Paulinskill River Confluence with Delaware River at Columbia

Mark Licht catching a Paulinskill smallie.

OK. So I heard about the project coming, but I neither knew Brian Cowden would not be involved, nor the approximate time it would be underway. While I thought the Paulinskill's water a weird muddy quality, I did think a lot of rain came down up here. (We found the Pequest clear.) No, a dam is being removed not all that far upstream of here where we fished. 

I began with a Ned rig anyhow, wondering if any bass would knock that from sensing it by its lateral line, but I quickly switched to a MiniKing spinnerbait by Storm, and I did get a knock by retrieving it right down the middle of the white water in the photo below. Mark threw an inline spinner, but he must've appealed to the bass's sense of smell by a nightcrawler. 

"They're my go-to. Just in case," Mark told me later at the Pequest. Lures will often out-produce bait because they're efficient, but not always. Still at the Paulinskill, he offered me live worms, but I stuck to the MiniKing. 

He caught one smallmouth on a nightcrawler there below the spillway on the far side.

I began thinking of a possible alternative before we got to a spot that's produced greatly for my son and I in the past. (All we caught there was a chub for Mark.) We could drive west and try to fish the confluence where the Paulinskill empties into the Delaware River at Columbia. I figured if the big river was clear, where a muddy river enters it might offer interesting fishing. 

Besides, there would be other possibilities if this one didn't pan out. Neither of us knew if we could find access to the confluence.

We didn't. Houses beside it, private land, and a lot of roadway construction. The Delaware Watergap was a possible option. I know about access there. I knew about possible access along Highway 46 further south, where my son and I caught smallmouths years ago, and besides that, I suggested the confluence of the Pequest with the Delaware.

We rode south. "No Stopping or Standing," all along where, some 17 years ago, my family parked and had a good time. Fully in keeping with the general move in America to deny citizens access to natural space. (I've written a little about that but haven't had time to do serious research.) 

Belvidere. "New Jersey's Best Kept Secret." Kind of like my blog. 

After all, what is more spiritually symbolic than a couple of fishes? "Don't believe the church and state," says Mike and the Mechanics, but Christ might say the same. 

Before we even got to the Delaware, which we never did, we found the hole beneath the dam appealing. Surely, townies had hit the spot hard, but I felt sure it held bass. Catch and release is universal, after all. It's like reincarnation. God catches you at the moment of death and then puts you back. 

Mark had got in the water and just caught a big chub, hollering over to me about a huge smallmouth that tried to eat it before he got it in, when I hooked up on the Ned rig, using blue plastic. My bass, about a foot long, jumped off right in front of me.

I got in the water and waded among round stones the size of soccer balls, 

getting into various positions but raising no interest in my Ned Rig. Mark wasn't doing much, either. A bluegill or two. I figured it was the classic case of freshened fish hitting a lure at the outset, then very quickly getting spooked. After all, the bass below the dam there see hundreds of lures. They forget. Then they remember once they see one a few times. 

So I tried drifting an unweighted nightcrawler, felt a jiggle on that first drift, let the fish take line a bit, tightened up, set, and felt surprised it was a bass. Mark and I caught various bluegills, chubs. I saw Mark got a fallfish, and he caught a rainbow trout. I caught a second bass after I noticed the bluegills had begun taking the nightcrawlers only by the tail, so when I set, I lost bait to them. They're not smart like us but watch a fish check out and reject a lure in clear water. You'll have no doubt their perceptual abilities are tack sharp. It didn't take long for sunnies to stay clear of our hooks. 

We didn't have all night so we never got to the Delaware, but Mark had come through by bringing the nightcrawlers. That transformed a frustrated outing into a fun time and successful day, lots of good conversation during the drive back to Blairstown and my car parked at Dale's grocery.

Just don't make a big habit of parking there. That might piss them off. 

Besides, just click on a label, scroll, and you'll find hundreds of possibilities on my blog.  

Found this memorandum thumbnailed to a tree along the Paulinskill.

River bass.

Mark Licht carefully unhooks rainbow trout.

The fun had begun.

Little Bit on Access We Need More

 

Brian Cronk Reaches 47 Birthday Celebration on Rippin' Lips

Brian Cronk's 47th birthday celebration on Eddie Mackin's Rippin' Lips pontoon--a fun time for all! I realized, as I left the parking lot where I live...to get there just on time, that my whole anticipation of Sunday involved worrying about the weather. Completely unconsciously, but I had.

Look at that blue sky in the photo. That's Gen Wong in the foreground, Ken from the region of Manasquan Reservoir behind him on the left, Max Wilson in the back, Brian Cronk on the right in the back, and Mark Licht with the great smile. Eddie Mackin was at the wheel, Joe Santiago behind me, Brenden from Ridgewood behind me. 

Brian had told me a few of the guys "on" Mayhem would be there, so should I take it that means they're staff members? I said so in a Facebook post, carefully framing my words with "from what I understand," and was trenchantly questioned, to which I replied, having pointed out how I framed my words with "from what I understand," that I don't take it Mayhem is a drug.

Mayhem is short for NJ Multispecies Mayhem Fishing on Facebook, and the New Jersey Multispecies Podcast. Joe Santiago is the Mastermind. Gen Wong and Max Wilson are onboard with him, in whatever capacity that is, be it staff or something else.

As for myself, when I was on the board of Round Valley Trout Association, I wasn't staff, so being "on" Mayhem may signify membership in some special way that's simply recognized and need be no more formal than that. So I say more here on the blog than I did on Facebook, though I don't care to go into edit function and revise my remarks on Facebook. 

Feel special if you've read these words. Everyone in America should fact check by reading Litton's Lines.

I don't know what capacity on Mayhem!

Except that it's some sort or other among more than the two who appear on the Podcast by what I understand! I may be mistaken.

Even at our first stop--Pickerel Point--a fish got caught. Smallmouth bass of maybe a pound and 3/4ths for Mark Licht, who let his live herring swim freely. Naturally, we hoped for a hybrid or plural of them. I've been in the same boat before, when I live-lined herring with my son during summer, and instead of catching hybrids (or possibly walleye), we caught a number of smallmouth bass. 

Second stop--a smallish smallmouth for Brenden. I lost what I believe was a crappie.

Byram Bay--as dusk began to gather, the catfish came alive. Just as Eddie had said they do, back when we fished Pickerel Point under intense sun and heat. Must have been four or five catfish caught, including a black bullhead of about 14 inches for me. I'm not entirely certain, but that might have been my biggest ever. I have caught yellow and/or brown bullheads of 16 inches. Apropos to Brian's birthday celebration, I caught those big bullheads in one of the Princeton Day School ponds. I fished those ponds through my teens more than I fished anywhere else. Brian was born in 1977, shortly before I abandoned them for the most part, going on to college and Long Beach Island commercial clamming. He fished those ponds obsessively during the 1990's. (I did then a little, too--we almost crossed paths.) Virtually no one else fished them. The syncronicity is spooky.

 

And...little white perch got caught. Little crappie. 

Summer is really here, my friends. When the Lake Hopatcong boat traffic resembles the traffic on the Manhattan grid, go with the flow and it feels fine! Made me want to buy a boat for the lake. Not just to fish and shoot photos from, but show my wife the sights! Can always bring a friend and his wife along, too.  

Eddie Mackin at the Wheel

Mark Licht & smallmouth.

Brenden from Ridgewood and smallmouth.

Tarnoski's King's Ransom

 

Anticipating Success in a Connected World

Good-sized pickerel for Oliver

Up at 3:45 a.m., I dressed, went downstairs, and took my camera to the car, noticing that temps seemed somewhere in the 60's. I soon learned the temperature at Bedminster was 59, but at Brian Cronk's house near Dover, where Oliver Round and I soon met, it was 54. We both wore shorts, which proved to be no problem. I had a Woolrich on over a T-shirt. Soon after we launched the squareback canoe, I gave the Woolrich to my black Labrador, Loki. Made his comfort more of a real thing, rather than something to want. 

Recently, I've been trying to write posts that reflect the actual outing while having a more general theme, complete with subheadings. Supposedly, that's good for search engine optimization, and while Google has indexed some of the posts, I got to feeling I was getting away from you, the reader. I like to sit down and hew very close to the outing, without concerning myself much with revision or additional structure. You get a story true to life, which one would hope indeed honors the value of life on earth. If writers ceased to exist capable of doing that, it would beg the question as to whether life on earth will soon cease. Civilization is defined by the written word. Civilization is an "armed madhouse," according to poet Allen Ginsberg, given it's predilection for nuclear warheads. If no word honored nature...

I like to feel challenged, as much as it's disagreeable to me. The canoe, the marine battery, the electric motor are heavy objects, and especially a Tilcon Lake outing requires manhandling. We loaded it all onto a dolly rated for 450 pounds. Oliver easily wheeled it across the two- or three-hundred yards, while I couldn't help but fear something going wrong, which never did. I led Loki along. 

The scenery was stunning. Heavy dew on the greenery made it all silver. Mist rose from the 76-degree lake. I dread these outings, but as they always say, courage is going ahead and doing it in the face of such feeling, and so far, my lower back has not given way since July 2, 2023. It just threatens to. More to life exists than ease, and hardship is a thing of youth...not many of us are millionaires at age 22, let's say, but by age 67, perhaps most well-educated people are so. Taking on difficulty as I grow older keeps me feeling young. Weight defines the earth. Its gravity. Getting outdoors is healthy but participating in them is more so. I just wish I hadn't doubted our being able to get the canoe, fully loaded, up the incline from the launch site when we were leaving. We did it without much difficulty. And we wheeled it all the way out, without any more incident than an adjustment or two to get the dolly facing forward rather than at an angle.  

From the outset, Oliver shoved us off with a paddle, as I vaguely remember. I cast. A green pumpkin Yum Dinger. Set my rod down and fiddled with tackle or whatever. At my knees, or between them, or however I balanced my rod, I felt tension. And that tension was enough to feel like a fish. I picked up the rod, took in slack, set the hook. The bass was small but a first-cast fish. 

We began working our way along that shoreline I've ignored over the years...until another friend, Brenden, and I fished last year.

Oliver hooked a pickerel on a jig & plastic. Proved to be about 20 inches. We came to a corner when I thought to myself about how I always appreciate corners. This one would especially be no different if it were to yield action. I might have cast once or twice when I arced a good one so I could work the Yum Dinger down into the throat of it...which is where I got a pickup. By the time I tightened up on the Power Pro, the fish had traveled a few yards and I set the hook as swiftly as possible.

I soon felt relieved to see the hook wasn't set deep. That bass had fought damn hard for a fish no better than three-and-a-half pounds, about 18 1/2 inches. I didn't measure it, though, because it bled, which happens sometimes unrelated to the hook. I think it has to do with bass that struggle especially hard, blood somehow lost from the gills. Whatever is the case, I got the bass back in the lake and hoped for the best. 

We tried beyond the corner, but since nothing happened, I felt eager to try where herring had balled-up in May. To my surprise, there was a big herring ball there. Not many fish worked it, although I caught a bass shy of two pounds at an edge of the baitfish roaming about the area. Oliver caught another pickerel, either in this area, soon thereafter, or maybe it was back along that shoreline. We fished thoroughly. Major weedbeds there offer possibilities. But the sun climbed with not a cloud to be seen, and I could see in the distance that the farthest shoreline was shaded.

So we trolled over. In minutes, I had a pickerel about as big as Oliver's best, but we lost the fish at the net. We carefully worked our way, casting our Dingers into the shade. Oliver cast to an edge where the shoreline turns and recedes, saying, "You'd think there'd be a fish in that spot." 

Seconds later he hooked up. 

Like the corner, another instance of anticipation. I had a teacher at Hampshire College who chided a short story scene I created featuring a moment of anticipation as if it "couldn't" happen, but in my life, the flat "realism" of an outer world altogether unrelated to the inner isn't the case. 

As we neared the end of the shaded shoreline, I told Oliver about a weedbed around the corner and up a little way. You feel these things. The weedbed felt satisfying. Before we even got to it. And sure enough, I hooked my last bass of the day, about two-and-a-quarter pounds. Had switched out for a Chomper's on an inset hook to deal better with the weeds. 

I trolled the edge of another weedbed for a pickerel that got free boatside. Other than that, Oliver had tied a fly to a dropper and caught a sunfish. The sun was high. The temp had climbed. Even the water reached 79. 

Oliver's bass was a nice one.

My early morning bass.

Maybe two pounds.

46-Fish Day

 

Artificial Intelligence and the Art of Fishing

On the way home, Brenden and I talked a little bit about machine learning or artificial intelligence. I believe the subject came up after Brenden spoke of the impossibility of answering certain questions. I spoke of the probability of certain answers. For example, the last hour of fishing this morning was slow for me. I had lost what I believed was my last bright purple Yum Dinger and had put on a white and green one. I did catch two bass on it, but we'll never know for certain if the slow-down was due to the long shoreline we fished being inherently less productive today, or whether it was that Yum Dinger. I know it's thinkable that the purple color was fishing better, because my friend Fred Matero and I have experimented with the colors of Senkos, an exercise which seemed to show us results. I also know that at least in the past, that last shoreline of the day fished well. It makes you wonder about the color. It's at least a little probable that it made a negative difference. 

Machine learning itself leaves so much to imagination, because it (artificial intelligence) is off on its own, and no one knows exactly how it learns. Nor does anyone know exactly what conclusions it will draw. It's thought that it can do enormous good in fields like medicine, but we don't know what it will think of the relationship between it and us. And...what it will do.

Fishing is Like Artificial Intelligence 

A fishing trip is like that. It's something of itself. We might like to think we master the situation, which very much was the attitude during the 1970's when I began fishing seriously. The whole idea that "Knowledge leads to fishing success," to quote the master himself, Buck Perry. A man who had taught high school physics. The 1970's were a simpler world in which knowledge had an absolute quality. (I was fixated on the fact that Einstein's relativity hadn't made it into the high school physics program at Lawrence where I grew up.) 

Today, anglers have much greater access to knowledge and information. But "the more I know, the more I realize what I don't know," as Albert Einstein put it decades before the '70's. A man ahead of his time. It's not that a fishing trip masters us, but an outing is an interaction, which our knowledge participates in more than it determines results. We don't exactly know how we do it--just as artificial intelligence is less determined by us as the creator of it, than being a field of interactions in the sense of AI being a self-initiated development of understanding. Just the same, when we fish a particular shoreline, let's say, edged by weedbeds and dropping off into eight or nine feet of water, we don't know how much that environment involves itself in meeting us. We take it for granted that we're after the bass. We never stop and think--as maybe we begin to now--that the bass as representatives of an organic environment are directed towards getting caught. But that they do get caught at all implies that they're at least receptive to that. I don't mean at all that they are available in any way that would be obvious and easy, but it's not a master and slave, or predator and victim, relationship. Even the rabbit grabbed by the coyote fulfills its possibility as nourishment for the advantaged. The "advantaged" is that only in light of the rabbit. And I mean "light" in the sense of making something possible, of making something visible as it were. Just as the rabbit is a positive agent in that respect, so is the bass to us.

Now artificial intelligence has implications for the ecological scene. When both we and AI are ready for the changes. Even as the two of us are separate. the two of us are striving to understand one another.

We used to think we have the upper hand on how an outing will work out, and then we discover we've run out of purple Dingers. Later on, as Brenden and I emptied the canoe, I discovered I had one more purple Dinger in a box I hadn't checked. I did have the knowledge of that Dinger. On some level, I knew it was in that box. But knowledge can only function within a system. If my organization of the items I presume to bring along and keep at my disposal isn't lucid, then doesn't a glitch exist in the system? 

Or you could say, being denied that purple Dinger opened a whole other can of worms. 

(It's made for an interesting article.)

Artificial intelligence might learn from a similar glitch in its system. In any case, why is it that of a very successful day--I caught 15 largemouths in less than six hours, much of them spent fishing a Mepp's Giant Killer for muskies--what I might remember best is that white and green Dinger?

It poses a question.

Fishing is Messy

And Brenden wasn't altogether at the Zenith of his Form, either, which of course we would expect of ourselves during that Ideal Decade of the '70's. He told me yesterday he might bring one rod, so I emphasized that I was bringing two, sensing that he was making a mistake if he did that. He did bring two, but they were both casting rods intended for musky. He never fished a Senko or Yum Dinger. He ended up catching two or three largemouths on jerkbaits. I can't remember if it was two or three, but I think it was two, so all the more power to the uncertainty and messiness of what we do. And think.

He regretted not having brought a third rod, although he did lure three muskies into following his spinner and jerkbait to the canoe. Water temperature ranged from 79 to 83. He told me it was in the mid-70's late in May when he caught three muskies on one outing, the largest at 42 inches, and a single 47-incher another time.. I think with 83-degree water, even though that's at the surface, as Brenden pointed out, the likelihood of getting one to hit diminishes. There are no muskies in Florida but plenty of largemouths. 

  Art Rather than Sport with a Skill Set

Don't get me wrong. Wracking up 15 bass is a pleasure. Even if I'm a little disgusted by the excess, I wanted the number to go even higher. Fishing on pressured waters is an odd deal, though, as most of the bass respond to the fact and therefore are conditioned by us rather than being altogether wild. It's as if we take from their freedom and perhaps we do. By turn, we might limit our own, but we find it worth the exchange because the pleasure is real. Besides, if Albert Camus's definition of freedom is worth any salt at all--"Freedom is the possibility of gain."--then no doubt, we don't limit ours by catching fish. Unless the whole point of fishing got lost on us, and a catch no longer was a gain--because we found it absurd to catch a fish. I'll say something about that in the next paragraph, but make no mistake, I wanted to catch an even bigger bass than the 19 3/4-inch, three-pound, 13-ounce fish that was my best. 

I'll never forget where I hooked that bass. We remember spots like that, not because they are goals we've made in a pre-arranged game, but at least in part because we honor an encounter with another living being. I wonder if archaeologists account for cave wall paintings, certainly a form of art, as code for honoring the same thing in various animals hunted. Look at the form of so many fishing stories that make my blog. They're wandering accounts of my approaches to certain fish and descriptions of where caught, though not by designating just where by collective signs to give spots away. 

Such meanderings are basically the stuff of plotted stories, which we all know about as the art of the novel. It's not just that I decided, as a teenager, to become a novelist because fishing taught me how, but that fishing itself--I think--can and should be an art form. 

I didn't use Senko-type worms today--Yum Dingers--because they would "advantage" me to win a game. The fishing of them gives me pleasure. Art is nothing if not a pleasure. It's not merely entertainment, because pure entertainment is mindless in the sense that all care is cast off. Art absorbs the mind. Art compels us to think.

Foundation and Plot of Story 

You won't throw a Yum Dinger for long if it doesn't compel you to think. You'll get bored with it, because it won't provide you easy entertainment. Think of the countless poor fishermen who give up before they connect and begin to build the foundation and plot of a story. That's how you get good at it. At fishing. By having a story. 

  

First bass of the day. From floating water chestnut leaves, which elsewhere yielded at least a few more. 

Most of my bass were about this big, on the small side, but not bad.

Brenden with a jerkbait bass.

Minutes before I caught this nice one, something hit my Dinger, I set the hook and parted with fish and Dinger. The snap had straightened out. Advertised as 15-pound strength, I can no longer trust that, and will order more snaps tonight.

Not a bad one on the purple Dinger.

Brenden's last bass.

Furnace Lake

 

Yum Dinger Action as Weed Mass Gets Thick

A really good outing. Better than I can write at present. After a day so busy at work that, while the customers made me feel good about the work I had put in to supply them, I just feel exhausted this evening. Have to turn in early, anyhow, because I'm up again at 5:40 a.m. I might finish the post tomorrow afternoon. 

My head was in the right place Thursday afternoon and evening as we fished. That's leaning towards hypomanic, rather than dwelling on the spot that could later sink into depression, but altogether safe and secure within the situation--not escalating at all. The medicine I use is great stuff. Never once have had any problem with my head getting foggy. Clear as a whistle. Use the bare minimum dose, because it's all I need. I stay stable because of good thinking habits more than because of medicine. I'd refuse medicine altogether if I didn't think a little of it is a good thing, and my attitude towards the prescriber is that we visit just so I can get my refills. I don't tell her that, of course not, but that's what I go for. Nothing else matters between us beyond that, and meetings are very short.

Writers all through history--the great ones--have been manic.

To call that a superpower is cheap.

If most of what you read feels breezy, it's probably because the writer doesn't get underneath his subject matter and look upward to see the refection on the surface. If he were to write from within the substance of the matter, no breeze could affect him, because there is no breeze or wind beneath the surface of the water. 

I must have thought of half a dozen themes for this post while out there on the lake. More than a dozen patterns crossed my mind. I didn't limit myself to one, as at least used to be the style of Bassmaster Magazine. The persuasion. Find a pattern and stick to it. Brian might point out I was pretty fixated on the Yum Dingers, but I threw jerkbaits and topwaters, and my last fish of the evening, a pickerel, hit my favorite trolling plug, the Storm Hot 'n Tot. I own two of them in the larger size. One of them smaller. 

From the moment I first connected, catching a small bass about 12 inches long on the Yum Dinger cast beyond the edge of weeds growing up to nearly the surface in eight feet of water, I felt this outing was going to go well. I caught a bass on the next cast further out from that edge visible to us, and those two and the three other bass I caught, plus one of my two pickerel, came on a Yum Dinger. Brian caught his two largemouths and a pickerel on Senkos. But besides the Pop-R and the Hot 'n Tot, I also trolled a ShadRap, and it seemed curious to me that nothing ever hit it. Most of the time I trolled the Hot 'n Tot--nothing hit that until the very end, either. I've been on the lake in July catching pickerel after pickerel trolling that plug. Caught a smallmouth in July trolling the Hot 'n Tot, too.

I wish I could have written this post right after getting off the water. Almost all of my posts that account for outings are that fresh, and it makes a difference, as the impression on my brain habitually creates a line that draws the reader into the substance of the story, and of course the longer you distance yourself from an event, the less memory serves you, at least in some respects I think are important and serve as thematic details. I know that the ways I fished on Thursday made distinct impressions on me I wanted to write about, and other times I've taken such impressions home and delivered them to you quite intact. I used to hit on grand themes that came off well, too. 

We had "gone to the left," as Brian puts it, meaning nothing political at all by all I can tell, and fished the same weedbeds where herring schooled during May. No herring were there Thursday--no surprise. Wind came through like the hand of fortune. Its palm pushed us at just the right speed to get a good casting drift to fish the area thoroughly. Brian quoted Eddie Mackin, "Never leave fish to find fish." We put three or four in the boat before I motored us over to the far side of interconnected weedbeds, where nothing more happened and pretty soon I snapped on the ShadRap.

Brian made the point that he hates to continue fishing where fish aren't turning up. I had a certain island in mind. 

We took the shoreline to the right all the way down into the back of the lake. We did the same last we were here just weeks ago, and on that trolling run, I felt it odd we caught no more than one bass. On this one--not a hit. I'd like to know why all the trolling we did panned out very little, but I haven't enough information to sort out and draw any conclusion. In the back of the lake, nothing happened along the shoreline that was quite productive last time, either. 

But I found my island.

I had told Brian I couldn't find it last we were on the lake, nor when I was here with Brenden, because the rock that's usually exposed above the surface is submerged. (A distinct threat to trolling motors set on high speed.) But on Thursday, I saw flowering tendrils had broken through the surface. Brian had made the point earlier that weed mass had increased dramatically since we were here last. He also spoke about the reduced action. I told him it's about how the lake fishes in July and August, though the lake can fish a lot slower. We put 10 fish in the boat on Thursday. The last we were here, we caught 12. My island made a difference, as we caught three of that fish total way up in the shallows and as deep as 10 feet or more. 

I had told Brian that my son and I once caught a number of bass in 30-foot depths, which happened to be associated with that island. We used quarter-ounce bullet sinkers and Chompers worms on inset hooks. I felt rather interested in trying deep Thursday, but I had a bass on from the shallows right away. Having lost that one, I was interested in more, though I did get my Yum Dinger down into 18-, 19-foot depths, feeling quite curious about that. A lot of sunlight overhead, though that breeze chopped the surface, water temperature at 75 to 77 degrees. 

Yum Dingers sink a lot faster than Chompers. Twice as fast. In July, I'll fish an unweighted Chompers on an inset hook, taking advantage of that slower sink rate, but Thursday I felt completely comfortable with the Dinger. Brian pointed out that you can free one from the weeds by a quick yank, and the hook will be clean.

Two of my bass were about 17 1/2-inches long. Brian got one about that big, too. I'm hoping for a real big one here, but it just doesn't happen.  

  

About 17 1/2 inches for Brian

Long and skinny is common here.

The pirate Bluebeard with a pickerel.

Not a bad bass, but why not twice as big?

With Brenden

 

Dock Discovery for May Fishing Conditions

We pulled 12 fish over the Dow's rental boat gunwale, but like all of these I photographed, they were small. We never hooked a good-sized fish, though my remembering a 2020 outing in May on Lake Hopatcong with my son somehow led to discovery of future possibility. If conditions serve that possibility. I told Kevin Murphy early on about Matt and I catching 10 largemouths, four of mine over two pounds, one of them 20 inches. It's fascinating how that memory presaged what we would discover near the outing's end, as if we might someday fish under similar conditions again in May and do even better than Matt and I did that day years ago.  

Kevin I had begun unloading shortly after 6 a.m. The night before, I messaged him, saying I might phone in the morning. The weather forecast had improved since I had last seen it--no thunderstorms expected until noon--but no one knew what morning would bring. I actually woke up an hour ahead of my alarm when rain fell heavily. I went back to sleep and soon got up with that alarm--to peace, quiet, and humid warmth at 70 degrees. Kevin had left a message 15 minutes earlier and was on the road. I like his determination.

He arrived two minutes ahead of me. No sign of rain existed besides clouds hanging low. Later, as we persistently trolled plugs, the sun came out. When we docked back at Dow's at 2:22 p.m., that's exactly when rain began to fall, but for only about 10 minutes. Not very heavy; not very light. Otherwise, we escaped rain all day, and those promised thunderstorms never came. I had been told I might as well cancel for next week. but bottom line, I go by what the planet presents. I pay attention to the media, but I judge what I see out in the world itself.

Trolling to Begin With

Beginning in my favorite hybrid striper trolling lanes, I quickly surmised that with the 74-degree water and otherwise summer-like conditions, we weren't going to hook any. I took us through our second pass and abandoned that approach, imagining a certain cove would produce that fishes well for pickerel and crappies once the water warms well. Otherwise, I've done well trolling for big hybrids with the water as chilly as 57.

We trolled the cove, never getting hit, but Byram Bay proved to be productive for small fish. We began by casting Senko-type plastics among rocks--getting snagged a few times--where I caught my first smallmouth bass. Neither of us could buy a second hit, so we moved on to another rocky area that's produced smallmouths in the past.

I began there by fishing a Z-Man paddletail, almost catching a sunfish, but I soon went back to the Senko, never getting hit. We trolled out of the area, and I soon caught a small hybrid striper on my favorite Rapala Sinking Minnow, Kevin trolling another of the same plug. The rear treble of my plug got snagged on my portable graph unit's fabric housing, and I pulled it out with pliers, breaking two of the tines. So I switched out, using from thereon--when trolling--a smallish Rapala X-Rap.

More Than Expected

The forecast still had thunderstorms on the agenda. I decided that rather than doing our usual tour by following the far shoreline around and beyond Cow Tongue Point, we would fish the far shore of Great Bay, where we could easily duck back and dock at Dow's, if we heard thunder. 

"That shoreline produces fish," I told Murph. "We've trolled brown trout and nice pickerel." 

Instead of beginning with trolling, I immediately got interested in casting Senkos to docks and boathouses, a little underneath them, and between them. We ended up fishing a couple hundred yards or more of really interesting structure that I didn't remember discovering, besides once taking note of it when ice fishing almost two decades ago. It seems as if by trolling by, the spots never registered as worth casting to. 

Worth Waiting on Favorable Conditions?

We fished a long range of docks and boathouses pretty hard. All for one rock bass on a Senko. Why no bass, I couldn't guess, besides thinking they had taken to 16-foot depths at the bottom edges of weedlines. And why that on a low-pressure day when it's not quite summer, I don't know. Besides, I often let my worm sink into 16-foot depths. 

But for sure. That memory of Matt and I in 2020 re-emerged, and I said to Murph, "If Matt and I had thought of fishing here four years ago, we might have done even better!" 

Four years ago, wind blew very heavily from the southwest. Since Murph and I fished the western shore of Great Bay, Matt and I would have been out of the wind. That was requirement Number 1 of the conditions we faced. To get out of the wind. Second requirement--fish five feet deep or shallower. And plenty of water that shallow exists along the shoreline I had re-discovered.

And I knew about, not only this particular shoreline, but the similar western shoreline of Lee's Cove, too, where Matt and I have caught both largemoths and smallmouths on different occasions, but it just never occurred to me that day to try either area. So who knows. Maybe Murph and I will, once again, set back our spring Lake Hopatcong outing to mid-May like last year, when we did so poorly in Byram Bay and around towards Henderson Bay, besides an 18 1/2-inch smallmouth. 

If we can remember!

One Last Shot at Trolling

I knew about these docks and boathouses, have passed them by while trolling more than once, and yet they definitely served as a discovery. Similar spots surely exist on other lakes nationwide, too.

We got tired of throwing worms around. I couldn't quit for the day without one last troll. Kevin still felt eager. I caught my third smallmouth bass, really little at eight or nine inches. We put a couple of yellow perch over the gunwale, too. 

Nice to know the shoreline still trolls well, but will the docks ever produce?   

  

Even a little hybrid about a foot long takes drag on runs.

We caught a couple of white perch.

Crappie nearly a foot long.

Second smallmouth on Senko. I knew the floating mat was a bass magnet.

Largemouth I caught by casting underneath a big willow-like bush overhang. I lost another largemouth of about 13 inches on the jump that hit under there.

Rock bass.

Yallor

Apparently the orange floats are for sailboat laning.

Couple of boathouses in Great Cove.

May 2020

 From the Trolling Lane

Inconsistent Sunlight Good Daytime Catches

Brian Cronk's 19 1/4-incher

I haven't been on the lake in two years. Memory needs to inhabit you, if continuity is going to be met at the start. It has nothing to do with the likes of the breaks between sunlight we experienced, as such are discontinuous rather than the opposite, but has to do with the nature of human interiority itself--whether it's accustomed to the wilds, or civilized constructions. The poet Robert Frost wrote of "inner weather," and I would say it's a fine thing if you can afford the sustained reverie of an inner life as attuned to nature. I don't mean that as a complaint, because I've known it myself, and working hard for not much more than minimum wage is an experience in its own right that teaches me to shut up and get the job done. It doesn't give me much time to entertain the comings and goings of leisure. It doesn't add much to my wealth. But as I struggle to constantly do the job, which means improving on it, I learn something about demand and creating supply. 

Partly Cloudy from the Beginning

We waited until 6:30 a.m. to meet at Brian's house, having planned at first on 5:45. When I pulled into the driveway, my car thermometer registered 52 degrees. We had wanted to make sure the rain would be gone, and Brian reminded me the fish hit there all day anyhow, a point the outing would prove abundantly correct as a kind of half-measure, as I believe our last attempt at them failed when the inconsistency of sunlight gave way to a completely clear sky, which I'll get to. 

Partly cloudy skies accompanied us to the lake and we paddled downwind towards an island with the same overhead, the temperature remaining chilly though we were dressed for it. As I say, I didn't feel as familiar as I know I've felt in the past. It's not that the job "takes it out of you," but that you "give your all" to it. That way it's there for you in the morning as something you've already achieved. Anticipations are reserved for the work, getting home, and other home activities. I'm not oriented to the Grand Affirmations I enjoyed through most of the previous decade of fishing, when I worked an easier job. 

I man a specialty case that was its own department when I began working at the supermarket eight years ago. I worked under a salaried manager and an executive chef who oversaw our department and others pretty much the same at different supermarkets. The executive chef often worked with us. Some of the time we also had a part time worker in the department. The salaried manager is long gone. The executive chef quit and moved to Georgia. No part-timer is assigned the case. 

I do it alone.

We fished a spot we've found good during the early season, where I had a nice fish on for a moment, having cast a blue Chatterbait with a blue Dinger trailer. Brian was intent on the area in front of the island where our Chatterbaits did get hit a few times. He observed that when he was here three weeks ago, the water was weedy. "It seems to have been weed harvested," he said.

We moved further up lake by taking the narrow passage between the island and shore. I felt concerned about how cold the weather, about how that might be affecting the fish negatively. Consistent sun might have warmed the lake a little, and though the mist rising off the surface gave away the fact that it was cooling, it also proved that the water temperature was much warmer than the air. I switched-out for a Yum Dinger and soon caught the first fish. A largemouth my bait found lurking near a stick-up, the bass a product of my typical effort at casting accuracy. About 16 inches. Brian soon thereafter hooked up on a Chatterbait. Largemouth, 18 inches and chunky.

Inconsistent Sunlight Advantages Largemouth's Predation

Brian did catch three pickerel, a crappie, and a 13-inch yellow perch. I don't know how inconsistent light affects those species, but I read Will Ryan in Field and Stream, academic studies cited by him in his article, on largemouth bass having an eye structure (not the same as walleye's) that advantages them for predation when light is changing. Situations include the magic hours early and late, and any time during the day when partly cloudy skies mean the quality of light is inconsistent. 

Will Ryan is on the staff of Gray's Sporting Journal, last I checked, and teaches at Hampshire College. By what I understand, he has privileged access to a large academic database, finding out all sorts of fishing facts. I fished with Ryan on one occasion. He was a good friend--maybe the best friend--of my economics professor and academic advisor, Stan Warner. I fished with Warner at least twice during my second semester at Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, when I knew him. Last I checked, Ryan still teaches there.

Action Until the Sky Cleared

We got into a pattern of paddling against the wind out into the middle of the lake and further than that, nearer to the opposite shore. Then we would drift under force of that wind almost to shore. It worked in spades. Every drift yielded at least one fish. At one point, Brian called the big, low hanging cumulus of dark grey "storm clouds." His Chatterbait got hit too many times to recall. He had fish on he lost, and my Pop-R took hits I missed, also. Right off the bat we discovered weeds that rise from bottom about five feet deep almost to the surface, and my having remembered Lake Musconetcong topwater success from decades ago, that Pop-R got violently assaulted on my first cast!

Topwater is fishing I love. It helped wake me up. After nearly three hours. 

We paddled and drifted, paddled and drifted, and eventually we began to talk about going home. We gave the weeds one last long try, and I felt puzzled about why nothing was hitting. After persistently trying for one more, we decided to engage the long paddle. Against the wind and back to the launch and pullout site. On the way, we got closer yet to that opposite shore, where weeds became more visible, and I felt moved to a deep reverie. Such reveries are natural to me, but instead of resenting the job that denies me many hours of them, I accept that social structure has further lessons to teach me, which should be helpful when I begin writing a novel once I retire.

I also realized that something Brian had said earlier, now made a load of sense. Brian had spoken about fish moving from the front of the lake to the back. Whether a weed harvester--a device mounted on a boat that pulls aquatic vegetation from a lake--or a chemical treatment had removed weeds from between in front of the island to the lake's dam, it made all the sense that fish would move to where weeds provide habitat.   

When we got to the launch and pullout, I noticed there was not a cloud in the sky. Instantly, I understood why the fish had stopped hitting. Cold front conditions had set in, and the sameness of the open sky had surely put the fish off the feed for the time being. 

The temperature hadn't risen all that much from when we began, either.

It was about 11:00 a.m. Brian had caught four largemouths, three pickerel, a crappie, and the 13-inch yellow perch that also hit the Chatterbait, as had the crappie. I caught four largemouths and two crappies. If I remember correctly, both of my crappies hit the Pop-R.  

My first and one of several largemouths on Yum Dinger.

Makes you wonder sometimes why the small bass don't get caught.

Brian caught all four of his bass on Chatterbait.

My 19 1/4-incher, one of four largemouths on the Yum Dinger and Rebel Pop-R.

Brian's crappie

One of three pickerel Brian caught on Chatterbait.

One of two crappies I caught, this one 12 3/4 inches.

20 1/2-inch pickerel. 

19 1/4 inches

Brian's measuring board.

After partly cloudy skies--some dark clouds at that--the bite suddenly ceased as the sky overhead became completely cloudless.

Three Bass Slightly Under 20 Inches and Bigger