Capoolong Creek Photo Shoot

Came to Pittstown to photograph the Capoolong Creek, bringing my two-weight fly rod and vest just in case, and even my St. Croix with a spinnerbait for any bass pond encountered, if time. I did find a public pond so small I didn't feel motivated to fish.

As the morning before work unfolded, I just managed to do photo sessions in two places along the creek, the second requiring waders. Experimenting with both manual aperture and shutter settings together, I found out that it's easier to overexpose a shot than get the right balance. Once you do that, it's really no use in Lightroom. These shots featured I did in Aperture Priority, an easier setting.

At the second area of the stream I came to, someone trout fished and caught one as I passed him by again to go suit up in waders. Got my tripod, too, as I like to shoot at slow shutter speeds and narrow apertures both for allowing moving water surface to blur, giving that flow appearance, and better depth of field. Increased depth of field means the range of focus extends further into the picture so that objects at a distance get captured crisply. Even with today's overcast, at about noontime, necessary shutter speed at f22 closed at a quarter second, and that's too quick to create the effects I hoped for.

Always feels good to be out there, once I do something practical that involves bodily intelligence. Birdsong invited my musical sense, as if a reminder less of the environment's need of our respect, than my need to spend time in nature.

I got to work on time.

Small River Smallmouth Bass Trophy Quest

Small River Smallmouths Can Rattle Your Thumb

Trophy Quest

          They’ll shake your hand loose from the rod handle if you don’t hold on. If you haven’t tried little rivers some anglers drive over while trailering their boats, you may be amazed at the size of the big bass, clapping their gills to celebrate leaps. Rare enough to dream about more than attain, lunkers don’t symbolize an impossible Holy Grail, not if you care to catch one and do the footwork. In between the lordly females and the little bass eager to slam soft plastic offerings, good-size bronzebacks anywhere from a pound-and-a-half to three pounds can represent milestones along the way.

          A river is like a living example of philosophy. All it asks is appreciation for what offered, perhaps not bass as big as lurking in the depths of a favorite reservoir, yet unmistakably, stream bass fit an environment of boulders and eddies, fast water leading into slow stretches and 10-foot holes.  Smallmouths should be released to remain wild. I caught one over four pounds in a stream I can cast clear across at a 45-degree angle by a flick of the wrist, and I’m convinced bigger exist, because my son spotted one. Besides, he caught another bass almost as large as mine on the same afternoon.

          Stories take some time to grow into as your own. If you want to catch big stream smallmouths, you should get acquainted not only with one river, but a number of them in your region. Less find certain spots, than learn how to catch the feeling of where flow leads. Become familiar with rivers, easier then to locate fish not because you know where to look, but because your senses attune to the rivers’ lead.

         Go with basics. Soft plastics known as the popular lure for stream bass, this shows for good reason. Floater/divers such as Rapalas and Rebels will catch some fish, but I never use these hard-bodied plugs from late May until September, because I’ve given them a try and have found them more effective from mid-September through October when bass’s diets shift from an opportunistic summer smorgasbord to soft-rayed forage fish. And in-line spinners shimmer more than produce during the summer months when most of the stream smallmouth fishing happens. Second to soft plastics, streamer flies and nymph patterns prove very productive with a fly rod.

          Tube plastics without lead jigheads to get caught between rock crevices—just a size 1 plain shank hook—can catch bass sun-up to sunset. Mid-afternoons on hot days come alive with average steam bass. To catch a mid-day lunker may require stimulating weather, since these old-timers choose movements selectively, making appearances early and late, but bass of a half-pound to a pound or more, fiercely pugnacious, don’t shy of conditions that largemouths in lakes and ponds respond to a lot slower.

          Before the invention of tubes, my favorite three-inch Mr. Twisters caught scores. The trick? To position a size 2 plain shank hook just right so the lure rode straight on steady retrieve. Naturally, light-power spinning rods accompanied, six-pound test monofilament limp and lean. In recent years, my favoritism shifted to Senko-type worms, and rather than cast the smaller three or four-inch selections, I go with full-sized five-inch worms that cast a mile. Even small bass strike eagerly.

          Especially with low water during drought conditions, long casts from a lure make important marks. Slow stretches hold bass shooting 20 feet to grab a worm, but if you get too close before the presentation sails in to alert fish first, they’ll dash in the opposite direction.

          Preferring slow stretches to the many other stream features, some favorites are no more than four feet deep and productive in two to three-foot rocky ranges of flat shale, under which bass stalk if not actively on the prowl. Don’t get stuck on sight fishing. Cast among rocks and bass dart out, take the plastic and dash back for cover. Give the fish no more than a few seconds before hook setting. Don’t gut-hook and complicate release. Deep holes may hold the largest bass, but not always. The biggest my son caught came from a pocket between rocks and riffles about three feet deep, this spot’s diameter not larger than a car hood.

          This bass’s residence? Evidence from many sources, including the snorkeling of my son and me, suggests that stream bass migrate between various spots on a small river or stream. We swam several holes repeatedly, which held many bass one day, none the next. This doesn’t prove anything but stands as some evidence. A particular lair may have more value to an angler’s sentiment than catch rate, although certain places on a river tend to be better than others. We have favorites, but don’t let complacency undercut faith in the big picture.         

iBass360 Spruce Run Reservoir Outing

Smallmouth bass spawn when temperatures in the shallows reach and sustain a temperature of about 59 degrees. This morning, I arrived at Spruce Run Reservoir at 6:15 to find Eric Evans had got there just ahead of me, other iBass360 members already launched, some coming in after us. A chilly morning, I really should have worn my winter jacket, because for the first few hours with a slight breeze, I felt pretty miserable. And the water registered 57 degrees. Here it is May as I write this, and Spruce Run is a fairly turbid reservoir, which means it warms quickly, especially since it's not especially deep as is Round Valley.

As we scooted off, I felt interest pique as Eric asked where I thought we should try, because I felt sure of a spot we had discovered last summer, lots of rock, deep water nearby, and an extensive flat with rock and gravel bottom where surely smallmouths will spawn or have so, as water temperature is said to have fallen. I thought little of largemouths all week before this event. The foregone conclusion just sort of sat in my stomach that we would encounter smallmouths. And my hunch did not involve the flat itself little, but the slope just to the side and in front of it.

We approached by fishing an entire length of shoreline down to the flat for not a hit. I felt lost out there. Any of you who follow this blog know I haven't fished much this year, and until I caught a smallmouth--on that flat itself--a couple of times I thought of my older mentor back from during my teens, an outdoorsman who is wholly just that and principled as the most conservative individual I've ever known. I wondered about myself, all I espouse in writing, sitting there out-of-sorts while I tried to fish with sincerity, and it seemed as if this man would never be the way I plied the water out-of-touch with my own practice.

Eric fished what to me seemed an awfully heavy jig for shallow water, a quarter ounce. I noticed he fished it really slow, right on bottom of course, and a minute later the Keitech lured a nice smallmouth he lost boat side. Now his approach made sense, but I persisted with my weightless worm, though I had tried half-a-dozen other lures. The ways to catch bass limitless, often someone else's method seems odd until you catch a glimmer of the beauty.

In 10 more minutes' time, Eric boated two smallmouths of 14 or 15 inches, and all of this action, including the bass he lost, happened right where I suggested we go. He lost yet another smallmouth that sort of sluggishly leapt off. And before we abandoned Valhalla for an early lunch with the rest of the team, he caught a largemouth of about two pounds the same way up on the flat in about three feet of water.

We beached the boat just after Eric asked would I like to fish more after lunch. Yes. And that's when I came fully back to myself, the weather having moderated, for one thing, my clothing more suitable, unpreparedness a mistake you should never make.

I caught nothing more and we tried a lot of new spots that looked promising; some fish marked on the graph, too. Just about all of the dozen-and-a-half of us fishing had caught bass, the largest five-and-a-half pounds, a largemouth, another over four pounds, some smallmouths and largemouths near three pounds. And another boat of two not in the club we had first met back at the flat had caught 17 between the two of them.

Spruce Run is a vibrant fishery, but man, it does get pounded.

Before we quit at 3:00, Eric motored us back to the flat and that sloping edge, to catch one more largemouth of about two pounds the same way, with the same Keitech, up on the flat. I fished a heavy jig and Keitech some, too. But during this last half hour, I felt determined to hook a bass on a Storm Hot-N-Tot, a crankbait I've done well with on the Delaware. I didn't burn the lure; I kept retrieves moderate and switched them up with pauses and tics, trying to make manufactured plastic come alive.

Nice Rainbow Trout Fly Fishing New Jersey

Fly fished as the sun nearly set, hoping for a hatch of some sort with the mild weather, a little disappointed that a slight breeze came up, and yet something of about size 18 or 20 flitted near the surface, off-white color suggesting small mayflies of some sort, but no trout rose, so I stuck to a Zug Bug and other beadheads.

I found my casting in great shape with size 16, but when I tried a size 6 Woolly Bugger, I soon began to wonder what had happened to my surge of confidence catching steelhead on the Salmon River last November. Well, wading out in the much larger casting arena of that river affords more control, if closer accuracy just wasn't a need anyway. Tonight I also worked very hard at trying to control drifts, finding that mending the fly line, for just one issue, is something I don't only need to practice more, but pick up a good book and read about. I would pass on the online videos before resorting to the local library, but may instead consult both.

I missed a strike, the trout flickering beneath the surface of the seam (in the upper right of the photo) like lightning, the line jerking forward for a second and halting before my reaction lifted it off the surface. Not too much later, I hooked a trout by dead drifting the Zug Bug through the main thrust of current. The fish leapt thrice, two to three feet high, and I felt I handled the fish well, a rainbow caught of over two pounds.

Persistently, I worked at that drift, fishing close to the seam on my side of the flow and the other, although getting any sort of controllable drift trying to work across the current seemed pretty futile. More to read about. And that didn't deter me from continuing to try.

Fishing the main current, I missed more hits than made me comfortable and finally decided to move upstream to the next pool. My first cast laid out nicely on the flat surface of the tailout, lightning striking again almost immediately, and I missed the fish. I cast again, got hung up by an overhang a more experienced fly caster would have noticed, snapped the nymph off, and then tried to tie on a parachute ant, finding that I had misplaced my collection of parachute Adams. (Nothing rose, but that flat water looked nice for a slow-drifting buggy piece of hair.) I put on my reading glasses in the gathering gloom and still couldn't get the 4X tippet end through the tie loop. Is 4X too thick for a size 16? Seems unlikely, but it's another problem to figure out.

So back to the Zug Bug, a nice size 10 or 12, and the first cast to the tailout resulted in a slam, a trout running zigzag, leaping.....off. Nice fish, over a pound-a-half. I cast again, hooked up, and caught a rainbow of about the same size before I fished the rest of the pool and I guess dusk had settled too deeply.    

Marble Mountain Ice Cave Warren County New Jersey

The Marble Mountain Ice Cave occupied my mind since this time last year, and I planed on hiking with my wife two weeks ago, diverted by necessities otherwise. The weather then cold and windy anyway, yesterday turned out to be a much better day. While walking our black Lab Sadie during a recent night, I realized we could take a roundabout way towards the Phillipsburg area by CR 512 from Bedminster, through Califon, and to the Ken Lockwood Gorge, thus giving me the opportunity to take some needed river photos with spring growth fairly minimal as yet, and also to show my wife where I want to teach her some fly fishing.

I thought we would just hang out near the trailhead accessible by Hoffman's Crossing Road, but once Patricia saw the opportunity, she wanted to walk back in, so we walked at least a half mile here altogether. Just a few of the photos I shot I've posted.

We accessed Interstate 78 by State Highway 31 and eventually rode onto CR 621, exiting U.S. 22 in Phillipsburg, the trail access parking coming into view quickly after about a mile. Marble Mountain in Warren County is a ridge flanking the Delaware River, the likes of which characterize the terrain all the way down to Lambertville and below. The trail gradient is pretty modest, but after hiking about a mile when we met with the orange trail to take us aside to the Ice Cave, we had ascended at least 300 vertical feet.

The Ice Cave is no natural cave, but the abandoned Fulmer Mine, active during the 19th century when tons of rich iron ore extracted remains something of a mystery, since no paper trail left behind for future historians tracks where it went to market. The New Jersey Highlands pocked here and there by such mines, most of the forest vanished into smelting furnaces, a massive project overall which included some copper and graphite mining among other minerals as well. How they hauled rock down off such ridges and mountains, I wonder.

Rather than turn around after our hike, I drove northward on CR 621 following railroad tracks and the river to the first right turn, a distance of five miles, perhaps. Eventually, we connected with CR 519, a road familiar to me. No GPS in my car, I hope this device never comes standard with any vehicle we buy. I like to use my sense of direction, not relying on maps, either. The county road I first became familiar with during the 1970's as a conduit between Hunterdon County's Locatong and Wickecheoke creeks, where we trout fished, 519 would have taken us back into Alpha next to Phillipsburg, so I turned left onto State Highway 57 and soon made a right onto CR 625, which took us through Stewartsville.

We enjoyed a nice view of Pohatcong Creek before getting onto Interstate 78.

Ice Cave information set in front of a big fire pit.

Lake Hopatcong Trolling Knee Deep Club Trout Contest

Brian and I trolled for about 8 1/2 hours, hoping to catch trout, water registering 49 degrees before sunup and warming to 53 on the main lake as the day progressed. I spoke to a guy in a bassboat on the way out, having spotted him fishing a very shallow pond-like enclosure with a channel leading in, visible right by the road. He spoke of 62-degree water there, and 56 on the lake from about Brady Bridge eastward. Catching a number of small bass in the pond, and a four, four-and-a-half and six-pounder by docks on a jig, he'd had a good day.

The best news is of the Knee Deep Club turnout. Ninety two registered in the trout contest, if I got the number right, and more than 70 in the pickerel derby. Top payout is more than $700.00. But although some nice pickerel over three pounds got caught--I think the largest weighed three pounds, 11 ounces--for some odd reason or other by 2:00 p.m. only seven trout got weighed in at Dow's Boat Rentals; the largest I think was one pound, 11 ounces.

Abundant sunshine, very little of a breeze, might have driven trout into the depths, but Brian and I made the lake crossing in the dark with portable running lights, hoping to pick some off towards the back of the lake. Before sunup, I did catch my only fish, a crappie of about 10 inches that hit a trolled tiny Rapala Countdown.

And troll, we did. The only way we fished and with great persistence, both of us becoming more familiar with lake structure, involved Brian's first time on Hopatcong. I nevertheless learned of some spots that knocked on the door of my fishy sensibility, which sort of lays back in the depths of my mind to come out when things get real interesting. That's a big lake, and though next year marks 10 years of coming to Dow's and renting boats for me, there's still a lot I haven't seen. And lots of memories all over the lake besides, which felt nice awakening as we passed places where either myself or boat partners have caught fish--or lost nice ones.

Hits happened plenty. Bumps, mostly, but some rod benders, fish that got off. There's a reason to make sure hooks on the Phoebe spoons or small plugs used are sticky sharp. Each of us kept one rod in action by placing it under a leg, and though the boat certainly moves along, you really can't set into a fish that way. Otherwise, the handheld rods gave us no such excuse, but the fish just didn't want to slam the lures. I did manage to hold a fish for a little while considerably than the crappie I caught. Who knows, maybe I blew $700.00, but my guess was another crappie, since Brian had just caught one. But whatever the fish, it hit a Phoebe, a lure known to especially attract trout. I kept one of those in the water all day.

They hit too light, except for Brian's big crappie, or fairly good size. That one slammed a #9 Rapala, and he thought he had a trout. And he caught a largemouth of 10 or 11 inches also on a Rapala Floater, which made me think if a largemouth will strike in this cold water, why not a trout? Go figure.

Conversation about fishing ranged all over our region of New Jersey south to Mercer County, since Brian is very well experienced. I guess what got us talking non-stop for at least an hour-and-a-half was his mention of Princeton Day School Ponds. When I heard him say it, it seemed out of a dream.

"Did you say Princeton Day School Ponds?"

Way back, the 1970's, I knew Doug McClure, who sang in one of the choirs my father directed at Trinity Church Princeton. The Headmaster gave me unlimited permission to come and fish anytime. I sure did. The seven ponds in total served as my favorite place to go for years.

Princeton Day School sold off the land for housing development, but the ponds remain, and to be reminded seemed to be the impetus to talk nonstop about places all over.


 

River Bluefish on Topwater Plugs: Inshore Run

Cocktail Explosions: Topwater Plugs for River Blues

In the Mako skiff, we headed down Manasquan River to a combination of two types of flats. My brother, Rick, and my nephew, Kyle, had been catching upwards of 100 cocktail blues in two-and-a-half-hour outings. The water reflected sun like a mirror, just right for topwaters in the three to 10 foot depths with tide in motion. We located the spot upriver, the water much warmer than the ocean in early June whether tide comes in or goes out, and Rick cut the engine to let the boat drift. Into the blues from our first casts, between the four of us we caught well over a hundred in little over two hours, missing four or five times as many hits. The cocktails typically knock the plugs into the air rather than get hooked. It’s all a blast of fun.

Blues from one to four pounds invade the inlets up and down the New Jersey coast early in May and stay well into June. It may be tricky to find a specific area these fish inhabit year after year, but once you know where to go, chances are you can rely on them later. In the Manasquan River, Rick fishes flats that range from three to 10 feet deep holding a great presence of cider worms. Blues fill their gullets eating these two-inch worms that seem to be the key to attracting schools of cocktails with some four-pound fish occasionally showing. But the combination of very shallow flats of three to five feet with deeper water of eight to 10 feet seems important.

Cider worms seem to flourish especially in these shallower areas and some get swept into the depths with other forage by tidal currents. The deeper waters serve as more suitable holding areas for the hundreds of blues, but these fish will raid the shallow flats on a moving tide. Another consideration involves a shallow flat as a different environment than a deeper flat, so one in combination with the other nearby implies a relationship. Whatever it is about the two together, besides cider worms, bluefish may be abundant.

Avoid fishing the bottom or the top of the tide. When currents slack, so does the action. When tide flows, try the shallows and also fish right on top of 10-foot depths. If you get interest from fish, stick with it until the action dies. If not, motor off a hundred yards or so and try another stretch. The blues move in packs as if a dozen or more schools inhabit an area of a quarter square mile or so.

Early in May, the water remains on the chilly side and blues hit metals and soft plastic/jig combinations. They begin to hit on the surface towards the end of the month. Year after year, Rick has terrific action on some outings with strikes coming on virtually every cast in the same range of river he’s fished over the years, but on occasion the fun is in persisting for fewer fish.

Heavy chop on the water disrupts topwater plugs’ effectiveness; isolated commotion on calm surface by a plug provokes interest from any blue nearby and sometimes two or more will compete to get it first. Blues hit erratically and usually fail to get hooked, although a single blue will take as many as half a dozen passes and chomps at a plug before getting hooked or losing interest. With chop on the water, they tend to miss the plug even more. A light chop may not hinder action much, but don’t bother in a real blow.

Rather than make a mess with treble hooks, Rick insists we all use his plugs with trebles removed and a single 3/0 or 4/0 long shank Mustad steel hook at the rear replacing them. He removes the barb to allow for easy release and this reduces the chance of injuring fish. Rather than bringing blues that tend to bleed easily over the gunnel with the likelihood of making a mess of the boat, we unhook the fish swiftly at boatside.

Rick prefers Atoms but claims that any topwater will work. Atoms, however, are meant to be retrieved quickly. They actually sink. A high-floating plug more likely gets knocked out of the water skyward by a bliuefish. In any event, this is not slow, cadenced teasing of strikes the way you can wax poetic when fishing largemouth bass. Just pop the surface by steady retrieves and when a blue strikes, don’t pull the plug away from the fish. Give pause before setting the hook. You will miss most, but the fun includes trying to beat some of the odds against missed fish.

Light spinning or light baitcasting gear is not the only way. Rick has used his fly rod and says that Deceivers bring the best action. During the week when boat traffic is at a minimum, the morning sun is warming, and the surface is still, what better way than fly casting from the bow?

These blues are tasty. Perfect size for the table. When I fish with Rick I insist on taking some home and on cleaning his fish hold back at the marina.