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

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

Attention Paid to the Doing

Old railway stanchion.

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

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

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

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

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

I didn't even think about stuff today. 

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

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

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

Support for U.S. Highway 206

Last September

The Bluegill Sunfish Aren't as Common in the Rivers

We caught a lot of fish. Fifty of them easily, but no big ones. Mostly sunfish. I think last summer we passed on fishing here, but we've been coming in July for years now. I remember Mark telling me about a pool below a waterfall full of smallmouths, and you can just imagine...how I imagined that. Even so, we've caught some good ones. Mark's caught a couple about 15 inches and better, and he lost one that looked like 17, easily. I saw that fish before the hook popped out. I hooked a big one on a little #5 Rapala I believed was 18 inches, but you never know until you measure the fish.

Last year we tried the Paulinskill, but not far upstream, unknown to us at the time, a dam was being removed, so the water was muddy. We diverted our plans and went to the Pequest. We caught some bass and a trout. 

Mark had fished at least a couple of the pools we fished today a week ago. He did pretty well. Smallies were a little bigger, and he caught a rainbow trout.

The best part of the morning for me involved fishing a shallow stretch that still manages to hold bass. We've always caught them there. We also catch longear or redbreast sunfish, and today I caught a single bluegill, as well as a few rock bass. The bluegills aren't nearly as common in the rivers. One of the longears that took a Rapala #5 off the surface was good sized, bigger than my hand. I caught a couple of little eight-inch smallmouths, too, losing another on the leap, and missing hits on the surface, mostly from sunfish. It's just an involving way to forget about everything else. Mark texted me since we fished, and I like his suggestion of trying it again before summer's out. 

Mark's always brought along nightcrawlers to resort to. I succumbed to them right from the start. I must have cast my 1/8-ounce swimbait three times before I gave up on it and took my ultra-light in hand instead. I caught a couple of bass about nine inches long on the worms and lots of sunfish. A few bass smaller. Casting the plug instead, I got to thinking about how clean that approach is. I could feel the difference. And yet, when I use salmon eggs for trout early in the spring, part of what makes the fishing what it is and is appealing to me is the smell of the oil. It does smell like salmon, of course, and salmon are great to eat. 

It's possible the allure of the smell has something to do with Omega 3 fatty acids, too. Who knows. The desirability of them. Whatever it is, I like to get involved with the mess and catch trout on the eggs. 

Mark caught the smallest bass. That's a fingerling, isn't it.

A Few Years Ago

 

Big Pickerel Go Deep in Summer

Brian's 22-inch Pickerel

Clinton Reservoir doesn't always produce much for us. I did better in April when the water was in the 40's, trolling a Mepps Aglia, but Brian caught the 22-inch pickerel photographed above, while trolling a chrome Storm Hot 'n Tot. I had a smaller one rush my Wacky rig as I retrieved it for another cast, a fish hanging out in shallower water. We find the larger pickerel are in depths of about 12 feet and deeper from early June onward through the summer. I recall fishing with Brenden Kuprel a couple of years ago when I was catching 18- and 19-inchers on the deep edges of weedlines in 20 feet of water on little 1/16th ounce jig and paddletail combinations. I've caught pickerel 20 inches and better while trolling 15-foot depths of Tilcon Lake in the summer, too. To the best of Brian's recollection, his pickerel yesterday came from 15 feet of water. He had more line out than I did, so it's possible his plug was just about right on bottom. The plugs always gathered weeds when we got as shallow as 10 feet. 

I did catch a bluegill on a jig and twister, a 10-inch smallmouth bass, "if that," Brian said, on a 1/4-ounce Rebel Pop-R, and another sunfish of a different species on that same plug. Unfortunately, I lost a better bass that felt the hooks, and missed other hits. Brian's Whopper Plopper got hit twice under the same pine tree where he caught one almost 18 inches long on a Zara Spook two years ago. He ended up using a Zara Puppy yesterday, as I was drawing more hits on my smaller plug, and he got more hits on that Puppy, too, including one from a sizeable bass I witnessed. He had another bass boatside when it threw the hooks of the same plug. 

And the big bluegill photographed below. 

Most of the action came from an area I'd rather not disclose, and though we've had action there before and set getting there as a goal, when we came into view of it, there were a couple of guys in a Bass Tracker working it over. Given that added pressure on the fish, I think we did pretty well in terms of the interest we got from them, even though we pulled only a few over the gunwale. 

It's not the first time we've trolled big pickerel deep from Clinton Reservoir. On other occasions, a chrome Hot 'n Tot has produced pickerel of about 21 inches for me here. About the same depth. Twelve, maybe 15 feet. Once I hooked something enormous. Brian tells me there are 30-inchers here. That might have been what I had on. I had just caught a 21-inch largemouth, and whatever it was I hooked felt bigger, taking off on a lightning-quick run, just like a northern pike would for short duration, only I think I might have hooked a pike-sized pickerel. Trolled. The Hot 'n Tot, but it threw the hooks. 

Big Bluegill on Topwater Plug

The way the light illumined the rocks mesmerized me.

Clinton

 

Trail Along the River Offers Access to Shoreline

The Delaware ran high, and we didn't catch any fish, but my Wacky rig did get hit once or twice. I felt something and thought I saw a bass swooping through the water's dingy two-foot clarity. Then I cast again and that time really did get hit, but upstream from where the former action happened. I fished in Frenchtown with Joe Beckerman, who I hadn't seen in 14 years. 

He's scouted around, having lived in Frenchtown for months. If you drive along the river, which many people do for recreation, taking in beautiful views, stopping at quaint little towns like Lambertville, Stockton, Frenchtown, and Milford, you'll probably get the impression that most of the river is barren of any fish-holding structure and depth. The truth is, there are smallmouth bass all along the shorelines for the most part. I once fished somewhere near Bull's Island by just casting a spinnerbait parallel to shore for some 45 minutes as I made my way downstream and caught three. Not big ones, but bass. 

At Frenchtown, there's a Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park "towpath," though the canal begins downstream from there. You don't have to walk very far in the upstream direction from in front of the Frenchtown-Uhlerstown Bridge before finding a trail leading down into the trees closer to the river. If you take that trail to access the river when it's flowing low, you might be able to work your way along the river itself while casting, even without getting your feet wet. Otherwise, you might still find spots where you can gain access.

Joe had a specific spot in mind that we accessed today even though the river barred us elsewhere. It didn't surprise me too much that I got hit. He asked me if I had a spinner, and I wished I had brought along the little box I can fit in my hip pocket. It has a couple of spinners in it. I just carried a couple bags of Yum Dingers, hooks, and an O-ring tool.

The Delaware is a fascinating complex of wild and traveled space that really isn't worked over as much as you might think. A man could spend a lifetime fishing the river and nowhere else, and he would still be surprised by something new each time on the water.

Frenchtown-Uhlerstown Bridge

\

Foot trail along the river.

Joe's spot was more than a half mile above the bridge from Frenchtown where we began walking.

Lambertville

 

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

 

Lockatong Creek Delaware Raritan Canal Confluence Access and Fishing

Foremost is the towpath bridge. Behind it, State Highway 29.

My wife and I are staying in Lambertville. The town situates along the Delaware River. Naturally, the possibility of fishing that river again, since Thursday last week at the wing dam, arose as a clear and present urge to act, the forecast thunderstorms not having arrived. Off I went, headed for the Tea Table Rocks upstream, also known as the Fingers, a series of rock formations jutting far out into the river, creating myriad pools where we've caught smallmouth bass. And walleye have been caught there. I once saw one about 22 inches on someone's stringer. I caught a couple of smallmouths while wading among the Fingers in December, too. 

I got a momentary view of the river from Highway 29, and it did not look good. So once I got into Stockton, I took a left and parked near the bridge to Solebury, PA. From there I walked out on that bridge and examined the river below. Running high. Deeply stained, but not thickly muddy. Too stained to fish comfortably, let alone probably too high to wade among the rocks effectively. I did catch a smallmouth from the deeply muddied Delaware on a Rat-L-Trap during summer once.

We didn't have too much rainfall down here. The river's level rose upstream. I felt certain that streams like the Lockatong Creek flowed clear. Before I left home in Bedminster on Monday, I was confronted with the choice to put my waders, salmon eggs, and microlight rod back in the car. I knew I couldn't foresee what might possibly arise, but I felt set on fishing the river, if it didn't rain much. But what I didn't think of was rain to the north, river high and stained, Hunterdon trout streams clear and fishable.

No big deal. An alternative fascinated me more than trying to pick off one or two rainbows late in the season given the stocking schedule pertaining to those streams. I hadn't fished in a long time the mouth of the Lockatong where it forms a confluence with the Delaware and Raritan Feeder Canal. Judging by the looks of a photograph I took on Opening Day 2012, my son and I visited the spot when access was better. Many decades ago, an earthen lot existed across the road, completely grown over and fenced off now. 

I felt surprised to find any pullover at all. Privilege is clamping down on access--as if we're not all privileged in America--at what I feel is an alarming rate, pushing American values back before the years of the American Revolution's defeating Great Britain. You can't fish in England as we can fish in America. No matter the British democracy. That society is essentially ruled by monarchy, which means--as it does in any case of monarchy--that privilege has an upper hand that excludes so many opportunities ordinary subjects would have to fish. 

I parked, despite the "No Stopping. No Standing" sign. I took note of the Division of Fish & Wildlife stocking sign posted on a tree there. Absolutely, I resolved to fish--come hell or high water. With that sign from the Division present, I knew I had a chance in court. 

And I felt disgusted at the effrontery to access that "No Stopping" sign represented. Can you believe it? In 1979 three friends and I camped here. We put a 12-foot Starcraft on the canal. One of my friends and I fished muskies. After doing that, I walked upstream, fishing as I went with a Mister Twister, catching 10 smallmouths over the course of about two miles and having climbed untold vertical elevation. The Lockatong flows pretty quickly down and out of the hills.

I guess the other guys wanted to get high, rather than fish hard.

But I fished today. Up here, only about three miles from where the canal begins at Bull's Island, the canal flowed high and deeply stained. Only where the tannic flow of the Lockatong flowed into the canal was some clarity present. I fished all the clarity I could find, and deep into the edges as well, except for upstream of the bridges. 

I hooked a musky about 30 inches long here in 1977. It didn't stay on the hook, but you can imagine that such a deep break in the canal structure as this confluence would attract them. I witnessed a friend of mine, Joe Kasper, fight another musky the same year at the same spot. It leapt right in front of our faces, throwing the hook, a small one about 24 inches. Tiger musky. I saw the vertical markings clear as day. 

When done below those bridges, I walked across the road and looked down over the bridge, curious about any further possibility of access. I saw that to the left, a deep hole might hold some bass. Black, tannic water. (I've caught Maine smallmouths in tannic water.) I don't remember the creek being tannic here in the past, but that's beside the point. I didn't want to fish any longer today. That disgust I had felt had taken over, and I just wanted to get back to the Air B & B and write my post. But before I would walk back across the road to my car, no ticket on its windshield, me feeling as if I were being judged by passing traffic for being in the wrong, not in the right we sportsmen understand, indeed I stayed in the right, turning the corner of the metal fence and making my way to where, yes, it's possible to access the creek. 

If I were to be ticketed, I'd already conceived a defense by the rights of the American Sportsman. (Last I checked, this nation still is the United States.) I would study the constitution, because, seriously, it must be open to the interpretation that public water must be allowed convenient access.  

The Lockatong Creek enters the Delaware and Raritan Canal to the right of the picture. Across the canal, some of the water overflows into the Delaware River, as if the creek would flow across and into the river. Because the canal is only about three miles downstream of its origin at Bull's Island, building an aqueduct for the creek to flow under was not possible. The level of the canal is only so much--maybe a few feet at most--above the river here.

Wing Dam

 

Delaware River Lambertville Wing Dam Smallmouth Bass

Brian Cronk spoke enthusiastically about the Delaware River's Lambertville Wing Dam being especially good for fishing this time of year, after I told him my wife and I were going to stay in Yardley for some of the time one of our bathrooms is getting remodeled. I got in touch with someone who fishes the river, but when I tried to confirm his being there, I got no reply. So I reached out to Brian, who arranged for his friend Paul to meet me. The two of them fished together during their teens, having known each other since middle school. I texted Paul and we made plans for Thursday at 5:15 pm. 

On Tuesday, I tried to find access on the Pennsylvania side first. Looks like the only access is for people who live in the townhouse development(s), a big change from years back when anyone could walk out there. Around 1978, I caught a 15-inch smallmouth from the Pennsylvania side. 

I drove across to Lambertville from New Hope and found parking where I saw another fisherman get out of his car. I got to the river there, but almost a quarter mile upstream of the dam. With all my heavy stuff, I decided to fish for a half hour or 45 minutes from where I stood. Nothing. Although the water had some depth. 

When I returned to my car, I checked on the sign where I had entered the lot. The threat of getting towed meant I wasn't coming back. I had already driven south to where a lot exists by the canal, and you can walk the tow path. That's where I decided I'd return after having scaled down on my equipment. I soon told Paul I'd meet him there and to go light. 

The hike was a good mile. A little longer than I had thought. I asked a couple of guys making their way out at about the time we had arrived, about the fishing. No one had caught anything, so I understood I had to fish more intensively. Rather than immediately setting about at retrieving a jig in water too slow to maneuver it through drifts, I cut my Ned rig off the fluorocarbon leader and tied on a Yum Dinger rigged Wacky. And instead of marching out to the end of the dam, I fished the shoreline by leaving the dam and walking upstream, but I got hung up so much, finally breaking off, that I decided to focus on the first 75 feet or so of the upstream side of the dam where water was slow, not very deep, and unappealing. "Smallmouth might spawn here," I told Paul. 

Besides, it was the kind of "nothing happening" spot every one else might feel contempt for.

I cast far enough that I could plumb some depth at first, Paul fishing not too distant on my left, and then I finished retrieves by fluttering those ends of the worm, making sure not to get hung up in the rocks. That's what worked. And while I was surprised at having a pretty good fish on, as if nothing gets caught here, a better part of me understood I had laid out a plan and it had worked. There's plenty of bass in the river.

I quickly measured it. It's the second fish I've caught from the wing dam. One smallmouth at 15 inches from Pennsylvania. One smallmouth at 15 inches from New Jersey. 

Paul took a couple of good hits. He worked an unweighted plastic swim bait on an inset hook, by what I could tell. I had a small fish on for a second and got pegged by another that felt better than a sunfish or rock bass. I fished the fast current on the downstream side of the dam with the Ned rig to get that interest, where depth might have been five or six feet. Shouldn't have been surprising there were some fish in that flow, but I wouldn't stay there for the rest of the evening.

Instead, I fished the upstream side on out towards the river's center, watching the speed of the current increase as I went, aware that I no longer fished where bass might spawn. Not that I was aware the females had spawned and the bucks guarded beds, but the bass I caught, though chunky, didn't seem to bulge with eggs. It likely was a female at that length, though perhaps not. It does seem likely the females have spawned by now, though, and if so, some of them probably remain fairly near areas where they released eggs. 

We fished less than two hours. Didn't stay out to dark itself, though fairly well into dusk. Paul has endless fishing stories to tell. It was great catching up on fishing in the Mercer County area where I grew up, as we walked in and walked out. My favorite of his stories is about Prospertown Lake, which actually is in Monmouth next to Mercer. I fished the lake in my teens. He fought the biggest bass he had ever hooked, and he's caught six pounders. He says the bass was eight pounds. It rose towards the surface and he thrust his rod tip down underneath that surface. No matter. The great bass leapt, shook his head, and threw the lure. He told me what that lure was. I believe a Zoom swimbait, but I forget.  

  

Paul

Jersey side of the wing dam. Current goes between the wings from both sides of the river.

Delaware River Smallmouths

 

Trolling the Mepp's Aglia

Brian told me Clinton Reservoir's water temp reached 48 on Tuesday. The weather can be considerably cooler up near West Milford than in the Dover area, let alone Bedminster. I wonder how cold it was last night. 

Getting the boat off the trailer, I waded above my knees barefoot. Numbed quickly, it was only painful at first. I still had some feeling on the underside of my feet. I felt the point of a piece of glass--it must have been lodged in-between stone--on the bottom of that right foot. The glass wasn't lengthy enough to penetrate the skin.

We trolled here a couple of years ago, catching smallmouths. It's a mystery to me why we haven't caught more trout. I used a Mepp's Aglia Long size 6 almost all day today, almost the full four hours, and I doubt a trout would feel it's too big, but maybe that's why. I don't know.

We had trolled up along a shoreline where we've caught a few in the past. After we turned the corner of a point, my antennae twiggled. I don't always anticipate a catch, especially when cold water makes them difficult. But often, I do. I envisaged myself getting my Aglia right down near bottom among rocks, having asked Brian about depth. We had seven or eight feet, and that felt just right. I was on setting two or three of the 55-pound thrust Minn-Kota. (Brian always has me run it, which is OK. I have a boater's certificate.)

I thought I had hooked a trout, the way the fish zigzagged quickly. I soon had a smallmouth about 15 inches long in the boat. 

"I knew what I was doing," I said. I didn't tell Brian I had felt I was about to hookup.

Near an island, we stopped trolling. We cast a rocky flat with water as shallow as a foot or two, most of it five or six feet. Clear water. I made out rocks as deep as eight feet. I figured that with the abundant sunshine, those rocks would warm a little. 

Apparently nothing was there.

We've done better during the early season along the opposite shoreline. Brian trolled crankbaits, and although the shoreline does not drop off nearly as steeply, and he got snagged more than a few times, he was able to fish them. My Aglia produced once more, another 15-incher. I didn't anticipate the fish directly as I had the other, but I saw a stickup above the surface ahead, which did pique my interest. I took note of the bass having hit just yards ahead of it.

Today was a much-needed release from so much nonsense my brain keeps me struggling with. Working at the Supermarket wasn't bad. It's much better to hold a job than to live in a dystopian world after civilization collapses. If anyone can live in such a world. When the electrical grid permanently fails, won't the numerous nuclear power plants in America melt down, killing all life on the continent? And yet the supermarket did cause me stress. Extreme stress for the first four years or so. Such stress can enlarge the amygdala, which means all sorts of overkill continues to stress the brain. 

On the reservoir today, I got relief from all that.

Near the end of our outing, I heard my phone ping repeatedly, thinking that must be my son. He often pings rapidly. About three minutes later, one last ping.

We beached and I checked my phone. No. The fast series of pings had been from Brian sending me photos he took with his phone. But the ping that came three minutes later--from my son! I stood there wrapped in a moment of awe. Did my thinking of Matt prompt him to send me the message? He almost never messages me, though it is true that when he does, he often sends a few in quick succession. 

He's working on nuclear fusion at UCLA. If we can power the grid by (clean) fusion power, we'll have solved the energy problem.

We had noticed a couple of guys in a bass boat. With Brian's boat on the trailer, they passed by the ramp, asking had we caught any. They had caught one smallmouth. I asked if they had a water temp.

"It's 51 up here and 49 in the back!" 

 

Spinners

 

Cold April Weather for a Catch

Temperatures in the 50's would have felt better; 44 degrees was cold. Our hands couldn't take it for too long. I recall many outings on the rivers fishing for winter trout when my hands didn't get cold, but in that breeze out there beside Oak Ridge Reservoir, they suffered today.

The water's way down. We tried a spot below what would have been a steep, gravelly drop off, and Brian got hit hard. He used what looked like a quarter-ounce jighead, giving it body by use of a three- or four-inch Keitech. 

I was casting a Binsky when Brian hiked up as the water flows. Something like 600 yards. He took position on the end of a smallish point and cast. I switched to a 16th ounce jig and Z-Man Slimswimz paddletail. I fished it as assiduously as I could, shooting a glance over at Brian on occasion. I knew a real possibility of hooking a smallmouth here where Brian had missed one existed. My being sure the water was plenty cold, because a couple of recent nights have dipped into the 20's, didn't exclude that possibility.

I started to think that if Brian were to catch one, I should be there with the camera. Besides, perhaps he and I would catch up a little by way of conversation. I didn't like the feel of the weather. It put a dank feel on my every move, but if we would head in early...not just yet.

The walk felt pleasant with my black Lab, Loki, accompanying me. I kept my eyes on the ground, looking for whatever might turn up. Old beer cans. Coke. Beer bottles. Loki found a fish vertebra about a foot long. Shortly after I arrived, Brian told me he was about ready to leave. I felt relieved. 

"I missed a few hits," he said, adding, "I had to switch out my Keitech because the fish tore it up."

I fished my jig slowly on bottom.

"This might be really nice when it's calm on a summer evening," I said.

"Yeah, topwater." 

I understood it wasn't going to be an afternoon of much said between us. The weather felt too uncomfortable. 

I don't use Keitech, but I've heard it from Brenden Kuprel, also, that they don't last, but I began feeling perhaps I should have used a larger jig and plastic combination. Brian began making his way back in the direction of our vehicles.

"Fish on," he said. A sudden change in the feeling of things. 

I saw his rod bending. A good-sized smallmouth leapt. The struggle seemed a little testy as a good fish often does. Soon, he dragged one that probably would have measured at least 17 inches up onto the mud, making it less than a good subject for photography. I gripped it by the lower jaw and washed it off at the water's edge.

Back home, I found I had driven 94 miles. You never know; it's possible I'll ride all that way, fish topwater through a perfect summer evening and never get hit. 

Clinton Reservoir