Laurie's Report

 Laurie Murphy:

The Knee Deep Club’s  next contest is for Catfish, to be held on August 7th & 8th.  Catfish are starting to hit with the warmer temps.  Junior member Max Hughen had some nice Bass this past week. His largemouth hit the scales at 4 lb 1oz, along with a Smallmouth weighing 3 lb 10 oz. Richard  Hilton also had a nice largemouth weighing 4 lb 6 oz, casting some rubber worms along Nolans Point and Lou Marcucci had a smallmouth bass weighing 3 lb 3 oz caught on herring.  Another Junior member River Graybill, while fishing with his mom and dad Aaron helped to land a 9 lb 9 oz Hybrid Striped bass. Jim Welsh had an 8 lb 3 oz Hybrid, also caught on herring.  Other hybrids caught this week also were in the 7 - 8 pound range, being caught on herring or rapala jigs in deeper water.  Several pickerel up to 4 1/2 pounds and some walleye have managed to be caught also. Jerry Freeman while trolling worm harnesses managed a 7 lb 6 oz walleye for his efforts. Some nice crappies have also made their way to the scale. Have a great week ...

Raritan and South Branch Farewell

This outing seems to bring a long history of fishing with my son to an end, as he goes back to Boston this afternoon and then on to settle in California in weeks, but I'm sure we'll fish again. Maybe even in New Jersey. In any event, I've fished New Jersey with him since he was two, 20 years ago. Though I've mostly been into literature all these years, I began taking him on explorations at six months, orienting him to science. 

Why not literature instead? I did read him all of Blake's work and from other books when he was little, but I felt inclined to introduce him to science. When I was little, science was my interest, and it came naturally to steer him in that direction. 

After I took him to Round Valley when he was three, during the drive home, we had an intensely long and detailed conversation about evolution. Many other discussions since. And now he goes and joins a team to build the world's first nuclear fusion reactor. Or let's hope it gets built.

It never was a one-way street. Matt got me back into fishing seriously, by insisting we go several times a week. That led to the blog. We fished more often than I do now back then. Today he beat me six to one. Three smallmouths, three largemouths for him. One smallmouth for me. None were better than average steam bass.

We began in Somerville long before dawn, where a garish electrical sign warned: River Closed. No Trespassing. But a friend from work told me he spoke to a police officer who told him it's OK to fish. They just don't want another party trashing the spot. Matt got a smallmouth on a popper. I missed two hits on my Torpedo and something large broke surface, swirling behind my big Rebel Pop-R. It behaved more like a pike than a smallmouth, but I'm sure it was a smallmouth....though, of course, I don't really know.

I had another spot in mind not too distant, on the South Branch. My Torpedo got hit right away by an average smallie, which didn't get hooked. Matt got one on his popper, and I missed a hit on a Senko. Not much was happening here, and though nothing's happened for me this year in my favorite stretch, to deny ourselves a try would have been foolish. That's where Matt did best, on a Zoom worm, and I caught mine on a Senko. 

Typically, he tries something other than what I use. And rather than sticking to my side, he's always venturing off elsewhere. It's been that way all these years, and on frequent occasion he either does better than I do, or puts me on a better path. 

He just now showed me Reptiles and Amphibians, the Peterson Guide he's taking to California, dozens of Post It stickers marking pages of special interest from when he was little boy, though he was reading graduate-level books on science in the seventh grade. 

  

Matt's back to the past as the river flows.

 

Fished a Little Pond for Bass

On the way back from getting my wife's car inspected, I stopped at a CVS and bought a 20-ounce Arizona Ice Tea in a can for 99 cents. I drove on with this little pond in mind. 

Caught nothing, but I have caught bass here before. The population is very sparse. I like the black "tea" water, though I'd call this coffee water. It has clarity but deep tone. My worm splashes appeared bronzed in the sun.

Had it all to myself, working on my casts, getting the worm tight against eaves on the water, underneath overhangs, on wood. 

The sun felt friendly. 

Renaming of Species Takes Out the Honor

Renamed 

Ridiculous. Remember Indian pipes? Now they’re ghost pipes. When I thought of Indian pipes, I felt they did Indians honor. Same with Asian carp.

Take away “racism,” take away identity. Even though Asian carp are hated, as such they’re a species and a name with dignity, beyond their particular problem here. That’s the problem with these euphemisms. Fundamentally, they’re an attack on the mind. The world has different regions and peoples. That’s the fact. Independently of our sentiments.

 

Began work on my trout book again. It’s so good I’m surprised I doubted it.

 

Home Water

Eddie Prozer points to a rock and memories of fish caught come to him, He knows Culver Lake more thoroughly than most of seem to know any of our home water. And since he has lived on the lake for 20 years, home water lends a special appropriateness to the phrase.

I pulled into his driveway shortly after first light, grabbed my things, and a minute later, boarded his Ranger bassboat. It's in his back yard. An electric device holds the boat suspended over the water, which he lowered within another minute. We didn't race across the lake--that would come later--because curtesy given to sleeping homeowners is the rule. The lake, of course, is private and everyone is very mindful of the fact.

Not that the shorelines are really all that crowded with houses. It seems a little sparse compared to Lake Hopatcong. The pressure on the fish is less here, too, though today we didn't catch all that many. Eddie caught the smallmouth photographed, a nice crappie, and a pickerel of about 24 inches. I caught a 10-inch pickerel, another pickerel of 17 or 18 inches, and a largemouth of nearly 18 inches. 

Eddie estimated that bass at two-and-a-half to three pounds; I said maybe two-and-three-quarters. He guesses the weight of bass accurately, because he fished tournaments for decades, hundreds of his bass weighed in. So many fishermen wouldn't hesitate to claim my fish was well over three

While we fished the far side of the lake where I caught my two pickerel on a Senko near pads, I wondered about the hybrid stripers. They seemed somewhere far off, never to be encountered, but back on the near side where we got out of the wind, we saw a great splash-rise, and then another yards away. We cast thoroughly for nothing.

"They're gone a moment later," Eddie said.

Not long after, I heard that glorious sound of horse hooves on cobblestones. We saw a whole school breaking in the distance but near to shore. Shortly before I caught my largemouth, also on a Senko, surface erupted in casting range from the boat. I had another rod with a Chatterbait attached. Eddie threw a spinnerbait. A hybrid grabbed my Chatterbait, but with that same tentativeness I observe when trolling for them. More often than not, when a hybrid bumps a trolled plug, it nips it once again, and then absolutely slams it. My fish today didn't follow through. 

Eddie hooked up, though. The fish leapt, so I knew it was no hybrid but felt confused. Apparently, the smallmouth was cruising with the hybrids. In any event, it was on the herring they fed on. 

"The lake is like a bowl," Eddie said of its structure. Or lack of it. Maximum depth is 64 feet. There are some drops not as steep as Lake Hopatcong's. We fished a hump. "It's a quarter acre," Eddie said. "As big as a yard." And it rises to five-foot depths. A nice flat with some weeds. I asked if he's caught many fish on it. "Some," he said, scowling subtly. Another spot, the first section of shoreline we fished, he expects to catch five bass from on any visit. We did visit an extensive pad field. Eddie didn't want to get in close and work pockets because of the pickerel, though he was happy to catch his nice one and carries the attitude of enjoying the catch of any species, rather than none. Otherwise, weeds are rather sparse in the lake except all the way back beyond the bridge in the swamp. Water color today was on the dingy side. 

I'll be back. Maybe in the fall. Maybe next year. It all depends on scheduling. 

Word is, my son's visiting next week. He moves to Los Angeles next month. My wife and I are very excited. He began work yesterday for a company developing nuclear fusion. This is clean energy, if it works. The company claims it will within 10 years. Matt did critical work in the effort to better understand the Higg's boson, the "God particle." In the process, he developed his skills at artificial intelligence. I think he's working in a similar capacity, but don't clearly remember how he described it. Look's like Matt and I will fish Tilcon next week. 

Long ago, I described in this blog how I fall in love with places...then eventually abandon them. Tilcon may be falling by the wayside now. I bought the squareback canoe especially so Matt and I could fish the lake, and we did fish it plenty. Eddie tells me today was a very slow outing on Culver even for the summer, and that the fall is better. It will be interesting if I can make it. 

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From the Dock

 

Big Bass

Brian contacted me on Messenger after the trip, telling me I should have some interesting dialogue in this post after his shenanigans, but I think the stress level at work this week was too high for my memory to work. I do remember him doubting "Magic Bluegill" (right?) would work, then catching three or four bass on the trailer, showing that it does. He caught seven or eight bass, a pickerel, and a crappie. I caught four bass, a pickerel, a yellow perch. As for magic bluegills, I would stick to mushrooms if I weren't fishing.

(One of my posts stretches logic to show how a fisherman never stops fishing, but that was back when I had more time on the water.)

I caught two bass slightly longer than 20 inches. Brian got one my scale registered as four-and-a-half pounds, but that fish was longer than 20 inches and fat. I might test my scale on a bag of sugar again. Maybe it's inaccurate now. I would leave the lake after the fishing was done feeling a little awed by the number of 20-plus-inch bass that must occupy it.

Before we began, we met a heavy breeze when we got out of our vehicles; in low, gray light we saw cloud cover, and it seemed as if a storm approached. I said, "Check your mobile." I don't own one of those, so Brian scrolled through his and said, "There's a heat advisory, but no chance of rain." So we carried the sqaureback and all the stuff to the water and paddled out. 

I caught the first bass, a hard-fighting 20-inches that leapt twice. No use trying topwater in the wind, I snapped on a Chatterbait. Brian's line broke on the cast, when a moment later he discovered he had left his tackle bag in his truck. We paddled back. Wasn't too far. While I waited on him tying up, I caught a bass about 15 inches long right there by the canoe at the launch point.

Wind stayed at us the whole four hours or so. I tried worming some, but all of our fish got caught on Chatterbaits. Weed harvesting has removed most of the worm opportunity, at least as I understand worming. There was an isolated clump with silver shiners or the like breaking surface by it. Seemed to me the forage fish are bunching up on whatever cover they can find, but no bass seemed to be there.

All the fish were good-sized. Brian caught a "little" bass that might have been 14 inches. We've never caught any 10- or 12-inchers, but they must be there. I like to sink into the depth of the experience and just let it leech out the absurdity of jobbing during the week, never thinking once of where I am most of the time. Fishing's a matter of paying attention, so it's a little disconcerting I've come home to feel my memory's not so good this time, but we get only so many days each year on the lake, and for me, they make up for the striving I do to fill rich men's pockets. I get my cut. I respect the rich man's making my job possible. 

Gee whiz, otherwise I might own my own cabin on a pristine shore.  

Four-and-a-half on the scale anyhow.

Caught on Chatterbait.

 Had a bigger mouth than it looks. (Trust experience before you trust an image. And a measuring tape.)

Bass & Pickerel

Tried South Branch

 Had a half hour after sunset the other day on my favorite stretch. The water quality was good, but the stretch hasn't been producing well last two years or so. I didn't get a hit. Soaked a Senko and that worm is irresistible to summer smallies. 

Would have been nice for the fly rod. Calm. But I just didn't have time to gear up with that.

By the way, any of you who get the blog by email, the Feedburner service is being discontinued. Just Google Litton's Fishing Lines to check in. I looked into acquiring the emails of those who use the service, so I could at least notify you and possibly continue having the posts sent to you, but I failed to find anything.