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 than a few dead crayfish. Apparently, there were thousands of them among the rocks.

Having switched to a Husky Jerk, 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 might be shallower than 10 feet. Otherwise, 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

My New Website

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

Finding Access on a Few Hidden Lakes

On Tuesday, I traveled north with Loki the black Lab, spending a gorgeously warm afternoon finding ways in to a few large ponds or small lakes. One of them will allow for putting the squareback on it and probably doing pretty well in March or April. It's far too weeded-in now. The other two are ice fishing possibilities, shoreline access crowded out by brush and thick aquatic vegetation, no way I found to get the squareback canoe on the water. I did access one spot where there's a break in the weeds, almost as if someone went in the water and cleared them, because it's the only spot where I found a way in. I caught one largemouth about 12 inches long on an eight-inch blue Chomper's worm rigged with an inset hook, no weight added.

Come to think of it, I could load my tippy canoe onto the dolly, wheel it that half mile on the trail I found, and then sort of squeeze it through the hundred feet of narrow trail through the thick woods. It's not nearly as heavy as the squareback. Especially considering the additional weight of marine battery and electric motor associated with it. Launch the Tippy right there at that little fishing spot. Then paddle, which would be no problem on a calm day.

It's a long way in, though. Even for a Jet Sled with ice fishing gear, but that's easier than wheeling a canoe, I think. Got to be loads of fish in that lake. It's hardly fished at all. 

Just a matter of will. You find that and away you go.

I can see using little spinnerbaits and inline spinners during March while getting around in the squareback. But I wouldn't mind live-lining shiners. It's always the question of commitments to other waters. Whether or not I'd really get anyone onboard with me to fish the lake is doubtful. That time of year, we're either fishing a private lake with big bass in it, or thinking at least a little of those salmon everyone wants to catch. In April, Brian and I might be on Clinton Reservoir again. This past April, I caught 15-inch smallmouths on a Mepp's Aglia Long, size 6, when water temps hadn't quite hit 50.  Of course, if I really want to badly enough, I can take my tippy canoe on the new lake early in the year and just paddle. That I can load by myself. The squareback I need help with. It's heavy. 

Exploring New Jersey Highlands Bass Ponds

 

Enchantment with a New Portion of the State and a Pattern of Return

This afternoon I visited a part of the state I'm familiar with but not in detail. The Scotch Plains, Fanwood area, invited by Garret Daniels to fish crappie. I ended up catching a small largemouth, and Garret a small crappie. If that were the end of the story, there'd be no point in wasting my time on Google. I lived in North Plainfield with my wife-to-be for a year, and a few times we visited Westfield nearby. I fished the Green Brook repeatedly in the spring for stockers, which now happens to be some of Garret's favorite water, but this was before he was born. I remember once passing through an area, I believe on State Highway 28, and seeing a pond to my right as I traveled south. It was full of map turtles. Whichever, it was a major roadway with the pond right next to it. 

New Jersey is rich with waters to discover. It's not upstate New York or Utah, but if you live here in the same state I do, why waste your time dreaming if you want to fish? I'm not mentioning the place Garret and I fished today, nor showing a photo of it, but everywhere you can find public water. 

And new adventure, as well as to touch base, perhaps, on former. We fished only an hour, it's all the time Garret had today, and as I drove home, I switched on WDHA. I hadn't heard "Mystery Achievement" by the Pretenders in more than a decade. Is it a guy who is the girl's achievement, or is it herself? Read the lyrics and you can't tell exactly, except that, "Don't breathe down my neck, no," at the song's beginning does suggest it's someone else. 

Whatever. The instrumental tone, the instrumental refrain like church bells, and the verbal refrain on "mystery achievement" used to make me feel no matter how unfinished my own work--I was busy at keeping hundreds of handwritten notebooks--they've achieved an integral cultural value. It's not the only way I believed that, of course, but the song was a "thing." This was back before I had any internet, too, so no way existed of promoting the work, and I lived too far out on the edge to publish as yet. 

I turned the radio off. It was the only song I heard on the drive home. Garret and I had talked about long COVID and a little else about "COVID times." A little about the possibility of a July 4th incident of another sort. Clearly, this is a somewhat dystopian time we've entered into over the course of the past decade, but speaking for myself, I never give up on the soil that roots the trees. Roots are absolutely necessary to what we see of trees outright, but they're all underground and out of sight. 

Like my handwritten journals, but also like qualities of my experience anyone else might also relate to, because patterns belong to us all. 

I had switched off the radio when I passed under Interstate 78, recognizing that I had been here on March 17, 2020, the day businesses began to get shut down because of COVID. I had driven to Scotch Plains, the Stonehouse Coin Shop. I had some silver coins I wanted to sell, but the proprietor turned me away, telling me that with what was coming, they wouldn't be able to sell them. He told me to come back after things returned to normal. 

They have but in a way inclusive of long COVID and other unease in many people. I'm not a political writer, but anyone can turn on the news. I'm someone who can recognize in an underpass not hope exactly, but the mystery of recurrence after a portion of the state new to me had awakened enchantment. Not a dark shadow under that highway. Recurrence has a way of suggesting closure, as if maybe new values will seek the light as the old are absorbed into the ground. I had felt excited to be at the Stonehouse perhaps the last day it opened before the Shutdown. Why would that be, unless I already knew it wouldn't last? 

Outsmart It

Hillsborough NJ River Largemouth

Often an encounter with the wild isn't the serenity and bliss we expect, though we still manage to finish the outing feeling it was worthwhile. I got back home before my wife was up and before the tv got turned on, so the feeling of early morning peace remained in the air, though she turned it on within five minutes. (Not even 6:30 a.m.) That's when I understood that for all the conflict the news brings, it comes from the world we call home and feel proud of, if we're successful. We occupy our own property and achievement within that world, and though it stands in relation to the wider world of others, we don't abandon ourselves nor our belongings, as if politics determines us altogether. No. And like war, the wild is a place that will swallow us whole if we stay too long; even a short outing can subtly remind us that its beauty has a dark side. Politics that has gone astray always seems to involve so-called leaders who have abandoned their own. Ultimately, the penalty is death. Just as the wild exacts the same eventuality on those who do not build. The difference is that within society, laws bind us together. In the wild, it is the absence of law that will assure us of death if we establish nothing. Not only have leaders abandoned their constituents. Why on earth would those constituents have voted them in? The agreement moves both ways. 

It was a feeling I had today. Possibly because the South Branch Raritan River at Hillsborough ran off color after recent rain. And possibly because, when I got there, it was still too dark out to tell.

I put a Rebel Pop-R, quarter ounce, along the break between evident bottom and darker depths. At least, that was the situation when I fished there during the winter for rainbow trout stocked in the fall. I couldn't actually see today. I had decided I'd go with a quarter-ounce plug, because I felt I stood a better chance with a bigger bass. I did bring smaller along, as if I might try one of them, too. Casting, I felt reminded that the quarter-ounce plug casts a lot farther.

My second cast came down near some wood in the shallows. I popped once and got hit. I believed from a fairly big fish. Just what I had been hoping for, and it felt too good to be true. Even so, I'll amend those hopes a little. If it was a good fish, it was no 22-inch smallmouth as I had dreamed of. (Some day, I'd really like to catch one that big in the river.) I thought maybe it was 15 inches, judging from the weight I had felt for a moment before the plug came free. I put another cast there. Within a moment or two, I was aware I didn't see the plug. It was dark out, but I could just barely make it out on the surface. That is, unless a fish had taken it under. It has white feathers tied to the rear treble and sometimes a fish will take the plug down by nipping them. Though I set the hook into substantial weight, you might think of sunfish pulling on those feathers. 

A good fish, but it didn't feel like a smallmouth. I believed I had a largemouth on. The splashes it let loose were heavy and powerful, but the fight had that comparative sluggishness. I got the fish along in front of me, where I thought I could just barely make out the horizontal stripe of a largemouth in the dark. And then on the sand and pebbly gravel, there it was--largemouth bass. I measured it at 17 inches. 

I made sure to fish out and across the river where I knew the water got shallow. It moved through there a little faster, too. I worked the plug thoroughly, but didn't tempt another hit. My plan had been to switch to a Wacky rig, once I was satisfied the bass weren't going to hit up top any longer. In that nice, deeper water I figured I had a chance. 

But it wasn't looking very petty. By now enough light on it revealed that it was off color. I had gone over to the North Branch near home yesterday just to check, and it ran plenty clear. I knew the lower South Branch is another story and might not be clear, though. I had also checked the United States Geological Survey and it showed the water still up a bit. 

I don't like fishing off color river water with a Wacky rig, and even if I had a noise-making Rat-L-Trap with me, I wasn't sticking around.

Years Back

 

Musky Hooked on HJ12 Husky Jerk

First he caught a hand-sized pumpkinseed to sacrifice to the musky gods...I'll give you a hint, it went to the channel cat demiurge...then he hooked a musky at least three feet long on an HJ12 Husky Jerk only minutes later with the pumpkinseed out under a couple of big bobbers. We both saw the musky jump. Intense. I thought 40 inches, but three feet is a conservative estimate. 

So we had the action we came for. It made Brian's day, and I'm glad for that. The outing ended well for me, too, because the magic hour affects everything living--me included. Placed in a good mood. And I knew it was possible a bass was going to take my Rebel Pop-R. That none did is less important than being there for them, my back not so sore as to disrupt my fishing. 

I had said to Brian earlier about that, "It's just a pain in the ass. I feared it could get so bad it would be disabling, but it's just something to deal with."

For some reason, there are a lot more weeds in Furnace Lake than last year on June 20th with Brenden Kuprel, when I remember catching most of my 15 bass from seven feet of water. We went yesterday with the intention of fishing muskies, but I told Brian I would try for bass, too, and he was good with trying for them himself. He mostly used the Husky Jerk, until it was lost to the musky. He also used a Berkley Nessie, which has a crippled side-to-side action like an underwater Zara Spook. Later towards evening, after he lost the Husky Jerk, he threw a double-bladed Mepp's. I threw a large single-bladed Mepps, but as I say, we didn't fish only muskies. For better or worse. Besides, I think so much heavy lure action might have worsened my back pain. Fishing a worm is easy on the back, and it's how I began my lackluster approach to the bass, with a Shim-E-Stick rigged Wacky. Putting it on the edge of thick weeds. I think of the irony of fishing with Oliver Round last week, who chose Lake Aeroflex when we did so well after I had wanted to try Furnace. I certainly was wise to accept Aeroflex once it was chosen and let Furnace be.

Yesterday, I soon realized I was fishing a lot deeper than I fished last June. The edge was about 11 feet deep. I switched to a Chomper's worm on an inset hook. (Later, by Brian's suggestion, I realized I might have done better had I used an inset hook in a Shim-E-Stick or Yum Dinger and just fished it straight rather than Wacky.) I did get a sudden pull on the slack that probably was a pumpkinseed like Brian caught or a bluegill. Something else ticked the line and took it aside, but though I fished edges and pockets alike, and I got the worm down towards the bottom, I never experienced that familiar strong pull of a bass. 

We lifted the Minn Kota and used a paddle to maneuver into the weeds, getting casts into shallow pockets. On one occasion, we saw big blow-ups back behind the thick of water chestnuts. I got the boat in close enough and cast a weedless frog. To no result. 

And we cast again for muskies. And I worked the Pop-R at the edges and in pockets, once again moving the boat into the thick just before we gave up. I backed us out so the electric motor wouldn't gather weeds, and after having kept the pumpkinseed under two bobbers and it's having become emaciated, Brian set it free...surely vulnerable to big channel cats in the lake.  

Brian Cronk fishes for a sunfish on the inside edge of thick weeds. His catch he used as musky bait.

Water chestnuts are an invasive vegetation that were cited as a reason to submit Lake Musconetcong to chemical treatment. There are a couple of fields of them in Furnace Lake, which I worked by retrieving a weedless frog over them.

Wonder if the beach will open.

2019

Bass Remain a Mystery Despite Publication Online

We haven't been to Blue Mountain Lake since 2015, when my wife, my son, and I searched for the nonexistent Upper Blue Mountain Lake, believing at the time that it did exist. We did find an area well grown over that looked like it might have been the lake before the dam was removed, but I'm not certain the lake ever existed, though it seems likely it did, given that many decades ago the area was a vacation community.. My uncertainty about Upper Blue Mountain Lake goes to show that even with the internet, facts can still elude their certain representation. All that's left to do is hit the trail and see for yourself. You find what looks like the imprint of an impoundment from many years ago, but you can't be altogether certain. You view the map featured by the best article on the situation you've found, and it looks like Upper Blue Mountain Lake was planned on but never created. 

I didn't fish during our 2015 visit, but in 2014, I did, when only my wife and I came. I caught a bass, but in the post on the outing I gave way to a rant about the Tocks Island Dam ordeal. In that post, I said the dam project was all for nothing, but given that the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area came into being instead of the reservoir, it's clearly arguable that something good did come of it. It's good I've grown up since 2014, but I still feel sympathy for the people who lost their homes.

Today's bass came on my second or third cast with a Wacky rig. When we had walked the quarter mile or so into the lake from the parking lot, and I had got to the water's edge before my wife showed up, a young man got in the water and swam across to the island. I put a cast near where he had got in after she had settled, imaging that the swimmer's having stirred up the bottom might draw a bass over. It would have measured nearly 16 inches long.

I lipped the fish and carried it over to my wife. Standing in front of her sitting there, I held the bass, and she said, "Let's bring it home."

"Can't. Out of season." 

She loves largemouths, but I only bring one home if it's so badly hooked it bellies up. Most fishermen believe largemouths taste bad, but that was not the prevailing opinion of the 1950s and 60s.   

I continued to work my way toward the dam. A couple of trout anglers had taken position there in such a way that I could get around them and fish the corner where I caught the bass in 2014. But where I fished at present, I felt something peg the worm, and I set the hook into a little bass that got off. I did fish the corner to the right of the anglers in the photo below, but not much more than that. It's nice feeling satisfied with one fish, and there are times when that's a good catch. Besides, to really fish Blue Mountain Lake effectively, haul a kayak in. Or ice fish it.

I ended up hanging out with my wife and black Lab Loki before I made my trek to the corner, to be certain whether or not I would run into another bass. There's well to be said for relaxing beside a lake in the wild as if nothing else matters, and I lay on the grass and took it all in for about 20 minutes before I finally tried the corner. On my walk back, I tried my Merlin bird song identification app on my mobile device, only to be informed no service was available. 

Not only is there no service up there, the bass remain a secret, even as I write about them and publish online. If you want to catch some, you'll need to jockey in a kayak a quarter mile. Otherwise, consider one bass a good catch, and marvel at the mystery of all the rest. 

And at all that wild space, which nor very long ago was hundreds of affordable summer homes.  

Waterfall on Van Campens Brook, which I didn't fish.

The corner is to the right of the end of the grass.

2013

A Search Bait on the Slow Side

I wasn't expecting our success. I think Oliver asked me where we might fish, and I said Aeroflex or Furnace. I wanted him to choose, and he chose Aeroflex because he had hope for salmon. I had hoped we'd fish Furnace, water cool enough yet for muskies. Last I fished Aeroflex from a boat was June 2023. Brenden Kuprel and I fished about six hours and caught eight fish, most of them pickerel. A couple of Junes before that, in 2021, Jorge Hildago and I fished about six hours, getting skunked. Before that, in 2017, I fished Aeroflex with my son, Matt, and we caught three fish: two bass and a pickerel.

Given my lack of success in the past, it's understandable I'd feel surprised when Oliver quickly caught a trout on a trolled Hedden Sonic. We made another pass when my Phoebe got smacked hard, and Oliver caught yet another trout on a Rapala Countdown. We made another circular pass, trying to keep near the weeds in water deeper than 20 feet. I like the idea of trout and salmon attracted to the fertility. 

Nothing more happened, so we went through the shallows and into the deepest water beyond them, hundred-foot depths showing on the graph. 

Temps today never got out of the 50's. The water was 62, a good temperature for the trout and salmon, though I wasn't sure if it hadn't fallen too much and put the bass off. It definitely hadn't. We had a lot of rain. Oliver got chilled in the end, and I was glad we went in when we did, so he didn't suffer any worse. I wore a base layer under my pants, and another under a Woolrich shirt, a neoprene jacket over that, and a raincoat. I felt comfortable all day.  

As if we fished the steep shoreline drops of Tilcon Lake, I imagined the fishing as one and the same, only Aeroflex gets more pressure. At first I felt tempted to use a 1/16th-ounce jig with a little two-and-a-half-inch paddletail, That's how we fished two years ago, getting the jig down into 20-foot depths at the edge of the weeds, but only by using Wacky rigs to search out the weeds and wood in front of us did the fishing make sense today in the way it does at the other lake, and pretty soon, it paid off. The bass fought hard, and I measured it at 18 inches and imagined it must have weighed nearly three-and-a-half pounds. A fat fish. Minutes later, I caught my second, about 15 inches.

We worked our way down lake, catching bass. I watched Oliver hook one that we watched as he moved it from about four feet of water towards the depths where it got off. We believe that bass had to be at least 20 inches. No pickerel today, although one of them attacked Oliver's Wacky rig as he reeled it in to make another cast. I finished with a total of six bass; Oliver caught two. Most of mine were about 15 inches, though another one of them was 18 inches. You have to fish thoroughly. A Wacky rig isn't ideal. No rig is ideal for the weeds in May. If it were July, I'd have used an inset hook on a traditional worm. But the weeds haven't fully grown in yet, and even though a Wacky rig gets caught in the weeds, I can snap the worm free, and otherwise keep it from getting hung up by working it over the tops of the weeds. Fluttering the ends. Only one of my bass took the worm on the initial drop. The Wacky rig is a good one to use as a search bait, but a search bait on the slow side, and that worked very well today. I also caught a rainbow trout while trolling the Phoebe out over deep water on our way back to the launch ramp. We had fished a total of four hours.

 

2023

Lake Parsippany Bass Tournament in Heavy Wind

Brian Cronk Measures His 17-Incher

I've found Lake Parsippany a challenging proposition under any conditions I've fished there, and when Brian invited me to fish this month's bass tournament hosted by the Lake Parsippany Property Owners Fishing Club, I didn't hesitate, but an extra day of practice ahead of time felt onerous. We could have fished Furnace, Aeroflex, or our favorite private lake.

Turns out that for two hours of fishing or less on Thursday, a few bass wasn't bad, and if we matched that catch in six hours of fishing today, we would have been in third, not fourth place, of six teams. A few guys like fishing this lake and do pretty well here, as first and second place's total length of bass reflects, and I have to say my memory of fishing a few days ago is a good one. Today's will be, too. The first place crew, who were guests, logged their five of a total of eight or nine caught, at 85.75 inches, I believe it was. Over 85 and less than 86. Two members who fish here frequently, the second place crew. caught 84 inches. Third place was 47 inches and some. Brian and I had three bass at 43 inches. 

When Brian and I began fishing, I quickly had one on for a second. It blasted my topwater Mihara popper. Wind already blew pretty hard, the surface choppy, but I tried that topwater anyway. It would have worked a second time, too, but I got it caught in fabric and destroyed the rear treble while removing it. (I do own a split ring tool and an assortment of trebles for just this eventuality, plugs too precious, not necessarily so expensive, to waste.) A Rebel Pop-R worked on my second bass, another good one, lost right at the boat. We had encroached upon a length of water shadowed behind a big tree. 

The water is shallow. About three or four feet nearshore where we concentrated our efforts. Brian got a 17-incher on a Chatterbait; I threw a spinnerbait much of the time, avoiding the hang-ups on stumps that annoyed Brian. He never lost a Chatterbait, though, and must have got stuck 25 times. I was throwing that spinnerbait as 30 mph wind blew us across the lake on a drift that wasn't so fast we couldn't cast and retrieve. A blue and black spinnerbait that might have been shaded too darkly for the intense sunlight, but the water is rather stained. Out there that water might have been five, six feet deep, and I've been told bass are everywhere in the lake. 

Take that with a grain of salt. Some spots will hold more of them, such as the shorelines we had been fishing. Getting carried by the whitecaps on the open water wasn't adding up, and we felt very frustrated, me doubting that I would catch anything, and Brian wondering if he'd caught the only bass of the tournament, things felt so bad. It felt like being on Barnegat Bay in a heavy blow many decades ago, when I was on the water every day as a self-employed clammer. 

I loved that life any conditions I faced, and they included temperatures in the single digits. To take home good pay, I faced everything, even sleeping through Hurricane Charley on my 17-foot runabout with a tarp very well tied down over me, but here's the point. I reasoned that if we were going to pull a little more out of this debacle, number one, we had to face that for us, this was not efficient fishing, but we could make the best of it, rather than wallowing in disappointment. Brian's 12-foot Starcraft has a stern-mount electric, so obviously, we weren't exactly agile at pivoting for the presentation out there.

Nowhere near that!

But if we fished hard in spite of all else, dumping the 10- or 15-pound mushroom anchor repeatedly, even though Brian's shoulder is bad--but he was in the bow--then we stood a chance for certain, because we know bass haunt these shoreline areas. 

It didn't get us anywhere near first or second place, but it worked. My 10-inch dink on a Wacky worm was at least something, and Brian got a 16-incher on the Chatterbait. 

 Last April

Bass on an Adam Mihara Plug and Some

Practicing for a tournament this coming Sunday, Brian Cronk and I got rained on after we had spent less than two hours on the lake. It came down heavily. My rain jacket didn't keep me dry and Brian's slacks were soaked. Both of us got chilled. We also didn't think to bring ziplock bags for our phones. They actually never got wet, but we weren't sure if the rain would stop. As it turned out, the skies cleared shortly after we left, but temps had come down some. 

Brian's Chatterbait took the first hit, and then one of the Adam Mihara custom topwater plugs I own got blasted. I fired off a Yum Dinger from another rod to place the worm where the hit had come, and I came up with our first bass, 14 3/4 inches. I kept fishing the plug, the surface of the lake yet remaining calm, but a dark line of clouds approached. I caught a 15 3/4-incher that prompted Brian to switch out for a Zara Spook, which soon got hit by a bass that measured 18 1/2 inches. Big chunky fish that must have weighed three-and-a-half pounds. It leapt three times. The photograph does no justice to it. 

And then a breeze came up and it rained hard. I kept getting my plug out there, but the only two hits came as the electric motor took us back to the ramp, Brian trolling the Chatterbait. 

I don't like this particular lake, which I plan on naming in my post Sunday, but today I enjoyed myself out there on it. The lake is shallow everywhere. About four feet. Here and there submerged stumps exist, but you only know about them when you get snagged. A myth exists of weedbeds in the middle of the 168 circular acres, but I believe that's all it is--myth. I had hoped we'd motor out there today and see if we could find any. That of course would be a game changer, if weeds exist. Otherwise, the lake is mud-bottomed and full of carp. Disgusting.

I did catch two bass pretty quickly, and Brian's was a good one. Whether or not a good number of bass can be caught here on a six hour outing, maybe Sunday will show us. Then again, maybe not. The lake did feel like it fished pretty fast today, but we fished a total of about two hours and caught only three bass to show for it. 

Twenty-mile-per-hour wind is expected Sunday, and that won't make it easy, though at least that's not the lake's fault.

End of April Last Year