More Big Bass at the Lake

We paddled up lake against heavy wind. Among grassy weeds, I anchored and reached for a Senko. "I think I left my bag at the dock," Brian said. It was understood we weren't going back and fighting that wind again. "I hope it doesn't get ripped off."

I passed Brian a Chompers.

The Senko's open hook seemed too vulnerable to getting hung. I switched to a Chompers within a minute or so and continued working pockets and edges under very intense sunlight. The whole lake seemed full of that light and I knew the bass probably took cover in the thickest of the weeds. Maybe a heavy tungsten jig would have got to them.

We paddled further against the wind and got into position to cast those bushy overhangs where Matt caught his big pickerel in April. After half a dozen or more casts, I placed the Chompers along an edge, let it drop, and then the line swiftly peeled off the spool before I closed the bail, tightened, and set the hook into the 18-inch largemouth photographed below.

No more action thereafter.

Around the back of the island and into the main body of the lake, the thought of worming seemed absurd in the wind and all that light, so I switched to s spinnerbait. I would have felt better casting it if the water was five degrees cooler. It was a summery 79 degrees, but wind chopped the surface and the sunlight reflected off the blade. Soon I hooked and boated a 23-inch pickerel that apparently rose off the bottom four or five feet down to take chase and slam that lure riding about two feet under the surface. To get the spinnerbait near bottom was pointless with all the weeds. As you can see in the next photo, that savage fish bent the spinnerbait's arm.

I thought maybe I was onto something and we would enjoy more action, but we cast and cast--nothing hit but one little fish for Brian. We drifted and anchored, drifted and anchored. And paddled. Brian preferred throwing plugs, and his fish didn't stay long on the line.

We would get off the lake before sundown. Our time out neared its finish. I happened to notice a lure bag behind my seat. "Brian, I was sitting by your lure bag this whole time!" I felt like an idiot. What do you do when your boat partner tells you he thinks he forgot his lure bag? You have a look at the stuff around you. Later on, I told him I'm negligent. Being old with memory loss is a better description. There was no willful negligence about it, but I really should have looked in the first place. It didn't occur to me to do that. That's what I mean.

Brian rigged up with a Senko. We had come upon thick weeds with lots of pockets. I had a Senko on, also. I said, "The bass are probably in the thickest of this stuff." And I mentioned heavy jigs, which I did not have. Regardless, I put my Senko in pockets and really did not have trouble with that open hook. It got hung momentarily here and there, but it was easy to pull free without collecting weeds. Soon I felt a tap and tightened the line. The fish moved in my direction. I set the hook and boated the 17-, maybe 17 1/2-inch bass of the final photo, hooked near the nose on the upper jaw, right where you would expect of a fish moving in your direction.

Minutes later Brain said, "It's six pounds!" I looked aside and saw great commotion at the surface, certain this one was no 18-incher. When I netted it, Brian said, "No, five." He was pretty close to right on the money about that. I passed him my tape measure, but he had difficulty measuring it, said it was 19 inches. I told myself no way was this bass going on the record as that small and insisted on measuring it myself.

Twenty and three-quarters of an inch long.

The difference between weedy pockets at the end of the day, and those at the beginning, was an entire world. As I said, we didn't stay to sunset. But with sun rays angling low, I imagine at least some bass came out of the thick and were vulnerable to Senkos. No clouds blocked sun, but the late light had an entirely different quality compared with what we faced going in. It even felt inviting...to venison tacos, perhaps, such as those Brian's wife Carolyn had fixed for us when we got to the house.

Brian told me what lures he has in his bag. I guess the best way to make sense of his spending a couple of hours with the uncertainty, affecting how he fished, is that the threat of loss might make him better appreciate having the bag. I know I need my reminders. And I'm forever grateful to Brian for housing my canoes and fishing with me.

White Lake Largemouth Bass

White Lake is supposedly well-known for the clarity of its water, and if you hear about this from friends or read about it, you might be led to believe it has the clearest water in the state, even better than Round Valley. For all I know, maybe it does through the winter, but today, though the water was plenty clear, it wasn't nearly as clear as was Tilcon Lake in March. Just the same, last June, Matt and I found Tilcon not as clear as we found it early this year.

Oliver had holdover trout on his mind, so the first order of business, once the squareback got launched, was to set up the sonar, switch it on, and begin looking. This took me less than a minute to do, and we had already motored over 26 feet of water. We went clear across the lake trying to mark trout, cutting the electric to drift little shiners, but the wind was so heavy that we would have needed heavy egg sinkers to get any depth. My having overlooked bringing any along mattered to me very little, because I didn't see much point in trying for trout apparently scattered and inaccessible, only one fish having shown on the graph.

We got in close to shore, found the drop-off, and began marking plenty of fish. Oliver sighted a bass. We rigged with crankbaits and began trolling the edge. When we neared a corner, I decided to cut the electric, anchor, and fish a Senko. It took awhile, but the result was the bass you see below in mid-air. I hooked it about 18 feet down, a two-pounder, and though Oliver caught it on his camera, you can see in the next photo the best I did. I touched the bass, having seen the hook was lose and knowing the likelihood of not boating it, and I never got a grip on its maw.

We tried another spot that we had noticed looked good while we trolled, and then decided to go to the back of the lake. I hoped to get us out of the wind. We found some submerged treetrunks. Depth was 12 feet or so. I pitched the Senko in among them and let it glide on down. It's a way of fishing that requires patience, and a lot of guys will not do it. They rely on weighted plastics, and though I have no argument against fishing that way, at least not when it really comes down to it, I give unweighted Senkos all the time they need to sink to bottom. I fished with Eric Evans a couple of times from his bassboat, and on one of the occasions, he did really well with a weighted swimbait he bounced on bottom only seven or eight feet down, but I also do the same patient fishing with traditional-style worms that sink twice as slowly as Senkos.

I noticed my line move to the left, tightened the connection and set the hook, nervous about line getting tangled in timber, feeling heavy weight for a couple of seconds--that delicious feeling of a good bass on--and then suddenly the line felt lose. It happened so fast it was like the bass was trying to get in my face. Right there in front of us it was airborne, the big mouth wide open, the Senko flying free. Seventeen or 18 inches.

After that it was a pretty trying day. Oliver sighted a bass. He had a couple of fish take minnows, which he lost. I felt perplexed, because we had definitely found a nice, rounded corner with pads near the bank, plenty of weeds filling out a drop that didn't descend too sharply, all the deep water nearby a bass could ever want. I fished my Senko deep, in the weeds, and I put it against grass. Sometimes a big bass will be in a foot of water. Oliver spotted a pickerel about two feet long among weeds. I plugged and plugged for that one or the likes of it with a Rebel Pop-R. I put a weedless frog on the pads. Nothing happened and I know it sometimes gets like this. Fish are there, but they will not take any interest in what you toss them.

I got nervous as sunset neared, because I had read a sign at the gate. It told me that gate closes at sunset. Oliver kept quelling my anxiety, pointing out other boats on the lake showing no intentions of going in. In any event, we would get the canoe on my Honda, but no way did I want us to have to carry it two hundred yards. I've been through that sort of thing before. We lingered, nothing happening, when finally Oliver's rod bent double and a bass went airborne. That's the bass of the cover shot, a pretty nice one caught on a Senko. I felt relieved. Oliver wasn't skunked.

Oliver found this toad at Brian's house where the canoe is kept.

Wawayanda

Not Today

Listening to Pink Floyd's "Dogs" as I write, mildly anticipating the gruesome job tomorrow. I over-did it on Monday, pushing carts hard at the supermarket. Left early, too much pain. Couldn't get past it. I decided to cancel on the lake with Brian today, because I couldn't tell what might happen. There's definitely an element I can't predict when my back is bad. We hope to go Tuesday. And I'm hoping to fish with Oliver Round on Sunday.

Funny how short-term memory fails as you age. I had something to say I forget now. Whatever it was, was the point of writing.

Anyhow.

"As the fear grows, the bad blood slows and grows to stone," but I was never "broken by trained personnel," though that fear lingers. Quite a cautionary tale, the words of this music. Close call, that stone, but anyway, as I write now, the back is much better. And besides, I don't believe no one has a real friend.

I heard a dog barking pleasantly outside as a thunderstorm approached. That's why I put "Dogs" on, Sadie sleeping on her back on the other couch.


Dogs 

Last at Round Valley Until August Perhaps

Probably my last photo shoot at Round Valley for awhile...I hope to get over in August, though. And I still have in mind a long hike into the back sometime. Once again I brought my St. Croix, but the pond was so crowded with fishermen, I didn't bother. Reservoir was too, and though I could have tried a spot, with chill on the air, I wasn't interested.

I didn't stay quite to sunset. I decided to make it in and out pretty quick. Have a lot to do at home.

It is nice having the park so near home.

Looking forward to Tuesday with Brian. I haven't altogether forgotten that a five- or six-pounder is possible. Last time Brian went to the lake, his buddy caught a 5.7-pound largemouth.

Bleeders

Recently, I replied to a friend's comment on Facebook by saying that we in New Jersey might pressure Fish & Wildlife for stringent take-home restrictions. Afterwards, I told my son I would like to see the limit on largemouths reduced to one per day. He told me the state would have to outlaw keeping any, or sustenance fishermen would just go every day, keeping one each time, and decimate populations anyhow.

Well, not as they can with a limit of five. And I told Matt the state should allow the take of at least one, because on seldom occasion, a bad hookset results in a bleeder. The only decent thing to do to a fish that is dead or will die, is take it home for a meal. Leaving it to the snapping turtles feels like an unmanly act. I also pointed out to him that the state is moving in the direction of more stringent limits. Minimum size for bass used to be nine inches. Also, all brook trout caught in New Jersey must now be released. I do think, however, that an angler is entitled to eat a true native at least once in his life. That's why I would have liked to see the limit on brook trout at one or two a year, but then an angler would have to report his fish similarly as hunters report their kill, and the complication would be onerous. But think about it. For the occasion of eating a single native or two, once in a life, wouldn't registering the take be worthwhile? At least for now, if an angler has the time and the finances, he can go to a state northward and kill a native brook trout.

I hear the howls from people who think sustenance fisherman--or the gravely poor--need to be allowed to fish for their meals, but I am concerned about rapid rates of diminishing returns. The best way to deal with poverty is not to allow fish populations to be decimated, but to change the culture and politics so that no one in New Jersey is hungry. I know I wrote in my last post that my politics aren't those of poverty, and I say the same now, because the politics of poverty might be an underhanded way of keeping the impoverished dependent. But how change the culture and politics?

Much more difficultly than any ideas about it.

Bleeders might sometimes survive. I caught a 19-inch bass last year cleanly hooked on the lip but bleeding badly. My recent 20-incher from Lake Hopatcong got hooked in the gullet but not badly; the gullet was not pulled out, and there was no blood there; by all appearances, the hook will rust out, but the fish bleed badly. I call bleeders like these two--no damage to the gills, no hook damage beyond the usual--shock bleeders. Apparently the stress of the fight causes gills to bleed, but the bleeding apparently stops. Both of these bass I released, watching them swim off directly, and after we stayed on the spots for at least 10 more minutes, these fish never bellied up at the surface. For all we know, they might have lived. On a different occasion last year, a trolled 17-inch bass got hooked badly and bled. I released it, it bellied up minutes later, and since this was after June 15, I clicked on the electric, we netted it, and took it home to apply Old Bay seasoning.

Even though I believe my recent big one might have lived, it serves as just one example of deep heartbreak. I can't easily get away from a fish like that. It haunts me for a few days. Its innocent life, interrupted by my predatory act, seems to ask me questions I can't easily answer. All of these questions might be addressed by an animal right's activist: what right did you have to do that to the bass? But I don't see it primarily as an issue of rights, because the bass doesn't live by any moral code, an aspect of intellect, and what I do is enter into the natural world and participate as the animal I am, too, which of course doesn't necessarily mean I am inarticulate while on a boat. But the bass eats other fish; I potentially eat bass, in turn. That's nature. I do have rights by nature, but I avoid getting involved in that kind of stridency we often hear, because the basic issue is ecological, and I don't pretend I am above it.

That said, I feel compassion for bass. A bass can't feel that for me, but on some mute animal level, it must feel something if my compassion is at all real. Compassion means to "feel with" and I must feel something real about a bass's living presence to truly behold it. A life as sacred as is mine, for if we humans are created equal, the same holds true for the relation between us and other creatures. And for man to be denied his beholding of other creatures would be an infringement of right.

Thought on Why I Use Blogger

Going on five years ago,  I got the idea of transferring Litton's Fishing Lines to a website domain I would own. I worked alone in a building we at the country club called the WH, and I had plenty of down time to research possibilities online. For various reasons, I decided to stay here on Blogger. It's not that any of you would have lost track of the blog; a transfer would have kept site location intact.

I feel Blogger is more of a public space than is a domain the blogger owns. I feel that if you own the domain, there's no avoiding the glare of class exclusivity, which I associate with upscale sites. I don't mean to fault sincere bloggers. I mean to point out that although Google (which hosts Blogger) is corporate, it is so ubiquitous as to possess commonality. That said, I do, of course, retain copyright for my work, crucially important to me as it would be to any writer or photographer with sense.

Most people seem to feel more value exists where class is implied. With respect to cost, true. And yet, since I pay about $22.00 each year to use Blogger, it's quite possible I would pay less by owning a domain. I would have to spend more time, however, to transfer the blog--on research to learn how to go about doing it and about which domain to buy. Hiring services to do a transfer is expensive, and I wouldn't want to depend on my son to do it. It would seem wise to have done more research in 2011 before I began blogging, but because I found Blogger was free (up to so many megabytes of space used), I had very little money, and the appearance and format of the blog appealed to me, I chose it.

And the more I use Blogger, the more it appeals. It doesn't have a fancy organization by which readers can access posts, but then again, all I do is label a post by a simple click, and it's there for any reader to find by clicking on a word or two under Labels. Then he simply scrolls back by order of date. Or he can click on a date range under Blog Archive. Simple enough. As I say, I like the brownish color theme suggestive of November, too. But mostly, the more I blog, the more I become aware that to have a voice in society is a political act. By no means do I mean a voice limited to either mainstream political party. I've always been politically independent, and if my view has a simple core, it might come across as complex, difficult, and as a work in progress, rather than as any agenda put across. Since Google is open to anyone with a computer, the commonality implied appeals to me, because I believe in neither a politics of money, nor of poverty.

Wampum is a Symbol Better than Money    

Pre-Spawn Largemouths to 20 Inches on Lake Hopatcong

Thinking ahead to this outing more than a week ago, I planned on Matt and I targeting largemouths as well as hybrids. I imagined catching a five- or six-pound largemouth, because we might find ourselves in a situation fitting this possibility just right before they would spawn. I don't really know why it would be any more likely to catch a big one just before the spawn than a month before the spawn or a week after, except that big females usually weigh a little less after they drop their eggs, depending on what they've eaten. Nevertheless, having spent nearly 60 years outdoors since I was three years old, I have a sense for things going on out there, and transitions of any kind imply activity. Otherwise, nothing would be changing.

We got to Dow's at 5:30 a.m. Jimmy was loading his boat to go out and fish live herring. Joe came out and got a boat ready for us immediately. We were on the lake just after 5:45. As we crossed its main body, the sun broke over the horizon. It was windy.

On the initial trolling pass, I noticed a lot of fish on the graph, but when we turned around for the second pass, we hadn't got hit. Soon, I realized I was marking more fish than I ever have marked in our favorite trolling lanes, big icons on the graph; apparently these were hybrids weighing at least four pounds. On the eighth or ninth pass, I finally got hit. I had been changing plugs at each turn. Running a Storm Hot 'N Tot, a crankbait diving about eight feet, for a split second,I thought I might catch a hybrid on yet another kind of plug. A couple of seconds after I got smacked, Matt hooked up and the fish ran hard before the Rapala Finesse Sinking Minnow he used pulled free.

That's all the hybrid action we had today, besides a few other knocks on our plugs, perhaps. I told Matt that Mike Maxwell and I once began a long day at these lanes, catching nothing, and then came back five hours later and slayed a bunch of five-pounders. Matt and I would return later but then not only fail to hookup. We saw no fish on the graph at all, either.

Water temperature ranged from 57 in the morning to 62 in the afternoon. The day began as very chilly, especially with that wind I mentioned. Heavy. Numerous times during the day, I scooped water out of the boat. Whitecaps marked rolling waves.

The key to this day was the opposite to all this churning and chaos, as anyone might think of big female bass getting ready to bed. They don't want to lay eggs where moving water will disrupt them. I felt so eager to hook a big bass, I almost had us start fishing the way I'll explain in a moment, before we even gave a favorite shallow cove a try by trolling. In the past, it's been a fish on every pass here, but always when water temperature is at least 70. I did once catch a hybrid at the edge of the cove where it drops off, but most of the fish are crappies, pickerel, and largemouths.

As I expected, nothing happened. I felt much better when soon I had us go into a little cove completely protected by the wind. Shallow, about four feet deep. On my first cast, I hooked my first fish of the day on a Senko, a 20-inch largemouth I weighed at four-pounds, 10 ounces. A fish most might call a five-pounder. In that shallow water, it rolled about heavily on the hook like a pig. It's a fish I expected, and yet I felt shocked.

The big one boated and released, I knew this is where we would fish today--any quiet, little shallow coves we could find. They weren't readily available. Some spots looked great, except that they were impossible to fish because waves carried the boat against the power of my electric motor. But despite the handicap of that wind, we managed to catch five largemouths apiece, a crappie, and a big rock bass. We caught them all over the lake, searching out our special opportunity. My second-biggest largemouth was 17 1/4 inches. The others were about 15, 14, and 11. The crappie was 13 1/4 inches.

On the way home, I decided to pull over so we could fish a part of the lake publicly accessible by shore and protected from the wind. I let Matt have sway. From the boat, he had caught two largemouths. In yet another half hour of fishing, he caught three more, including his biggest of about two pounds.

Lake Hopatcong