Getting Psyched

Getting psyched for fishing this year. For the first time in many years, it's March 9th, and I haven't caught a fish since October 12th. I guess it's possible this hasn't happened since the years I lived at the shore, when I didn't fish as much. I'm glad I've got so much writing done these months, but I've converted back to my fish sense already.

At work today, I was all ready to go fish Pompton Lakes for pike on Wednesday, assuming Mike Maxwell would want to go. Forecast high temperature, turns out, is 32. I've fished open water at 15 degrees, but not in a canoe. And besides, having a friend along--forget it. And besides yet, it's the warm weather that's getting me so interested in fishing. I could go to Round Valley, but I'll get stuff done instead, get back out as soon as milder weather returns.

And by that forecast. If anyone wants to ice fish ponds, looks as if you'll have an opportunity next week. Four consecutive nights of temperatures from 14 to 21.  

How Where: Catch Pike Peak Season

Tom Slota's 31-inch Spruce Run Reservoir northern.

Northern Pike: Peak Season

By Bruce Edward Litton

          More than a decade ago, I took my young son to Lebanon Bait & Sport, bought live herring, and drove the short distance to New Jersey’s Spruce Run Reservoir. Herring had just become available in late April, awkwardly cast by the lighter of our surf rods, eight-foot sticks we use for striped bass and Spanish mackerel. I remembered from my teens the breaking news of Herb Hepler’s 30-pound, two-ounce state record pike from the reservoir, and felt powerfully prepared with big tackle. The state record got broken in Pompton Lakes by a 30-pound, 8.5-ounce pike in 2009, during years when we came to Spruce Run beginning in March, having scaled back drastically on the means of rods and reels, although catching plenty of pike on large shiners.

          I’ve met some who use seven-inch trout for bait, bought at the Musky Fish Hatchery. And before Lebanon Bait & Sport closed its doors after the death of proprietor Steve Welgoss, the shop carried extra-large shiners I never felt needed. We catch plenty of three to nine-pound pike on medium power, 5 ½-foot spinning rods, reels loaded with six-pound test monofilament. For those large live shiners, a barrel swivel provides minimal weight, besides a size 6 hook and sinking 15-pound test fluorocarbon leader. Pike weighing more than 15 pounds get caught fairly frequently in New Jersey, especially in the Passaic River, but an average pike is closer to five pounds, packing plenty of power to load light gear.

          Pugnacious predators coiling like springs before striking, pike also hit a variety of lures in cold water. My favorite is the suspending Rapala Husky Jerk. Take advantage of the pike’s habit of halting before its body twists to explode on prey or a lure: Pause a lure or shiner during retrieve. Any brand of suspending jerkbaits represent this deadly technique. By short, intense twitches, the jerkbait creates commotion to attract the curiosity of any pike nearby. If you follow the habits of most fishermen, you may notice they don’t twitch the plug enough. Most jerk it a few times and pause, or retrieve constantly while bouncing the rod tip, as if the number of casts makes more of a difference than the presentation. Rather than focus on retrieve, focus on tantalizing any nearby pike by keeping the plug shaking in place as much as possible. The plug will move forward, but slowly. You can twitch for as long as 20 seconds to a full minute to draw any fish from a distance, and then cease all action. That pause can trigger a strike, as if a pike’s mesmerized attention suddenly transforms into action, the target plainly visible and vulnerable. A fast action rod is a must, and I recommend the same for all pike techniques but bobber fishing, when any rod suffices.

          With spinnerbaits, kill the action. Let a Colorado blade flutter relatively lame as the lure descends a few feet to bottom, and if no strike occurs, let it sit there a good five seconds. Pike are just as focused as fierce, apt to stare at a lure until you snap it off bottom to rev the motor. Chartreuse is a good color choice, as is any bright color or combination of color during sunny conditions. And brightly colored lure paused on bottom will help fixate a pike’s attention on it.

          In-line spinners can be fished the same way if no residual weeds complicate matters, but I prefer short pauses, just enough to make a regular retrieve interesting. Many times, pike will follow. Pausing a spinner the first two or three times may not provoke a take, but by pausing in quicker succession thereafter, a pike may get irritated enough to turn interest into action. A moderately slow retrieve interrupted by increased pace can also provoke a charge.

          A long American tradition associates lots of flash with the fierce reactions of pike. Spinners work. And they don’t have to be outsized. A 3/8^th ounce, size 6 variety fits the need, but if you can’t find a spinner to your liking with reflective tape on the blade, you can buy tape and put it on yourself. The red tubing on the treble hook shaft of the Mepp’s Aglia Long serves the function of capturing that visual focus of pike and may make the difference, as bucktail offers possibility also—especially in red, chartreuse and white.

         New Jersey has lots of where-to-go options. The Passaic River, Pompton River, Millstone River, Spruce Run Reservoir, Pompton Lakes, Budd Lake, Cranberry Lake, Deal Lake and even the Raritan River all have benefitted from the state’s stocking program, although it is the Millstone, not Raritan River, that actually gets stocked, pike working their way into the larger river system. Pike also get caught in the South Branch Raritan River on seldom occasion, since Spruce Run Reservoir and Budd Lake feed its flow. All of these waters involve pike spawning behavior in March and April. Regardless of any marginal reproductive success, the fish seek areas of residual weeds in lake and reservoir coves especially associated with feeder streams. The rivers congregate pike at any dams, or otherwise at the mouths of tributaries. Passaic River veteran Steve Slota Jr. told me about sighting a three-foot pike well upstream of the river in a tiny tributary creek in Verona’s city limits.

          Until May warmth breaks the pattern of cool water shallows, pike remain vulnerable like no other time of year. However, during the cold water period of March, when pike first get interested in congregating on spawning grounds, they won’t chase after jerkbaits cranked fast or smash topwater plugs chugged along as if powered by a diesel engine.

          Remember that pausing a lure is key to success with it, but if you like using live shiners, possibly this bait is never more appropriate, except for ice fishing. I always set out a couple of bobbers on whatever rods I don’t care to manually fish. Usually, I fish pike with guests, so as many as half-a-dozen get set. Predictably, no matter how well placed the bobbers, most of the pike get caught by live-lining technique, however. A bobber means waiting on fish; it puts you in a dependent position. Live-lining is proactive and will always better produce, at least over time, in the hands of anglers who know how to do it.

          Where exactly do the pike in a given cove hang out? They move about, but going after them involves not only your senses, muscles, and judgement based on outward observation of branch stickups, perhaps, or a belly of deeper water or creek channel in a cove. Any and all structure is important, but there’s more to finding fish. Pay attention to your own internal promptings. Urges and ideas never just happen randomly, unrelated to what you’re doing and where you are. They may indicate where a fish is, so long as you are truly intent on discovery.

          Why make a cast unless believed in? At the least, let every cast be your best guess, and you may be surprised when something tells you this is the cast that really counts—and it comes true.


http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2013/01/early-season-northern-pike-new-jersey.html

Trout in the River but None on the Hook

I walked upstream, forded the river's strong current up to my knees, calling for my black Labrador, Sadie, to follow after me. She hesitated, but crossed. Once stocked, rainbow trout supposedly spread out in a river by swimming downstream; brook trout do the opposite, but though I've caught stocked brook trout more than a mile upstream of Little Shabakunk Creek's confluence with Assunpink Creek--the latter creek stocked upstream of that meeting between the two--I've never fished as a faithful adherent to the dogma. Where Mike and I arrived this afternoon at the South Branch Raritan, I've fished down below the bridge access area and up above, so I knew of better water northward.

Upon arriving, I immediately saw what I thought to be a golden rainbow. Mike let me alone to cast. The fish swam into better view, tail forked--golden carp. But in the meantime, I sighted four or five very good-size rainbows, quite active in that very cold water, though none of them gave any response whatsoever to my brown beadhead stonefly nymph, about size 16. I sort of hoped that little gold bead would turn a fish on, while Mike switched to gold and silver Phoebe spoons on his spinning outfit, getting in on these fish beneath the bridge. Fish not caring one iota.

I began that walking I mentioned. First to only 75 yards north of the bridge or so, a nice run. I enjoyed the thrill of fly casting, a value just to practice, standing in that cold water with my Simm's wading boots over neoprene, my feet getting cold. I switched to a black stonefly beadhead, then to a pheasant tail larger, about size 14 or 12. Some color might make a difference. Who knows. And after fishing fairly thoroughly, really nothing compared to what steelhead fly casters endure, I put my rod aside and spent at least 20 minutes at photography, further north along the river. When I returned to casting, I knew I must walk with the rod back on upstream to where I knew I could cross. Of course, Sadie would follow along again. She would have to cross, because she would feel worse if left behind and humiliated.

I got better casting angles on the run leading down to the bridge, not as deep as I had thought, but certainly enough water. On down to the bridge I waded, drifting the pheasant tail persistently, and as I made my back upstream, doing same, I thought of my wool fleece pants left at home. My feet had numbed, thighs cold.

Light diminished, and I took a look at the bridge on impulse, the view sort of given to me, evaluated by no immediate effort on my part. A good camera shot. My camera in my bag sat on the sand across the river. I felt tempted to hurry on over, but before my head had swung around to look at the bridge--as if I am just a puppet of alternatives something deeper in me offers--I saw what appeared to be a series of undercut bank fish holds...maybe some deep water...which I never have explored on past occasions here. Far to the northward right, the river divides, island in the middle, and this interesting spot must get overlooked. I wasn't going to.

Some difficult casting--for accuracy--but I got the nymph right under the bank more than a dozen times, of more or less three nice cuts. And there's a hole maybe five or six feet deep, which made me think smallmouth bass. Dusk deepened. I persisted. And I wondered if any rainbows take winter residence here. If so, maybe they have better brains than the fish I saw right under the bridge, where they got dumped back in October. Especially since they would have to break the rule about swimming downstream, but that doesn't really count--just our own nonsense.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2013/11/fly-fishing-claremont-south-branch.html

Lenny, What's Up!?

Lenny, if you're reading this, I know you're laughing, ensconced in the Welcome House. Gateway to some of New Jersey's best trout fishing...or has that project folded? Come and gone just as your work partner came and went.

Thought I'd tell you, that photo of you with the smallmouth bass might be a winner for On the Water magazine. If so, I'll let you know.

Can't deny it. You were having a good time.

A Mild Taste of What may Come

After many recent days in the 70's, temperatures tonight falling to near zero or possibly lower in parts of New Jersey brings to mind the word bipolar. Just a week ago or so, with the temperature hovering at 75, still February, the thought occurred to me that little more than another 20 degrees could have meant the hottest day of the year, in the past. But I'm not ready to say the weather is bipolar just yet, because perhaps what we're experiencing now is just a mild taste of what is yet to come, as this century progresses.

How will fish react? I am concerned about our native brook trout with genetic lineage going back 12,000 years to the Wisconsin Glacier. A lot may depend on aquifers, on cold springs.  

Outer Banks Inlets Fishing March through Summer and on

Sheepshead

Outer Banks Odyssey:

Inlet Species Variety

By Bruce Litton

Tides sculpt Outer Banks inlets into fish-attracting structures like channels, drops and shoals with sand bottom shifting frequently like the weather. Right now, the winter migration of bluefish and striped bass to the south has these two species lingering on, offering the chance of hooking big fish. The world record bluefish of 31 pounds, 12 ounces got caught in the surf near Hatteras Inlet, so no kidding, the potential for great catches is there. In April, big red drum can sometimes make brine seem coppery with huge, dense schools, and the summer smorgasbord of species begins to arrive in May, so if you haven’t planned an Outer Banks trip, this may be the time to think ahead.

Three major inlets—Oregon, Hatteras, and Ocracoke—connect the Atlantic to Pamlico Sound, each about a mile wide with fishing pressure fairly light. Don't let relative lack of boaters discourage you. The culture of Outer Banks fishing is very well represented from March forward by outfitters, piers and charter captains who know inlets fishing is excellent.

A Smorgasbord of Species

Spanish mackerel, bluefish, flounder, sheepshead, black drum, pompano, cobia and redfish serve as spring and summer attractions. It’s essential to have a good map of the inlet you choose even though sand shifts so often it will be less than reliable in some ways. The main channels stay pretty much in place.

Choosing what fish to pursue is a daunting prospect when you’re not clued in to which best currently run. Nevertheless, if you launch your own craft with wind absent or light, most likely you’ll happen on plenty. My first experience on Ocracoke Inlet in a rented skiff resulted in lots of flounder (same as fluke in New Jersey). We succeeded despite strong winds and complicated drifting, but once we employed the services of Captain Ryan O’Neal, we saw the beauty of associating with someone who has his finger on the pulse of the inlet, who knows exactly how and why to pursue what fish, and every time we’ve fished with him, we’ve done well both in numbers and variety. Over the years, the variety kept increasing. You don’t catch everything on one outing.

Whether you insist on fishing on your own or charter, it won’t hurt to be prepared with an overview of possibilities, unless you want a charter captain to surprise you. He may even have fish up his sleeve this article doesn’t anticipate.

Trolling and Casting Spanish Mackerel and Blues

Big catch of perfect plate-size cocktail bluefish

Spanish mackerel chiefly eat silversides, small menhaden and finger mullet, torpedo-like speedsters arriving in late May to travel in pods and large schools along the edges of channels, in cuts and just outside in the ocean. Bluefish often trail behind. Flat water, incoming tide and early morning ideal, Spanish feed by sight, so clear, in-flowing brine is best. Trolling with size-0 Clark spoons is standard. Tied directly to 25-foot leaders of 25-pound test fluorocarbon attached to size 1-planers, an additional spoon can be placed behind a 4-ounce trolling sinker for a shallow ride. The planer gets spoons down to eight feet at five to six knots. Simply place rods in the boat’s rod holders. Look for birds to find a school busting baitfish on top, but mackerel sometimes swim deeper. Trolling can be a search method without clear evidence of fish.

Matt Litton and one of his Spanish mackerel.

On occasion, schools mix so vast that trolling is much less effective than gunning and running once a surface blitz subsides and another frothing commotion is sighted nearby. Casting tandem 3/8 to half-ounce chartreuse jigs with medium power spinning tackle right into the frenzy results in instant hook-ups. Don’t use wire leaders because Spanish will avoid the jigs. Risk some bite-offs with 20 to 25-pound test fluorocarbon.

Spanish group in pods or schools by size. “Some mornings, the Spanish run a pound or two, others they’ll be about three pounds,” O’Neal told me our first time out. “The world record 13-pounder came from this inlet, and every summer we get Spanish over five pounds.”

Summer bluefish usually measure on the short side of cocktail class—perfect for the table.

Drift Slowly for Flounder

Flounder double-header which Ryan O'Neal unhooks.

From late May into November flounder associate with inlet structures and carpet the bottoms of the deepest channels during summer: Wallace and South Point (Ocracoke), Hatteras and Oregon. Pamlico Sound stays slightly off-color, so when tide is falling, it stains the depths. Radically different than mackerel, lying in ambush on sandy floors like flattened footballs, possessing a kick to pulse upward and seize bait, flounder nevertheless also prefer clear water.

“They rely more on sight than smell, whereas bluefish or a drum will just smell it,” O’Neal said. “If the water is turbid, a flounder will too, but they lay flat and look up for baitfish such as small pinfish, finger mullet, two-inch baby flounders.”

Despite this preference for baitfish, flounder readily attack strips of squid or shiny-skinned mackerel belly on 1/0 hooks fashioned with vinyl strips, usually red/white and chartreuse/white colored. Known as the speck rig, a tandem hi/lo combination with a two-ounce bank sinker weighting it is just right for drifting at about a half to one knot. 1-½ to two knots drift a boat too fast for O’Neal’s exacting standards. He won’t take a client out to fish flounder if it’s too windy.

Medium power six-foot spinning rods with 12-pound test monofilament even hold their own against the rare encounter with a cobia. Some of O’Neal’s summer clients have boated cobia as large as 40 pounds on such outfits while fishing speck rigs for flounder. The outboard is fired and the great fish followed until pumped to the net.

“Let out just enough line to stay at an angle and let drift,” O’Neal told us. “When you feel something like added weight, open the bail and let out line for a few seconds before you set the hook.”

Tide Rips, Shell Bottom and Sheepshead

One look inside a sheepshead’s mouth gives you the obvious clue to look for crustaceans, mollusks and barnacles. The front teeth a delicate set, if not so strong they might seem breakable on the calcium they crush.

“Just like human teeth,” O’Neal pointed out. “Some people would kill to have a set like that.” Perfectly straight, those front rows look exactly like miniature human teeth.  

Sheepshead as large as 12 pounds feed on barnacles attached to shells coating the bottoms of drop-offs, and 15-pound black drum sometimes mingle. Some of the tide rips associated with sharp drop-offs from sandy islands or shoals get packed hard with shells, and barnacles cover the shell pack. Round-bodied sheepshead feed mostly on barnacles as they relate to vertical structures. A ledge drop-off cut by a tide rip around a prominent shoal edge is perfect. The sluiceway of current—whether incoming or outgoing—is not an impediment to sheepshead holding against it.

They may station in eddies also. Anchor and don’t put too much line out. Notorious bait stealers, sand fleas gathered at the surf line and bucketed for bait disappear from 1/0-curve-shank bait hooks without you even knowing it, unless you set a hi/lo rig near enough to feel the bite.

If wind and current allow, you can position the boat to fish off the back. Current flowing directly from behind the boat will allow a straight, tight line between a two-ounce bank sinker and the rod tip to transmit the tell-tale taps of an interested sheepshead. These fish hit so eagerly, it doesn’t take long to be in steady action once you find them. Let the fish take the bait a couple of seconds. You can usually tell by a sudden strong pull to set the hook hard. Sheepshead attain weights of well over 10 pounds and fight hard with dogged resistance, yet medium power spinning tackle and 12-pound test line is sufficient.

Black drum associating with sheepshead along the same rips also take sand fleas. While summer drum are usually 15 pounds or fewer, giants nearing 100 pounds have been boated in the region. 

Sandy Shoals for Pompano

Close cousin to the fabled permit, diminutive Florida pompano abundant in the Outer Banks surf and a little larger hanging out along pier pilings, these curvaceous fish come good-sized on inlet shoals and in the drop-offs at the edges of these sand spits, sometimes right down in pockets of deeper water between shoal humps. Two-pounders common, rare fish may exceed five pounds.  

                                                                      Ryan O'Neal and pompano

Inlets comprise a maze of channels, holes, shoals and tiny islets. Finding fish can seem like a bewildering free-for-all, unless you concentrate efforts and stick it out at a spot or two. It’s one thing to troll the edge of a channel at five or six knots for mackerel and blues, or even to drift for flounder through a channel at one knot, but to tease pompano to take sand fleas on hi/lo rigs can be a little bit like tempting permit to take a crab fly—that doesn’t happen very often.

Set bait and wait, anchored. More often than not, if you wait awhile for the first hit, the pace begins to quicken rather than slow. You’ll have more interest from these subtle feeders if you use hi/lo rigs without metal arms or any colored beads, just monofilament, hooks and a snap at the bottom for a two-ounce bank sinker.

While pompano inhabit similar structure as do sheepshead and black drum, take the shells and barnacles out of the equation and put a rig right up on top of a shoal in three or four feet of water, and another in the trough. Pompano cruise high and low, rather than position along a vertical drop as sheepshead do.

One way or another, you can almost always catch fish from March through the fall in Outer Banks inlets. So long as you don’t spread your effort too thin on any given day, it’s easily possible to make outstanding catches. And regarding those red drum, August is a magical month when on occasion huge schools begin to appear at inlet mouths. By October, serious struggles with these fish happen often. Have heavy rods handy with three or four-ounce bucktails. In any event, memories are made here that last a lifetime.

Charter Services and Launches

Oregon Inlet

·        Close to a dozen charter services are available at Oregon Inlet Fishing Center just off Route 12 on the north side of the inlet. Launch is available.

Hatteras Inlet

·        Hatteras Harbor Marina, Hatteras Landing Marina, Oden’s Dock, and Teaches’ Lair Marina all offer inlet charters just off route 12. Launch ramps are available.

Ocracoke Inlet

·        Tarheel Charters (Captain Ryan O’Neal), Miss Kathleen, Ocracoke Inlet Charters, Drum Stick Charters, Fish Tale Charters, Rascal Sport Fishing Charters, The Gecko Charter Boat are all located in Ocracoke Village off Route 12. Public launch is at the end of Route 12 just before the ferry.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/07/florida-keys-bridge-fishing.html

   

Spring's Here

Today's temperature of 75 here in New Jersey is the highest in memory this early. I got word of trout rising for tiny midges a week or two ago. We've had mild weather with more to come. Trout were rising on the Musky on a recent morning. Not by my witness. Another informant.

It would be easy to check out Facebook and get more word on the trout, but I'll let this pass. Prefer word in person.

A friend of mine fished the Delaware and Raritan Canal on a mild day last week, three pickerel on a jig tipped by Keitech.

Spring is here.