Who Says Summer Bass Only Early and Late?

Point of the trip concluded desirably. I wanted to prove that I could still catch bass at Mount Hope Pond mid-day. Now well into July the bass are supposed to hit early and late, and today was a blazer both in terms of heat and sun.

"That was a nice pitch," I told myself. Actually, I had botched two pitches immediately previous--accuracy is essential in the thickets. I felt the take seconds later. Setting the hook became a problem with branches in my way I compensated for by cranking very fast. Surprised it worked, I witnessed the bass in mid-air, and allowed two short runs. A skinny 18-incher, it weighed about an ounce or two over three pounds.

I've never seen Mount Hope off color before today, and I've fished it after rain. It's spring fed. So how it took some stain I don't know. Perhaps rain drove especially hard recently, carrying what would have to be a lot of mud for all that water. I hate to see clear, inviting water get soured, and I doubt this was to my advantage even with all the sunlight. I missed one other hit besides, and this bass too hid in shade, under a suspended tree trunk. Unlike other sunlit afternoons, I got no takes from sunfish.

A rewarding hour. I'll be back to keep proving the point if I can.

South Branch Raritan River Smallmouth Demise

Noontime drenched me--with sweat. South Branch Raritan ran slightly turbid, what I call normal clarity, just very slightly on the dingy side, but for this river at Three Bridges it was off color from last night's rain, which was supposed to result in cooler weather today. I had 97 at Three Bridges. The holes around the Route 613 bridge are very inviting, my second time scoping them, but all I could raise was a little smallmouth I didn't care to photograph.

This put me off ease since I fished the entire large area hard for not another hit, but a well defined trail led me well upstream to good-looking water. Again I used my killies. With an aerator they last forever so why not keep them. Feeding them tiny bits of turkey supplements, the very few that die get devoured. 

I kept them in a tiny bucket for my use today. With a small to medium lead shot to help my cast, I winged a larger one almost clear across, near an undercut bank. As soon as the bass took I knew I was going to let it have it longer than I usually do. I wanted this fish. A really good smallmouth, at least two pounds, took me by surprise. My rod bowed and the drag gave as it bulled into a run. Just as quickly, the hook pulled. I was afraid this one would have been gut hooked.

The ecstacy and the agony is largely what it's all about. I don't lose good fish for nothing. I feared I wouldn't hook another today, but I got the 10-incher I photographed. Most importantly I know some water I didn't know before. Or perhaps more importantly I hooked a good smallmouth bass. I think I side with the water since the bass is still in the river.

That's a 10 point velvet antlered buck I approached carefully to try and get a better shot. I've been charged before, but today I felt certain that by showing him who's boss, he would not challenge me. As soon as it began to move--away-- it was too late for a picture that would convince you. For several minutes it had stood there and stared at me. I didn't even know its presence until it stomped its hoof and snorted.

Turbid Lake Musconetcong Yields Just a Couple

Close to sunset Thursday, Steve Slota, his son Tom, and myself rowed out on Lake Musconetcong. Steve rowed. Although his shoulder had problems, my back seemed worse. As it worked out, his shoulder hurt casting and holding his rod, and not at all rowing. I have two herniated disks in my lower back, and sometimes one of them simply pops out at no provocation. This is why I fished only once all week besides Sunday evening. Sitting in the boat was OK.

Lake Musconetcong is not what it used to be, and if you like to blast about under heavy horsepower, I suppose it's for the better. I know. It literally used to cover completely over with thick vegetation for many acres and this appalled a lot of people. To some eyes--not mine--the lake looks better now with open water. But walk up to the lake's edge and look into that water and it's very ugly compared to the clarity it had before. Loads of vegetation-dispersing chemicals destroyed that implied balance, but will perhaps save the lake from water chestnuts in the end.

All that vegetation was fish habitat. The chestnuts never created the anoxic conditions they do if unchecked. Pickerel patrolled every edge of weeds around every open pocket, and bass maneuvered freely between stems under cover of pads and carpets of thriving vegetation, a plethora of healthy natural life. You could smell how good and healthy it was, really. Above all, the water was both fertile (obviously) and clear--excellent for the silver shiners these gamefish depend on for forage. Now with the cormorant population increased ten fold it may only be a matter of time before this lake becomes dirty and unproductive. A testament to a modern quick fix. They always seem to result in destruction. Will clarity return?

I truly loved this lake and I threw a spinnerbait for casting practice Thursday, depressed. I have to say my casting was pinpoint accurate to no avail at all until the wind died. I snapped on my favorite topwater--Heddon Baby Torpedo--and in minutes was amazed at a good bass leaping, about 2 1/2 pounds. I caught one other on a Rapala Skitterpop of about 15 inches. It was too dark for Steve to get a good photo. We weren't skunked but didn't do nearly as well as my son and I used to.

So here we have Lake Musconetcong. From a remove it may look more pleasing than it used to, and I would not disagree that it appeared strange with thousands of yards of total vegetation coverage with red stems rising above the surface. But I liked it, why not? Now it's an illusion, a mere appearance superficial and deceiving, since the actual water quality is bad. It's a facade like so much else in modern life. 

  

Some Thoughts Before We Try Lake Musconetcong Again

Sometimes Lake Musconetcong was worse than that--or better if you prefer. For years a strange, weed collecting boat prowled the back of the lake on occasion, and it dug through the thick, forming canals worth casting topwaters into and along the weedline edges.

I felt deeply appalled last summer both times I fished Lake Musconetcong. Now that they've bombed the lake with weed-killing chemicals to control water chestnuts, the lake is a turbid mess and the fishing very slow. For five years we had fished the lake at least a half dozen times each summer, and I didn't come back for a third last year. Water once vital and so clear you could make out a dime on the bottom (if it didn't sink in the muck, true) had died, turbid with vegetation particles. All those years we had never been skunked and usually did very well. Both times out last summer we got skunked. And to make matters worse, I noticed on that second outing that the cormorant population had increased about ten fold--now that they could swim under water without the weeds. Cormorants eat loads and loads of fish.

In May Steve Slota and I did fairly well. The water clarity is not right, but better. But the fish seem to be there and willing. I am skeptical. I feel as if Lake Musconetcong's soul has been destroyed. And the fish will largely vanish in turn. It's an unpopular position I take. People are happy they can waterski. For all the so-called improvement. I wonder if the water quality will ever be as pure as it was again.

Evening of North Branch Raritan River Smallmouths

My favorite North Branch Raritan hole was so slow I wondered if someone had fished it out, but most of the bass are nine to 11 inches, under keeper size, so that's not likely. I think smallmouths migrate, but not en masse, and this hole has always been active. I did lose a few, missed a couple other hits, and caught one tiny seven incher here. Part of what fishing is all about is feeling the incentive of frustration, which is like a hard shot of bourbon to jolt you into readiness. I used killies leftover from fluke fishing more than a week ago, and always try to set the hook sooner than later to avoid gut hooking, which results in quite a few missed hits.

Further downstream I caught the average stream bass I photographed and four more, most of these the size of that in the photograph I took before it got too dark. I had come to the river near sunset and made each cast really count since I had little time. The largest was about 10 1/2 inches and among other bass I lost, a good one of about 12 inches shook off almost at my feet as I waded. 

I usually use Senkos and Culprit twister tail worms during summer, and the bass hit them as readily as live bait, except for the really big smallmouths. I recall catching only one stream smallmouth over 15 1/ 2 inches on a lure, and I've caught a lot. (I don't include the Delaware River for these stats.) Many 14 to 15 inchers have come on lures, but although I've had at least one other big one take a Mister Twister in plain view, in my experience the big lordly bass take a shiner or killie, but disregard plastics, plugs, or spinners. If I used lures exclusively I'm sure I would have caught more large bass on them. However, I love to see a big, hulking smallmouth absolutely blast a shiner or killie on the surface, feel that line go, tighten, and feel its weight as I bury the hook. Then I set the bass free. I've never gut hooked a big one in a stream.

I saw a great horned owl in flight over the river after sunset. Hiking back--mostly by wading--I walked thigh deep along an undercut bank. Nearly dark, I could see nothing in the water. I stepped on something that felt like a good sized snapping turtle. I felt it move under my foot as a shot of cold fear rose in me, but not to any effect of panic. I just stepped ahead of it and didn't look back.

Scoring Better at Mount Hope Pond

Not that I really think every angler in New Jersey will run to my favorite pond. But that's a nice bass. Bloop, bloop, bloop...caboom! 3/8th-ounce Pop-R, first bass on anything other than Chompers worms, and one on a Culprit twister tail. Had some trouble photographing it in pre-dawn light, but found a camera setting that took a lot of light in, although it's a little fuzzy because of that slow shutter speed. 19 1/2-inches, slightly better than 4 1/2-pounds, this chunky bass leapt two feet over the water after being hooked, and fought a hard, dogged battle with two strong runs against my heavier seven-foot rod and 10-pound test.

Turned out to be a slow morning. Beginning at 5:00 a.m., we fished until almost 8:00, my son and me. The other bass measured 18 1/4-inches and weighed about 3 1/2-pounds. Both bass bigger than any others I've caught here, thanks to morning for the biggest, especially since it dynamited a topwater. We didn't have another hit from a bass, although a trout raced up to check out Matt's retrieved Chompers. We both saw it--swiftly up, swiftly back.

Mama bear raided a garbage can, and just as we came around a corner she hurtled across the beach as the Port-a-Potty guy drove up. We then saw her cub hurry down from a tree at least 150 feet from that can. At the other end another can had been raided.

We hiked Wildcat Mountain, found a den of copperheads, encountered three of them, one of these about three-and-a-half inches thick, really big. Also tried to catch a 4 1/2-foot black racer, saw a smaller racer in a bush that got away quick, water snake, and a tiny ring-necked snake. You would understand that my son wants to become a herpatologist, and he's well on the way to his goal with so many species of snakes he's caught and photographed.

Then we returned to Mount Hope Pond--and swam. Man that water is nice and clean.

Shepherd Lake Makes a Promise

Nine Pounds! The pickerel on the wall of the boat shop looked large as a musky. Struck a jitterbug over one of the weedbeds beyond. 8:15 a.m. and my son, Matt, and I rowed out, our first time on Shepherd Lake in Ringwood State Park. The 72-acre lake features 40-foot depths and alewives almost everywhere. Rich in Omega fat, the largemouth and pickerel get big on them. My first bass was a poppindocker nine-incher that hit my weightless Chompers about 18 feet deep. Already the sun struck us and the water like a heat demon, and the lake took the rays down calm as a pane of glass. We came to a deep weedbed and I placed a cast at a corner of its outside edge, again about 18 feet. The take was strong, it felt strong as a horse, and I set the hook into a pickerel I think could have been five pounds. Lost, I had that familiar feeling on a lake that this was my only shot of the day at a lunker.

This patch of weeds, much smaller than a football field, yielded one more take, apparently a good size bass, that resulted in me kicking myself for not bringing along our alternative reel spools loaded with 15-pound Power Pro. The fish simply dove into the thick and I could not horse it out with six-pound test. When a fish buries its head in weeds the direct tension of rod to lure via the line is loosened just enough that, along with the fish hanging the exposed trebles in the mess, it shakes free. I lost two other good fish this way today.

All told, my son caught a nice bluegill, the perch, some green sunfish, and a pickerel of about a pound on his nightcrawlers. He hooked something large, convinced it was a pickerel (about four pounds) since he felt the dead weight of it remain in place, just as one of my pickerel had behaved; this fish took his crawler only six feet under the boat over 20 feet of water just after a large fish had sounded the fish alarm--at six feet. But he never got sight since it dove under the boat. I caught two largemouths and two pickerel, the remaining three about a pound and a little over, easy to veer out of the weed garden, on my weightless Chompers with the worm hook. I tried Senkos, even Wacky with a weedless hook and lost a couple of small bass that way. But Chompers finesse held its magic, at least over me. Both of my pickerel I hooked in 20 feet of water. Some vegetation seems to grow in 30 feet of water. This is a clear, beautiful little lake.

I thank Manny Luftglass for his 100 Best Spots to Fish in New Jersey. It persuaded me to try this lake, and I have to say that the big pickerel I hooked is a promise upon return. Next time our approach will be much better educated. Plastics were not the only way to go today. Another guy fishing close to us nailed two bass about two pounds each on a big popper over 10 to 15 feet of water, a heavy, very extensive weedbed. That surprised me. It was 1:45 on a sunlit, 93 degree afternoon. The water temperature registered 81 degrees on my unit.

Some time afterwards my son went down to our river (North Branch Raritan) to fly fish with his big #10 dry. He had many sunfish hit, but his pride was the trout that took it in a great rush over a deep pool. He missed it. He was just happy it hit.

Somehow I lost--I have searched everywhere and rearranged everything in the process--my bag of 12-inch plastic worms. It figures. Tomorrow morning is the one time this summer I have to fish Mount Hope Pond at dawn. Twelve-inch worm for that lunker on my mind. And fate has denied me them. I was going to "try" them and I certainly would have, but I would have fished the Chompers more. Now that I have been frustrated, I will buy another bag, and next year I may go to Mount Hope and use only the 12 inch worm some dawn.

I did try a spinnerbait for about 10 minutes here at Shepherd Lake. The clarity of the water discouraged me and that the weeds were thick below a couple or few feet from the surface. It's interesting how the waters I fish influence the articles I write while I tend to think they are more general than they are. My recent piece in Pennsylvania Outdoor Journal is one I'm proud of, it's well done. But surely the water temperature 20 feet down at Shepherd is in the optimal range for pickerel (though I'm not certain), and I wasn't pumping and fluttering a spinnerbait for them, no the article I wrote is what it claims to be for waters about 10 feet deep and shallower, and from May to about July 1st. And I'm positive that Lake Wallenpaupack pickerel would be very active in such shallows between those dates. But today, despite cooler deep water perhaps, I was all for my Chompers. And I wonder if I'll catch my first pickerel at Mount Hope in the morning.