iBass360 Spruce Run Reservoir Tournament and Barbeque: Largemouth, Smallmouth, Hybrids

Tried to sleep at 10:00 last night to get up at 4:45, but while I got up on time, I didn't sleep until about 1:00. I hate insomnia, less because I lose sleep, than because the conflicts I fight seem unnecessary, compared to the time wasted and the pain suffered. I take melatonin, helps, but I quit the Ambien generic because of poor effects in the morning.

I caught an 11-inch largemouth shortly after we began. The cove really seemed to offer only two spots among many acres. Where bushes and branches overhang the water--with five-foot depths in front--my weightless Chompers did the trick and impressed Eric, since I had written my first article for iBass360 on the method.

Eric's the brand manager and editor. He loves to write and edit, and puts his enthusiasm into the articles that come his way. Normally, I'm very opposed to an editor's changing my words, besides any obvious errors or by solicitations for improvement I agree on, since what I write--is what I write. If the writer's personality doesn't emerge, the work is not by his hand. What I do for iBass360 is collaborative, and so I looked forward very much to this morning in the boat with Eric. The only stickler I had with my recent piece involves Eric's use of the words about bass believing by instinct--because I'm literal minded and feel it important that I be so. No evidence suggests bass believe anything. And I don't believe animals have instinct; I believe that's a notion we use simply because we don't understand how their brains work as functional wholes, without any instinct in the creatures sort of telling them what to do.

Anyhow, Eric and I had a relaxed, casual time, and as these first meetings go, they never get into the substance of such matters, if only because we want to relax.

I did wonder--in that first cove--what fish kicked up mud. The water only two or three feet deep, I saw those clouds clearly, but these flats were so barren of cover, and wide open without deeper water adjacent, I refused to believe bass responsible. Well, later on, when we all came in for the barbeque, Steve Vullo impressed me. He had nailed a three-pound largemouth on a buzzbait--on just such a flat, apparently. I told Eric later that I think I felt too impatient with the shallows.

I also caught a channel catfish nearly three pounds on the Chompers, about two feet deep where the shoreline dropped off to six or seven feet where Eric positioned the boat. What a fight! I thought for a moment I had hooked a pike, the way it peeled line in a straight line, drag screaming.

Later, I saw hybrids busting herring at the surface. Eric moved us towards the commotion with the electric. I cast a Torpedo. I haven't been hit like that since I fished bluefish with topwaters. I hollered out loud.

Eric hooked one with a lipless crankbait. I switched to a Rat-L-Trap. Soon, as I let the plug descend--fish marked all over about 13 feet down--I felt the grab, set the hook, and fought a real nice one. Judging by other hybrids I've caught, about five pounds. A good, long, hard fight--so, when the hooks pulled as the fish neared the side of Eric's boat, I didn't feel loss.

That's not the story behind my Mann's Little George, my silver-painted teardrop shaped, one ounce lead-bodied lure, which Pat at the Basking Ridge Post Office picked up for me at Cabelas along with five others years ago, my favorite of the batch. I let it descend, felt a tiny tap and refused to set, knowing there was no way to hookset. The lure fell another two feet or so, I felt a whomp, set hard, felt powerful resistance--and the line broke. The same knot which held the previous fish had gone bad.

Eric caught a couple of crappies on the crankbait, and lost two other good-sized hybrids, besides catching his first, a 3 1/2-pounder, about that weight.

This was an iBass360 event, the biggest largemouth caught 4 1/2 pounds, and a 4.3-pound smallmouth even a better fish. We're a group of bass anglers who believe in fishing and health, the redemptive quality of angling and the enjoyment that lasts a lifetime. By all means, join us if you're interested.  http://ibass360.com/

Chester, New Jersey, History, Hacklebarney State Park Hike

Sadie

When my wife and I lived in Chester in one of the apartments above Pegasus Antiques, we used to go hiking in Hacklebarney State Park, down into the Black River Gorge. On a few occasions, I came here myself, hiking the two mile or so round trip with my super-ultra light spinning rod to fish for recently stocked trout. Yesterday we hiked down into the gorge for the first time in about 17 years, taking our son along who is nearly that old now.

We had spent some time in Chester first, visiting our former landlord who still owns the shop. While he told us about the demise of the town--he's the last antique shop, when during the 90's as many as 28 thrived--I picked out a photograph from the 19th century or early 20th of a young chorister to take home. Since my father is Director Emeritus of the American Boychoir, and I sang for 13 years under his and others' direction (Leonard Bernstein included) with Trinity Episcopal Church, Princeton, and other organizations, this little piece of history I found in Ken's shop is a fine keepsake.

Stepping back outside some time later, I caught myself and made sure to go check out the public memorial in front of his shop. A memorial for all American wars graces a black and white film photo I had taken years ago, but can't read what in the picture. Of course. I remembered. But since that time, a new memorial is placed to the left, with a life-sized statue of a soldier, and a black marble plaque honoring Iraq, 2002, included.

"Chester is dead," Ken had said. For me, this is very sad. We lived right in the middle of a thriving shop keepers town, across the street from the Public House restaurant and bar that goes back how long--I should know. I waited tables at historic Larison's Turkey Farm. Weeks after I left, Turkey Central, to my mind in honor of Benjamin Franklin, closed its doors.

The American Boychoir School is in trouble also, funds drying up. The choir invites boy singers from any and all religions--or none--and although my father began life as a Methodist, he converted to Episcopalianism, the high church denomination originating in England when King Henry the 8th separated from Rome, and the tradition with the best sacred choral anthems, the culture of sacred choral and organ music my father leads especially in America. The refinement of anthems and choral/orchestral works like those of George Frederick Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may seem alien to the American mainstream, and yet they are more central to Western Civilization than popular culture ever will be. Western Civilization, however, may be as dead as Chester. Nevertheless, a few of us draw inspiration from great music, and our lives may be happier than the sort of schizophrenia celebrated as cool.

I will never forget performing Ian Hamilton's Epitaph for this World and Time, world premier, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Manhattan, 1970. We poured out the seven vials.

 Trout Brook has wild trout

 Trout Brook

 Hemlock



We Caught a Bunch of Average Smallmouths

Fished a favorite North Jersey stream with my son, and we caught a bunch of average-sized stream smallmouths, nothing big, though I sighted a bass of about three pounds. This time we brought along our black Labrador, Sadie, and instead of tying her to a tree, Matt found a cinder block to lug about as we moved up a long stretch. She enjoyed plenty of swimming, and of course, always does if opportune.

Just a very nice afternoon of getting far away from routines. Besides stopping once for trail mix, we hit a Dairy Queen knock-off, and the vanilla soft ice cream tasted a lot better than I anticipated it would.

Got home about seven. Had left at about one. We did try some new areas of the stream, but they didn't produce. Nevertheless, it's interesting exploring. I brought a map along I never used, nor did I rely on Matt's mobile, and I own no GPS. The back roads, hamlets, towns, hills, and gullies all surprise when new to me, but never present a problem as if I can't find a way back to the familiar.

Hooked a Salmon in New Jersey and Caught Bass

Oliver arrived a little before me and spoke to two guys coming off in a jonboat who caught nothing but sunfish, fishing all day from early morning. We got on the water at about 5:15, fishing from Oliver's double kayak, Oliver insisting on fly fishing while I brought along my 5 1/2-foot St. Croix spinning, as well as a 6 wt. fly rod. I trolled a weighted Clouser minnow for a short while. Then I concentrated on bass fishing, allowing a weightless Chompers worm to slip down among towering weeds as deep as 25 feet.

The results: six bass, the largest 17 inches, others 16, 15, and nine or 10 inches, all quickly released. Oliver caught sunfish on a dry fly, including a couple of them really panfish-sized. One of those actually hit a small streamer. But he hooked something mysterious on the dry fly--bass-sized--though none of us got a sighting other than commotion on top.

Mid-lake, flying ants speckled the surface, and we spotted something pretty big sipping them. Brown trout exist in the lake, very few. The surface must have been 77 degrees, and yet who knows. Would a straggler brown surface to sip a few dozen and dive back down?

Certainly the salmon shoot up from cold depths and crash herring on top. We saw this action long before sunset. Water clear, they see the herring and zero in. Besides, lateral lines can sense those herring better than sight, at least on calm days. At sunset and thereafter, we eased about mid-lake for an opportune moment for Oliver to fly cast a streamer, and for me to heave my heavy Kastmaster a mile.

We saw some crashes. I kept throwing my Kastmaster where a single salmon had surfaced and splashed minutes before, and hooked one. The Kastmaster has a single, large hook more suited for bluefish. I fought one for 10 or 15 seconds before it got off that hook.

Yeah, hooking a salmon in New Jersey makes me feel young again. You look out on the lake from shore--you'll never hook one! But all that space is fair game. The herring cruise and the salmon shoot like silver terror anywhere and everywhere so long as it's deep below, which is a lot of water, but not too much.

Sometimes when they crash on top it really is a sight to see with water splashing around like kids in a pool forcing it in each other's faces.   

Cooper Grist Mill Morris County Park Rendevous

 

Patricia got home at 6:30, would we really have time to get to Long Valley, Schooley's Mountain, and locate the trail to the Electric Brook falls? I've heard it's a mile one-way, although seemingly the walk must be less distance, given what I know about that region. U.S. Highway 206 we soon found flowing well, which it wouldn't have been an hour earlier. But clouds had just moved in, so I switched from WQXR Classical Music to Jersey Radio for weather. Very severe thunderstorms forecasted.

"We can go to Cooper Mill," I said. "Just go to Electric Brook another time."

"Are there trails to hike?"

"Plenty. And in any event, it's worth being by the river for a little while." I really didn't think any auspice existed to set out on a real hike.

One of those trails leads well down the river to Black River Park and the Kay Center, an environmental education outfit. Hacklebarnery State Park is downriver, also. But Cooper Grist Mill Morris County Park felt perfectly enough for a little outing after I wrote all day and took care of some errands, and Trish worked.

In the 1760's, a flour mill existed here owned by Isaiah Younglove until 1788. I think it's cool that names of mill owners stay with us centuries later. What I don't like is the quaint sense of history as if the people who really lived such lives did so as a sort of politically correct song and dance. "Storied." Life used to be a lot like it is today. The present mill--view the photos below--Nathan Cooper built in 1826.

On occasion, park staff run the water wheel, power shafts and gears turning a couple of one-ton mill stones. Here where Milltown once existed, after you see this amazing operation, you can walk across the street and enjoy a meal at Old Mill Tavern. Or a beer. Dozens of craft labels on draft. Highly recommended--it's Trish's favorite restaurant. Since we had Sadie along and would have to keep windows partly down through rain, we passed on it this evening.

We had some time to unwind before hearing thunder. Always memories here. Trish and I lived in Chester five years, and I used to come here and trout fish, doing especially well in the fall. Back then, the state stocked very little trout in the fall, but I always seemed to catch big eight-inchers. 

As we pulled onto 206 South, rain fell.

Meeting Suspending Smallmouth Bass Halfway

Here's an article, an earlier version of which got published in the Knee Deep Club's Around the Lake. Laurie Murphy of Dow's Boat Rental's has reported this week that smallmouth bass fishing in Lake Hopatcong is good.

Meeting Suspending Smallmouth Bass Halfway

By Bruce Litton

          My son, Matt, and I have for years live-lined herring on early July mornings for walleye and hybrids on the lake. Four years ago, under a July cold front so severe that we never took jackets off, leaving the lake early in the afternoon, we came up with smallmouth bass over three pounds. They hung close to rocks 20 feet deep, down to about 26, apparently suspending over the deepest rocks of the drop-off.

          Early in the summer, the lake’s oxygen is depleting, not to the degree it will by August, but the depths at which fish can survive become much shallower. By August, none survive any deeper than about 16 feet.

          Deeply impressed later on with the bass’s response that chilly July day with cloudless skies, during the first couple of hours fishing we got no hits; my son couldn’t even get sunfish to tap his live nightcrawlers. I felt afraid we would be skunked for the first time on the lake, and seriously didn’t want this to happen. I had almost given up hope, when after three hours Matt hooked the first smallmouth on a herring. When the outing completed, I knew we would try meeting smallmouths half-way again by allowing herring free reign. Each summer since, we scored smallmouths better than three pounds. Matt’s was the largest at an ounce or two over three-and-a-half pounds.

          Can they be caught on crankbaits or even by stripping streamers on a fly rod and sinking line? I suppose so. I wouldn’t want to use tube jigs, since my assumption is that the bass tend to suspend off bottom. You could try swimming jigs, but that’s a lot of guesswork as to where the bass lurk in the water column, and where in the column the jig swims. I would never say it can’t work, but I enjoy live herring fishing instead.

          Live-lining isn’t really letting the herring do all the work. While the bait swims freely on a size 6 plain shank hook through its nostrils, keep an interested awareness in the situation, even if you cast a Senko while two herring lines per man stay busy.

          I could cast a crankbait instead, but I don’t because I find these plugs noisy and in general less than subtle. As I wait, I fish a Senko among rocks a little shallower than I place herring and catch a largemouth or pickerel perhaps, or I succumb to my son’s nightcrawlers. Crankbaits can produce reaction strikes under bluebird cold front skies. Nevertheless, it’s in the way I imagine smallmouth bass suspended, somewhat in exile from their rocky homeland and surviving in water temperatures higher than optimal that makes me think they’re less interested in aggressively attacking a lure than pouncing on a herring met one to one.

          The lake has many rocky drop-offs and our bass have come from several. I typically anchor in 20 to 25 feet of water, but whatever is necessary to place herring so they swim among or over rocks 20 to 30 feet deep is sufficient. Single prong hooks hang up around the very active herrings’ heads, which is why trebles slightly advantage, but our interest is the bass’s survival if gut hooked. This is a shallower orientation than that for walleye or hybrids suspended over greater depths, although range may crossover. We’ve found hybrids well out in the main lake away from a drop-off during summer, and this I wouldn’t expect of smallmouths, less inclined to rove free of structure. If smallmouths suspend, they remain close to their native rocks.

          Rather than race about the lake, attempting to fish every one of the drop-offs or even a quarter of them, it may be best to settle down at one or two spots on a given outing. This hasn’t been especially fast action for us, unless you include the palm-sized sunfish and pugnacious perch caught on nightcrawlers. The panfish fun, bass trump them all.

          Summer live-lining is usually a different kind of fishing than the quickly successive pick-ups we have enjoyed fishing October hybrids. It’s a way of subtly locating good-sized smallmouths with hopes of hooking a really big one. Smallmouths surely reach five pounds in the lake. Imagine. Slow down and let your anticipations lengthen, rather than be busied by a lot of hard cranking.         

          Light tackle is all that’s necessary. Matt caught the biggest on an ultra-light. With our medium power rods, we use six-pound test and there’s never been a problem with losing fish to obstructions.

          Summer live-lining is hook and line, no sinker. My preference is not to set the drag light, but keep the bails open, two rods per man, and involve myself by keeping an alert eye. The moment you see line moving, tighten up and set the hook. So far, we have gut-hooked only one bass. The idea is to hook the fish in the mouth. This way we feel more assured of a bass’s survival after release.    



Delaware Canal Hike Reigelsville, PA & NJ, Reigelsville Inn Dinner

A 1908 Roebling Bridge connects Reigelsville, NJ, with Reigelsville, PA, two very different yet historical towns.

Next time I go online for a Highlands destination, I really should be more careful about directions and make sure I know where I'm headed. We meant to hike trails through Musconetcong River Gorge. It's not that I couldn't have found the park. For the first mile or so of the hike we chose instead, I felt guilty for the failure. But really, I had to get over that, because traveling with Patricia, no way in any good faith existed to go wild driving up and down to find the place. As much as I did wander, edging upon borderline craziness, I considered the peace of mind she wanted with time off from work.

I have never used a GPS and plan on never bothering with any. 

Finally, I just got on Warren Glen Road and headed west, right along the Musconetcong for some of the distance. When I pulled aside for us to view a factory--forget company name--with the river coursing right alongside, smoke stack and all, I wanted to photograph, but didn't dare today. We drove down from Bloomsbury through Pohatcong Township, Finesville, and down into Reigelsville: small, charming towns with a laid back feeling compared to the Somerset County region we come from. We crossed into Warren County from Hunterdon just beyond Bloomsbury, I believe. All those 10 or 12 miles between Bloomsbury and Reigelsville, we never came upon a gas station. Warren Glen Road is County Road six hundred and something or other, I forget, but a fairly substantial highway with reduced speed limits inside developed areas that mostly seem to date back to the early 20th century.

I've driven along most of the NJ length of the Delaware above Bordentown, but this was the first I've been here. From the second Roebling Bridge we've now crossed spanning the Delaware--the other just north of Barryville, NY--I think I sighted the favorite night striper fishing spot of my son and I going back six and seven years ago. Reigelsville, NJ, is a dusty spot, but once we walked into PA, we felt astonished to see a fine restaurant. Reigelsville Inn.

"Go check out the menu," Patricia said.

Looked interesting. First, we hiked about three miles total on the Delaware Canal towpath. A guilty trek, owing to where I had wanted to go, became a very pleasant stroll, my upper back not giving the usual pain despite the heavy camera bag. We even saw a bass leap for a damselfly. And the fat toad that crossed our path is a perennial encounter that never ceases to please. Lots of good talk northward and back.

And then the meal. I felt very amused to find striped bass and skate wings offered back to back. We used to surf fish stripers, and catching skates instead marked the bane of our ventures. I tried skate once and did not like it. I wanted escargot for a shared starter, but let this go for the oysters Patricia preferred. Instead of a crab cake dinner, I had a huge venison burger complete with house salad, since crab cakes of all sorts of varieties serve as a fairly common menu item, not venison. Haven't had venison since early 1994 after butchering a deer the previous fall. Trish had a big veggie meal with rare mushrooms I tried and they tasted great.

Reigelsville Inn dates to 1838 when it served as a hotel for canal masters of whatever more specific description--the guys in charge of the mule barges.

"Must have been a flop house," Patricia said.

Whatever it was, the trade route went from Allentown-Bethlehem to Philadelphia, although the Delaware Canal does not fill the entire mileage, but runs south to wherever it emptied into the Delaware where boats could continue south without shallow rapids in the way.

The Inn today is an amazing place. We chose to eat outside on the patio by the canal, but got a good look around inside. Great original art adorns all the walls, really giving the place character. The second floor offers tables. A live jazz band jammed as evening fell. I give this place a great thumbs up and I'm glad we happened on it. 

 Preserved Canal Lock

 Part of the extensive outdoor patio by the canal at Reigelsville Inn, where we ate.