Ocracoke Inlet Bluefish Trolling and Flounder Drifting

Captain Ryan O'Neal of Tarheel Charters told us we might encounter some red drum between 20 and 60 pounds, this news coming just after my son had done a little online research, discovering for himself that citation reds of over 40 inches inhabit shoals out in Pamlico Sound all summer. I knew about the likes, but without a boat, there's no use.

It would take a lot of time, too, though there's nothing else quite enjoyable as is learning new water. So the news from Ryan made it all seem a lot easier, even if we ran into none today. He's been sighting dark patches in the clear water and positioning his 25-foot Carolina Skiff close enough to cast large bucktails to the edges of schools of drum he estimates number between 500 and 1000 fish. They're outside the inlet mouth and today seemed auspicious with barely a breeze and very calm water, though no reds materialized.

We found a school of bluefish with some Spanish mackerel mixed in, having trolled from inside the inlet and on out. It took awhile. We saw no birds after baitfish anywhere. Once all three rods hooked up at once, and it was pretty easy to circle back and hook up again, although a few times it took us awhile to find that school which must have been pretty small. We caught more than a dozen-and-a-half blues and a small Spanish mackerel on Clark spoons, and then we settled into drifting for flounder.

I liked the depth. We drifted, as tide fell, not far from South Point, and three-ounce dipsey sinkers took forever to touchdown on bottom. Ryan read 32 feet deep on the graph. Flounder carpeted the bottom, but you never know--a cobia is possible even this time of year and deep water holds them. Back in 2010 I caught a seven-pounder in August. That's a very small cobia, and yet a good fish nevertheless. Ryan has guided clients who have hooked up with 40-pounders, and not only until early July when they generally vacate the premises.

We caught flounders steadily, and when we finished our drifts well out to sea, though still drifting past buoys, had some action with blacktip sharks of about 20 inches, sighting one that might have been 28 inches, hoping to get a look at a big one, or for a big one to devour one of the little flounders we reeled in.

The biggest flounder measured 17 1/2 inches, and more than a half dozen others met and exceeded 15-inch keeper size. These are the same species as the fluke of New Jersey, only they don't grow as large here.

Matt's barely legal Spanish mackerel. Notice the gold spots like doubloons. 

Had I hooked up with a cobia, I would have shot straight up, but as the fishing unfolded, felt comfortable reeling in the flounder with ease.

Patricia is almost finished Night Circus by Erin Morganstern

Caught the biggest lizard fish I've ever seen, like a small pickerel.



Lots of keeper flounder and tailor and a few cocktail blues.

Flounder double-header for Matt, which Ryan unhooks.

Bass Hitting just as Dark Sets in

My son and I got up to a favorite North Jersey pond yesterday evening, enjoying the southerly breeze, and as proved to be the case, waiting for the cover of dusk to stimulate a little bass action. It's been hot. Bass have some cover under thick algae, which isn't all that extensive, but before darkness gathered, I began to wonder if a lot of the fish hid under it.

I retrieved the worm over the top, which elsewhere has resulted in the mess exploding. Fished hard. Kept casting. First, I had caught a little eight-incher and another about 13 inches I judged too small to photograph, along the opposite shore in shadow. All of the action on the Chompers worm, weightless of course. I can't get enough of fishing this way. It just gets better and better. I think an angler could fish nothing else over the course of an entire lifetime, and still have room to improve.

I did get to thinking, with light vanishing, that a topwater might work. First Matt caught his little bass on a Chompers, and then I pulled my worm to the surface, where it sort of catches that tense film and even floats with the light wire, size 2 hook. I do use 15-pound test Power Pro and 15-pound test fluorocarbon tied directly to the braid by a uni-to-uni splice. With some cover protecting big bass, it's best.

And just when the fishing seemed dead despite so much life in the air, a big bass just slurped the worm right off the surface. Right away I gave the fish slack, then tightened up and set hard--popping the fluorocarbon at the knot. I felt the weight, a really good bass. Enough weight that it didn't budge at all.

I cast to a bush overhanging the shore edge. Nothing. So I continued fishing along this shore...and returned a cast to that same edge of bush five minutes later. I felt the tick, tightened, set..."Here we go, Matt."

Nice bass, not as big as we usually get them.

Some of us will remember the little green red ear turtles sold in pet shops during the 1960's and 70's. Red eared slider. They grow a lot bigger than this Matt plucked from atop a rock, which took some stealthy skill, but this one's a giant compared to those little pets.

Crappies Hitting at Lake Hopatcong, Nice Walleye, Pickerel

Summer walleye happen at Hopatcong. And look at that blue, sunny sky, when walleye are not supposed to hit at all. All depends on who's supposing.

 

Noel got up to Lake Hopatcong yesterday with a friend and caught 44 fish, his buddy 54. Jigs caught mostly crappie, which is good news, since earlier in the summer, catches numbered nearly the same, but on one occasion, only one crappie figured in. Now schooled, crappie can be like picking cotton from a field that never gets snowed on, whatever that means...have no doubt it means something or other. 

 

A 24-inch pickerel and three pound, two ounce walleye amounted to the top fish in yesterday's heat and sunshine.

 

Or do you admire crappie more? Certainly, a one-pound, 14-ounce crappie is a great fish. Top of the slabs.

 

All this when just yesterday I reminisced about summer Lake Hopatcong outings with my son. Does not feel right we haven't got to the lake this summer.

 

 



Where are the River Smallmouths?

Got back out on the North Branch Raritan this evening, since a useless dolly wheel made our inflatable boat trip impossible. This stretch gets nice and deep near the bridge. Why a lot of smallmouth bass are not present concerns me, unless they're far back under the bridge and not hitting. The river is low, not especially clear--sometimes in the fall it's clear as a bell. Right now it seems perfect for summer smallmouths, of which not one took my Chompers. And I worked my way upstream to check shallows near riffles, since at least average stream bass sometimes inhabit as little as a foot of water.

I guess I could take my fly rod further upstream where riffles run pretty deep. Some years back I caught some on stone fly nymphs. Better yet, downstream below the Lamington River confluence. As great as the spot I fished this evening is structurally, we've never done well here for bass, though we've caught some. Matt spotted a 19-incher here recently while walking the dog, so naturally that's why I've taken some interest this summer.

In any event, wow, I remember the old days on Stony Brook during my teens. Double figure smallmouth catches proved the norm. Fishing felt as wild as the Midwest before settlers arrived. Well, how would I know? But the Brook had smallmouths galore. And in recent years, nearly none. Since the 70's legal size is raised to 12 inches. Back then, few fished the bass. Now and in the past decade, about no one does.

Round Valley Reservoir Crappie & other Unusual Catches

Recently caught while fishing with Fred, the first crappie we've seen from Round Valley, on a twister tail jig about 20 feet down among rocks. I posted about it on New Jersey Fishing.com, and others said the same, years fishing there, no crappie, was I sure not a rock bass?

I heard of a big walleye caught in Round Valley Reservoir, years ago. Obviously, if so, someone tossed it in. I've only caught one little pickerel, but I saw a photo of a pickerel over six pounds caught in the reservoir. Mike, who I trout fish with during winter, witnessed a brace of five-pound pickerel caught through Round Valley Reservoir ice, 2010, I believe it was.

And besides the trout records, the record smallmouth bass--the state record eel got caught here, over six pounds. Now how do eels get in the reservoir? Do they get pumped in from the South Branch? Fred has seen many big eels at night in flashlight beams.

Smallmouth, Largemouth Bass Small on the North Branch Raritan

Four years ago in late September and early October, twice I parked at Stahl Natural Area on River Road, Bedminster, less than a mile from home, to walk trails back to the river and fish smallmouth bass. Very memorable occasions I posted about, I had thought someday I might pick up where I left off, venturing further downstream. This evening, I found an easy trail leading to the river; thereafter I bushwhacked, stepping aside of stinging nettle, avoiding briars, being careful to step over holes and gullies, making sure not to step into mud up to my knees or worse, but walking at strong, steady pace.

I found a couple of stretches with some water as deep as three feet surprisingly unproductive, since undercut banks typically hold bass. I managed to catch one little largemouth on a four-inch Senko-style worm. Having worked my way down further than I later thought I had, later to find the walk back to my car fairly long, I found the dam photographed.

This hole has nice depth. It should have been full of bass, the kind of spot with fresh oxygen where I'd expect at least one 12-incher, if not a good two-pound bass. I caught three, one of them so small the hookup seemed accidental, the other two not even average-sized, one of them another largemouth.

Took some effort to get around brush and barely skirt a sort of gully with stagnant water, and so I got further downstream as dusk set in, missing hits from more small bass, encountering nothing we feel is respectable.

The effort felt good as I struggled to find such a bass at the end. Then the woods accepted me back, alone in gathering darkness, aware of myself as aging, the walk hard, my heavy camera bag and tackle tote causing that all too familiar pain in my upper back. I tried to remember how I know it used to be. Walks like this were easy and full of the bounce of willing energy. I thought of my hiking some 150 miles of the Appalachian Trail during the spring of 1984, and that I can no longer do the likes.

But the sort of effort I enjoyed this evening I will continue to make myself do. It's less pain than an odd feeling of being out of sorts that felt uncomfortable, and yet my last fishing outing at the pond with smallmouth bass didn't feel this way at all. I exerted myself climbing those steep banks, but never felt oddly out of place, energized instead.

So I just chalk it up to a peculiar evening, sure that more outings will return energy rather than take it, well into my 60's and possibly beyond. Besides, I got home and went to my study, and sure enough, I felt the usual replenishment of spiritedness, rather than any loss.

Lake Hopatcong Report & Knee Deep Catfish Contest Soon



Laurie Murphy reports from Dows Boat Rentals that a lot of smallmouths 1 1/2-two pounds recently have been caught from Lake Hopatcong, including a three-pound, four-ounce bronzeback weighed in at the shop.

Here it is August, and this past week walleye and hybrid stripers still got caught on surface plugs after midnight. Maybe this is a new trend. The weather's been plenty hot, so maybe these fish have been vulnerable at night all along, I don't know. An eight-pound, four-ounce walleye got weighed in, though most--in the three to five pound range--get released.

Laurie also reports panfish on small jigs and pickerel with live baitfish or spinners along the weedlines. Don't discount pickerel if you can help it; at least, this is my advice. They're a fierce gamefish worthy of respect and Hopatcong is legendary for them.

Knee Deep Club's Catfish Contest will be held August 15th beginning at 6 a.m., ending Sunday, August 16th at noon. Anyone who wants to fish in the many contests is welcome; membership is not expensive. If you have no boat, you can rent, so long as you procure a boater safety certificate.