Round Valley Reservoir Rainbows Headed to Shore

Today I imagined rainbows would come in, since temperatures never rose more than a degree or two above 50, with some wind and cold rain helping to stir the cooler temperatures into that warm reservoir, warm to the touch, in fact, though I never took the surface temperature with a thermometer. I can't believe it's still warmer than 70, though.

So I drove over after work, stopped at Behr's to find the bait shop closed early, drove into Lot 2, took some photos, and decided thereafter to drive to Flemington for mealworms. And then I came to the main launch area and baited up with small marshmallows to float the mealworms, anchored by 3/4-ounce steel slip sinkers. I fished two rods, instead of fiddling with a third in the rain.

Nothing happened, which proves nothing. I still imagine rainbows are coming in. While I sat in my car, I read an article by Matthew Copeland, "This land was your land Federal transfers rob the American people" in the Outdoor Writer's Association of America magazine Outdoors Unlimited.

51 of U.S. senators have voted for wide-scale divestment of public land, and not one has been voted out of office. Public land is, of course, essential to this country. Imagine having to pay to fish the South Branch Raritan or any other public waterway. It may seem extreme to imagine anything coming to the likes of that in America, but it could be worse; we could be shut out entirely from most of our waters, similarly as access is extremely tight in England. But don't think this is socialism that threatens us. It's the Corporate State and the corporate privatization fomented especially on the right. If you want to fish, protect your self-interest and the heart and soul of America. "This land is your land; this land is my land."

Sign a petition: www.sportsmensaccess.org

Knee Deep Lake Hopatcong King of the Lake Results

Once again, a lot of smallmouth bass caught in the most recent Knee Deep Club derby, King of the Lake, the largest at three pounds, four ounces, and a number of them near three pounds. Jack Dziduck emerged as the contest winner for the fourth consecutive year, so it may be interesting to hear if he can pull this off next year as well. At any rate, I find four consecutive wins astonishing.

The largest hybrid striper weighed seven pounds, 11 ounces; a four-pound, eight-ounce walleye got weighed in, and three crappies well over a pound weighed as much as one-pound, 10-ounces. Laurie Murphy from Dow's Boat Rentals also reports that some nice perch and bullheads made it to the scales.

Where have the largemouth bass been? I remember this lake from way back in my teens, when I constantly read The New Jersey Fisherman and viewed the water from afar, through the lens of the weekly fishing report, living in Mercer County. This lake with its intricate coves and weedy shorelines seemed like the largemouth lair of dreams, and there seems no doubt they predominated in considerable numbers over smallmouths. A member of Mercer County Bassmasters at the time, I heard some stories, and though I got to ice fish the lake once at age 17, I was ready for it when I began fishing summers and fall with my son in 2007. At first, we caught largemouths, some of them 3 1/2 pounds, and then we discovered smallmouths, plenty close to three and better, and since then, no more nice largemouths.

I'm looking forward to October, when we go for hybrids and walleye, but I had just been thinking, before I began this post, that I would like to spend a little time in mid-October casting a spinnerbait, hoping to hook some largemouths.  

Last Rites for Our Inflatable Boat

We intended this outing back in mid-August, found a dolly tire flat, and had to cancel, since it wouldn't inflate. After our Outer Banks vacation, I had slim time available, and made three stops to get the tire back on the rim after fixing the tube with a bike patch. The last stop in Warren nearby got it on the rim, but the tire went flat by the time I got home, so I purchased another dolly. In the photo above, Matt shows our Intex inflatable balanced on a 3 1/2 x 4-foot piece of plywood on the dolly underneath for support. We put a smaller plywood piece inside the craft, and the 70-pound marine battery on it, dead center. Then we put the electric outboard and all of our other stuff in, carefully balancing weight. 

The lake is about 400 yards distant from where the photo was taken. Getting the boat around the gate made us feel like pioneers from two centuries ago. We had to unload stuff and repoisition the dolly by scruffing around underneath a couple of times, but we got everything wheeled to the lake and the boat in the water.

And then I realized I left the complicated board attachment, the motor mount, for the electric at home. We had absolutely everything else, down to bug spray, but I've been busy and the mount slipped my mind. That's not an excuse, just what happened, and I vowed on the spot that it wouldn't next time. It's not that fishing from an inflatable difficult to wheel in is crazy; you just have to get things right and in order, and then it's doable like anything else, not to mention very comfortable, as previous outings have proven.

But another contingency is storage of the boat. If you purchase an inflatable, don't store it outdoors over the winter. I thought of this a week or two before we went out today, but I didn't think last summer of this issue of keeping it in a storage bin on the porch causing damage to the material. We had morning after morning of zero-degree temperatures, and this boat is some sort of vinyl or whatever. It has no holes, really, but folded neatly in the bin, it was creased, of course. You can just imagine what those temperatures must have done, and as I mentioned, I did imagine this before today. We floated--using paddles and doing fine with them for three hours--but when we beached well into dusk, we had lost about 50 percent of the air.

So a little twist of fate. Good thing I forgot the mount, because with the battery on the smaller piece of plywood and the motor on the rear, loss of air would have been a problem.

With the paddles, we got hundreds of yards out there and clear across the lake. I got a strong pick up from a bass on my weightless Chompers rigged Texas style for the weeds, allowed to drift slowly down among them as deep as 25 feet. Power Pro braid doesn't stretch, but I still missed that hit. We drifted across the lake by the strong breeze, and I jigged a Kastmaster about 30 feet deep, while Matt cast his. A salmon or trout hit my Kastmaster so delicately it felt as if I fished a streamer, a jib jab, jibber jab, and setting the hook proved nothing. A smallish Kastmaster is about as close as you can get to suggesting an alewife herring, abundant in the lake.

We fished more weeds. Both of us had bass pick up our Chompers, swim aside, but escape the hook. Just one of those days when you can't say you're skunked, because contact with fish on the line doesn't stink, but you feel the losses nevertheless.

We never saw the trace of a cloud. Classic cold front conditions don't intimidate us. As a habit, we fish confidently, but we might have seen some salmon bust herring had the water been calm, and thus have felt a little stronger. That breeze finally convinced me to switch to a jig so I could better control line. But no hits came, so just the same, the Chompers remained the winner.

31-Inch Carp takes Senko on South Branch Raritan

Tuesday might have been the day I had in mind. Temperatures dipped into the 40's, just as they had the morning of September 6th, 2013, when the water felt chilly on my bare legs, and I caught what, at the time, proved to be my largest smallmouth bass at four pounds. Yesterday I was after a repeat performance of some sort, if possible, and yet here it is nearing October with sustained summer weather. The South Branch flowed clear, though a little high, presumably from Round Valley Reservoir water releases, and felt fairly warm to the touch.

Nevertheless, I was going to name this post, "Hooked a Nice one on the South Branch," because I worked my way into a stretch above the secret lair of the big smallmouth--where little four-inch bass teased at my Senko-style worm--and lobbed a cast right into the shallows near the drop in mid-day sun (we fish when we can). Glare on the water didn't allow my sight to see anything, and I never bother with my polarized lenses. I twitched twice and got pounded, set, and the fish peeled line off the spool, zig-zagging twice at the high speed of a smallmouth, before the hook pulled. Certainly three pounds, possibly bigger.

The largemouth slammed the worm while retrieved back for another cast, and soon I got into smallmouths. I caught three, the largest about 11-inches and the others about 10. I thought I sighted a big one in the shadowy depths, not completely sure it wasn't a carp. I pitched in front of me to catch the last of those smallmouths, and then plumbed the depths, allowing the worm to drift near bottom.

Sure enough, the line commenced the tightening of a take, always a sort of formal occasion when a fisherman's pride comes fore. I set into immense weight that just began rolling line off the spool with the sort of force you know there's no possibility of stopping, and I loosened drag a little to be certain that line wouldn't snap. I quickly became aware that whatever I hooked--surely I had snagged a carp somehow, but by a take--possessed great weight, not in the vicinity of six pounds, but eight at least, and if a smallmouth bass, out of the question, a state record. So had I hooked one of the legendary pike in the river that reduce the smallmouth and trout populations just a little? Or so the story goes.

In any event, I was convinced I had a big carp, and it took me up and down that stretch a hundred feet at a time, as I walked back and forth to keep slack from developing with too much line out. True enough, a real big smallmouth may not fight with the characteristic zest of smaller, but even a big one may jump, and besides two boils, nothing broke the surface. Regardless, this fish fought like a tank.

After about 20 minutes, I had the fish in among those invasive plants I forget the name of, used in ornamental ponds. What an innocent-looking carp. A couple of times, I said, "I'm not going to hurt you," as if by plea for the fish to quit its lunges and let me get the measurement and photography done.

Thirty-one inches, and I imagine about 11 or 12 pounds. The world record largemouth measured 32 inches and weighed 22 pounds, four ounces. I doubt this carp was much less than half that. If we call it 10, that's good enough, but this fish weighed no less.

Hooked square in the mouth, six-pound test mono did the job on this fish, and twisted so badly thereafter I'll have to strip off some yardage to be safe.

Overview of South Branch Raritan River Fishing

Kay's Pond in Chester seems too Shallow

My wife and I used to drive past this pond on the way to Hacklebarney State Park before Matt's birth. This summer, we returned to the Black River Gorge in the park for the first time in about 17 years, and as we passed, I judged this pond too shallow to hold bass and probably inaccessible. And then last week I gave my son's New Jersey Lake Survey Fishing Maps Guide a close look, finding that Kay's Pond--this pond--is designated to be loaded with bass.

So today after work, Matt and I came to check the situation out. No sooner than I got home, geared up, and headed out the door with Matt and our black Lab Sadie, rain steadily fell. All day, some clouds obscured the golf courses, and occasional showers fell pretty hard, but quickly disbursed. The rain proved to be a soaker, but we fished persistently, finding that indeed this pond seems way too shallow to hold a healthy bass population, or even many pickerel. According to the Guide the pickerel population is a good one.

Everywhere we cast and looked into its seven acres, we found about two feet of water at most. This is the Black River dammed, so its tannic. But even with the dark tea appeal, we made bottom out clearly everywhere.

"If there were any bass, we'd see them," Matt said.

But a few pad beds stood out in places, more in back. He tied on a heavy, weedless frog he could cast a mile. By then, I was more interested in trying to snatch a few photos without destroying my Nikon by getting it wet. As things went, I might have narrowly avoided blowing a lot of money.

Nothing in the back, we gave up and hiked out. A trail leading down from Cooper Grist Mill that goes through the Gorge and ends up at Kay Environmental Center is so well worn it looks real good, and we had met two hikers--not very friendly, but giving us a grunt--shortly after getting in.

"Let me try a few more casts."

We stopped, but I didn't dare open my camera bag again, covered in a Hefty Sync Sac or the like. The pad bed Matt cast to was so prominent I felt something was going to clock that frog right at the closing bell. On his second cast, it seemed to have been a pickerel by the way the splash erupted in a skitter. A small one.

Lake Hopatcong Report Solid as Usual

Laurie's report from Dow's Boat Rentals highlights smallmouth bass as large as 3 1/2 pounds, besides a seven-pound, three-ounce channel catfish, and some hybrid stripers up to eight pounds. No walleye reported from Dow's, lots of crappies on small herring and jigs are in the news, and Noel got out on Thursday, catching 20 or so crappie...and a 19 1/2 inch walleye... on jigs.

 

The lake has been good for smallmouths all summer, so little we hear of largemouths. And this despite the extensive weedbeds in a lake fertile enough to get you drunk, should you drink the water. They say the Lenape named it honey water of many coves, and if that were so, it's obvious they thought pretty much the same.

 

I'm sure pickerel have been caught plenty these past two weeks, and in any event, all summer I've got word on hybrids, big ones, and the steady productivity is enough to make you feel the lake's gneiss-studded water reflects the stolid security of this fishery. And that of the smallmouths, which relate to that stone as if the bronzeback moniker signifies ore.

 

Nothing but good news comes from Dow's and from Noel. But it's always interesting and never quite the same. 

Weather Fronts and Fear Faced

 

   

          The old adage that fish feed in rainy weather isn’t always evident. Today I fished a large private pond under cloud cover and ten minutes of rain, catching fewer and smaller bass than days ago here under hot, noontime sun. Perhaps I should have experimented with plastic worm color or fished a topwater plug, but with little time to fish both days, I focused on quickly casting close to cover. I think if bass are really active, color loses importance, although I have experienced times when bass were quite active in relation to a particular color and not another.

          The coded, handwritten fishing log I’ve kept since 1974 marks many times I’ve gone fishing with high hopes only to be disappointed. This isn't to suggest bass don't respond to their environment, but to observe that bass respond to conditions in subtler ways than I often expect. Plenty is involved in bass behavior requiring scientific research to understand, and scientists admit that much remains unknown.

          Nevertheless, my son, Matt, and I recently experienced a classic bass feeding spree on Lake Hopatcong. We got up at 4 a.m. and woke fully to expectations of a great day. I can’t feel nearly as good during the week when I wake four hours later than that hour. Breakfast was quick and savory. I always indulge fried eggs before Hopatcong, which I don’t normally eat. The protein helps fuel activity later. A Susuki 9.9-horsepower powered the 16-foot Dow’s rental boat across the lake well before sunup, clouds showing signs of breaking and forming interesting patterns I wanted to photograph if only I had a suitable foreground.

          The lake was calm and fishing slow for the first hour. The sky patched with blue in spots, I felt impatient as precious early minutes slipped by. We get most of our big Hopatcong fish before 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. But after we caught our first smallmouth, a couple of others soon followed, and then I noticed cloud cover had thickened deeply and looked menacing. The weather forecast included no rain until about 11:00 a.m., but forecasts just reflect the best prediction can do. I’m no better at predicting fishing success.

          Soon two herring rigs apiece overwhelmed us. Thunder rumbled distantly and I knew we had little time. If we chose to fish through the storm, we might catch more bass and bigger, but that’s not worth being unwise. I took out my cell phone to check time, feeling the morning had progressed to about 10:00. It was 7:45. Action made short duration feel full. Minutes later, we reeled in our herring, pulled anchor, and took cover at Dow’s before rain began. We had caught seven smallmouth bass, the three largest between 16 and 17 ½ inches, two others not much smaller, and released all of these, as well as lots of white perch on ultra-light rigs with nightcrawlers, more of them than sunfish and yellow perch. Several other nice-sized bass shook hooks during the excitement.

          As rain began to dot the lake’s surface, two other boats came in. A middle aged, solitary angler told me another remained out there, as always through thunderstorms. I compared how my son and I suffered no loss by waiting out the storm. Some things are too desperate to be worthwhile. When we returned to fish sunlit water, we caught no more bass, no walleye, hybrid stripers, or pickerel either. The feeding spree before the storm made our day. I guess it made the fish’s too.

          That’s the sort of weather front to turn fish on for a short time, if especially an approaching thunderstorm with quickly falling barometer does just that. When I was teenaged and reckless, I fished through a tremendous thunderstorm lasting a long time. The action was incredible. I have never before or since witnessed largemouth bass as big as four pounds leap high to dive open-mouthed on a spinnerbait buzzed just beneath surface. Not one, but many bass performed this acrobatic. They seemed manic with frenzy. The fish, brilliant lightning as close as a long cast, thunder, and sheets of rain made me manic too. Having gone against better judgment is to admit the same. At 16, it didn’t seem anything foolish, but I’ve been wary of thunderstorms ever since.

          I was spared once, so I don’t tempt fate to strike. Graphite rods conduct electricity. It makes sense to stay out of harm’s way, and I’ve felt since this episode of bass fishing beyond the pale as if being vulnerable a second time might not carry favor.