Walleye, Hybrid Striped Bass, Panfish

Kevin Murphy's first time on the lake, he drove to Dow's on Sunday, just so he could be sure of the route in the dark very early Tuesday morning. They told him Bruce wasn't going to take anyone out on Tuesday, there would be a big storm. Meanwhile, I was coming home from an afternoon in New Hope with my wife, and I didn't learn of  the storm until after we got home. So we met up there yesterday at 11:00 a.m. to stay until a little after sunset. 

I figured live herring would be the best approach for a beginner, and we also bought a dozen nightcrawlers, which kept Kevin occupied a long while. He caught nice-sized bluegills and a pumpkinseed. Tending herring lines, I felt a fish on one of them and insisted that Kevin take it; I had already told him we take turns on the bait lines, but he said, "Nah! I just feel good being out here. The fish is yours!" He wouldn't take the rod and I reeled in a walleye about 18 inches long. Unhooked, photographed, and released it. There I was, catching the fish when we bought the herring expressly in the interest of Kevin's getting acquainted. 

Later on, he caught a yellow perch on one of the herring rods, and then, after we moved the boat for the third time, something jerked one of the four bait rods forward violently--I immediately thought hybrid!--and I just grabbed the rod and set the hook. Since the fish was on and the rod was in my hand, I let the situation be as it already was defined and fought the small hybrid of 16 inches. I keep bails open, but even so, hybrids rush away with the bait so fast that anything hampering the line from flowing smoothly off the spool means the rod will jump.

I cast a Binsky bladebait repeatedly and eventually hooked a walleye of at least four or five pounds, lost at the net. The fish never took drag, but walleye never do no matter how big, Like other big ones I've caught, however, it stubbornly refused to come to the surface, and being a big fish, was hard to raise. A moment or two before Kevin would have slipped the net under the fish, the treble hook just gave out under the force I exerted.

We moved to a fourth spot where I put out the last herring and Kevin fished a dead one. I cast the Binsky, missing a hit and finally hooking something that came in easily at first. Then it began fighting and took off on the several powerful runs only a hybrid striper could exert. The fish measured 20 1/2 inches, a fair-sized bass. I worked the same water, maybe 25 feet deep, not letting the Binksy hit bottom before I began a yo-yo retrieve. I felt another hit, missed it, then hooked and caught a small white perch. 

The other hybrid and walleye came from water probably no deeper than 20 or 22 feet  The big one I lost might have been 15 feet down. Water temp was 62. The trees are still mostly green, although some color has definitely worked through a fair percentage of the leaves. It' s almost November, I would hope there's some color, but the lake is turned over only so deep. I never noticed a fish mark on the graph deeper than 21 feet yesterday..

Last year, when I fished the lake in October with Jorge, we finished the day by jigging Binskys. (Jorge did try other lures.) I think I never got hit, but I was into the exercise and considered coming out here the next season--this one--only to jig. That's how I feel again about nest year, and maybe we'll really limit ourselves to Binskys, besides nightcrawlers for some panfish. Kevin was talking about his learning how to jig a Binsky. One thing for sure. By anchoring in place to set bait, I've jigged the water thoroughly. It would be possible to jig spots all too superficially before moving on to others.

 

Kevin's pumpkinseed. I wanted to get a close-up.

Kevin also caught a nice white perch on one of the set lines.

 

Does Woolrich Cater to Hipsters?

Woolrich shirt birthday gift.

My wife went to Woolrich in Manhattan with my old and torn, rustic Woolrich shirt, and she showed it to them and they said they had nothing approximating its look. They told her they keep all the old patterns in a vault and release them some years, so she should keep an eye out in the future.

She also had trouble sizing the shirt with them that she got me. (A shirt a little too red.) They told her they switched to European sizing.

"Why would they switch to European sizing? Woolrich supplied blankets during the Civil War," my wife said to me. Woolrich is an American outdoor tradition. 

"It's odd," I said.

"I think they're catering to hipsters in Soho," she said.

Well, what the hell. If they're catering to hipsters in Soho, they can't escape Woolrich's past as an outdoorsman's company. 

I still wear my old and torn shirt, and the red plaid? Looks like Santa Claus but it might have its occasions.

Put Four Walleye, Two Crappie, in the Boat

Leaving Dow's Boat Rentals, we headed into whitecaps, but beyond the lake's midpoint, wave action moderated. I found fish on a drop-off where I never fail to find fish, although I saw none on the graph deeper than 16 feet. Water temp was 63. We began to prepare as the boat drifted over a 13-foot flat. Having marked some good fish there, we put herring out without weight, but before we would have stayed there long, I got my best idea yet.

We motored maybe half a mile to a third spot, anchoring in 20 feet of water, intending to fish as deep as 24. I put a herring out without weight, and two weighted by 3/4-ounce slip sinkers, 20-24 feet deep. I had felt moved to come here by one of those deep, abdominal affirmations that seem to know of success before it comes. I'm an older man, so when it happens, I don't get especially headstrong, but in a way, it feels better than it can at any other age. As you get older and job stress still plagues you, to get moments like that assure you of life remaining real.

Soon, I caught a small walleye on the unweighted herring, realizing it couldn't have hit in water deeper than 14 feet. Not that the situation was terribly surprising. The other day, my wife commented on how we used to imagine moving to Maryland or North Carolina. "Now there's no reason to,," she said. "Their climate is ours." 

I got another small walleye from 20 or 22 feet, before Oliver caught one from directly under the boat at 20 or 21 feet, his fish about 20 inches. He had weighted a herring by a split shot. He caught a crappie and another walleye, 18 inches. I caught a big crappie on a Binsky, and then I missed hits on two consecutive casts and very soon thereafter hooked the biggest walleye of the afternoon on that Binsky, the fish lost at the net. 

I hooked it in about 14 feet of water. I'm used to catching them as deep as 33 or 35 feet this time of year.

We fished not quite four hours, excluding dock prep and boat travel. It was a great time. It made me feel beyond any doubt that I need more time like this yet.

Sunlight on the trees made them appear more golden than they are, but they are coloring just a little bit.

With no sun on the trees, you can see how green.

 

Maybe It's More Sunfish and Smallies

Oliver caught fish. A few redbreast sunfish and a smallmouth bass of about nine inches. We used dry flies, wet flies, beadhead nymphs. As we walked in, Oliver saw one rise. I approached the pool carefully and sighted what I think was a brown trout a foot long. Soon, I saw two more, smaller, but my sight wasn't perfectly clear, and though I did make out the black tail fins...smallmouth bass can appear to have black tail fins. 

Upstream, I did spook a seven-inch fish from depths under a large sycamore. Looked like a trout to me.

Any case, Oliver swears he spotted trout downstream, but since--once again--he caught none, he thinks the water this far down the creek might be better suited to sunfish and smallmouths. He had fished here once about five years ago and got skunked.

I went upstream, he went down. I have no trouble driving these days, nor is work any problem, but when I'm fishing or taking photographs, the loss of awareness due to cataracts is very annoying. It makes me less inclined to cover ground. 

Oliver went all the way down to where the creek goes under a major highway. About a half mile. When we met and fished that first pool one last time, we soon hiked out, talking about the demise of a couple of our former spots. He'd been to both of them during the Lockdown. The places were pounded. Banks worn down and spent worm containers left where artificial-only regulations...simply do not work when people refuse to respect them and the law isn't enforced. 

Places where we used to catch and release wild trout. 

Oliver said people probably say online where they caught fish and a crowd follows, but I reminded him that people are mum on Facebook about spots, and besides, anyone can access the NJ Fish & Wildlife interactive map of wild trout waters. 

After I mentioned that, Oliver came up with a great idea. That local law enforcement should be given the power to hand out summons to anyone breaking with fishing regulations. 

It could seem better yet that we scrub the web entirely and start over.

The One-Pound Test

Tried Where the River's Even Smaller

Brought rod, tackle, camera to work, and afterwards--forgot. I was well on the way to Interstate 78 when I remembered, so I decided to fish well upstream of where I would have fished in Gillette. I figured, I already know pike exist down there. Sooner or later, I would try up here to find out what I can.

On my second cast, I twitched the #9 Rapala and got hit, but it could have been a sunfish. The river up here has less holding water than down below, but why would pike swim upstream as far as Gillette and not keep on going? So I made sure to fish any breaks in the uniform flow, as I made my downstream. Those included leaves grouped together behind branches in the water, a downed tree, boulders, other branches. None produced so much as a wake. If there were any pike on these spots, my plug didn't interest them.

I fished pretty far on down, and you would figure that if any pike--or bass--are in the river, they'd relate to those breaks in the flow. 

There're pickerel in the river, too. At least there are for certain on down below. I know of catches.  

Tried the New Lamington River Pool and Upstream

Plans were to maybe fish a private lake for big bass, but that depended on the wind. Since wind was right for a deer hunt, Brian did that instead. I asked him where he would suggest I fish today, and he came up with two really good options, but I felt stuck on checking out the North Branch some five or six miles from home. When Trish and I drove home from a hike Sunday a week ago, I noticed two parking areas where I had never fished the river before. 

Can't let that go without at least checking it out. 

The first spot had a trail leading angularly down what otherwise is a very steep bank with a vertical elevation of about 50 feet. I got down near the water, but I found the river all but inaccessible. Mind you, I'm suffering from cataracts and will go in for surgery in December, so my depth perception is not good right now. Oddly, I find no difficulty driving, but walking a trail is another matter, and when it comes to descending a sharply steep six to eight feet to the river itself--forget it. I did scope out the stretch and it seemed deep enough to hold bass. I know a similar stretch upstream from there, maybe four feet at the deepest, and we used to catch bass left and right from it. 

I drove on to the next turn off. Vertical elevation there is only 20 or 25 at most. Access is definitely more doable, but the stretch impressed me as too shallow, about two feet. I was in no mood and really in no shape to put on my waders and wading boots to cover water and ground looking for deeper water up or downstream. I'm not at all incapacitated, but I might feel more willing to search the river during the summer. Fall has definitely come since last I walked along the South Branch with my wife and a friend little more than a week ago.

I drove elsewhere in the region looking for access, and instead of finding more, I ended up fishing the Lamington River where TroutScapes LLC removed the wing dam and created a nice pool. I did get a good tap on my Senko there, and then I tried upstream, where I started getting some pickups that could have been small bass or larger sunfish. 

At one point, I got snagged, and the violence of trying to work the hook free loosened the ceramic ring in my tip guide. It went down the line, presumably to the eye of the snagged hook. I made my way further upstream--an exercise that proved my steadiness of foot by my walking an edge of rock outcropping allowing my feet no more space than the width of my boots--hoping to free that hook by getting ahead of it, when it broke off all too easily. A couple of years ago, I lent the rod to a guest who reeled a barrel swivel against that ring, breaking it loose. I glued it back in place and that worked well until today. Before that hook broke off and the ring was lost, I had realized I was fishing the very same stretch of the Lamington where I first used the rod--my very favorite rod, a five-and-a-half-foot St. Croix medium power--in the summer of 2000. On that day more than 21 years ago, I caught a single smallmouth bass from the stretch.

Is the rod--as is, without compromising its length and flex--a total loss? Did it really come full circle like that, or can I simply heat the tip guide, remove it with pliers, and put a new one on? That all depends on whether St. Croix affixed the tip so it is removable, or glued it on there so it won't come off without destroying the rod's tip section. I'm going to have Fairfield Tackle heat it and find out. I already tried asking St. Croix about getting a tip guide, and since I got no answer from them, I'm not going to waste my time at that any further.    

No Point to Work Without a Life

Work stress blunts life, but don't string up the violin, because I got over it fairly well. 

Before I realized tide was going out, I fished the deeper water water between the wash and he sandbar, nothing doing. Usually, I catch fluke at Island Beach near sundown, so I decided to wait. By then, tide was so low the sandbar was exposed and people waded in the cut at their thighs. As you can see in the photo, there was no wash. 

But you can also see some wave action in the background. There's a cut of deeper water. I put away the 5 1/2-foot rod I use for in close, and cast a 2-ounce bank sinker to get my killie out there. Involved at all this, I began feeling life return to me. 

And when I felt a knock, I set the hook before I even realized what it was. The fluke I was into proved to be a little one 12 inches long, but I caught something. I missed a couple of hits before it was getting dark and we decided to leave. 

Something was telling me not to give up. I can't help but get beaten down by work, but there is no point to work without a life.