet down, but I'd say 95 percent or more of the fish were deep. 

I put medium split shots on our four lines. Some of our herring died, needing oxygen. They were getting down on bottom about 38 feet deep. So I looked for smaller shot, found some, and situated them about six feet up the line from the herring. The idea was to give the bait some mobility with the lighter weight, as well as the ability to swim above that weight, should it get down on bottom too deep.

The breeze ceased. A little fine-tuning of our position by use of the electric motor resulted in a couple of little 14- and 15-inch hybrids for me. We floated over the drop-off at 38 feet where fish marked at 31 to 33 feet deep. Where we had fished over 30 feet of water, no fish marked on the graph. Then the breeze picked back up. I repositioned with the electric and lowered anchor. We continued using the little shot, and Kevin caught a hybrid over 16 inches. I caught a smallmouth bass. Kevin caught a big bullhead by turn. 

And then I said, "Kevin." I had seen his rod tip lower. He wasn't paying attention, but it became immediately evident he had hooked a big one. The fish took off on such a sustained run, I wondered if he'd hooked a musky. Or, more likely, a big channel catfish. I would have to coach him. He's not very experienced and I knew the fish was no easy. "Pump the rod. Then reel as you lower the tip back down. Then pump again. Keep a bend in the rod." He kept reeling as the fish took drag, but his getting the pumping motion right enough was critical to getting the fish to the net. It took a long while. 

"Look at the size of that fish! It's eight or nine pounds!" I said, having just netted the biggest hybrid I'd ever seen besides a mounted eight-pounder and a huge hybrid I witnessed getting caught from shore at Spruce Run Reservoir. I weighed Kevin's at 7.73 pounds. Quarter pound shy of eight. It measured 27 inches long. 

4.8 Pounds

Not a bad smallmouth.

I do like catching bass on these Hopatcong outings.

They always appear pretty.

Hopatcong crappies can be pretty big.

Little hybrids fight hard too.

Trolled Hybrids
 

Trying to Balance in Favor of More

 

Woke up at 4:15 a.m. Had to take a wicked piss, and after I flushed the toilet, heard the loud sound of water running down the pipe say, "This is not a good idea!"

Now that's a wicked piss. 

Surprised at the pre-dawn sensitivity of my perception (weird things happen just before sunup), I wrote the words down for future reference, quoting them. And then I drove off for Lake Hopatcong, in total defiance of the Accuser. After all, what am I but the accused, if I were doing something not a good idea?

It did turn out to be a Day of Judgement. With a start like that, I guess so. You might think most anyone else would freak out and phone a psychiatrist! Well, as soon as the office were open. Isn't it funny how assumed emergencies are mitigated by routine. That's because their nature is indeed nearer to routine, than that of the terror of a teenager while watching The Exorcist. 

I was on the road, headed north in the darkness of Interstate 287. I got to Dow's a few minutes before Kevin said he'd get there. I waited awhile before getting out and reading a posting about tagged trout. Before I would finish reading, Joe Welsh came into view, walking a dog, greeting me, and Laurie Murphy followed behind. She and I began talking, while I began to feel as if Kevin wouldn't show, and I told her he and I would choose another day to come. But his white sedan came onto the scene before Laurie and I finished talking. 

My favorite trolling lane produced only a bump. Probably a trout, but it could have been a hybrid striper, although usually they bump, bump again, and then slam. Afterwards, our favorite cove offered us no more than a couple of hits and a small fish on my line that got off. Probably a crappie about nine inches long. 

Finished trolling little plugs for awhile, we cast white twister jigs, and finally had some real action. I had a fish on before the line broke. Take my advice if you're using light test. (I used an ultralight and four-pound test.) After you free rock snags a few times--retie. The knot obviously seems strong, as you had exerted pressure against those snags. But knots often weaken. Kevin and I both saw the smallmouth bass in mid-air after it broke off. The white jig clearly visible on its mouth. Bass about 14 inches.

Temperatures were chilly. Initially, I thought the water temp good at 62, 61, but it's not really warmed up into the optimal range of warmwater species. I felt it no surprise I had hooked a smallmouth, not largemouth, as smallmouth prefer cooler temps. Kevin was telling me that once the air warmed and we took our coats off, the fish would hit. Like last year, when the fishing improved later in the morning. As I remember from this morning, we cast persistently, avoiding further trolling until the temperature rose somewhat, but Kevin caught a tagged brown trout a moment after I got bumped by something, possibly the same trout. Later in the morning, Kevin would hook what looked like another brown, though I suppose it could have been a rainbow that went airborne, throwing the hook. 

Finally, I got fed up with the whole range we fished. (Basically, an entire bay of the lake.) I wanted to move us back down lake and hope for the best (after more than five hours skunked), and I feared that I would come away from Lake Hopatcong with no fish to my credit for the first time besides when ice fishing and once late in November. 

Lake Hopatcong is loaded with opportunity. The shoreline weaves and dips, allowing for shadows among rock and weedy habitat. If it all seems unproductive, try and allow its nature to change your mind. At least, that's what I did. After I caught my first smallmouth of 14 inches or so, Kevin said, "That's what you said you'd do." And I immediately recalled that I had said I'd catch no trout or hybrid, but a bass. Said that only some minutes before. It seemed entirely self-evident to me the lake had warranted my statement.

Kevin missed hits. He used a Senko, too, and one of the white jigs. I thought my big smallmouth on a Senko was a 20-inch largemouth. That's what it looked and felt like, until I got it near the boat, when I thought it was the biggest smallmouth of my life. No. It was really only 18 1/2 inches, but a really good bass at that. Hooked it in a boat lane with dock-work on either side. 

Going in, I told Kevin that I'm not one of those guys who need to catch a whole lot of fish every time out. Ego is insatiable. And I really don't mean to downplay ego by saying so. Think of how life would suck if you didn't want anything. Ego makes it all worthwhile--if the cards are played well. I told Kevin that catching fish makes the difference, though. I told him I felt satisfied, and he told he felt satisfied, too. The difference between that and feeling empty is that we caught fish. 

Think about it, and it's a pretty big difference when you consider the investment of a full day. 

Some other guy out there caught nearly 20 fish. I was shocked when he told us that. When he said, "They were all small," I felt relief! But I don't have to be Top Gun. I thought the recent movie sucked anyway, hardly paid attention as I worked on my laptop. I like coming in first, but when it comes to fishing, there are always going to be guys out there somewhere in the state better at it than I am. Maybe not on the scene we share. Who knows, maybe not on the entire scene "throughout the Great Garden State" as they say about temperature on Jersey Radio when the music comes out to play. But that's a lie, and how do you break down success, anyway? Who chooses what segments? Anyhow, when it comes to writing about fishing, I might do better. 

And that's why today was a Day of Judgement. Because coming home on the Interstates, the satisfaction I had enjoyed had faded, and in its place a harsh realism seemed to rule. Am I really going to buy a boat and keep it in a slip? That question posed against how tired I felt. And I'm going to do the likes of this every week? Drive the long route home while I struggle to stay awake?

The most dedicated anglers willingly accept such suffering. I listened to NJ Multispecies Podcast recently, when that very issue got discussed. The willingness to suffer, and it's true. I can vouch for the fact, however, that as a younger man, doing so was much easier. When I was 15, I once pedaled my 10-speed before dawn 10 miles while suffering a very nasty hangover. At least once, I braked so I could cleanly vomit. I fished five or six hours, pedaling home restored. Who the hell does the like but a fisherman? 

But beyond the age of 60, you lose some of that sort of willingness. Perhaps. Or at least I do. Some of it. You do have to balance with the fact that retirement as a couch potato is a waste of time. 

When I did get home, carrying the 70-pound marine battery upstairs felt like hell, when it was easy to do this morning carrying it downstairs. Amidst all the stress, I realized some jobs are many times more physically difficult to do than my supermarket job. And yet, I was kind to myself. Here's how Judgement fell: After I retire, nothing requires me to make up my mind right away. I can wait a whole year, if that pleases me. I can let things tell me if I want to do it or not. 

One thing I do know. I don't want to be anyone's sucker. If I feel slip prices are unreasonable, I'm not buying. 

I haven't put all my stuff away yet. I felt driven to go up and catch a nap. That ended up lasting three hours, even though I slept eight hours last night. I wanted to blot out my doubt, but of course it was there waiting for me when I woke. But as I postprocessed photos, the day settled into a calm, positive acceptance. It had its rough edges. It has its persistent question. It won't be easy to decide, but today was a good enough day to help weigh the balance in favor of more.  

Best smallmouth I've caught at Hopatcong so far, 18 1/2 inches.

Other Docks in May