Mohican Outdoor Center, Catfish Pond, Kittatiny Ridge, Delaware Watergap National Recreation Area: Fishing for Return

Mohican Outdoor Center on Kittatiny Ridge is a great place to stay, and camping under the stars last night, the weather fly of the tent not obscuring vision through netting, felt wild and wonderful. Since I forgot fires are prohibited, I left the Coleman stove at home. So we ate in Blairstown on the way to Blue Mountain and Crater lakes, or so we thought. Since Hurricane Irene, the road is still in disrepair. This results from the breakdown of our economy and  Federal Government of course, and I'm not blaming the President. 

These two gorgeous lakes sit high in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. I wonder if the road will ever open again, whether or not from hereon these lakes will be accessible only by long foot hike as our entire civilization crumbles as has this road, leaving us all in the cold, reduced to being savages as was the case after Rome fell not all that many years ago, really. Glacial Crater Lake, after all, is much older than ancient Rome.

We stopped at Watergate Park for lunch and checking about for bass and snakes, found neither. Then we went back into Blairstown for coffee and snacks, and back to Mohican, which features a beautiful, clear water glacier lake, Catfish Pond. I fished, starting out very slow as far as confidence and energy return goes. I tried a Husky Jerk and settled on a Senko for the most part. I did tempt a pickerel to strike, but otherwise failed to find fish, although I finally got energy coming back to me. Don't make fishing--or anything else if you can manage--work. Don't just expend energy, exercise energy with focused intent so that more comes back to you. Play. Why reduce a being--you--here to enjoy and gain through life to a machine-like function of work?

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Burnham Park Morristown Ponds: Winter Oasis

I was amazed to find within the city limits of Morristown a small public park, under the stewardship of the Burnham Park Association, loaded with large pickerel and good sized largemouth bass. For a couple of consecutive winters in recent years, my son and I managed to fish open water on warm January and March days, catching pickerel averaging 20 inches on live shiners. Our largest was just over 23 inches, and I’ve wondered just how big they get. All were released in excellent condition without a word said to anyone, although plenty knew and fished the ponds. We fished here in 2011--before I wrote the following story for my column--and 2012, getting skunked repeatedly. I had hoped people would keep the fish in the ponds, which happen to be state-stocked with trout in the spring. With the very good water quality of both ponds, the fish will certainly make a return if they're allowed to. For now and until who knows, the following just seems to be a good fish story. I don't believe the people who seem to have taken fish were readers of the newspaper with upscale subscription lists, and I have nothing against a fish being taken home on occasion, but I will state my firm opinion that ponds like these should have better protection than general, state-designated limits on catches. Perhaps catch and release only is too stringent, but a limit of five pickerel, five bass can mean the bulk of a fish population vanishes.

          The two ponds are separated by perhaps a hundred feet of lawn, the upper about two acres, the lower three. Most anglers fish them for trout which the state stocks during spring, and may miss any clue to the brawny denizens that stalk aquatic vegetation year round, although during warm water seasons this vegetation presents obstacles to fishing. I’ve been very grateful to fishermen who have discovered the fishing otherwise kind enough to practice catch and release, because these little ponds could lose the life thriving in their clean waters very quickly to series of diminishing limit catches.

          Unless we have a winter like recent ice fishing opportunities, chances are January and February will present open water conditions at some time, and when ice melts in March, warming trends will arouse activity. The key to catching a number of fish in cold water here is to get out on an afternoon that peaks at least into the 60’s. One of those January days four years ago hit 72, and pickerel fed fiercely. I remember catching 22 inch pickerel one after another, releasing them at water level, and letting them bolt off from the cradle of my hands as if from an experience they might want to remember—to avoid next time. As quick as they slayed our shiners—and any forage swimming near them—we turned their wedge shaped heads filled with razor-sharp teeth our way to give them a surprise in turn: a look at bigger guys.

          Too much of a good thing begins to turn pleasure to dismay—unless you are far away on a wilderness lake. What I mean is that to have this sort of wild action within the civil city limits of historic Morristown seems a little odd to me. As I remember, I didn’t feel put off by long moments between assaults of strikes, and settled easily into quiet, methodical search as if relieved.

          The method is simple, although warm enough weather may nuance technique by use of spinners, or especially floater/diver plugs like Rebels or Rapalas. It’s possible to catch more pickerel and bass on lures because a wider range of water may be fished by quicker retrieves, and the trouble taken with a small bait bucket and tending shiners is eliminated. But unless water has warmed enough and the fish are feeding actively, shiners work much better and can easily be the difference between catching fish or not.

          Don’t let anyone tell you live bait is unsportsmanlike, because the subtlety of angling this close to nature puts you in touch with life in the way it’s really lived, basically. Anyone can stand back and observe predation on film, but to actually fish with live bait can put you past months of civilized anxieties in a short afternoon. It’s no mystery why I use less live bait during warm months; too much of close quarter with nature tends to take me under it's influence, which I like to some degree, but I also prefer to use the clever objects we devise, putting various lures at competition against one another and judging results.

          A disadvantage to using shiners at the Burnham Park ponds is that casting distance is limited. Using a sinker would only destroy the needed action. It’s called live lining because the shiner is allowed to swim freely. Make sure to tie a plain shank, size 6 hook to a 15 pound test fluorocarbon leader, 12 to 18 inches between the hook and small barrel swivel. Fluorocarbon is abrasion resistant, but I don’t recommend less than 15 pound test against such teeth. Try to get at least large sized shiners—extra-large if you can—at Lebanon Bait and Sport, Efinger Sporting Goods, Stanhope Bait and Bait, or Dow’s Boat Rentals. The fish we have caught would take a 7 inch shiner with ease, and a baitfish that large would cast well.

         Try right at the spillway of the upper pond in deep water (6 feet). Otherwise, pickerel and bass tend to be at least 10 yards out from shore and almost anywhere, hiding within and around residual vegetation. Cover territory and enjoy this natural oasis in an historic, urban setting. Find it along Washington Street and Mendham Road, which becomes Route 24. It may be what you deserve during drab months that may make you feel otherwise that the only activity outdoors is pedestrian and undesired.

 

Batona Trail, Carranza Memorial, Atsion Lake, Franklin Parker Preserve: New Jersey Pine Barrens Camping

This would be the only post without mention of fishing, but we

drove to Atsion to get our camping permit and stopped to check out Atsion Lake, not fishing actually, but thinking of it. Tea water tends to turn those of us familiar with clarity away, but pickerel love it, and plenty of water in the Pinelands has largemouths.

Having got to the Atsion office at 3:30, we couldn't register for Lower Forge, which would have allowed us a five-mile hike on the Batona, full packs. So we hiked the half mile into Batona Camp after paying our respects at the Carranza Memorial, erected after Carranza, the Mexican Lindberg, crashed here in a thunderstorm in 1931.

This third time I have camped in this immediate area--1972 and 1979 besides--we left the car parked along the road and the pack felt real good on my back, my not having actually backpacked since 1999. But we found two families with SUVs, kids on bicycles and such. So we took a site and I walked back to get the car. Why risk it to rowdies in the night?

Matt had fetched just a little firewood; he had taken other interests with his camera, and as I pitched the tent, he wandered far off and I knew that his independent explorations made it all worthwhile. Later he returned with reports of fence lizards and leopard frogs, a Fowler's toad, and possibly a ribbon snake he didn't get a good look at. He had found--at water's edge--what he told me he had almost taken for quicksand, but determined it was very deceptive muck, the sort someone unaware could walk right onto and sink to his knees. (And from what I've heard elsewhere--perhaps deeper than this.)

The families left before sunset! I guess biting flies were just too much. So much for an idyllic evening by the fire in the wilderness. But we had a nice night ourselves with cool temperatures and whippoorwills. In the morning we fixed lobster bisque and sphagetti and meatballs of all things, took a short hike to this fabulous waterway--I suppose native pickerel have haunted it for millenia--and headed to Franklin Parker Preserve afterwards.

My dive arched over 10 feet of water and the angle took my body deep. It wasn't yet 9:00 a.m. and we were swimming and enjoying the makeshift diving board. We love swimming in the wilderness and this isn't our only spot. It's nothing special really; that's what's so appealing. You feel no lack at all for pleasure and you don't feel any grand evaluations either.

We checked a building foundation for pine snakes; Matt found a small pine snake I photographed after he finished with his SLR. More fence lizards--Matt shot at least 60 or 70 photos of these total. We have found five lined skinks and brown skinks in the past, but fence lizards seemed almost everywhere these last two days.

North Branch Raritan River Bass Father and Son

Feels like forever since I last fished with my son. So proud of him venturing far off downstream, having said not a word of parting. I worked my way into the back of the stretch to catch my best bass of the evening, Matt disappearing deep in the dusk around a bend.

Often those tail ends hold nice fish. Particularly if the stretch narrows into a V pattern--doesn't have to be deep--sometimes a very good-size smallmouth just lets forage get sucked to it as if the stream formed a natural weir or sock seine.

Most of what we caught average stream bass, my total included six smallmouths and a largemouth, the largest smallmouth about 12 inches. Matt caught I don't know how many; he felt he did well. 

Vertical Jigging and Herring Approaches for Fall Walleye and Hybrid Stripers

Last year, Joe Landolfi told me since it’s September, we could jig walleyes in Lake Hopatcong.

 “But the lake doesn’t turn over until mid-October.” I said.

 

He dismissed this as of no consequence, and we set our calendars for Saturday, October first. Over the past five years my son, Matt, and I have always waited to fish until fall turnover is all but complete in mid-October. But Joe and I marked fish at 33 feet.

          Turnover happens as water cools in the fall. Warm water rises, unless colder than 39.2 F. During ice fishing season, obviously the warmest water sinks, or else no surface layer of ice could exist. Summertime surface lake temperatures reach the mid-80s, and oxygen vanishes in the depths so that fish and other organisms cannot survive. As surface temperatures cool beneath the temperature levels of deeper layers of water, surface water sinks as deeper water rises. This is turnover. And by late October, the deepest water of Lake Hopatcong, about 50 feet, has turned over with oxygen re-established through all depths from the surface down.

          Walleyes like rocky, deep drop-offs, and especially the deep edge of such structures. It’s unlike a walleye to suspend in 12 or 15 feet of water over these habitats perhaps 30 or 40 feet deep. But this is what they have to do every summer. It’s useless to try to catch Lake Hopatcong walleyes on the bottom in 12 to 15 feet of August water—these depths are choked with aquatic vegetation and are the lair of pickerel and largemouth bass.

           Once turnover is occurring, walleyes re-establish themselves in favored habitat—and increase feeding.  Since Lake Hopatcong is full of Omega oil rich alewife herring about two and a half to five inches long, walleyes enjoy a great health boost during the fall. Alewives typically school massively around such deep slopes scattered with rocks, hiding amongst themselves and around the corners and beneath edges of all obstructions present. These clouds of baitfish show up on graph recorders, often with the fish alarm squaking and the screen marking predators with them. In addition to walleyes, hybrid stripers may be there. We've nailed hybrids jigging. The take may be subtle, but Power Pro braid doesn't stretch--jamn the rod up and the fight's on.

          Basically two ways exist to fish walleyes from September all the way through ice fishing season until they prepare to spawn after ice-out: vertical jigging, and using live alewife herring. Casting or trolling half or full ounce lip-less crankbaits, such as Rat-L-Traps, may produce, but both jigging and live bait fishing are intensive methods that keep lure or bait before walleyes’ noses longer than trying to manage a plug in such deep water.

          Rapala ice fishing jigs and Gotcha jiggers are classics.  Both have hook eyes on top and are heavily weighted so that they can be allowed to drop directly under the boat, then jigged just off bottom by slowly drifting, using an electric motor to position, or anchoring. If live herring are preferred, it’s best to use up to three rods per angler, setting two out with half to one ounce egg sinkers above a barrel swivel and 30 inch leader to size six plain hook, and slowly retrieving another using the same rig.

          I like to use six pound test, and have never had a big walleye snap the line. Set your drag at one third line test. A musky might cut right through, but they so rarely strike a jig or herring I don’t take them into account. But it does happen. Hasn't to me yet. Since we usually rent a boat from Dow’s Boat Rentals, and buy our herring here too, we always enjoy a story or two. The third weekend in October three years ago, a renter caught a 29 pound musky vertically jigging a Rapala ice fishing jig. The next day, which was the Sunday my son and I fished, he caught a 20 pound musky on the same lure. Every winter these jigs produce muskies through the ice, as well as quite a few walleyes.

        

Smallmouth Bass on Live Killies

Very short on time today and forgetful of my wading shoes, I got my boots wet with water levels risen after yesterday's storms. Instead of exploring range down or upstream from a bridge or pull off, I fished the same spot I got skunked at fairly recently using a Senko-type worm. Today I cast into that strip of shadow with killies, catching two average stream bass about 10 inches each.

I also fished all about these railroad pillars in likely water, but with a lot of sun on it and no bass today. The wind blew, such a problem I almost had to use split shot becasue the bow in the line kept the killie from getting down, but I managed.

Hot Rivers for Smallmouth Bass

 

 

Three summers ago on our annual Delaware River float trip out of Barryville, New York, I was appalled by green algae covering every rock resulting from low water and extreme heat. I had never witnessed this before. The North and South Branch Raritans are presently in fine shape; rocks should remain their brownish colors without hosting a green mess to foul lures and fish alike. I haven’t seen such a green reaction in these two rivers, or the Paulinskill and Musconetcong, although I did see a lot of green in the Pequest in March.

          Situated in Somerset and Hunterdon County, New Jersey, the Raritan rivers provide some of the best smallmouth fishing in the state. Many consider the South Branch below Clinton to be the finest smallmouth river besides the Delaware. Public evidence backs this claim. Three summers ago a 6.6 pound smallmouth was reported by The Fisherman magazine to have been caught in the South Branch on a live crayfish. Had this bass been weighed in prior to 1990, it would have been the new state record. Big bass inhabit the North Branch from Bedminster and below as well, as evidenced by a 21 inch smallmouth my son and I witnessed caught six years ago. We have ourselves caught smallmouths as large as 19 inches on the North Branch, but in both rivers average size is closer to 10 inches. A 12 incher is a good fish and will fight harder than either a largemouth or stocked trout of the same size. I won't venture to compare them against steelheads since I haven't caught enough to be certain. But I once caught a 13 inch steelhead with little account for itself.

          Smallmouths may be much more abundant in a given stretch than fishing results indicate. Last summer my son and I explored a few stretches of the North Branch within walking distance of home simply by wading, just out on an excursion for what specifically I don’t recall. I carried my digital camera to take pictures rather than fish, and my son carefully explored a 10 yard length of shallow undercut bank which, to my angler’s eye, seemed insignificant. The current running along overhanging brush had no more than a foot’s depth, the riffles leading into the cut flowed even shallower, and the stretch below deepened to a foot and a half at maximum. But we were amazed at about two dozen smallmouths ranging from five to 12 inches darting away downstream as Matt scattered them out. A dozen of them would have been sporting on a fly rod.

          Summer stream smallmouths take nymph and crayfish fly patterns, as well as streamers and poppers, often unhesitatingly and in plain view. These bass feed on larval insects as well as emergers. They also feed on terrestrial insects that fall into the rivers, crayfish—especially small molting crayfish, they love these and sense their presence like food in a kitchen—as well as shiners, dace, killiefish, and immature fish of other species.

          The range of lures and bait to possibly choose is wide and beyond this article’s scope. But for light spinning and no more than six pound test line, my current favorite is five inch Senko-style plastic worms rigged Wacky, hooked through the middle so that both ends flutter on retrieve. Senkos are heavy enough to cast long distances and reach bass that are unaware of your approach. Big smallmouths are usually shy and reluctant to hit; Senkos give you advantage.

          Otherwise, on occasion I like to haul a big bucket carrying a dozen large shiners into one of my favorite holes at sunset. I tie a size six, plain shank hook directly to the line, no weight, no snap swivel, and hook a minnow through both lips. These holes are at least six feet deep, but the shiner will swim at the surface. I cast directly onto the hole; the first cast is most important. Sometimes the biggest bass in the hole, which may be 16, 17, 19 inches, and could be larger, is aroused and on the feed at the end of the day, and will rush to blast the shiner with full force of muscle and weight before another bass gets to it. That’s a thrill to experience! This summer a smallmouth nearly three pounds blasted a fleeing shiner four times, the fourth time it leapt clear out and crashed down on top of the escaping fish! I had no time at all to let that bass run with it as it tore under and upstream full force, hooking itself and fighting like a full grown bulldog.

          When using live bait or soft plastic lures, don’t let the bass take line for long to set the hook in the hard mouth tissues rather than gut hooking it and jeopardizing life. You'll lose plenty fish but it's playing fair. Most will be under legal size, and if you’re like me, you release them all. They’re worth more in the water.