Delaware River Smallmouth Bass: Summer Approaches

Summer Smallmouth Bass on the Delaware River

By Bruce Edward Litton

          During summers the past decade, I’ve taken my family float tripping on the Delaware River. Me, my son, his uncles, and also friends never failing to catch plenty of smallmouth bass. Warm water means smallmouths gorge on a smorgasbord of forage, including crayfish (especially molting), hellgrammites, other insect larvae, hatched insects, terrestrial insects, leeches, nematodes, other worms and a whole host of forage fish. Unlike summer largemouths, smallies fiercely hit lures or bait throughout the day, but if you’re keen on a big one over three pounds, the hour around sunrise and sunset makes a difference for wise old fish.

          A wide variety of river habitat holds Delaware smallmouths in quite abundant numbers, the average size about a pound, fish over two pounds fairly frequent, a bass over three pounds an unusual event, although until the state record seven-pound, two-ounce smallmouth came from Round Valley Reservoir, the record held at six-pounds, four-ounces from the Delaware. On occasion I hear stories of six-pound smallmouths getting caught. While plenty of bass come from shore or by wading, float tripping involves classic river outings. Primitive camping is allowed some places along the river, Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area permits available. If you don’t own a canoe or kayak, rental agencies exist, and arrangements for inflatable rafts work also, just be sure to bring a 10-pound mushroom anchor to make fishing more efficient.

          Floating for smallmouths involves pace. Anchoring allows thorough coverage of a promising spot, and catching as many as half a dozen bass before action fades happens frequently. Newcomers to floating should keep river mileage to a minimum and get a feel for how long they like to linger on spots. We’ve rafted as many as seven miles in about eight hours, taking a leisurely lunch onshore. A southerly wind, however, challenges headway especially for rafters but even canoeists. Typically, we take our time doing about half that distance I mentioned.

          The closest the river comes to real wilderness in New Jersey locates Sussex and Warren counties as perhaps the best smallmouth bass fishing, but Hunterdon and Mercer counties offer very good fishing for bronzebacks all the way down to Trenton. Introduced to the river’s fishing just north of Trenton during my middle teens, as soon as I earned my driver’s license, I started fishing with friends north of the Water Gap, but I fished successfully around Titusville, Lambertville, Bull’s Island and Byram in Mercer and Hunterdon also. In recent years, the Phillipsburg and Belvidere areas have proven their worth.

          Everywhere myriad river structures hold bass, but during the summer months, the best spots situate between the heads of strong rapids and deep holes or slow stretches well below the fast water. Current seams and eddies with depths of six to 10 feet complicated by boulders—smooth and jagged—give bass staging points to ambush forage awash in flow. Crankbaits such as the Storm Hot ‘n Tot, Flatmaster Tournament Series EBS, Bandit Mid-Range and Deep Diver among dozens of other choices all produce in a variety of colors, although for sunny days, I prefer chrome finish to provoke reaction strikes. Cast upstream and especially fish directly downward along seam edges, where bass anticipate forage coming to them.

          Very effective for the same sorts of spots and deep holes, jigs allow a subtler approach, and after I catch an eager bass or two on a crankbait, I like to grab a second rod and fish very close to the subsurface eddies and seams boulders create. These less obvious meanderings of current hold picky bass loyal to little lairs, and during the middle of the afternoon, the biggest bass may be least likely to lurch away from staging spots to charge a crankbait. Get a jig right on the nose and you may catch a reluctant taker. Berkeley Gulp! Leeches prove extremely effective as trailers for eighth to quarter-ounce leadheads.

          Thousands of boulders and rocks have space underneath them to protect bass either wary or eager to ambush. We’ve caught jet-black smallmouths from slow stretches two feet deep; from riffles and mid-size rapids; from seams and eddies and from the hidden mystery of deep holes. Each of these camouflaged fish shot out from darkness to take the lure. Slow stretches with just enough current flow to make the water surface look appealing often hold quite a few bass you can’t see because they hug the rocks or hide beneath.

          Many of the transitions between stretches you may float will be shallow. I’ve never lost the thrill of innocent surprise catching bass as we pass boulders left and right with barely enough water in the eddies behind to cover bass’s backs, and it seems as if every summer we catch a few of these fish with no thought to anchor. Rapala floaters will catch bass in shallows—whether of riffles, eddies behind rocks or of slow stretches---but as we rough and tumble quickly downstream towards slower water, we just toss eighth-ounce jigs about. And sometimes we don’t have to cast. We just pitch the lead behind a rock as we pass and pull the bass aboard. (These fish have always weighed a pound or less.)

          In contrast to sun-heated shallows, the best deep holes on the river drop off from steep shale ledges. Some of these underwater cliffs develop concave shapes from current erosion, and bass position in the shade. Casting a jig right against the rock face and allowing it to fall to bottom may result in a hit on the drop, so keep the line taut enough to feel the tick if it happens, but not so tight that the descent angles the jig back towards you. If the distance cast were the same as the depth below, a tight line would mean the jig coming to rest on bottom directly under the rod. You want to fish against the wall all the way down, which requires an open bail and index finger control.

          Like jigs, Senko-style worms catch so many bass, it’s possible to fish nothing else all day. Light colors with sun, dark when overcast, fat-bodied Senkos five inches long cast far and get gobbled. Almost all of the river structures serve them. Some of the holes reach great depths and quarter-ounce or heavier jigs can plumb the very bottom, but Senkos sink fast unweighted and will prove effective as deep as about 15 feet. Casting far upstream of a deep belly and allowing current to carry the worm into the hole is a deadly imitation of forage at the mercy of the river’s sweep. Line control in such situations is not a straight affair, but by keeping six-pound test monofilament loosely taut, you’ll know when a bass takes. Just make sure to reel line and use the rod tip to judge a tight hookset.

         Longer six to seven-foot, medium power rods cast further than shorter rods of the same strength, though with some loss of accuracy. For crankbaits, a fast action tip is needed, which also helps with feel when fishing jigs and to work topwater plugs during the memorable magic hours early and late.

Overview of South Branch Raritan River 

Overview of North Branch Raritan River Fishing                 

      

            

Aeroflex Lake Bass and Pickerel

Pickerel struck plastic worm as Matt reeled it back for another cast.

For how long I've planned on fishing Aeroflex Lake with my son, I don't exactly remember, but I probably had this trip in mind last August as we fished Tilcon. Today was slow progress punctuated by exclamations for two nice bass and a pickerel, and we never felt as if committing to this patient business of trying to get worms in front of bass was any mistaken waste of time. During this first time either of us have come here, I told Matt that if I could, I would fish every lake and pond in the New Jersey Highlands, because each is a unique formation which would interest me.

Aeroflex is New Jersey's deepest natural lake at 110 feet. One hundred three surface acres, the lake is long and rather narrow. Water clarity allows visibility down to about 12 feet, and every shoreline edge we explored featured a variety of aquatic vegetation. Pads are pretty abundant, and I tried slithering a weedless worm over some of them, though we caught our bass 15 to 20 feet deep. Out and away from pad edges along the western side under shade.

These shorelines drop off very quickly into very deep water. We trolled around exploring depths, seeing if any salmon would mark under us. At one point, we must have situated 50 feet from shore--96-foot depth under the canoe. Surface temperature at 80 degrees, I thought it probably impossible any salmon would come up for a Phoebe near the surface. We didn't succeed at marking any salmon or trout and got back at the bass pretty soon.

When the sun went down, we motored to extensive shallows we took note of shortly after launching. Weedless Booyah Pad Crashers got through the thick, but drew no interest until we worked onward along edges and into the mess towards the ramp. We missed more than half a dozen hits, just as many from pickerel as bass, but these fish were small. Having switched to a Rebel Pop-R and managing to keep it from grabbing weeds, I almost hooked a pickerel that probably would have measured no more than 16 inches.

 Matt's was about 16 inches.

Measured 18 inches. (The Mountain Lake bass of recent post must have been at least 19 inches.)

Slow Worming

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/06/nice-bass-at-mountain-lake.html

Whirling on the Water

Have meant to stop by Shannon's Fly Shop in Califon for a couple months. Placed a call last week, to be sure they had summer issues of The Drake, but my short essay on Salmon River steelhead fishing isn't appearing as yet. Sixty-three degrees posted as the water temperature at the bridge this morning, I asked about trout fishing. "There's a lot of fish in the river." People have been doing well. I was told it's been down to 50 there recent nights. I bought a couple of RS-2 size 20's. A Rainbow Warrior in stock wasn't the "neon bug" as I referred to Jesse's home-tied beauty. I'll await one just as good before I buy.

Finding a parking spot before I made the purchase, I noticed Rambo's Country Store, Choice Meats, and went in to have a peek at the selection. Since my job involves specialty meats, I felt the interest. Ever since I was three-years-old, when first I enjoyed lobster bisque, I've been interested in seafood. I was in the seafood business for 13 years as a commercial shellfisherman. I've never understood red meat as I do seafood, and I still don't. Nor will I ever understand red meat, not so as compared to this knowledge of seafood, which seems to have an uncanny inborn quality. My pitch to those who interviewed me for the job placed employment in seafood as best desired, and at least what they could offer me does involve some work in the seafood department. On up Califon's Main Street a short distance, a frame shop and impressive art works in the window arrangement. Of course, any of my regular readers has some understanding of me and art. This includes painting and drawing, though I've done little of either during the last two decades, and most of my drawing and painting I did as a 10-year-old not satisfied in the quality.

When Mike and I first fished Califon stretches in April, I wondered about smallmouth bass. Later, their presence in the river here was confirmed on Facebook. Today I parked above the dam in town, but found only one spot not marked private. Very shallow water not worth plying. I drove to Mike's favorite spot, found it shallower than seemed before at higher level, but worth casts. Something picked up my Senko-style worm that didn't feel like a sunfish. Here at this spot, I took some 20 minutes closely observing what I thought juvenile water striders at first. Bugs familiar to me, these tiny black whirling racers (not whirligig beetles). I've never before got on my knees and looked closely. I braced my shoulder by my left arm against the rock photographed bottom-most The insects seemed to propel about on the surface film by wings, but though I tried to make these "wings" out--my eyes are not 20/20 as during my youth--it seemed as though, no, it's amazingly in the legs and feet, if you want to call them feet.

At the municipal park, I wondered if driving to Neshanic a good idea, but today the thought of making that arduous hike upstream felt onerous, as did the upstream march to productive water above Three Bridges. Dart's Mill is easy. But the drive a long way south. I fished long enough to regain habitual ability to cast where I need a worm to go, but needed to get back to my car to check my messages, flip phone left in car. The usual Honda's in the shop. Shortly before 5:00 I placed a call for update.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/04/califon-south-branch-rarital-rainbow.html

Bass Tip: Weightless Worms, Sticks

Bass in the Sticks

By Bruce Edward Litton

          Inspired by Oliver Shapiro’s book Fishing New Jersey: A Guide for Freshwater Anglers, I came to 18-acre Mount Hope Pond in Morris County. After weeks of virtually always catching one or two largemouths better than 2 ½ pounds, I decided to cross over the little spillway to try the western side. There I passed a fellow angler, asking him how the fishing went.

          “Just a little sunfish,” he said.

          “If you get back in the sticks and pitch plastic worms, you can catch bass,” I said.

          “Only early and late,” he said. His face suggested a tense air of authority.

          “I always come at noon,” I said, “and get them every time.”

          “Ah,” he dismissed me, “I’ll get them in Florida and avoid the ticks.”

          This happened years ago, and yet represents a perennial attitude that ensures bass will always be around for the sport. I sometimes see, while out fishing, ecology and economy merge. The bass on the ecological end of the spectrum, the attitudes of anglers on the economic side. Who among anglers wants to make difficult efforts—you can even get bedridden as a result---unless the kind who enjoys the rewards of a challenge? He can always brush off the ticks abundant in nature, from protective clothing he buys.

          Here in New Jersey rewards can be quite substantial. Since that day mentioned, I’ve caught dozens of bass better than three pounds, quite a few over four, one five, and all of this action in particular from May 1^st on through August by a deadly method. I will be specific about the approach in several ways, as if each is different, but all of the variances involve traditional-style plastic worms rigged weightless. Senko-type plastics, all the rage now, sink twice as fast and so in my opinion prove relatively ineffective.

          In the sticks, I use a 3/0 worm hook buried in the plastic, but instead of using a fluorocarbon leader—which sinks—I suggest 15-pound test monofilament, which doesn’t. In any case, consider a microswivel too much weight to connect the leader to 15-pound test quality braid. Use that braid, because its low diameter allows efficient pitches and casts. (Line test any less isn’t enough to pull a big bass out of thick cover.) Tie leader and braid by uni-to-uni splice, and employ a rod of at least medium power, which I’ve always found sufficient. Five-and-a-half feet is ideal for tight situations, and such a spinning rod also favors accuracy, since the tip is closer to the wrist than longer rods that cast farther.

          The exception is lake or reservoir fishing from a boat. Since it’s a good idea to keep the boat at some distance from the target if the water is clear, a seven-foot rod may be a better idea, although accuracy counts anywhere you can get a sense for exactly where a bass might be.

          Two things to keep in mind, and then a third will be discussed. The amount of brush in the water, as well as fallen treetrunks, stumps, and overhangs varies from place to place. I fish five ponds of 12 to 25 acres with some variety of these characteristics and they all differ. I also fish Lake Hopatcong, which adds docks to the equation. Docks are not quite the same as natural wood structure, but close. The second factor just as important as wood in the water is the shadowline on sunny days. Unless you’re fishing a shoreline with the sun directly on it and no brush overhanging water close enough to create shadow, cast the worm into the sunlit water at shadow’s edge. Bass hiding in the shade see the worm in high definition and easily swim to take the slow-sinking, alluring offering.

          Thirdly, as early as May weeds have already grown pretty dense. In fact, some ponds notorious for weeding-in already have become forbidding. But for our purposes, consider clear water and weeds growing up from the bottom as deep as 12 feet combined with sticks. Baitfish and other forage use this nutrient-dense cover as habitat, and you can bet big female bass will inhabit the same.

          Combinations of sticks and weeds prove very good. They add relationships between shadow and light, and you can find a spot to rely on for as long as the sun’s out. At least some of the time. If action ceases after a few visits, maybe wait a couple of years and try again. Nature is a relationship. Put too much pressure on one part—it will give, but not in your direction. Respect the spot, leave it alone, and when you return later, it may once again respond to your wishes.

          Bass live as acutely sensitive creatures in other ways than feeling put upon by lure after lure coming their way and experiencing the disorientation of getting hooked. Water temperatures remain optimal into early June and even later in deep reservoirs; spinnerbaits and plugs can be effective all day, although subtle plastics certainly work too, and I use these more natural-seeming offerings most frequently. By sometime later in June, however, people who fish bass generally believe the game gets played early or late—otherwise forget it. My experience begs to differ, because the record shows results. Contrary to popular belief, I catch bass in the afternoons all the way through August, a month that can present tough bass fishing but not always. I mentioned sensitivity, why?

          The key is to understand the metabolism of cold-blooded creatures. Optimal water temps for bass in the middle 70’s mean they’re most physically active at these levels. But as water temperatures climb into the 80’s, while chases after fish forage do slow, bass burn the most calories. Rather than shoot around lakes like rockets, they slow down to conserve as many calories as possible. And yet something about them must be moving at fever pitch with metabolic rate at top speed.

          Think of all the forage in the water during summer. Much more than winter. Subaquatic insects, nematodes, amphibians, reptiles, leeches. Much of this forage is very easy prey, and bass simply flex jaws to suck in a passing leech, for one example. You can bet they do. All day. In sunlit heat or clouds and rain, summer bass have a real need for calories easily gained. With all this opportunity, you can also be sure that with this metabolic overdrive, their senses are more sensitive and alert than ever to whatever tidbit happens by.

         Pitch a bass a nice big but very slow-sinking, easy-to-get seven or eight-inch plastic worm, and the likelihood is very good the fish takes. To do it right, eschew twister-tails, don’t even buy worms with fluttery fluke-tails; just straight worms with no frills but garlic scent work for me. Summer bass hover about so hyper-alert there’s no need to attract them with a lot of nonsense; save the flash for other times. I use a thin-bodied worm, but the length suggests a nice addition for those needed calories.

         You don’t have to fish before breakfast or after dinner to catch bass from June onwards.

                    

Genes Useless without an Environment

I know four of my readers are not on Facebook (Hey, Lenny, what's up!? I will get back over there.), and I imagine maybe more aren't either. Other night, I reported: "Senior Awards Ceremony at Bernards High School tonight. Trish and I are very happy Matt won the Distinguished Math Student Award, the Chemistry Department Award, the Das Family Science Scholarship, and a President's Award for Academic Excellence."

Loads of celebration over this, and I pass it along because without Matt, this blog could not exist. He was a very bright young mind at Mendham Country Day School when, aged four, he insisted on fishing Sunrise Lake three, four times a week after I picked him up. A true subversive like all true anglers, nevertheless, Matt takes star academic honors, and part of the reason, undeniably, is because he fishes. That's the deepest secret about us subversives: a wild mind is more intelligent than a domicile. Matter of choice more than genes. Genes useless without an environment.

So instead of resenting the absurd world we live in today, just go out, take sunshine, and let it into this world dying for some light. The way the 5th Dimension's vocalist hits the word moon I will never forget, but man, the madness of the 60's is only upon us now, because back then, they really knew it was just that!

What May Become of a Promise?

Matt at Lake Musconetcong 2009

I posted last after midnight following the 14th on Mountain Lake. Ever since, I've kept reviewing in my mind what I wrote about promises, and I know better than to think I can promise you a full answer in this post. All of my posts are off the cuff, written in haste. Not out of any disrespect for my readers or for blogging, but because I believe blogs--web logs--are appropriately this and not a writer's most developed work. The very thought of using a Google gadget to present my best work feels absurd. But I write as well as I possibly can within this medium, and the limit I place on my time with it, without obsessively going back to improve on posts. I mostly let them be as faithful accounts of responses to events and ideas.

That most recent post features a disturbingly abrupt sentence transition. From the immense promise of Lake Musconetcong fulfilled, to "That's broken." I wrote the post just this way honestly, in light of how all of those five years of fishing the lake, many times each year with my son, came upon me whole out on Mountain Lake, but instead of my entering their memory, I let them go. Just like putting down a book. Because I know--again from experience--what it is to enter an enormous state of memory, an involvement I've learned is usually best to forego. It is, if things that need to get done in the present will get finished.

So now I pose it to you. What's the better faith perhaps? To indulgently dive into every mental state that issues from the depths, even if they imply your loved ones, or to have the mastery to let them go, knowing you're not God, but if you believe in the value of what you've done, their fulfilled promise will persist in your life, regardless of turning to present events instead of indulging past memory. Every new event is born out of past events anyway.

A clue is offered by two very wise men of the deep past, Socrates and Plato. When Matt and I fished Lake Musconetcong, the experiences were fully about the earthly beauty he and I engaged together. Except for two things. The church bell chime we heard at 6:00 p.m. almost every time out. And an ice cream truck jingle with resonance up in the hills. Our minds lifted over the present, reminded that everything is eerily eternal. I like to believe that Matt, even as a young boy, had an inkling of this. We always talked about the church bells and the ice cream truck jingle. He expressed his own feelings about this music. When he was three, I explained to him how existence must be eternal, since something cannot come from nothing, and many times he reviewed this idea with me.

Socrates believed earthly beauty reminds us of Eternal Forms in a Realm Beyond. To me, the affairs with Forms in this Realm Beyond have always seemed like a cartoon magazine. I guess for some of us, that's heaven, but even as a boy, cartoons offered me very little interest compared to books about real things here on earth. Socrates and Plato did not get the metaphysical description quite right. Besides, Plato expressed attitudes about life here on earth that always appall me. Rather than bodily life as any "prison," I assure my readers--if there is a Beyond I will awake to upon my death, I will gladly visit. But what I really want is to return here on earth, reborn. I don't mind spending another life as someone else, because a human being is a human being. Besides, if this will possibly be the case at all, something of me will remain.

Nice Bass at Mountain Lake

I promised Mike we would catch some nice bass. I can make a promise like that because I'm experienced, though I've never come to Mountain Lake before. Otherwise, I've only seen it from atop Jenny Jump Mountain in Warren County, where it sits below, a natural lake of 122 acres stream fed, one of many other North Jersey Lakes I've fished and have not fished. I have faith in them all, and better than that, a little knowledge.

Faith is something I don't seem to ultimately understand, something deeper than character and personality and underlying things themselves as if belonging to the will of events. These lakes just serve as my altars, but better than plumbing the mystery of darkness that becomes light, I catch some fish. Character and personality have a lot to do with receiving experience that might lead to catches while offering nothing in the meantime. Before the real action finally happened, Mike could have thought I was one cocky chump, because making a promise like that--for what the past seven hours had amounted to--was, in his mind, going to prove nothing but wrong. And I told Mike, after he had quit fishing an hour before and felt ready to go home, "You have resolve." I meant this absolutely. He was done. But he stayed aboard.

"I'm an impulsive idiot," I said without a trace of inflicting the words on myself. In my own mind, I performed the magic of effortlessly making a word mean something else, even though I knew Mike would have to turn the irony,  My faith in the bass had never faded. My wife used to say of me, "God protects idiots and fools."

I too had said the lake must be bad, but I never really meant it all the way down, where I firmly understood our lack of success determined nothing. Look at these weedlines, look at these overhangs, that fallen tree trunk submerged there. Where are the bass? And Mike could tell you, every disparagement I uttered, as well as more negative words from him, was answered in counterpoint by me with fishing anecdotes; some I probably spent 20 minutes telling. I told him about Lake Musconetcong. There my son and I caught one bass during all of the sunny hot afternoons, that one nine inches long, but we caught dozens once the sun dipped under the horizon.

Immediate evidence kept telling us Mountain Lake is bad, and perhaps, if we were sophisticated moderns as we presumably should be, and we behaved with "proper" scientific and abysmally false attitude, we would accept the evidence, pass judgment, head to the ramp, and quit. No. There's always more to discover. If I were a real scientist, why would I conclude upon any evidence, instead of looking for a new twist? Presently we sat casting under sun and heat. I did have a lot more evidence beyond this lake than did Mike, who hasn't fished bass a whole lot. My son and I once caught about 20 at that Morris and Sussex County impoundment, Lake Musconetcong, during the hour-and-a-half around sunset.

Mike and I began in the relatively shallow southwestern corner, where I felt certain this was going to be tough fishing. Water clarity seemed a lot worse than really was. Soon, I felt some relief from an earlier utterance about my preference for clear water, when I saw two-foot visibility, some aquatic vegetation appearing under the squareback canoe. Heading northeast along the shoreline, we judged visibility at about three-and-a-half feet. Not too bad, really. I had felt the initial let-down as no cancellation of my promise of nice bass, but it didn't feel good, so while working eastward, to see a little bass in thick weeds swipe at a damselfly got me going. I switched to a five-inch slow-sinking traditional worm sort of harnessed to a worm hook, abandoning a Senko, cast to another bass doing the same, and caught a seven-incher.

We fished on.

Even if my promise had failed, though the photo shows the first of bass fulfilling it, promises are made to be broken, and before we got into the serious action, I brooded on the likes of this reality as the sun had fallen behind the western ridge, thinking of years on Lake Musconetcong with my young son now soon leaving for Boston University, saying farewell to the immense promise Lake Musconetcong fulfilled for us, much less by size and weight of bass than by the bond of love between father and son that must in some way be eternal. That's gone. The promise is broken. And instead of feeling any crush of defeat, I simply accepted the truth. Life takes new turns. But there's more to the past than anyone alive can know. A man or woman--not a child--can know there is more through depths of nostalgia he or she finds bottomless. No matter how far the spirit may travel backward in time, there is no endpoint to the quality of resolution. Anyone who makes this journey either turns back to the present--or goes helplessly mad. But in spite of a sane attitude in dealing with the present, it's true. Lake Musconetcong as we lived it out is an eternal reality.

While Mike and I fished more quality weedlines yet, my only concern was the sharp drop-off that characterized the one I fished at present. I do catch plenty of big summer bass on sharp drops. And at one point on this occasion, I sighted a musky of about 32 inches come to the surface just yards in front of me. I tied on a big Rat-L-Trap and cast it repeatedly. At Tilcon Lake, for one example of a lake with drops, that's just about all you find. Sharp ones. When I examined the Lake Survey Map Guide depiction of Mountain Lake, I judged the southwestern corner best--shallow (eight to 12 feet) and weedy. I changed my mind after coming upon the northeastern corner. It was similar, but the quality felt more appealing with pocket water.

At first, I felt disgusted. Some guy in a bassboat had just chopped up a lot of weeds with a high-power bow mount. He was skunked. We reported a few bass. We had come upon two quickly--almost nine inches and almost 12 inches--where a stream enters. It's very shallow.  Two feet at most. Some rocks. Gravel. I noticed water temperature fell from 82 to 80. Right where the stream enters, who knows how cool. I cast there. Neither bass was any Mike and I would characterize as a nice one.

Beyond that northeastern corner, the northern shoreline felt vaguely like a goal reached. Here, darkness. Sun behind ridge, when I shot a photo of excellent overhang for my files, I thought shutter speed--pretty slow--might blur resolution. Actually, it didn't. But now I was...in deep and in need of clarity. Slowed way down. Once the darkness came over us, time itself slowed, as if without so much light racing by, time didn't have anywhere to go. Mike's Rapala racked on his hook keeper, he had set his rod aside, but I fished absorbed with little tricks of focused performance. I heard strange rumblings from across the lake and beyond in the woods. Finally, I understood the clamor was rock music.

It felt like I fished in that shadow three hours. The ramp perhaps three hundred yards distant, I reached instead for my box of topwater plugs. The music had only shaken its fist like the tail of a rattlesnake met on a trail and soon forgotten. Mike sat patiently, as he would just have to do, if he continued to refuse fishing. I had made a promise to him, but surface intention is one thing, deep-down desire another...I never had to form a promise to myself in words. At first, I reached for the 3/8th-ounce Rebel Pop-R on which I caught my bass of nearly five pounds at Mount Hope Pond in 2011. I felt a twinge of guilt, because I caught that fish on one of my son's rods--Matt with me an hour before sunrise in the dark--instead of handing him that rod and telling him where to cast. I cast instead."Bloop, bloop, bloop--BAM!"

Sometimes it hurts to have known better. He couldn't have reached the spot if he cast to it, even had I urged him to. I took that cast because I knew it was mine alone. But, in truth, I knew as I let that plug fly with all the power of a grown man's arms it couldn't possibly be mine alone.

I didn't touch the plug. I looked to the left of it and saw the quarter-ounce plug of the same model and color I was pretty sure is the one Matt gave me as part of a Christmas gift. This could perhaps seem too close an association to the other plug, but I've never felt his gift is tainted by Mount Hope's ambiguity. I tied fluorocarbon to the loop of a snap attached to it's loop.

These weedlines along the northern shoreline drop very sharply. We didn't fish them long. Against what I knew was Mike's wish, I clocked the electric onto its highest speed, and we headed back to the eastern cove. That's what it is, more than corner, really.

Soon I saw nervous water. "That's a nice fish," I said.

"Um, huh," Mike said. Directly on point. Yeah, that's what it is. No reach for his rod.

How big, I couldn't tell for sure, but I thought three pounds. It was just a fleeting ripple, but I could tell--something nice. Depth was marking eight feet on the sonar graph, and I had to get the canoe in close to the pockets and weedy mess a weedless frog would better suit, where I guess five or six feet of water fell underneath.

Third cast, the bass that made the ripple took that Rebel hard. "Mike, it's a big one, get the net."

I didn't measure her, but I think she was about 19 inches. The Rebel sucked almost to the gullet, I had to use a hemostat to get it out cleanly.

Again, I saw nervous water. The resulting bass weighed about two-and-half pounds. About 16 1/2 inches long, and fat. Further eastward, I caught a 15-incher, and then as we progressed further, carefully working those weeds, I said, "I think that was the 10-minute window." We fished another 10 minutes and then I said, "Let's go home."

I swung the canoe about at top speed, and muttered to Mike, "That was brilliant." I intended the words to be inclusive, because making that promise to him had made the difference. It never can be that a man goes it alone through an entire lifetime, so it must be that promises to others are absolutes. I had obeyed a deep-down desire of my own, when I felt that eastern corner might produce, but I didn't fail to think of my promise where things matter most: At the forefront of the mind where the murky waters of faith no longer fail to offer real hope. It's the hardest thing to go on and keep trying when you have no idea in that active part of the brain, but it sure feels good when finally you get a clue.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/05/lake-hopatcongs-enhanced-fishery-is.html