Shark River Pier Fluke on Jig and Gulp

In the choice between Farrington Lake and destinations further east, I wanted the adventure at the shore over a real long haul for my squareback canoe from Brian's house. Originally, I floated the idea of Twin Lakes in Kittatinny Valley State Park, but Brenden's good at Google Earth and got right on that, showing me the thickness of the aquatic vegetation between the "two" lakes seems to forbid passage. Besides, we'd have had to cart the canoe, and especially with the marine battery and electric motor, it's difficult to do that. The surface area of the "second" lake where the primitive launch is, isn't much.

It's still interesting, I admit.

Anyway, we had a good time at what we chose to do. Beginning at Manasquan Inlet, we threw metals and plugs for bluefish at high tide and before it actually stopped coming in, got slack, and began to drop. Brenden did hook one before that current turned. He thought that might bode well for us, as if the bluefish might turn on as the water turned out. He knew what he was thinking, because he's caught a lot of blues up to 10 pounds here this spring. Some of them turned on just after the tidal change. 

But pretty soon, I let him continue to throw for blues and switched to a jig and white Mister Twister. I had witnessed four fluke caught, so I was interested. As it turned out, nothing took any interest in my presentations. Nor did any more fish slam Brenden's. 

After more than two hours--the tide was going out--we abandoned hope for the inlet, and I felt eager to move on as if getting there as soon as we could might make a difference.

Whether or not it would have, Brenden caught fluke. We found a little pier on the Shark River adjacent to or belonging to a public park. At first, I feared this was going to be a bust, as if the water would be too shallow, but then again, I figured, if it were three or four feet deep, fluke might move over such a flat. 

It's more like six or seven feet, and plenty of fluke moved over it. Besides Brenden's three--two about 16 inches, another smaller--I saw four others caught, including one of 22 inches. We didn't fish shoulder to shoulder, but I felt it was crowded.  

When Brenden caught his third, a while after he had offered to lend me a white Berkley Gulp bait, I said, "Do you think the Gulp really makes a difference?"

"I have no doubt it does."

"I'll borrow one."

I also took him up on a half-ounce jighead like the one he used to get longer casts into the wind and better feel in the rough water. That replaced mine, 3/8th ounce. Let sink and then wiggle the rod tip as you retrieve at slow to moderate pace. The Gulp has no twister tail, but by jerking it around, the resemblance is of a baitfish. 

How sensitive to scent fluke really are, I have little idea, but given the mass of water out there today in the heavy northeast blow and swift, sideways tidal current, they must be very sensitive to scent for Gulp to really make that difference.

There's evidence it's true. Comparisons between Berkley Gulp and Zman to gain insight into scent dispersion suggest the molecules get to the nostrils of fish, and that one brand might do it better than another. But in any case, we caught no more fluke, though speaking for myself, I deeply enjoyed trying for some. We fished there about two-and-a-half hours that felt longer owing to my absorption into the process of attempting to make that river produce.

We drove on, arriving along Raritan Bay perhaps a half hour later. There's another pier, and I made for it. Brenden pointed out we wouldn't be able to net a big one, the distance between the rail and the water surface too much. 

To the left of that pier, a jetty looked inviting to me, and Brenden was interested in it. But the water had fallen to the point that sand was exposed in front. Little waves breaking to the side suggested very shallow depth. Casting confirmed that. We could have waded, but we decided to make a break for a much larger jetty about a half mile distant. Brenden told me it channels an inlet. I figured a small one, but no matter, any ancillary water might be interesting to fish.

It's small and might hold fish especially at high tide. But I hadn't noticed until then how muddy Raritan Bay's water. Inside that little inlet where boats pass from a marina--plenty off color but not as outright muddy. We made our way back where rocks are replaced by bulkheading.

The smell of creosote jogged my memory. It brought me back to when I was 12. I caught bullheads that impressed me as especially big at about 12 inches, in the Delaware and Raritan Canal at Lawrence Township, while sitting on bulkheading by a bridge. I came home to the inherent peace of the planet while people in the distance crabbed and fished, and although the experience was short lived, it still reminds me that all is well on earth, despite the acridity of ordinary life. 

Manasquan Inlet

 

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

 

Trout Stocking First Week After Opening Day May be Lightweight

                                                                                     

Relatively opaque water, given how clear it can be, but not stained, ran higher than I had expected after three days since rain. I got into a nice spot right at 5:00 p.m., figuring fish should be there and would hit. I cast tentatively, and as the egg drifted downriver with the help of several snap swivels attached to a snap for weight, I suddenly doubted anything would happen. And nothing did until I got a solid tap about 10 casts later. 

After four more takes of the like, besides once getting slammed and having the trout on for a second, drag screeching, I made my way upstream some 10 yards, working my body through tight spaces between tree trunks and a wooden fence. The trunks have dormant poison ivy vines strung on them. Walking on rocks on a bank sloping at a 45-degree angle, making sure my left knee didn't give out, avoiding the consequence of getting pitched into the river, that, I thought, wouldn't be so bad. It would be the loss my mobile device. That left knee had been operated on some 14 years ago, and it's not getting better. I felt surprised to see the same woman who had hooked the breeder last time. I said hi and made a cast. Then a few more. I missed another hit. She said, "Do you think they restocked?"

"I think they did, just didn't put many fish in."

"I don't think so." 

I'm sure the river was stocked, although the trout, for the most part, weren't committing to the eggs but managing to steal them from my hook. There were others fishing downstream and I hadn't seen a single trout caught. I continued fishing near the exit bridge, the bridge upstream of the former AT&T entry bridge where the trout get stocked, but I got only one more tap.  

I went downstream. There I found the water was a lot slower than I would have expected, given the power of the flow above. I downsized to a single size 14 Eagle Claw snap swivel for weight. Soon I hooked up and fought an average rainbow to the bank. I was standing about six feet high over the edge of the water, and I wasn't interested in climbing down to get the trout, so before I would have pulled it up on rocks, I hoped it would lose the hook and be on it's way, which happened a second later when the trout was about a foot from the dry edge. 

Now. I figured I might have some action. I didn't think ahead of how much I would have to work for it. At my age, it's not as easy; it's rather difficult, but if you're going to suffer for the fish, you'll get some satisfaction in return, even if you go home with some kinks to work out over long hours ahead. 

I paid keen attention to just where my egg was touching down, and I missed more of the same kind of hits right at the end of my rather short and definitely slow drifts. I set the hook on one of them and got repaid with a distinct visual of rainbow colors before the trout quickly disappeared under the cover of that less-than-clear water. Soon, I hooked another, and I played it, drag screeching repeatedly, before I got the trout--average sized--against the bank. And then I lifted it out of the water, which made me wonder if I could lift it all the way up to where I stood. Would my knots to two-pound-test Berkley XL hold? Snap swivel to mainline, hook to leader, overhand loop of leader to slip onto the snap. The knots held as I continued to lift, but the hook pulled free, the trout dropping back into the water and shooting away. 

I missed perhaps a few more hits. I had to repeatedly cast, working for these fish. I was deeply into the flow of the action and enjoying it with focused intent. When hits stopped coming to the right of me, I cast a little further upstream. I found there were trout there too, just not many. Downstream further yet, on the other side of the entry bridge, some eight or nine men fished fast water with just enough depth to hold a fairly large number of trout, although there were not too many there today. I saw one trout get caught. The only one I saw caught by anyone else the entire time out. I had only minutes left, though, having signed on for a Zoom photographer's meetup at 7 p.m. I hooked another, playing it with the same give of the drag, and once again, hoisted a trout towards me, the hook pulling out. Convenient catch and release. I tried just a few more casts, once feeling a cadence of taps...so compelling...before I set the hook on nothing. 

Someone who had been fishing downstream and caught nothing told me it was the same lack of action at the South Branch yesterday. (The South Branch is stocked on Tuesdays.) Possibly that has to do with Opening Day having been only days ago, still a fair number of trout in the streams. 

I headed home to meet up with my friends. 

Fishing Salmon Eggs  

Judging Differences Between Berkley Fishing Lines

Naturally, I returned to where I caught the trout over five pounds yesterday. I hooked up on my second cast and caught the rainbow photographed above.

I had walked hundreds of yards to get there, feeling positively expectant. I examined the feeling and judged that it didn't have to do with yesterday's catch. It was fresh and of it's own origin in things. Next, I wondered if that really meant I'd do well. Doubted that. But "of it's own origin in things," it easily could have had to do with the temperature rapidly rising to over 60, and more than that. It could have had to do with the approaching front, which, of course, I understood could mean active fish. The coming rain could have been just as important as the rising water temperature.

Spinning was appropriate again this morning. As it was the other day when all I did was snag a sucker, the wind even heavier. Fly fishing in 40 mph wind--or 25 to 30 mph as was today--is not easy to say the least. But you can spin cast.

I fished the 16th-ounce jig. Casting the Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon line I mentioned in the previous post was not as ergonomic as casting the Berkley XL. I had had my suspicions, when I paid five dollars more for a 250-yard spool of Vanish, than for a 310-yard spool of XL Oh, well. I like to pay attention to every increment in price and come up with the best value on expenditure, and whether or not I did this time? I think I did OK, but really, I don't like how it casts. It seems just as bad as the older fluorocarbon from Berkley I tried yesterday. Sometimes I can hear the stuff rasp as it goes through the guides! Face it, it's fluorocarbon and it will not be nearly as limp as a monofilament that is specially made to be limp. That's what the "L" of "XL" means.

You can buy Berkley XT and good luck with that stuff, although I've read forum threads and it does have a large fan base, so you might like it a lot better than I would. For good reason, too. Always a trade-off. The designation of the "T" in "XT" is for "tough," and tough it is, I'm sure. Good knot strength. Abrasion resistant. 

Also clear, and I don't like the blue, Stren-like, (another line brand), color of the XL. You have to trade off, and I might trade off Vanish for XL yet.

Vanish also had less diameter, and I do like that. Or at least I thought I did, and maybe I still do. It's .17mm. XL is .20. Here's the thing though. I don't seem to get casts out there any further, although it's true that after I switched to the eighth-ounce black marabou jig, expressly in order to cast further, I did get it closer to the far bank than I ever have, though I thought because I got better umph.

I could be mistaken. Does .03mm improve casting distance by a few inches or a foot or two or does that only mean you have to use up more line to fill your spool? Besides, won't a limp line cast a little further? I would think so. And so does this particular blogger.

So what I will probably do is end up scouring the internet for limp monofilament that doesn't have that blue shade I don't like. And if it has to be .20mm, OK. But I'll try to find limp, clear, and low diameter.

I like Berkley products, though. My scale is made by them and I've tested it on a five-pound bag of sugar. Spot on. Besides, Berkley has been in business since 1937.. I was big on them as a teenager, too, and having a long track record probably means you've stayed in business because you make good products. In Berkley's case, I would say so.  

And so I had ended up catching the second trout, photographed below, although that was before I switched to the heavier jig. I did miss a few hits today, and once came up with another sucker scale on the hook, if you've been reading along with my recent posts.

Both of my trout went back into the river. The five-plus-pound trout I caught yesterday is plenty for now. Unfortunately, the area of river where these fish are means they will, in all likelihood, die before summer, unless someone catches and keeps them. 

You'd hope the trout would have enough wherewithal to swim for the Atlantic.  

Odd-looking coloration for a rainbow trout.

Back in the Beginning

A Technique for Fall Stockers

 

Live-Lining Killies and Fishing Nightcrawler Unweighted Smallmouths

The advantage of catching fish nearby is the blessing they bestow on home. You would never think of it from an attitude of ingratitude, but if you fish hard, you owe it to yourself to allow the feeling. The compensation is the least you deserve after all the effort you put in.

Having to drive only 18 miles round trip is easy. With Matt and Brenden the other day, I drove 110. No complaint. I like a long trip. And I enjoy the rough and tumble of car-topping a big, heavy canoe on a little Honda Civic. But to have it easy, too, is like breathing freely. 

I prefer catching my smallmouths on lures. If I really preferred live bait, I'd use it more often than I do, but after trying to catch fluke on killies, I like to bring the remainder in the bucket home for the bass. Yesterday, I also had a couple of containers of nightcrawlers leftover from fishing the Delaware with Brian Peterson and his daughter Kelsey. I ended up catching the first and smaller bass on an unweighted nightcrawler. I also caught a 15 1/2-incher, on a killie I live-lined without weight.

I loosened the drag as I fought the big one because I feared the knot would pop. I had no particular reason to fear that, but the fish fought very hard. I use six-pound mono on the rivers when I'm fishing the bass. (Last December I caught a 4.23-pound rainbow trout on four-pound test.) The odd thing is that I did not honor my fear, because I did nothing about it, once I had landed and released the bass. I behaved as if my fear had been unrealistic.

Don't we often doubt ourselves insidiously like that? So insidiously we let it go entirely...while the object of our fear works its way out entirely without our knowing. Or until, in the final moments of the eventuality, it occurs to us once more, emerging from the forgotten background. We really have more control over things than we credit ourselves for, if we would just take that control.

Having waded upstream and sat on the concrete ledge of an old bridge abutment, I found a Senko that had to have been left behind recently, because not taken by flood water. I had seen lots of boot prints downstream, and I thought of how hammered these bass must be. These bass. I had another one on but when I set the hook, I got no grab. Soon though, I had a fairly nice one hooked up. I had fought the fish until I got it close to me, a bass of about 12 inches, when I thought of the knot popping again. Seconds later--it popped. Right in front of me. Almost at my feet. 

Upstream

 

Weedless Frog and Mouse September Algae Scum

We eased the squareback into shadows of the western shore. The sun had set after a breeze had bothered us all day. Calm surface meant topwaters would probably yield, but we would have to persist against the nothing of most casts. Brenden pedaled his kayak through 12- or 14-foot depths, along an outside weedline where he's caught muskies. A boat to our right a hundred yards or so had two guys aboard throwing big, heavy spinners slapping and plunging through the surface, sounding off like bass hitting plugs. Brenden said, "Maybe the fish in the depths will hit plugs now," and pedaled away. It was the last we spoke until we loaded to go.

Lots of fish suspending over depths of 20 feet or more had confused me. They didn't hit anything, and I was ready now to focus in a singular way. Before Brenden had spoken his last words, he said something I don't remember, but when I replied, I had shifted my attention to his words, away from my Baby Torpedo, though I kept working it slowly. Something sizeable struck. I missed it, but the odd thing was the fish remaining there at the surface and tailing for a moment...which looked like the fins of a little musky of 18 or 20 inches, not a bass. Whatever the fish was, my distraction didn't deter the growing absorption of my attention in the process of enticing hits. I soon caught a little bass of about eight inches, and I fished as if every cast thereafter could do better. 

Fish surprise you like that apparent musky surprised me. It never ends. You never get used to situations that work out when you feel nothing will. Although reason tells you that no matter how pounded the water, no matter how many lures the fish see, conditions will allow the native predation of a few of them to overcome that resistance they develop--although reason is really on your side, that default pessimism everyone seems to feel in this or that way does make you think nothing's going to happen. Like fishing open water during January. But it's not January, just a tough day during a month that can be tough when it comes to catching fish, but not that tough. Unless you're comparing it to ice fishing, perhaps, since ice fishing can result in a lot of fish caught. 

Last September Brenden and I fished Tilcon Lake, and I caught only three fish. I don't remember off hand how many Brenden caught, but it wasn't many. I think I entitled the blog post "Tough September Outing." September has been tough on other occasions, too, but the water remains mild, and the fish are beginning to chase fish forage; the fish we marked in the depths were on clouds of fish forage of some description we haven't been able to make out. To the best of our knowledge, the lake has no alewives, but we might be mistaken.

In any event, I put those deep water fish out of mind and concentrated on my Torpedo. Matt continued to toss the Hula Popper he had caught a bass on earlier. We worked depths anywhere from about five feet down to eight- and 10-foot depths, weeds straggling up to the surface but not particularly thick. I had been thinking about the classic situation Mike Maxwell and I encountered on Mountain Lake a day or two before my son graduated high school. Minutes later, I saw nervous water similar to what began the romp I enjoyed and Mike witnessed. Then something carried the situation up to a whole other level when a fish positively broke water with a sizeable splash. We edged over.

Not too much later, I had the fish on. Matt and I are sure it was the one that had splashed. Only for a second or two I had it, when I judged it probably weighed about a pound-and-a-half. Matt switched to a weedless frog, and I praised his move. Within a minute or so, something really nice-sized erupted from under algae scum, really exploded on that frog, but Matt missed the hit. I grabbed my box of topwaters and found a soft plastic, weedless mouse. 

Matt gave up on trying to tempt that fish to come back, and hooked the next fish that blew up well to the right of it. It proved to be a bass of at least 17 1/2 inches, a chunky fish of nearly three pounds. After photographing his fish, I worked the scum until a bass broke through the algae two feet into the air, my mouse in it's mouth, and I set the hooks hard. My bass would have measured about 16 inches. Photographed, I released it and freed myself up for more action, which came in the form of a great strike near where Matt had lost the big one. Once I felt the fish's weight, I set the hooks. Hard! Mine proved to be a bass of at least 18 inches. It could have been one of those I underestimate and should have measured. Last time I fished here, in June, I measured one at 19 3/4 inches that looks no larger in the photo.  

Our commitment to slowing down and fishing only one way--topwater--had paid off and saved a day that otherwise was a tough one. Above all else, it was Matt's idea that broke through. Besides the bass themselves.    

Better than 18 inches?

Brenden caught a nice one of about two pounds or better on a Senko-type worm from right against the bank. Later, he caught one on Whopper Plopper of better than a pound.

First fish of the day. My little bass on a Yum Dinger from 10-foot weeds.

Matt's bass on a Hula Popper from right near the bank.

\

Matt's Hula Popper bass.

Little bass I caught on a Baby Torpedo shortly before Matt began throwing the weedless frog.

My 16-inch bass caught on a weedless mouse.

Mountain Lake

 

Heavy Northeast Wind Solidity Underfoot

The jetty has a way of returning you to solidity underfoot. It's just that if you take one wrong step, the crevice you fall into will break bones. I've been out there with Fred a number of times now, and every time, I've thought of my job. Yesterday, it bothered me little. Almost not at all. I didn't feel as if my time away from it was too short. 

The interesting thing is, I remember Fred telling me how many days he has to retirement. Each time we fished together, which used to be more frequent when he lived in Bernardsville. I remember that number over a thousand. And then, almost four years ago, it was done, and Fred moved with his wife to the vicinity of Long Beach Island. It seemed to happen so fast, while day to day reality plods along towards my goal as yet.

It's my turn now. And with April coming fast (in some sense, but was is that, really?), soon four years will have passed since I retired. I guess I've reached the point where it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I have to go in in the morning, because so few of them stretch between now and then. Even though it's a matter of some 210 days, which can feel like a lot at any given moment, there's a level in an older person's mind that travels between life events in an instant. It seems impossible to understand how actual time moves fast, when a second remains a second, an hour an hour, but 40 years since when I was 23 doesn't seem very long ago. It could be argued that I'm referring to a superficial level of memory, though, and that if I took the time to really get deep into recollection, vastness would emerge, and with it, a greater sense of time's length. 

Will I fish more, I think so. But between you & me, what matters most is that I keep delivering quality blog posts. I fully intend to keep publishing as much as I do now in magazines, too. 

I thought I'd have the trout book all finished before I would leave work, but that's OK. Haven't touched it in about two years, but I've worked on it since then in my head, so I know the time away is productive. I committed to a big writing project at the beginning of summer I knew would take me away from getting the new website up, but it led me to an even better idea to work on in a year or two or more. A memoir on the absolute need of civilization to have its first principle in nature, and the role of certain individuals who revitalize possibilities by going deep into nature, namely my own role in doing that, having spent 13 years digging clams...unearthing the mind's depths. It is the mind that makes life worth living by linking to possibilities. The liberal persuasion may be the postmodern denial of nature as existing on its own, as if it's a "construction of human society," but nature needs no defense, standing absolutely on its own. It's we who need to recognize its majesty, rather than to imagine we can elevate one of us to that status politically. (What a joke.)

About yesterday, the best part involved my getting an inevitable wind knot in my new PowerPro black slick braid, and having mentioned it to Fred before I would cut that expensive line, his volunteering to untangle it.

"You can't untangle that."

"I can so." 

And a few minutes later, I was fishing the whole length of what's left of it again. I had cut it I think three times during recent outings. 

Again, I got a wind knot. This time, I untangled it. And then once more again, and I untangled it, so I'm confident I can maintain my expensive PowerPro without wasting it.

Wind hauled water out of the Northeast and dumped it on the rocks. After it fell towards low tide, I could finally take my camera out without exposing it to spray, but even then I had to be very careful, as most spots among the rocks were still subject to salty mistiness. 

I fished only Gulp! Jerk Shads on jigs for fluke. Fred tried Fish Bites twister tails and something that looked just like a Jerk Shad. After I caught two fluke, one about 14 inches, another 16, I was told by a couple of guys that the bite was early in the morning when one guy had a four- or five-pounder on the rocks. Fred ended up with one right about 18 inches. We saw one of about 22 inches caught. That spot does get pounded, but so far, we've always caught fluke. 

Fishing the inlet side was difficult with the big swells, heavy tidal current, and spray, but we caught a few tog up to about 12 inches, lots of little seabass. Mole crabs, also called sand fleas. Fred had raked the bait out of the surf. 

Guy's got a short.

Inlet Three Years Ago

 

Artificial Intelligence and the Art of Fishing

On the way home, Brenden and I talked a little bit about machine learning or artificial intelligence. I believe the subject came up after Brenden spoke of the impossibility of answering certain questions. I spoke of the probability of certain answers. For example, the last hour of fishing this morning was slow for me. I had lost what I believed was my last bright purple Yum Dinger and had put on a white and green one. I did catch two bass on it, but we'll never know for certain if the slow-down was due to the long shoreline we fished being inherently less productive today, or whether it was that Yum Dinger. I know it's thinkable that the purple color was fishing better, because my friend Fred Matero and I have experimented with the colors of Senkos, an exercise which seemed to show us results. I also know that at least in the past, that last shoreline of the day fished well. It makes you wonder about the color. It's at least a little probable that it made a negative difference. 

Machine learning itself leaves so much to imagination, because it (artificial intelligence) is off on its own, and no one knows exactly how it learns. Nor does anyone know exactly what conclusions it will draw. It's thought that it can do enormous good in fields like medicine, but we don't know what it will think of the relationship between it and us. And...what it will do.

Fishing is Like Artificial Intelligence 

A fishing trip is like that. It's something of itself. We might like to think we master the situation, which very much was the attitude during the 1970's when I began fishing seriously. The whole idea that "Knowledge leads to fishing success," to quote the master himself, Buck Perry. A man who had taught high school physics. The 1970's were a simpler world in which knowledge had an absolute quality. (I was fixated on the fact that Einstein's relativity hadn't made it into the high school physics program at Lawrence where I grew up.) 

Today, anglers have much greater access to knowledge and information. But "the more I know, the more I realize what I don't know," as Albert Einstein put it decades before the '70's. A man ahead of his time. It's not that a fishing trip masters us, but an outing is an interaction, which our knowledge participates in more than it determines results. We don't exactly know how we do it--just as artificial intelligence is less determined by us as the creator of it, than being a field of interactions in the sense of AI being a self-initiated development of understanding. Just the same, when we fish a particular shoreline, let's say, edged by weedbeds and dropping off into eight or nine feet of water, we don't know how much that environment involves itself in meeting us. We take it for granted that we're after the bass. We never stop and think--as maybe we begin to now--that the bass as representatives of an organic environment are directed towards getting caught. But that they do get caught at all implies that they're at least receptive to that. I don't mean at all that they are available in any way that would be obvious and easy, but it's not a master and slave, or predator and victim, relationship. Even the rabbit grabbed by the coyote fulfills its possibility as nourishment for the advantaged. The "advantaged" is that only in light of the rabbit. And I mean "light" in the sense of making something possible, of making something visible as it were. Just as the rabbit is a positive agent in that respect, so is the bass to us.

Now artificial intelligence has implications for the ecological scene. When both we and AI are ready for the changes. Even as the two of us are separate. the two of us are striving to understand one another.

We used to think we have the upper hand on how an outing will work out, and then we discover we've run out of purple Dingers. Later on, as Brenden and I emptied the canoe, I discovered I had one more purple Dinger in a box I hadn't checked. I did have the knowledge of that Dinger. On some level, I knew it was in that box. But knowledge can only function within a system. If my organization of the items I presume to bring along and keep at my disposal isn't lucid, then doesn't a glitch exist in the system? 

Or you could say, being denied that purple Dinger opened a whole other can of worms. 

(It's made for an interesting article.)

Artificial intelligence might learn from a similar glitch in its system. In any case, why is it that of a very successful day--I caught 15 largemouths in less than six hours, much of them spent fishing a Mepp's Giant Killer for muskies--what I might remember best is that white and green Dinger?

It poses a question.

Fishing is Messy

And Brenden wasn't altogether at the Zenith of his Form, either, which of course we would expect of ourselves during that Ideal Decade of the '70's. He told me yesterday he might bring one rod, so I emphasized that I was bringing two, sensing that he was making a mistake if he did that. He did bring two, but they were both casting rods intended for musky. He never fished a Senko or Yum Dinger. He ended up catching two or three largemouths on jerkbaits. I can't remember if it was two or three, but I think it was two, so all the more power to the uncertainty and messiness of what we do. And think.

He regretted not having brought a third rod, although he did lure three muskies into following his spinner and jerkbait to the canoe. Water temperature ranged from 79 to 83. He told me it was in the mid-70's late in May when he caught three muskies on one outing, the largest at 42 inches, and a single 47-incher another time.. I think with 83-degree water, even though that's at the surface, as Brenden pointed out, the likelihood of getting one to hit diminishes. There are no muskies in Florida but plenty of largemouths. 

  Art Rather than Sport with a Skill Set

Don't get me wrong. Wracking up 15 bass is a pleasure. Even if I'm a little disgusted by the excess, I wanted the number to go even higher. Fishing on pressured waters is an odd deal, though, as most of the bass respond to the fact and therefore are conditioned by us rather than being altogether wild. It's as if we take from their freedom and perhaps we do. By turn, we might limit our own, but we find it worth the exchange because the pleasure is real. Besides, if Albert Camus's definition of freedom is worth any salt at all--"Freedom is the possibility of gain."--then no doubt, we don't limit ours by catching fish. Unless the whole point of fishing got lost on us, and a catch no longer was a gain--because we found it absurd to catch a fish. I'll say something about that in the next paragraph, but make no mistake, I wanted to catch an even bigger bass than the 19 3/4-inch, three-pound, 13-ounce fish that was my best. 

I'll never forget where I hooked that bass. We remember spots like that, not because they are goals we've made in a pre-arranged game, but at least in part because we honor an encounter with another living being. I wonder if archaeologists account for cave wall paintings, certainly a form of art, as code for honoring the same thing in various animals hunted. Look at the form of so many fishing stories that make my blog. They're wandering accounts of my approaches to certain fish and descriptions of where caught, though not by designating just where by collective signs to give spots away. 

Such meanderings are basically the stuff of plotted stories, which we all know about as the art of the novel. It's not just that I decided, as a teenager, to become a novelist because fishing taught me how, but that fishing itself--I think--can and should be an art form. 

I didn't use Senko-type worms today--Yum Dingers--because they would "advantage" me to win a game. The fishing of them gives me pleasure. Art is nothing if not a pleasure. It's not merely entertainment, because pure entertainment is mindless in the sense that all care is cast off. Art absorbs the mind. Art compels us to think.

Foundation and Plot of Story 

You won't throw a Yum Dinger for long if it doesn't compel you to think. You'll get bored with it, because it won't provide you easy entertainment. Think of the countless poor fishermen who give up before they connect and begin to build the foundation and plot of a story. That's how you get good at it. At fishing. By having a story. 

  

First bass of the day. From floating water chestnut leaves, which elsewhere yielded at least a few more. 

Most of my bass were about this big, on the small side, but not bad.

Brenden with a jerkbait bass.

Minutes before I caught this nice one, something hit my Dinger, I set the hook and parted with fish and Dinger. The snap had straightened out. Advertised as 15-pound strength, I can no longer trust that, and will order more snaps tonight.

Not a bad one on the purple Dinger.

Brenden's last bass.

Furnace Lake

 

46-Fish Afternoon Evening

Brenden Kuprel catches fish. Earlier this week, he's told me of his double digit catches of bass and pickerel from his kayak at Davidson's Mills. He nailed 20 largemouths near Chimney Rock the week before. The litany trails on back further than I can tell you. He more than doubled my catch yesterday, and I've fished the lake for years. I believe it was his second time there.

Together we caught 46 fish. Brenden: 14 largemouths, 10 pickerel, 3 crappie, 4 bluegills. Me: 10 largemouths, 3 pickerel, 1 bluegill, 1 landlocked salmon. 

The size of the largemouths was outstanding. Brenden's longest is photographed above, 19 7/8 inches. He caught an 18 1/2 incher that weighed more. Others were near 18 inches, most of  them about 2 1/2 pounds. Only a couple of them were a foot long and a little shorter. One of my bass was 13 or 14 inches, all the others over 16 1/2 or so, one of them a little over 18, I estimate, and a couple of others close to 18 inches. 

The pickerel not so big. Brenden got the biggest at about 20 inches.

Brenden also got a bull bluegill and one of his crappies was nice.

We began by fishing along a shoreline that had only produced for me in the past near the launch. I was about to motor us further down lake a couple hundred yards, when Brenden hooked his second pickerel. Then I knew better than to leave that shoreline, and soon, we each had a bass on at the same time. Multiple times that happened over that afternoon and evening. 

And he caught so many pickerel, I was left wondering in a kind of subdued awe about the fact that on the way there--Brenden my passenger--I almost told him the lake is loaded with them.

"Why would I say that?" I had asked myself. "It has pickerel, but we've never caught all that many." 

Because it's true? Sometimes a truth "arrives" in the mind of it's own volition--regardless of collected evidence. It's wise to wait on such a truth until you know that's what it is. Not a delusion.

Brenden used a little swimbait, an ultralight finesse, soft plastic jig that the pickerel simply rose out of the weeds to pounce on. They're there. We sure learned that yesterday. But usually they ignore presentations intended for bass. I did hook and lose a nice one on an eight-inch traditional worm, and Brenden caught one on a Senko, if I remember rightly. But you watch the little swimbait in the water, the paddletail giving it lifelike motion, and you see why you can retrieve it three or four feet down in 10 feet of weedy water and pickerel will swim right up and behind, nailing it. In green, it looks like a vulnerable little bass. 

It took me maybe four hours before I accepted Brenden's invitation to use one. I caught two pickerel and a nice largemouth nearly 18 inches long on it. I felt I would have fished it better on one of the ultralights left at home. I used a medium power 5 1/2-foot St. Croix instead.

Brenden said the fish haven't seen lures in a long time, since the season is just getting underway. "That's a good point," I said, "The fish have been virginized." The water ranged from 65 to 67 degrees, so there wasn't any hesitation on the fish's part due to cool temps, either. We wore T-shirts in 70-degree sunshine.  

We continued along that shoreline. After we arrived where I've caught bass many times, I looked back on the long course we had taken and I felt satisfied. I'm using a Minn-Kota Endura Max, 42-inch shaft, and the variable speed is easier to manage than my old five-speed. It's just like a gas outboard. You use the handle as a throttle. It's lowest speed is a lot slower than the lowest of the five-speed, and that's very advantageous on calm water. 

Speaking of which, don't miss my article "Bass Out of the Wind," coming soon in one of The Fisherman weeklies. Brenden noticed the same. "We've been catching all the fish out of the wind," he said. Most of the bass we caught seemed spawned out, but even during the post-spawn, females like calm surroundings. I make the point in the article that bass will not spawn where a bed will be run over by three-foot chop. No chop that big existed here, but the principle is the same. 

I did catch a bass in the middle of the lake over 35 feet of water. On a Phoebe trolled a couple of feet down. We had seen fish repeatedly break water in the chop. After herring. Naturally, I believed I had hooked a salmon. After I released the bass, Brenden said, "Catching a salmon wouldn't be that easy."

But it was. On the way back to the launch, I had no doubt what I had hooked on that quarter-ounce Phoebe was a salmon. It was two or three times faster than any bass, running off to the left, then to the right. Proved to be a 16 1/2-inch fish. I should have thought to offer Brenden one of my eighth-ounce Phoebes to try, but it slipped my mind. 

We mixed it up. Used many different types and specific lures. I believe another salmon had hit my Chatterbait, given the way the the lure felt whalloped twice before the fish was gone. It felt like neither bass nor pickerel and hit over 18 feet of water. We fished a shallow flat when I cast out beyond the drop-off. Brenden caught bass on spinnerbaits, the bull bluegill on same, and I missed a couple of other hits on the Chatterbait. I caught largemouths on both the traditional worm fished weightless and a Senko; Brenden did well on the latter, too. The faster-sinking Senko advantages the fishing this time of year, because weeds are not nearly as thick as they will be when a long worm on an inset hook might do better. The lake's shoreline drops off immediately into 10 and 15 feet of water and more, so a worm that gets down in the newly emerging weeds faster means more range is at your disposal. 

I treasure finally catching a salmon. And yet, for me the outing's highlight was hooking an immense largemouth I estimate at 22 inches. I threw a Senko beyond a shallow flat at the drop, using a seven-foot, medium-heavy Lew's Speed Stick. I set the hook and all hell broke loose. I had no doubt I had hooked a significantly larger bass than any of the others. And one of the bass I lost broke my 20-pound test fluorocarbon leader. Yes, at the knot, but the knot hadn't gone all that bad. I found myself suddenly in the compromised position of my rod tip pointing at a big fish that had suddenly changed direction on slackened line while moving at top speed. So the line popped. But I could tell I had hooked a bigger one. 

It suddenly went airborne, throwing the hook, and the size of the gaping jaws I just can't forget. 

 

   

Upper jaw was reddened. Apparently a large male that made a bed. Or ate crayfish.

One of the few small bass.

Public and Private Waters

First Walleye