Changing Color of Wacky Worm Made a Difference

Gen Wong and smallmouth bass.

I favor the big smallmouth bass of Lake Hopatcong. That's not to say I don't favor other species, like walleye and hybrid stripers, but it's to say in part that when I think of big smallmouths today, I wish I had caught some yesterday. By big, I mean 18 inches and better. 

Largemouths? I love them, too, but I have a long standing disagreement with the Lake Survey Maps Guide. On a scale of 1 to 4, 1 being abundant and 4 pretty much being absent, Largemouths get a 1 for their showing in the lake, smallmouths only a 3. I like to think smallmouths should get a 2.

Or at least that my catches should continue to make it seem that way.

What's the odds that we just happened to cast in all the wrong places yesterday? That the fish were there among the docks and willing to hit, but we just didn't get our lures to them? After all, we hadn't been fishing more than a half hour or 45 minutes when a guy in a bassboat approaching us and fishing the same row of docks--as we went around him--boated a largemouth of at least two-and-a-half pounds. 

I fished Wacky, a crayfish color with fleck, on the light side and quite visible in the relatively clear water, in the shade or in the sun, and Brian Cronk and Gen Wong tried various Chatterbaits, jerkbaits, and plastics. 

Other fishermen have been doing well with bait. That means live herring. Jimmy Welsh at Dow's told me he's catching them, and Eddie Mackin's Rippin' Lips Guide Service told Brian yesterday they got 20 hybrids. 

I've caught bass around the docks as late into the season as a late October day when temperatures didn't even rise to 50. Getting skunked--Brian and I caught nothing, though Gen's little bass meant the boat didn't get skunked--seems strange. The lake's water temperature was 70.5 in the morning when I took it, and the air rose well into the 70's by 1:30 when we got off the lake. 

But it happens, and part of being an angler is dealing with it. It can seem ridiculous when you stand outside yourself and observe the apparent folly of your struggle. Why's fishing worth feeling any qualm? Besides, it's over and done. But fishing is no ordinary pursuit. 

Even though only fishermen know that.

Yesterday was a Sunday, however, which might at least give the illusion of an explanation. Even when my son and I fished on a Saturday or Sunday during late October and fished docks after fishing live herring into the early afternoon--and caught largemouths as big as 18 inches during more than one occasion--fishing pressure had diminished by that late in the season...or at least it wasn't as heavy as it was yesterday. I even wondered if the pressure has increased since a decade and more ago. Besides, the lake was surely hit hard on Saturday, too, so all these dock spots we fished had been hit hard the day before. 

All of them, I'm sure. We had guys in bassboats meeting us from both sides. Pressure can really shut it down, but again, we did witness that nice largemouth get caught.

We wouldn't go without having a couple nice fish on ourselves. We just wouldn't get those fish in the boat! With time running out and my upper back beginning to pain me, we fished a little cove. Gen had switched out his Wacky worm of a color that resembled my crayfish color. The water there was stained. "I don't think the bass can see it," he said of the worm he removed. 

Since I'm as slow to take advice as I am to make a change, I didn't immediately switch out my own. 

He caught that little smallmouth. I felt delighted it was that, especially with the bottom being muddy. Not five casts later, he hooked a nice bass. I watched as he played it, and I was about to get the net and pull its handle into place. 

I began routing around in my bag for the same worm Gen had taken. He hadn't brought any along. I had packs upon packs of Yum Dingers and some Shim-E-Sticks, and it frustrated me that it took some doing before I found the right one. He said something again about the need for bass to see the worm, and I pointed out they can feel it. To that, he said, "If they can see, feel, and smell it, you're three times advantaged," and I knew I could only get that worm on the hook. I couldn't argue against what Gen had just said. 

I couldn't argue against the "intel" we got from Joe Santiago, either, Gen having keyed his number by mobile device. I won't tell where the spot is, but it's very interesting and convinced me Joe knows his stuff. I've fished the lake for more than two decades, and I didn't know about the spot. There's another one I do know about Joe spoke of in some detail, which I haven't tried yet. 

Before docking at Dow's, we tried a rocky spot Brian knows about, which I also hadn't known about. It's a really nice looking spot for smallmouths, and I felt chagrinned that in all my years fishing the lake, I had never taken notice of it. But that's how it is with coming and going. When you're near the dock you don't investigate. At least I don't, but it is a form of laziness. Or just plain comfort: When you're headed out, you've got a distant goal to satisfy. When you're headed in--you're done.

Not yesterday. We fished that spot thoroughly, and Brian got a fish on. I saw his rod bent and tip jerking. The fish hit a jerkbait.  

 

Brian Cronk fishes.

Nice Smallmouths

Catching Some Little Ones As If One Might Be Good Sized

Fred Matero with one of his two little Harvey Cedar's fluke.

We had a serious problem with northeast wind yesterday. First thing we did on the island, after stopping at Fisherman's Headquarters, where I bought some hooks and sinkers, was grab a look at the surf, and it was all a rage. I hadn't expected it to be so bad. Next, we rode all the way to Barnegat Light and got a look at the jetty. The end of it appeared unfishable, waves breaking all the way across, and all the way back our way to the middle, water was on the rocks. If we were to go out there and fish that middle portion, which is the least we'd have wanted to do, we'd have probably got soaked. Not only with the temperature not quite 70, but with a backpack I want to keep in good condition, Fred's gear, and our preference for accessing the rocks without need of cumbersome Korkers cleats, though we each had a pair of them in Fred's SUV, the rocks weren't something we felt eager to hike out to. In fact, we abandoned our plan to do that altogether. 

We went to our bayside spot. I cast a jig & Gulp, with a Z-Man Elaztech tied above that jig on a dropper loop. I wasn't expecting anything, but last Fred fished here recently, a 20-incher got caught, and he had one on, so I did make the best of each cast. And on one of them, I got hit right in close before I would have lifted for the next cast, lifted to set the hook, and had what felt like a 16-inch fluke on for a couple of seconds. Fred witnessed all that, but I told him the same anyhow, and he said, "You never know. When the guy hooked the 20-incher it felt like nothing till he got it to the surface and it ran."

I finally got my rig snagged, broke off the jig, and switched to bait in vague hopes of a nice tautog. It's rare that a really good one gets caught here, but the place draws a contingent of regulars that fish here all the time. Maybe they're just hooked, regardless of what gets caught, and what gets caught, in fact, are always little fish. But the jetty isn't too far away, and keeper tog do get caught on it. Sheepshead, too, though the sheepshead are relatively uncommon. So, who knows? I had it in me to give it a sincere try, more than I did last time. And I did hook something somewhat nice, like a 12-inch tog, big enough that I had to work the reel & rod hard to keep it out of the rocks, which I failed at doing! It got snagged in such a way that I could feel its body pulsing--not exactly a "little" fish--but I still couldn't get it unsnagged, not even by giving it slack for long periods of time.

In the meantime, one of the guides on the Tica Fred was using for baiting tog broke. The ring had popped out of the metal frame. He told he figured he could glue it. Told me about the brand he'd use, though I forget which epoxy. Then things got worse after he continued to use it and that ceramic ring broke. He felt disappointed because he's going to Florida soon and wanted to use the rod there. But he told me he had been looking for an excuse to buy a new Tsunami rod. I told him I had bought my Tica to replace a Tsunami. I didn't tell him this, but yeah, a Tsunami that was of the same size as my Tica. I couldn't remember, though, and still can't, what went wrong with the Tsunami. 

At the end of our excursion, we would stop back in at Fisherman's Headquarters, where Fred left his Tica to be repaired, because there's no point in trashing an otherwise good rod because of a 20-dollar fix. It will take longer to get done than when he leaves for Florida, however, so he has his excuse.  

I caught some little fish as I continued to fish as if one of them might be good sized, and I enjoyed it. I guess when you're open to the water in front of you, what comes out of it, in fact, feels good. Fred had told me about a spot in Harvey Cedars, and that it would be best to fish it before the tide gets low. Since the tide was on its way out, I felt ready to go, but I gave our spot my blessing, as if, just maybe, it would yield a nice one some day. 

The Harvey Cedars spot has no tog and sheepshead structure. It's open water of at least six feet, near the Intracoastal Waterway channel. Fred hadn't been there in years, but he's caught small fluke, weakfish, and I believe he said cocktail blues. Today, we get some bites from small stuff that resulted in Gulp twister tails being bit off. I got a couple of hits on the Elaztech teaser I think were small fluke. You know that's where the hit came, when the Elaztech is no longer straight but pulled down into a curve on the hook. And by fishing the cove pretty hard, Fred ended up with two small fluke. 

Black Seabass

From the spot where we caught a number of small ones.

Bergal, also known as cunner.

Northeast Wind Probably Not as Bad

 

Feeder Creeks Make Low Water an Opportunity

Nine-inch pike hit large Smithwick plug.

Yesterday, on the way to Round Valley Reservoir for a dog walk and photo shoot with my wife and black Lab Loki, and on the way back home from the same and ice cream at Polar Cub, I thought hard on what to do about fishing today. When we drove the bridge over Rockaway Creek, I took a good look at that stream's low level and knew exactly where I wanted to fish. Somewhere along the Passaic River by walking the bank. 

After we got home, I texted Brenden Kuprel, asking him if he'd been fishing it. He got back in minutes, saying he'd caught a small pickerel and had a blowup on a Whopper Plopper. I told him I'd be fishing it tomorrow and that he's welcome to meet me there if he wants. He told me he wasn't sure what he was doing tomorrow, but one thing and another happened, and today we decided on meeting at a bridge over the river. 

The river gets some pressure there, but as Brenden put it, mostly "within a hundred yards of the bridge." We headed downstream, and our passage was probably possible only because of the low water. A lot of little creeks feed into the river, and getting across them is probably impossible when water is higher. With us included in the river's ecology, those creeks protect the resource, and make low water an opportunity. 

But what happened to make today opportune? Well, it was the fish Brenden didn't hook. The one that went after his spinner with more than a little drama. He cast a big Colorado-bladed inline spinner, and I saw the blowup on it, too. I think the fish had to have been at least five pounds. Likely more than that. We fished the area thoroughly, catching a few little nine-inch pike apparently stocked recently, and made a mental note to fish the spot on the way back. 

We must have worked our way downstream a half mile or more, before we turned back. That involved crossing at least a half dozen little feeder creeks. Avoiding deep mud in the process. Once, I stepped onto a log  in the mud, then tried to leap up a bank, falling instead, so that my face got planted where my feet would have gained traction, Loki the black Lab licking it profusely.

Good dog! I got up as if it were nothing, because I could walk straight, nothing turned in the wrong direction. Other little creeks I cleared as if I have decades of good balance left. 

Before we began making the march back out, I had almost hooked a pike that impressed me as being about 18 inches long. I had my drag set light. I loosen drags at home to take the stress off them. Perhaps they'll last longer. But then I have to remember to tighten them down, or something like today's lost pike happens. I tried to set the hooks and my drag screeched, rather than the hooks actually getting set. 

Back at the spot where Brenden got hit by the big one, I caught yet another little pike, about a foot long. Brenden had caught another little nine-incher and a couple of little yellow perch back along the way. 

It wasn't an outright skunker. The pike we caught were too little, but at least they made their presence known. Above all, the big one that blew up on Brenden's spinner. And the one I had one for a second would have been OK catch, too. I've never caught a pike bigger than 20 inches from the Passaic, but I always find the river compelling. So does Brenden, who lives near the river, and has caught four pike better than 10 pounds, so far.    

Large tree virtually growing out of the river.

 

Passaic Pike

Lake Wallenpaupack From Shore: Schuman Point and Other Spots

Lake Wallenpaupack is like any other lake where you can find shoreline access: Chances are good some of what you can get to will hold bass and other gamefish. I didn't know it for a fact before I got up there and tried a few spots, but it didn't surprise me that I caught a couple of fish. We stayed at the lake region for a few days beginning on my wife's birthday, and instead of blowing 500 bucks on a charter, I got a three-day license and fished a little for two days while Trish sat comfortably and read. If I want to get serious about smallmouths, I can rent a Stumpknocker from Dow's on Lake Hopatcong. I just felt curious about what I might catch where probably just about everyone else gets skunked.

When I began fishing late Sunday afternoon in a little cove commandeered by a marina, a couple of other guys had been fishing, and as they left, they told me they'd caught nothing. I like to piece things apart as if I'm looking in every corner for an old coin. That dock in the lower left of the photo, below, was the object of my deconstruction, and if I fished with the lackluster gusto of most fishermen, I wouldn't have engaged in a process of covering every inch in the attempt to get whatever bass that might hide underneath docks and boats interested. Most fishermen fish as if they don't believe any fish exist. 

I caught the bass photographed above on a Yum Dinger rigged Wacky. Little bass. But a bass. I also tried to set the hook into another one that took the same worm, but missed that hit. Hooking a three-pound largemouth didn't seem out of the realm of possibility to me.

On Monday, we planned on hiking the Schuman Point Hiking Trail, but decided to wait until Tuesday morning to hike it entirely. Instead, we hiked directly to the lake from the parking lot, where I did more thorough fishing and Trish read her book. As you can see in the photo, the reservoir's water level is down three or four feet, and many of the rocks are good material for holding smallmouth bass, easy to assume more of the same exists under the water. Judging by my losing two Yum Dingers to snags, I would say so. 

I used crayfish-colored worms. I saw more than a few dead crayfish. Apparently, there were thousands of them among the rocks.

Having switched to a Husky Jerk, I covered range a lot quicker than I had been doing with the Wacky rig. I worked my way down to the deadfall you can barely see in the middle of the photo, where I caught a small northern pike I didn't photograph. Taking it all the way back to the camera I left behind might have killed it. Only about a foot long, the fish seemed really delicate. 

Before I fished the next spot Monday afternoon, Mangan Cove, I had already imagined most of the bass are deep. In close to shore where my casts might have reached 10-foot depths at most, the fishing will probably be a lot better in October. It's probably good in May, too. At Mangan Cove, the situation was similar, with rocks and rather shallow water. I got three pulls on my Yum Dinger from sunfish, rock bass, or tiny little smallmouths. 

The water might be clearer in October, too. Its green hue seems to be caused by algae, which gives it a rather cloudy appearance. Also, unlike in the finger lakes we visited three years ago, we found no weedbeds. I would have felt very confident in finding some largemouths had we found weeds. From what I've read, though, smallmouths outnumber largemouths here seven to one. Given the amount of rock we observed, it's no mystery as to why. 

If, for whatever, reason, you're interested in fishing a lake from shore, you can catch some fish if you persist at it. During the spring and fall, you'll probably do better. Just before my wife and I headed home, we hiked the entire Schuman Point Trail. About a half mile down lake from where I had caught the northern, we took a break by the water. A guy in a bass rig was casting a jerkbait about as far out as I could cast one from the shore edge, which gave me the impression that the water might be shallower than 10 feet. Otherwise, he might have been casting a diving plug. I watched him as he made his way with a bow-mount electric, and I watched him as he hooked up, caught, and released a smallmouth of about 13 inches. I hadn't brought my rod, even though my license was still good. I just wanted to hike the three miles and get on the road. But, yeah, I kinda wished I had.  

Bottom was less rocky in the little cove.

Schuman Point Trail straight down from the parking lot.

Mangan Cove

My New Website

 

What Outings Present You as the Given

Our single fish, about 14 inches.

I got up at 3:45 a.m., put on shorts, a T-shirt, water shoes. Fixed eggs and coffee before I put a Woolrich shirt over my shoulders, a light jacket over that. Temperature was 59 degrees as I drove out of Bedminster. When I arrived at Cronk's, it was 56 and raining.

I got the dolly and put it on the back seat. I put ropes up front and back, the rachet strap beside the car, passenger side. Beside the back seat. Everything was quiet, Loki the black Labrador loping about leisurely, no evidence of my having stirred Brian's dogs. I had said we have a good track record in keeping quiet, when I submitted my request to secure the squareback canoe early. As it turned out, I would later be told to back in, in the future, as the lights did wake up the dogs. I just hadn't heard them. 

Oliver pulled into the drive. I put the blanket on top of the car and two pool noodles. We put the foam plastic on the gunwales and popped the canoe on top. The rachet and ropes were a breeze. 

Still 56 at Tilcon, we found carting the canoe in--heavy marine battery, Minn-Kota, and all--so easy and efficient everything felt dandy. Rain continued to fall, but surely temps would rise well into the 60's, towards that forecasted high of 70, and the rain would soon end. I had put my rain jacket on over the other. Oliver didn't bring rain gear. 

And the bass. Oh, they'd hit in these conditions. There's a hurricane off the coast!

I know. I'm always neutral when I approach an outing, but I did think fish might be active. Who wouldn't think they might be on a morning like this one? As it turned out, they not only definitely were not active, we couldn't even locate but a single salmon on the sonar graph as we crisscrossed over the 50-foot deep basin looking for them. Where did they go? (We never saw any on the graph in 35 feet, either.) Today the lake level is down about two feet, so most of the basin registered at 48 feet, some of it 49. We had Kastmasters to try jigging with. 

I told Oliver today that Tilcon is my favorite lake to worm for bass.

"Yeah, because we always catch some."

And we wormed plenty. He did have one on that took his Wacky worm twice, so probably a pickerel but who knows. I never got hit. Only sunfish played with my Chompers. I get that worm into all sorts of tight places, love the exercise of accurate casting, but today I couldn't help but feel bass had all but entirely vacated shallows. The water temperature was 77 and misting against the 56-degree air. So I tended to cast a little way out from shore. The worm dropped a good 15 feet, but still. Nothing happened. And we had a trying time keeping out of the wind, running out of spots to cast to.

So we trolled towards the back of the lake where a whole lengthy shoreline would be out of that wind. I got hit pretty quickly, missed it, using the standard Hot 'n Tot that gets down 15 feet.

We rounded the flat, and I said to Oliver, "Good chance of catching one here. We've done well trolling along the weeds here before."

Before we would turn right and head down along the shoreline, I ripped my crankbait through some weeds and a second later felt that whomp we all troll for. The bass would have measured about 14 inches. 

We trolled, and we passed up a lot of nice looking worm water, which I couldn't help but tell myself we'd revisit, give it the chance it seemed to cry out for. We crisscrossed the basin I told you about, nothing there, and then we gave up. It was still raining. When we eventually got in the car, the temp was 59, so it had never got out of the 50's. When we hit the gravel, Oliver checked his phone and said, "Four hours."

I thought more like two, but yeah. We had given worming a real chance. If we would catch more fish, probably trolling the opposite side would have been the wise move, but were soaked, my shorts were soaked and I even felt water on my back despite my rain jacket. Shivering. 

It's a tough day when you're reduced to the like, but you don't resent it, if you're wise. Take the good with the bad and get on with it; if you start putting conditions on what outings present you as the given, you're a fool. I relished my complaints with a smile. I did complain. But I knew we'd get in that warm car and it would all vanish, and when it did, we could almost have been still out there. 

Hurricane's at sea, but it was stormy out there.

Rocks in the background. I would have used my long lens, but I was concerned enough about the camera getting wet as it was.

Clouds and Wind

 

Scouted West Branch Delaware River Above Cannonsville Reservoir

 

West Branch Delaware River miles above Cannonsville Reservoir.

Every summer, my brother David camps near Roscoe, NY, with his wife, Carol. and his friend Steve Cane and his family. Last week he invited me up, and I got there Saturday at three p.m., after stopping in at The Beaverkill Angler for a couple of size 24 blue winged olives, a size 14 Isonychia, and a sulfur-shaded Cahill, size 16. David had our destinations planned, referring to a map that shows parking and access. Steve would stay behind.

I felt surprised at how narrow the river. Smaller than much of the Farmington in Connecticut. We drove for miles upstream before we found one of the spots. What I saw felt unpleasant, as the stretch accessed by descending a thickly vegetated bank on a narrow trail was muddy with carp visible near the surface. The water barely moved at all, low because of the drought. I assumed carp had muddied it. 

A little non-plussed, I turned back, got in Dave's truck with him ready at the wheel, and from there we rode to the next spot, photographed above. From the bridge, we spotted a smallmouth of about 16 inches--and more carp. At the least, the water wasn't muddy. David wanted me to get the temperature with his thermometer. He knew something was amiss, and he did not want to fish trout if the water was above 65. 

It was 23 Celsius. Way too warm. And why was that when Pepacton Reservoir, I thought, was not far upstream?

We drove on downstream to the next access point where the thermometer read 25 Celsius. The stretch was about a foot deep. Dave spotted a sip riser. I saw it when the fish came up again.

"It's a rainbow. About 11 inches long," he said.  

David had a little blue winged olive tied on, too, and either of us could have casted for the trout, but neither of us was really tempted to.

David had checked the latest fishing report from Hale Eddy, which claimed the water temp was 55 degrees F. That I couldn't wrap my head around, given that I believed the cold water release from the reservoir was upstream, but I wanted to find out what was up as much as David did.

On the way there, we passed by Cannonsville Reservoir, so I figured the East Branch Delaware flowed pretty close to the West Branch at this point. We got to Hale Eddy not very long after, and before I could even get the thermometer in the water, I felt the coolness of the water in the air. I let the thermometer sit a while, not convinced it worked, and then read 12.5 degrees C. About 55 degrees F. It works. And I clearly understood--at last--that of course it's the West Branch flowing from Cannonsville Reservoir. We had been scouting the river where it's not a tailwater, but there are trout up there, as signs nailed to trees indicate, though I'm not altogether sure the trout David saw was a rainbow. I found information from the State of New York only on the stocking of browns up there, the information also stating that a wild brown trout fishery exists.

We walked the bridge and otherwise observed the water, finding no bugs on it, seeing no rises at all. So we fished pheasant tail beadheads, at first about five feet under indicator floats, then freestyle. I took my float off when I approached a couple of big rocks creating slack water and seams where it's shallower but interesting. On my second drift, I felt a knock and reared back on nothing. I drifted that run inside and out about 35 more times and never replicated what I had felt, and I swear I had seen the line jump, too. Maybe I got hit. 

We continued to fish the deeper run, both of us without indicators, but nothing happened. We had pretty much run out of time. I guess we could have tried to dig up another access point, but not only is it clearly evident why fishing the river from a drift boat is advantageous; it proved best we got back to camp when we did. I ended up arriving home in New Jersey just before dark.  

Below Cannonsville Reservoir the West Branch Delaware is a much wider river.

My New Website

The Natural World is Always There for You

You begin a long canoe float with the normal anxiety of everyday life, as if that's all the day will amount to. Towards the middle hours, I felt I didn't have it in me to let go, empty myself, and be filled with that equivalent of necessity that moves like aquatic vegetation undulates in the flow. But it happens, inevitably. I had been gone too long for it not to.

My guess? We did about six miles. I met Brenden Kuprel, 9:00 a.m., at the Confluence. There we left his SUV, riding to Neshanic. The road mileage isn't that much, but the river twists and turns, and we got out of the canoe shortly before 4:00. It wasn't a direct float-through, as if we only moved a mile-an-hour. We anchored a lot.

I had doubted we needed the extra 10 pounds! Thankfully, Brenden thought the anchor an OK idea. Without it, we wouldn't have caught nearly as many fish.

The total for the day was 43. My single largemouth (my first fish), my 13 smallmouths, Brenden's 28 smallmouths and his single green sunfish, which he, too, thought might be a warmouth. (I used to confuse them with warmouths, and I still haven't completely clarified the issue for myself.) Brenden often way outdoes me. He's an excellent angler.

The biggest was that 19-incher photographed above. Brenden caught a 16 1/4-incher, and we watched as a 15-incher leapt and shook the hook of his Ned Rig. At least, I think it was a Ned Rig. Earlier on, he used a round-head jig with, I think, a little paddletail. He did well with that, too. I did fish a Ned Rig some, and got hit, too. But I caught all my fish on four-inch Yum Dingers and Senkos rigged Wacky. 

Shadows amounted to many of the fish caught, maybe more than half, but they weren't the only spots where we caught--and saw--bass. Shadows are pretty hard to come by under high-noon sun, but even where the river is otherwise shallow, we often pulled bass as big as 10 inches out of them. I set the hook on one of them, missed that hit, and reeled back towards the boat with the bass following! I stopped the retrieve, the bass swooped on the Senko, I let it swim swiftly a couple of yards and set the hook. I released the 10 incher, and Brenden said, "I think they're revved up because they come from being in ambush mode." It wasn't the only bass that behaved similarly. 

I paid close attention when we floated over long strands of aquatic vegetation swaying back and forth in the current, because I figured there must be some bass hiding in the shadows, not to mention that we saw a lot of baitfish among the greenery, but we never clearly identified any bass, although I saw some fish nine inches long tear out of there as we passed by. Could have been baby suckers. I'm not sure. Tons of vegetation inhabits the lower South Branch. Some of it is attached to bottom six feet down. It gives you a primordial feeling from a river flowing for many thousands of years. 

Otherwise, the river remains rocky, and it's that rock that holds smallmouths, although some will be seen--when the water is as clear as it was yesterday--swimming leisurely through perhaps three of water amounting to a gravel-bottomed, mid-river flat. We saw a couple of them 18 inches long or better doing that. Others were 14 or 15 inches, 13. And although many of the bass we caught wouldn't have measured much longer than seven inches, plenty of them ranged from nine to 13 inches. We caught a lot of fish yesterday, but think of all the bass we passed by!

The amount of deeper water impressed me. Water six feet deep, even as deep as about 10 feet, is common once you get past about the halfway range between Neshanic and the Confluence. Much of the river back there isn't accessible any other way than by floating, and even then, the river is wide enough that you're pretty much limited to fishing one side. (Often enough, one side is the deeper.) Some places move slow enough that, without wind pushing you around, you can paddle across and back upstream.

By the time we approached Studdiford Bridge, I'd got worried about the amount of sun my legs had absorbed without sunblock. It was just a passing concern, but a good one to have heeded. I was in the zone by then--the kind of feeling inviting you to stay forever. It suggests that perhaps some day each of us does leave ordinary life for a good long stay in eternity, although I've always believed--at least, since my 20s when I discovered the possibility--I'll come back, because the earth is always there to let me know it's just as good, if I will only go out to meet it. You don't feel it in the ordinary confines of civilization. 

Besides my legs frying, my wife had expressed concern (via mobile device) about what time I'd get home. Again, like at the shore when I visited Fred Matero the other day, I got the message just as I departed. I had told her I guessed four or five, but she wanted to know for sure. I told her, how can I know that? Just the same, getting back before five felt like a good idea, although nature's intimation had superseded my minor concern for scheduling. As it always will if you do enough to go deeply into nature. 

We passed through a lot of deep water towards the end of the float where, had we anchored at it, we could have caught more fish, though we had caught plenty and big. Soon, we saw the bridge over the North Branch at the Confluence. It's not a sad thing to go back, because you know the natural world is always there for you.   

Nice one maybe a little better than 13.

About 12 inches.

Big enough to make commotion.

Can anyone identify the species?

A better one of the little bass.

This one fought super-hard fought downstream.

Sixteen and a quarter.

North Branch