Nothing Doing in the Heat

 

Went out at 10:30 a.m, temperature approaching 90, water pretty turbid. The pond didn't feel right from the start, though I catch a lot of bass in mid-day heat, and have here at this pond a hundred yards from home, too. I usually fish a Senko, since the pond is very shallow, no more than about four feet maximum and most of the depths seem two feet, so there's not much of a slow descent tease and I've rarely used slower-sinking worms, catching a lot by Wacky hook-in-the-middle flutter action.

This morning I wondered if I should have tried slow-sinking Chompers, but I doubt they'd have made much difference. We used to say a pond is "turned on," but this morning this pond was definitely turned off. I finally got into the attempt to draw a hit, after I lost a small bass of about 10 inches. Until then, my attitude reflected the way I felt about the pond when I first got there--nothing doing--but I didn't stay much longer.

Lamington River North of Interstate 78

Having taken paperwork concerning Sadie to the vet in Oldwick, I got curious, hung a left and kept on driving, made a right and then another right, and sure enough, found an access point along the Lamington River. I just didn't feel convinced all of the land is privately owned, so I went looking. We've lived in Bedminster for nearly 20 years, and yet within nine miles of driving from home, places exist I haven't just driven through to find what's there.

I came back before sundown with my two-weight fly rod and Sadie. I waded and walked past thin riffles to a stretch that looked like it could possibly hold smallmouth bass, not that I'm certain any exist north of I-78, although just below the highway, I have caught them. North of that howling zone of pavement, the river is Trout Production designated by the state, and now that the country club situated immediately to the south has had the river restored, pools dug deep with ground water releases stocked with lots of big trout, the state has designated Trout Production for a mile of river further south as well. The trout stocked in February all rainbows, brookies, and tigers, I've heard of just a few wild browns caught, fish that may have meandered southward as if sensing the improved pools.

I started casting towards some fallen timber with stuff collected on it when Sadie swam across the shallow pool, spooking half-a-dozen or more suckers of about 16 inches. I spotted a longear sunfish, but no smallmouths. Any wild browns have made it to spring releases to cool off in this heat, I suppose.

On downstream I waded, and I must have walked 300 yards before I turned back, finding nothing worthwhile. This doesn't mean having lots of time and some serious ambition for a man of my age at covering distance wouldn't be worthwhile. Here the river is very rocky, and lots of sand and gravel fill cracks between rocks. Very little silt and mud settles near some of the stream edges, and I noticed lots of what could have been Johnny darters about an inch long scoot off silt leaving tiny pluffs. Some toad tadpoles and killiefish hung near the edge. What I think was a redfin pickerel darted away from a cluster of aquatic weeds.

Round Valley Reservoir Visit with my Wife at the Club Meeting

My wife, Patricia, and I went to the first of the two annual Round Valley Trout Association barbeques at the reservoir this year. We have family membership, but our son, Matt, hadn't got home from his internship job solving math problems for a company making specialized batteries.

Randy, the club President, and I talked about the reservoir's heyday with club membership at more than a thousand and huge turnouts for tournaments with boat, motor, and trailer giveaways for first prize. "We had to bus people in..." from a remote lot. He named the place. I forget. "There'd be 300 boats out there!"

If you want to join, we're more than 400 strong today, but above all, take it from my wife. "These are really nice people. One of them made Sadie a turkey burger." That's our black Lab. And Trish? She doesn't even fish, but she came to one of the barbeques last summer, and is convinced now more than ever that she wants to attend more. For such a low-cost membership fee, it's worth it just to get the newsletter and to contribute to the reservoir's trout and baitfish stocking, but come to a barbeque or a meeting at the American Legion Hall in Whitehouse, New Jersey, and feel included.  

South Branch Rockaway Creek on Another Convention Day, Whoopee

A couple of days ago, I headed to Round Valley to do a photoshoot, wasn't surprised to find authorities at the main launch entry. Whoops, I forgot to bring my fishing license, which would have got me in, so I drove on by and on down whatever County Road that is, South Branch Rockaway Creek, Whitehouse Station, in mind. I figured I might as well try a little photo shoot there.

So I got a shot I like, the rest deleted, and headed home, along the way figuring I sure have no blog post in this outing. But today I went back in the internal archives a couple of years, just sort of taking random impressions of what I've done, and after I had opened "Potting Killies and Catching a Redfish," imagined HBO comedian Bill Maher making fun of the post as an example of how dumb all this is, and I laughed, not because it is dumb; if I thought so, I'd stop doing it, and it's not that I don't know a lot of people more established than I am think bloggers are flakes. I laughed because, what the hell, if I took it all too earnestly, yeah, I might start getting--dumb. I mean, sure, anyone can imagine Bill Maher's mock-conservative voice on that redfish post, and it sure can seem really dumb. Television can do just about anything to a mind, which is why I watch so little. But everyday life--hey, if I ever make a million dollars, I'm not going to live the "high" life, as if I outclass the simple things that, well, frankly don't burn so much energy and make it likely a lot of the penthouses in famous cities will have foundations below sea level, or let's just say a photograph of a place can compel a response. Because they do, in fact. But is the photograph really better than being there?

So, yeah. Bill Maher came to mind, I laughed. And then, as if in reply to the master--I knew I had a blog post after all. 

Neighborhood Bass Pond Fishing Pretty Well

Grabbed twenty minutes or so and fished the neighborhood pond after sunset, catching four largemouths on a couple of Senko-style worms, having just jaunted over a hundred yards from my doorstep. Two of them hit on the twitch, one of them socked it off the surface, and the largest of about two pounds or better took the worm on descent in my favorite hole at a big run-off pipe.

So it's fishing pretty well, despite that big fish kill last year, but not quite as well as it used to, and the bass are running smaller, two of them about a pound, another a pound-and-a-half. The recent big rain moved a lot of algae out; although the pond got chemically treated sometime ago, which wiped out the algae, it had started coming back. I don't fish here often, but I pay attention to the pond every day, walking my black Lab Sadie.

North Branch Raritan River Fly Cast Sunfish and Rock Bass

 Doing a little evening fly fishing, this time I hoped remaining trout found groundwater releases during the recent heat spells. Some of them do, at least some. I've seen trout in Mercer County's Stony Brook in water so shallow--but cold--their backs barely rested beneath surface during August. There's probably more springs releasing into the North Branch Raritan.

I caught two redbreast sunfish and a rock bass, feeling if a 12-inch bass were to hit thereafter, the smaller fish would really emphasize the larger, but they were fun to set the Muddler Minnow's hook on and play with my two-weight.

Did some target practice. I've been getting OK at fly casting, but tonight I aimed a number of times at an edge of brush in the water. Of course, over-cast the fly, and it might get hung up, but get it right, and the incentive in just this situation involved enough depth underneath to possibly hold a good fish by river standards. A few times I got the Muddler inches from branches and I never hung up.

I wanted to finish the stint fishing the stretch I photographed and posted (above) just before I began fishing the slower water, but Sadie my black Lab swam across with her leash still on (I know better for next time), got it snagged on a branch, and as she struggled to free herself, the leash unhooked somehow, lost to the dark depths. So Sadie got up on the bank and would not budge, freaked out, and I had to walk up and around and back to get her, since water would have gone up to my chest, with wallet and stuff in my vest.

Maybe next time I'll fish above again.

Bass Blast Topwaters: Light the Fuse

Bloop, bloop, bloop--whomp! The Rebel Pop-R bears an awkward name, but sure action.

Bass Blast Topwaters

Light the Fuse

          Nothing else in bass fishing suggests fireworks better than topwater plugs, buzzbaits and weedless soft plastics. A surface strike from a big bass can impress memory for a lifetime, the suddenness not immediately anticipated. Also like fireworks, topwater fishing has to do with light. Once summer gets underway, the word about bass is early and late. By October, plenty get caught during afternoon hours, but I see boats come off the lake before 8:00 a.m. earlier in the season. The usual notion assumes cooler temperatures in the morning and evening account for better action or any action at all, but research has shown changing light advantages largemouths and smallmouths to see prey such as shiners and sunfish better than they can see the bass. Between first light and the sun angling over the horizon, light intensity transitions from darkness to brilliance. Vice versa in the evening.

          We’ve enjoyed surface action during an early August afternoon with the temperature hovering around 90. A front began to approach; clouds slowly thickened, gradually reducing light. One bass after another struck Hedden Torpedoes fished over a weedy flat 10 feet deep. The next two months produced great topwater action. By October 1st, water temperatures about optimal for bass provoked them to give chase throughout the day. Although my favorite October lure is spinnerbaits, whenever clouds alternated with sun or we fished early in the morning or near sunset, surface plugs or buzzbaits worked well.

          Some anglers claim to have observed bass staying close to bottom during these times of transitional light I’ve mentioned, looking upward to catch the silhouettes of any forage. This state of affairs makes topwaters the perfect offerings. Perhaps the bass cruising the weedy flat in August didn’t actually hug bottom, but trailed about through the milfoil stalking anything situated above them. In any case, topwaters work over weedbeds, however deep the water beneath. They’re also effective in timber fields, which may be 30 or 40 feet deep, although usually shallower depths host taller trunks and may invite better surface fishing, may not. Southern reservoirs are a different story than my home state of New Jersey. Snagless buzzbaits may best tackle any sort of timber, stick-ups and submerged brush, unless you want to test casting accuracy with plugs and treble hooks, which I confess I’ve done in the timber at night to great success.

          Changing light is only part of the story, since the lunkers blasting night surface aren’t influenced by light at all, unless the moon is present. No one I know or have read has reported anything in particular about success when the moon shades in and out of clouds, but it is the same principle we’re discussing—just a matter of degree—so interesting to me.

          During summer and fall, when we get up early to fish bass, we make it to the lake before first light to leisurely prepare for first casts with just enough blue to the east to notice the faintest hint of what’s coming, and we’ve caught bass in this darkness. Whatever my partner really feels, I invest more value in the first cast at this time of day than any other. Invariably, I make sure we position so that cast goes to very shallow water.

          Big bass like shallow water so long as they can get away with it, and for this sort of situation, there really seems no other time like very early and well after sunset. I once aimed my first cast to a corner of an 18-acre pond, the Rebel Pop-R plunking down in a foot of water, and I felt the cast was perfect. “Bloop, bloop, bloop, kablam!” Minutes later, I lifted a bass of almost five pounds, and it was still too dark to get a photo.

          Smallmouths are much the same—even in summer—although in my own limited experience, I’ve had the best topwater action in the evenings. During the day, smallmouths hang close especially to large rocks situated in deep water, yet many spread out as the sun goes down, leaving the protection of shadowing stone, frequenting gravel-bottomed shallows, especially those combined with sparse vegetation holding forage. Typically, I fish surface plugs with quick, cadenced retrieves, covering range and feeling very eager with each cast for a strike, because strikes happen fast and frequent.

          October, on the other hand, witnesses smallmouths in shallows all day long, especially at the heads of deep drop-offs with boulders rising out of the water. It’s fun to cast a variety of plugs or perhaps to stick with a favorite right at rock edges, and more than once, plastic has shattered due to a deliberate, but bad cast. Any time of year when water is sufficiently warm, a classic plug like the Torpedo will last as long as anglers fish bass, because nothing beats the blast of a Torpedo.