Held That Bass to the Last Moment

Mark told me it rained buckets yesterday up his way, but the ground must have absorbed it, because the river wasn't high and not off color. (I did notice on the way home that the South Branch at Long Valley was muddy.) 

We took a long hike in, and when we began fishing, I had that sense of nothingness come over me, as if the river wasn't going to give back. Even though Mark caught a seven-incher pretty quick, I wasn't convinced. But you've got to meet the river on its own terms. It's full of creatures like smallmouth bass and trout, all of them struggling to stay alive, so you've got to get in the water and be an effective predator like them. 

It didn't take too long before I broke past the spell and hooked a bass on half a Yum Dinger, a pretty good fish that got off the hook. It had taken some sense to break the worm in half. If I were just standing there, casting and reeling back, giving no thought to the fishing, taking in no perception, I'd use only the full five inches. Maybe I would never have caught my first Musconetcong River smallie, photographed above. 

Mark had gone further upstream and got into a lot of little bass he caught on a little pink plastic worm  I decided to take to the trail and walk way up. I found a stretch my head told me was too shallow. My experience and intuition told me something else, "This is the kind of spot where I might hook a big one." My head or ego allowed the feeling only on condition that I could leave the stretch fishless with no loss to him. What's more, my ego allowed me to look at the stretch and see a little #5 Rapala floater working. (What if it weren't to work?) To tell you the truth, I always play it pretty fast and loose with my ego. He knows I find ways when all he does is doubt. 

I tied on the floater. I found that without a little snap, it still jerked around in the water convincingly. That no doubt--convincingly to a bass of two-and-a-half or maybe three pounds. I hooked the fish and thought I got a snag. A moment passed and I felt a a throb. The fish was on two or three seconds, but I never budged it, it was so big. I saw a huge boil on the surface after the hook pulled. Next cast, I caught another little bass like my first one.

I went further upstream and phoned Mark. He would meet up with me soon. When he did, I was fishing a very interesting deep run, though I'd had only a couple of hits on a Senko, maybe from sunnies. I put a jig and Berkley Leech down, snagging a sucker. Quite a tussle but nothing like smallmouths fight. Mark joined in and broke out his box of nightcrawlers. Downstream, he had caught a rainbow trout on one of them. After a few trials of nightcrawler-weighted-by-split-shot and carried through the deep sluice, he hooked a big smallmouth.

"Look at the size of that thing," he said.

The fight was long and involved. A lot of drag screeching. We both saw the bass plainly in the clear water, and I was sure it was north of 17 inches. Eighteen? I didn't think it was quite that long, but we would measure it to be sure. I had my Stanley in the bag. One of the little 12-foot tapes. 

Finally, I had Mark's net in my hand and in the water. I felt relaxed and ready to lift, once Mark brought the bass over the net. That would happen in a matter of seconds. The line broke. We both saw the break in the knot. The knot had gone bad. It had held that fish until the last moment. 

 

Plenty of Fish Back There

Brian and I were going to fish one of the Newark Reservoirs today. He bailed, so I emailed Oliver. He was up to something else today with family, so I went over to the North Branch with killies leftover from the Island Beach surf Sunday. I got skunked and never posted. Not a tap. Just no fluke there, while they seem everywhere else. Maybe Fred's been catching even more of them. I know Brian caught dozens Sunday at Manasquan Inlet, I think he said, though no keepers, but he lost a big one.

It was really interesting at the 202/206 bridge. Much more interesting than I have time to go into, and I was there only an hour or so. I had a nice smallmouth take my large killie on the first cast. Once in the water, that killie was dancing around with the precision and speed of an insect, but it got caught, and then that smallmouth veered off to my left at high speed. I tightened up quickly and set the hook, hoping not to gut hook it, but I just pulled the killie free. And I kept using it while none of a few other little smallies would take it. I saw a rainbow trout, too. Ninety-four degrees out.

And then a largemouth just blundered into the scene, and I let that killie sink a little into its path. It just opened its maw, took in that big killie, kept going--while I suddenly had become aware my line had tangled on the bail I had opened. I got it free in a jiffy but that bass had dropped the bait, because it felt tension on that line.

I put on a fresh killie as if that would make all the difference. Meanwhile, I saw another, larger, rainbow trout. (I once came upon someone here in August with two rainbows on a stringer.) The fresh killie was, again, quick as an insect, and of course, this was supposed to attract a bass. Eventually, a really nice smallmouth of about 13 or 14 inches lumbered into view and I moved the killie to get it active. Yes, that attracted the bass, which stopped its approach as the killie moved away faster. I got the killie to stop, and the bass advanced again, but then the killie again moved swiftly, and instead of lunging, as you would expect of an oh-so-fierce predator, the bass lazily turned and lazily swam off into the darkness under the bridge.

I cast back under there repeatedly over the course of an hour. I was certain, after the encounter with that nice smallmouth, there were plenty of fish back there.

Trolled a Nice Pickerel

We did a lot of trolling while fishing Clinton Reservoir for three hours. I had suggested we do so after our last outing, because I had caught a lot of pickerel and bass trolling Tilcon Lake in recent years. Today, I mostly trolled my favorite Storm Hot 'n Tot that gets down 10 or 12 feet, deeper when I let out more line, though I also tried a jointed Rapala in shallows. Brian insisted on shallow running plugs, because he knows someone who recently caught bass on unweighted live herring over 20, 30, and 40 feet of water. 

We also cast rocky shorelines. I used a Senko, Brian plugs and a Chatterbait. Nothing happened this time. 

Wind was pretty heavy. I thought overcast skies would be in our favor, but perhaps the Senko was effective last time because bass tucked in close to shore to hide from the sunlight in shadows. 

After we had got pretty far down lake, Brian spoke about his favorite cove, and when we got there, I felt my confidence grow after I had got a solid hit on the Storm diver. Brian had me sit in the back and run the electric, and I had been setting the speed pretty low, now watching the line intently and feeling as if something more would happen. A minute or two later, the pickerel hit powerfully. I thought I had a nice smallmouth on, until the fish leapt three feet out of the water. Twenty-one-and-a-half inches. 

 

Laurie's Report

 Laurie Murphy:

Several nice fish have made their way to the scale this past week. Clint Myers , fishing with herring in Byram Cove had a 5 lb 6 oz walleye. Jerry Freeman, of Mount Arlington also had a walleye weighing 3 lb 7 oz along with a 2 lb 9 oz Largemouth Bass. Rich Guarini , landed his 5 lb Largemouth in Great Cove, Nolans Point. Hunter Good had several Largemouth with his largest weighing in at 3 lb 7 oz.  Jim Welsh had his limit of crappies with the largest being 1 lb 10 oz along with some walleye and hybrid stripers and Lou Marcucci had a smallmouth weighing 3 lb 13 oz. Gary Bruzaud along with his daughter Saige Bruzaud,  and her friend Megan Kelleher had their limit of Hybrids all in the 6 pound range along with some nice crappies. Have a great week !

Barnegat Inlet Keeper Fluke and Tog

The first thing I noticed was the relative low water level and my ability to see bottom beyond the jetty rocks. Last August, tide was high and there was some water on the rocks. We strapped on Korkers. Yesterday, we had Korkers but never put them on. I wondered about the fluke's willingness in such "shallows," but I couldn't argue with the several or more keepers on stringers, caught by more than several others out there fishing. The fish had been lowered between rocks so you could see stringer lines leading down into brine pools underneath. No one was fishing the inlet side this time. Blackfish (tautog) are out of season, but you can take home triggerfish and sheepshead, though they're much less commonly caught.

Fred had raked a bunch of sand fleas or mole crabs. He tried a spot recommended to him and caught only a small handful there, so we rode on to Loveladies (Long Beach Island) and found them abundant. Fred told me even fluke and stripers are getting caught on them, due to a lack of forage fish in the water. 

Nevertheless, I fulfilled my habit of buying killies. Fred offered me Gulp! to use instead. That's what he's been catching his fluke on, but I like using killies. In August, I bought a pint for $10.00. At the same bait shop, I paid $15.00 for a pint yesterday. (Imagine if wages inflated like that. Well, it's a tough world.)

Casting on the ocean side for fluke, we began hooking up immediately. I felt a little disoriented, as if Fred's Fishbites Gulp! knockoffs should somehow be a little less productive than killies, but he was picking off little fluke left and right. Mine were bigger. The first one was about a half inch under the new 17" legal size. He was more than doubling my count. 

Blackfish weren't quite as abundant as they were in August, but bigger. My 17-incher put up such a fight that, for a long while, I thought I had hooked a 10-pound fish. It didn't take drag the way a hybrid striper does or a Jack Crevalle in Florida. (The less than four-pounder I caught in the Gulf took longer runs than a hybrid of the same size would.) The tog was hard to move. For a maybe somewhat less than three-pound fish, the resistance was powerful. Fred felt it with his 17-incher, too. He also caught a 15-incher and a few others.

Fred's caught tog as big as 4.4 pounds off the rocks, but never dogfish until yesterday. He caught two or three and I caught two. 

In total, Fred caught 21 fluke, no keepers. My total of seven included an 18 1/2-inch keeper. He finally gave the killies a shot when the pint had nearly emptied. He put a killie on one hook, a Gulp! on another, catching five little fluke that way. Not one took the killie. So now there's some evidence that my prejudice in favor of live killiefish is just my preference and not that of the fish, though it leads one to wonder why I caught the bigger. A fish took the very biggest killie of the assortment, too, though I never knew if it was a nice fluke or a shark. Whatever it was felt heavy for a sec.

It's a tough world and I'd rather get on with it than complain. We fished more than five hours, and it wasn't until I became aware of our need to hike out that the heft of the ocean environment began to grow on me. Not in the negative way of breaking through defenses and being something to feel imposing, but of dissolving defenses so I myself merge, enlarge, and awaken to blissfulness. So I felt a little sad, knowing we had to leave, but mostly just ready to stick to the plan, which trumps all else. It was a hell of a hard walk on the beach to Fred's SUV, too, but once we got into that vehicle, I began talking. I had been trying to talk as we walked, but the stress of boots in the dry sand was too much.

There's another side to life. You have to pass through the Great Outdoors to get there.

 

"Crab" Rake

Sand Flea or Mole Crab

Dogfish Shark

Piers

 

Eighteen-Inch Bass

I've opened a You Tube channel under my full name, Bruce Edward Litton. This one is very short and to the point. Hope you check out some of the others and subscribe if you'd like. I admit some of them are kind of rough to start off with, but at least half of them seem pretty good.

Clinton Reservoir Bass, Pickerel, Big Bluegill

Haven't been up to fish any of the Newark Reservoirs in 10 years. Back then, I did own an inflatable boat, but the best we could do there was fish from shore, though that didn't interest me enough to continue going up there and following through the next year. Now it appears things will be interesting, since Brian bought a boat. We did fairly well today, putting 11 fish in the boat, fishing less than four hours. Some good-sized fish. The biggest was my largemouth of 20 inches, but if Brian's 25-inch pickerel were a fat fish, it would have weighed perhaps a half pound less Stay tuned, because we'll fish Clinton Reservoir again, and the search engines won't rank the post as high as this one on the reservoir. The Newark Reservoirs are a total of five: Canistear Reservoir, Oak Ridge Reservoir, Echo Lake, and Charlottesburg Reservoir. We could have a tour ahead of us.

We find the Clinton Reservoir fairly clear, bottom showing five or six feet down. Under the intense sun, I did catch a small pickerel trolling a #5 Rapala Floater while on the way under electric power to a certain cove, but once we got there, all I wanted to do was cast a Senko into shadow along the shore. That worked within minutes, when I hooked and managed to boat the big largemouth, which put up a hell of a fight. But afterwards, it was slow going, although eventually another bass grabbed my Senko and pulled it off the hook. Brian did catch a nice pickerel of about 21 inches on that same Rapala, which he cast on my St. Croix while also live-lining a shiner. He later caught a smallmouth about a foot long in the shadow along that shoreline, before we moved to another cove.

There, I saw a sizeable fish rise, and so I cast my Senko to the disturbance. I've done the same in other situations successfully. Result? The 18-inch largemouth Brian photographed. Afterwards, all the way back in the shallows of the cove, I caught another small pickerel on a topwater plug. 

Brian also brought his Loomis fly rod with a yellow popper trailing a hare's ear nymph. As we motored slowly along a shoreline, he let his flies trail behind. Suddenly the fly reel was making a lot of noise. The bluegill he's showing off like a ham in the photo was really a nice fish. It looks a little smaller than the real life impression it gave. 

He'd caught another pickerel or two on the way into that cove, but his best action of the day besides that bluegill came right before we exited at the ramp. He had already told me that last he fished here, he had lost a really big fish when he encountered a huge school of baitfish. The baitfish weren't there this evening, but Brian's 25-inch pickerel caught on a live shiner was a great way to end a nice outing.

We have continued to fish Clinton Reservoir. This is a big one, caught September 1, 2022.

 

I've included links to our other outings at Clinton below. It's not meant to be read as advertisement. If you respect the texts by reading them, you will understand they are not ads. The one immediately below I regard as best literarily. What's more, it's no mystery that fish exist in Clinton Reservoir. I don't believe it's a sin to admire some, photographed before their release. These are not nudes. Fish are naked but never nude in the human sense, so if it's shocking to see photographs of fish, I suggest you remember the 1970's when we admired them as fish and did not confuse them with human status as "porn."

Trolling Pickerel at Clinton

Tough Outing at Clinton

Post-Spawn Smallmouths at Clinton

Chilly Trolling

To the Dam at Clinton

April Trolling at Clinton

One Pickerel Broke the Skunk at Clinton

 Nice Topwater Bite

Oak Ridge