Beat Afternoon Bass Odds with Topwaters

One day just after noon in August at Ringwood State Park’s Shepherd Lake, my son and I bass fished an even handed way—weightless Chompers worms 17 feet down along a weedline edge, the breeze light enough for control. We heard a whoop and watched an angler catch a good-size bass back in the weeds. I had been watching the two of them chuck topwater plugs. Another good bass struck. I looked at the sky to notice the sun had dimmed as clouds thickened, and understood, feeling distinctly one-upped by someone else taking an odd approach.

         

Largemouth and smallmouth bass serve an interesting academic research subject for an obvious reason: anglers want to know. A single fact never entirely explains a complex behavior, such as why bass feed early and late during summer, but sometimes a single cause seems to illuminate just what the fish are doing unexpectedly. The eye structure of both largemouth and smallmouth advantages them over forage fish in changing light. Bass see forage early, late—and with thickening or weakening clouds mid-day—better than forage see them. They have no tapetum lucidum, which gives walleye their namesake and advantages them over prey in very low light or turbulent water, not particularly changing light. But bass and walleye may hug bottom for the same reason. Exceptions exist. Walleye suspend over oxygen depleted depths, and bass sometimes cruise slowly in mid-column or near the surface right out in the open under intense sun. 




Usually then they won’t hit because they are not staging to prey. They don’t seem to notice you just a few yards away because less aware than normal, as if in suspended animation. When feeding, bass usually stage under cover to ambush prey, or else they prowl the bottom—particularly among aquatic vegetation, rocks, or timber—with their eyes directed upward.

Forage fish tend to swim near to the surface in order to evade predators on the bottom, with little choice but to create safety in numbers. Not only do bass see them better than they can see bass given equal light, it’s darker near bottom where bass camouflage. Against light at the surface, forage make distinct silhouettes.  

For relatively shallow water—as deep as 12 feet if clear—nothing beats a surface lure as long as warm water season lasts when light is changing. Bass have the advantage, are looking skyward for a mouthful, and catch sight of commotion above. You can just imagine the trigger response. So many strikes leave no doubt that bass put their all into the sheer thrill—whatever this is for a bass—of demolishing the target. From eye socket to spinal column—it’s a very short fuse and a hot detonation.

The typical opinion states that calm water is best for topwaters. I don’t disagree, but it’s not always true. This past May I arrived at Round Valley Reservoir on a lunch break without my lure bag, but I had a rod and my license. As soon as I parked, I reached into the glove compartment to find a big white buzzbait. The sky was clouding. The wind drove the surface like buffalo herds.

Unlikely? I thought so. But not only did I catch three bass in 45 minutes fishing the shoreline at Lot 2, one was a smallmouth that struck from at least eight feet of water. I knew the breakline adjacent to a shallow flat indicated prime locale, but would a bass really come up with that much wave action above it? Perhaps it was crucial the lure was a big buzzbait.

For chopped surface, try to beat the commotion. You may not be able to do it with a musky plug, but choose larger lures and the type that creates the most commotion like buzzbaits, Crazy Crawlers, Jitterbugs, and the Devil’s Horse.

For a calm, mid-day surface, my preference may be smaller plugs, and I especially like the clear plastic versions of Hedden’s Tiny Torpedo and the smallest Zara Spooks. Whether they make a difference or not, I’m curious about these choices and have caught bass on them.

Summer is the time to think about big bass in the thickest vegetation available. Often lunker bass are not at the outside edge of weeds along the deep open water, but just inside where thickest vegetation begins, and even further back in it as if they intend to hide from you. Try Money Frogs, Boohah Baits, or Phatrats. If you get a strike it will blow weeds wide open. Now that fall is here, the weeds begin to recede as bass tend to come out along the inside edges. Look for changes in light intensity and put a plug up top where a bass can see it.  

           

        

Lake Hopatcong: Too much Summer, not enough Fall

Fall is certainly here with a lot of leaves beginning to change and chilly mornings. And this morning began without much wind, while nothing seemed to vow against the auspices of a good catch. Knee Deep hosted a walleye tournament, and a BASS club had another, but Hopatcong is a big lake and seems to accommodate all. I caught a little largemouth on a Senko in five or six feet of water within minutes of beginning with a Torpedo, and not very long thereafter Fred caught this big brown bullhead (not channel catfish!) on a jig tipped with a plastic crayfish. I thought he would hoist a small walleye; the catfish hit about 25 feet down.

Meanwhile, we had our herring out. We watched one of the Bassmasters catch a couple of small largemouths down the way from us. I had a tugging desire to give up on the bait fishing and pick away at docks. But Fred put it better than I could.

"I can fish bass like that any time I want. We're after other species we don't get much of a chance to catch."

And I've caught both walleye and hybrid stripers jigging, but once I got over my initial anxiety that Fred might be impatient with live lining herring, I touched base with my usual familiarity fishing this way. I only get a few chances each year to do it. And it moves me to a watchfulness of intent--with this, deep relaxation--that only soaking clams or bunker surf fishing, or fishing live shrimp in the Florida Keys approximates. Live lining herring--or weighting them, besides--allows you to fish a Senko or a nightcrawler while you keep watch, or just keep your eyes on the lines in a way that the rhythm of casting, over and over again, breaks the concentration, the meditative focus on something so simple that it can have the effect of opening your senses and mind to a much wider aperture than daily demands allow. I tend to prefer nightcrawlers to plastics because I can fish them in much the same way. All you have to do is attend the lines quite as if something will happen.

And on Hopatcong, something usually does. Besides the nightcrawlers--we caught crappie, a white perch, bluegills, pumpkinseeds, green sunfish--nothing touched the herring all eight hours. This was a first for me. It's as if it's still too much summer, not enough fall. My son and I have always done much better in July. And we've caught crappie on herring. Fred found them 25 feet deep today. We caught four all told, and just about big enough to swallow a herring. We ended up weighting herring on bottom with slip-egg sinkers, and this didn't kill them 25 feet down. Oxygen is getting deep now.

Rainbow Trout are About to Show up in Shore Catches

Greeting incoming rainbows, possibly browns. Once the surface temperature of Round Valley Reservoir dips to 70, they move in close to shore. I suppose that's about where the temperature has fallen over the past week-and-a-half. You would think browns would come in before rainbows, since they're warmer water fish, but I've never seen browns until October. Some of the rainbows, moved by frustrated spawning urges--they don't spawn here, nor browns, though lake trout do--cruise in pods right against shore when wave action stirs sediment and likely offers some tidbits to feed on.

I walked onto the ramp dock and cast a marshmallow & mealworm on three feet of leader, tied off by a small barrel swivel, enough to weight the line a little at a 3/4th-ounce steel egg sinker. The marshmallow floats the hook and the mealworm. Then I kept the bail open and stripped line to set the rod on a stone. Nothing happened. A typical fall, winter, or early spring Round Valley trout stint. Once and awhile something does happen, and I've caught rainbows as large as about 5 1/2 pounds.

I kept watch over the rod--easy to have the line stripped to the spool and rod lost--as I enjoyed photographing scenes and reading otherwise. Most of us fish three lines, and pretty soon I'll be fishing two. I don't like to get more involved than this.

That's all for smallmouths on the South Branch Raritan this year for me, I think. I didn't fish the river much this summer, disappointed in high water levels, for one thing. The Neshanic River flowing into the large river is reduced to a trickle and has been this way awhile, but a lot of water has been let loose from Spruce Run Reservoir over the weeks. I didn't see the South Branch today, but every time I saw it, it flowed fast.

Beautiful day at the reservoir. A couple of people were out paddleboarding, but that's about the last of this anyone will see for a long while.

Millstone River for Smallmouth Bass, Northern Pike

Millstone River for smallmouth bass, northern pike

          The Millstone River originates in western Monmouth County, flows through a section of Middlesex County into Mercer County and Princeton, and enters Carnegie Lake near the mid-point. The water spilling over the lake’s dam and flowing north and east is the Millstone River, although Stony Brook is a sizeable small river where it enters the lake’s head. The Millstone begins and ends as a Piedmont Plain, mostly mud bottomed river, but Stony Brook is the state’s southernmost predominantly freestone stream. Three miles further south, the Shipietaukin Creek runs over gravelly slates and broken rock for a mile or two of its longer length, yet most of Stony Brook flows through the hilly region of Mercer, and the swift water flowing over rocks at least used to hold excellent smallmouth bass populations.

          Virtually none of these bass make their way into Carnegie Lake (good for largemouths). But the Millstone has smallmouths despite lack of many rocks and gravel. The bass both run upstream from the Raritan River and make their way from Beden’s Brook—another Mercer County freestone stream—which flows into the Millstone at Rocky Hill. From what I understand years after I posted this article, northern pike are no longer stocked by the state, but pickerel may seem more common than smallmouths, largemouths too, but one spot in particular used to hold a number of smallmouths willing to hit on a given afternoon.

          This is the first time I’ve divulged a very specific location in more than three years’ column writing. I hope I didn't burn anyone else’s favorite spot and don’t believe I did, since I passed over the Wilhousky Street Bridge every other day for almost six years. In all that time, I never saw anyone fishing the Weston Causeway Dam race in clear view as I passed over. Since those years of working as a courier, the Weston Causeway Dam was removed.

          My son, Matt, was seven when we parked near the Manville bridge in Somerset County to fish the area of the dam. That was August 2006, and for a couple of months Matt had been excited about fishing this piece of the Millstone for muskies. I had read and discussed with him a peculiar article I liked in The Fisherman magazine which recommends this spot for just that species, and while it isn’t impossible—muskies are stocked in the Delaware and Raritan Canal and find their way into the Raritan River and then into the Millstone—northern pike are much more likely caught, since thousands have been stocked in the Millstone by the state over the years. Oddly though, I've heard of no one actually catching pike in the Millstone. By comparison, Passaic River pike thrive, but I don't know why a discrepancy has existed. I have heard of a pike caught in the Raritan River, obviously having washed down, and a pike caught in the canal, possibly because of a floodwater transfer from the Millstone. One other unlikely catch is walleye. The same article featured a photograph of a walleye apparently caught in the Millstone at Wilhousky. They’re not stocked in the canal or the river. They make their way into the Raritan from the Delaware, by way of the canal. State Department of Environmental Protection Division of Fish and Game personnel reportedly tallied electroshock recovery samples from the Millstone last year, and these included one large walleye.

          Of course, Matt and I caught no muskies or walleyes. We caught no northern pike or largemouth bass either, but I was pleasantly surprised to experience catching three smallmouth bass, which slammed our small spinnerbaits as the blades pulsed through the fast water below the dam. Two bass were very good size, weighing more than a pound-and-a-half. Obviously, a little fast water combined with rock-like concrete is a smallmouth bass magnet. I suppose any walleye in the area would frequent the fast water also. Walleye have been caught on occasion in the canal for decades—always at any one of the nine locks in fast water. You may have to fish all nine locks at least nine times each to hook a walleye, but these are the places where they take residence. Smallmouths at Wilhousky are an easier catch.

          They won’t be for long, since the Weston Causeway Dam is slated for removal soon, probably next summer. This is why I can tell you about this spot in good conscience. It deserves some honor.

          Dams are removed for good reason, since rivers liberated improve ecologically and fisheries increase. Once the two Millstone dams go, shad and herring may swim as far upstream as Carnegie Lake dam. More smallmouth bass will rise from the Raritan too, since at present the Weston Causeway Dam stops bass from swimming further, although some fishermen surely release bass on the upstream side.

          I guess an interesting project for the Millstone would be the introduction of tons of rock and gravel on the stream bed, but I’m only dreaming. Besides, it’s got current sluices, eddies, and especially downed trees and brush making excellent pike, pickerel, and largemouth habitat. It’s a river for kayakers and canoers, and will be safer without temptation to go over a dam and get submerged in the circular current below.  

Fishing the South Branch Raritan       

I'm writing The Microlight Quest: Trout, Adventure, Renewal, a memoir I intend to get published.

More Bass Action at the Local Pond

Out walking the dog on Sunday evening, I watched a man fishing the pond for bass, struck up some conversation about fewer bass seeming present than recent years, a view he never assented to. He fan cast a floater/diver plug through open water, hadn't had a hit, and I saw him leave with no action behind him.

I kept targeting the sparse algae edges in close this evening with a Senko-type worm. You can see some in the photo. Since this pond is very shallow, it would make better sense to use a slow-sinking traditional worm, but I prefer the five inch Senko-type's casting range, and have always done well for the past five or six years I've been fishing this type of worm. Often I hook-up on the flutter-retrieve, worm rigged Wacky with hook in the middle. An inset hook is pretty pointless. The only aquatic vegetation here is algae and that attaches to weedless rigs also.

I walked beyond the edge of the culvert after fishing about 10 minutes and spooked a bass that was in close to the bank, under an algae clump. What a rush to have encountered some serious life. A snapping turtle had left a trail of bubbles, but encountering a fair-size bass, judging by the wake, felt like purpose could have a real end to it.

I started touching my casts down beside and in between algae clumps as perfectly as I could guide them. Nothing was happening after almost five minutes of eliminating possibilities, but finally I got a tick, thought it could be a sunfish. I tightened and the line lurched forward with a great deal of weight on the other end. I gave slack, hoping the bass wouldn't drop, tightened up prepared this time, and set the hook.

Two-pounder. Average bass here. I set up my Gorillapod for a remote controlled photo. Since I'm new to taking this sort of shot, it didn't surprise me I encountered complications, even though I had practiced before I went out. Instead of risking the bass's life, I released it without getting a photo. Then I discovered the problem had been that I aimed the remote in the wrong direction. 

Persistent High Water South Branch Raritan River

At least the warm weather is lingering, 90 degrees today. Last year almost to the day I caught a four-pound smallmouth after a night in the upper 40's, the water chilly on my calves. That day, water level was low, water clear the way I like it. The first part of this summer saw lots of rain, and in the news, climate change suggests we can expect rainy summers in New Jersey. I dreaded results for my river smallmouth fishing. But then at least this summer the rain stopped and things dried up. At present, the North Branch Raritan running through the town of my residence is barely flowing, but the South Branch roars on through with somewhat stained clarity. Last week, I watched as dry rocks became submerged before my eyes, yet it hadn't rained in days. They must be releasing a lot of water from Spruce Run Reservoir.

Today I had only 20 minutes to fish for a break in my travels. I missed hits from three or four bass, and besides one of them that would have qualified as an average stream bass, I think these were very small fish trying to force my five-inch Senko-type worm into their gullets. I also tried a #9 Rapala, which I do OK with in the fall when forage availability begins to shift especially to baitfish, but got no hits. I noticed a small bass leap for a damselfly, a very summery sight.

That's the fifth time I've fished the South Branch this summer, and the first I've posted on it, besides notice about a parking area where we're no longer allowed access. That day I didn't fish. I've caught some small bass, but not in numbers. I fished the North Branch only once for smallmouths this year and caught a small one on a short stint. Mostly, I've been disappointed at South Branch stream levels too high for the sort of quiet fishing when a plastic worm is highly visible to bass and more in my control. I'm more interested in the South Branch, as if the easy familiarity with the river running through town has made me averse to fishing it. My wife and I hike along the North Branch virtually every weekend. Nevertheless, despite high levels, each time I've visited the South Branch, it's rewarded me with pleasant release from daily pressures, and I believe I'll return at least one more time this September before the trout crowds respond to the fall stocking.

Culvert Attracts Bass after Rain

Stint at my neighborhood bass pond. You can see in the photograph the phosphate line extending from the culvert. We had some rain earlier, not enough to muddy water pretty turbid to begin with, but certainly to have put a scent trail out leading to the wash. Not that bass are privy to pollution. I guess other scents are more interesting to them.

I sailed a cast towards the concrete barrier and the worm struck down right on target, about two inches from the edge. The Strike King Senko-type descended perhaps a couple of feet, and I felt the tick, tightened the line, which visibly moved to the left into the center of the pool, and set the hook into a nice bass. It would have tipped the scale at over two pounds.

I cast to the culvert again and missed the hit from a small bass. Next I cast along the edge of the bank beyond, and got nothing. I moved further along towards the bunch of vegetation visible on shore in the photograph below and sailed a cast to splash the worm next to floating algae scum. The line jumped to life before the worm could have sunk a foot. I set the hook once the line tightened and a small bass waterskied across the surface to me, a bass between nine and ten inches long, relatively rare in this pond, which has been full of two-pounders for two or three years, although this year the fish population clearly seems to have decreased. 

I'm slightly concerned about the lack of algae mats. They're simply natural in this pond that gets a lot of road runoff, and never have affected negatively the multitudinous bass population. I must have fished 20 minutes.  

Light was lower than this appears compared to the bass photo. I shot the former on a setting w/flash and much faster shutter speed.