Lake Hopatcong Fishing: The Difference a Day Makes

This outing with Brian Crunket escaped the typical apprehensions, which, though they rarely defeat any of my fishing endeavors, usually make me and anyone with me uneasy for awhile, at least until the skunk gets off the back. Not Thursday morning. First trolling pass--wham! Brian wrestled a hybrid on the rod, boating the fish a little shy of legal size. Second pass--slam!

He caught eight hybrids in no time, before I caught my first. All of these fish but one hit an X-Rap, the other a Shadow Rap running deeper. The bass shunned my favorite #9 Rapala floater, until finally a 15-incher socked it, and then the action died.

We trolled up lake and then westward, happening upon big fish marking on the graph. Brian said, "They're stacked."

Big hybrids on a school of herring about 29 feet deep over bottom 33 feet down. Out with the Binky's, we jigged until satisfied these fish wouldn't hit, deciding to go in and buy live herring later if we would fail to find a lot of fish trolling.

We rounded a big cove a couple of times, me losing what I'm sure was a trout, and Brian catching a pickerel. Finding shallows elsewhere our plugs barely made it through, weeds reaching up as if to grab them, I caught a pickerel, a crappie, we missed some hits, and then I caught my first rock bass from Hopatcong just after we left the area to troll on down along the shoreline.

The day had that element of letting all else go to just involve the lake and conversation, keeping words in the moment as benevolent time unfurled possibilities, a lot of fish coming and going, a lot of interesting structure to marvel at and get some interest from fish associated with these habitats. I had shot some interesting photos early on, and some of the fish shots I've filed have proven worthy as possibilities for magazines. Heat intensified, reaching at least 90 before we left just after 2:00, cooking us both without sunscreen, and rather than feeling oppressive, uncomfortable, or like an alien force that won't let a person be who needs stable room temperature to feel the environment is right, the weather's presence possessed quality improving on experience, rather than breaking it down as if too much and not good.

If it were zero degrees out and my clothes suited the weather, I might say the same, and I've been on the ice of Lake Hopatcong with temperatures around 20, on Lake Musconetcong at zero. The ability to normalize outdoors is a very healthy practice. The real world outside the box-like cells of four surrounding walls allows you to expand and grow, feeling well and fully human--if you will enter that world. It's too easy to physically be in reality and remain preoccupied with nonsense in the confines of your skull. Jailors are the most envious spirits among us, and each of us has multitudes of them to contend with.

This lake with the sort of grandeur you know isn't contained in space as big as a bay, sound, certainly not ocean, nor many lakes and reservoirs of other states, gives anyone who chances on learning its secrets a lot of time to keep learning more. I've fished the lake almost 10 years, and I've learned just enough--and that's not much compared to what I can yet--to have felt on this outing that I'm ready to take my wife out on the lake and express my fish-finding ability.   

We returned to our big hybrids with herring, finally finding the fish in about 33 feet of water over bottom 37 feet down. Not surprising they'd moved during the course of a couple hours. They just wouldn't hit. A breeze had picked up, but not enough wind to make drifting weighted herring any problem. The bait swam right in there among the predators, which wouldn't touch it.

So we returned to our sweet spot, and got two trolling passes in before floating masses of weeds broken at the stems made trolling an absolute mess. On the first pass, I caught another 15-inch hybrid and on the second, a 15 1/4-inch rainbow trout.

Pickerel always associate with weeds.

Crappie, one of the two species--black and white, respectively--I first learned about at age eight named calico bass.

Rainbow Trout

Dow's Boat Rentals

I never knew a mallard could sleep on one leg, and never noticed until I developed the photo.

Caught First Two Smallmouth Bass of the Year, and Some Other Fish

Caught my first two smallmouth bass of this year while fly casting for trout with a Muddler Minnow streamer. That's what I tied on at home, and with light fading, I wasn't going to change to a dry fly, even though I witnessed splash rises and perhaps could have caught more trout.

I arrived at one of the two rivers that run through Bedminster, looking for any sulfurs hatching, seeing none, and practicing pretty hard at my casting, but too many times the tippet and leader tangled, which just means I have to learn how to avoid that yet. This evening, I had no insight, none as yet, into how keep the monofilament straight, but the casting is getting a lot more assured quickly.

Just a wonderful close on the day, when after sunset I felt everything let go for a few seconds and while wading upriver, remembered riding my 10-speed bicycle six miles from Lawrence to Princeton, toting my fly rod as a 12-year-old. And I thought about that for a moment, which brought the experience now 43-years-old into immediate resolution.

Why did fly fishing Stony Brook make such a difference over fishing for suckers and bullheads in Little Shabakunk Creek down the street from where I lived? An answer came easily. It's not just about "nature." If it were, any place would be as good as any other. I believe we are motivated, genetically, to acquire new territory not just as an echo of paleolithic fishing, hunting, and berry-picking urges, but ultimately for personal reasons, and I believe the acquisition of aesthetic value in places--not just for nature sake but involving personal responses that include whatever a (unique) individual brings to new places--moved paleolithic people essentially just the same as today. I think the whole notion of motive primarily as "practical," which means food-getting, is a falsehood that has confused civilization for centuries.

All of my fish quickly released this evening, no photos show their pretty colors and bronze hues. Three trout came to my hand, and also a red-breasted sunfish, despite those denizens of the delusional philosopher Plato, from whom so many lies remain with us today. "Men of bronze" he named people who struggle as the workers of today. Let's just call smallmouths bronzebacks. 

Next Round: Hybrid Stripers Hit with a Breeze on the Water

Will caught his first hybrid stripers, this month planned since last fall with special consideration for Matt and his friend. Will hooked up on the third pass over my favorite spot, the hybrid stripping line at a quick, steady rate before tossing the hook aside, but action remained pretty steady for the next hour-and-a-half or so: two hybrids for Will, three for me, and one for Matt, and although none of these fish quite compared to what Mike and I encountered just days ago, we had a thoroughly enjoyable time with space leftover for future possibility. Matt and I plan on hybrid stripers in Spruce Run Reservoir come June, and an outing during the summer may offer some guest room.

We experienced a couple of barren passes, and I decided to follow along the shoreline further up the lake, but although we marked a few fish, none hit. Just as well we brought some variety into the outing, as Matt and Will sustained conversation they wouldn't have.

And when we returned to the spot a half hour later, wind had died, and I felt sure this isn't good for trolling, trying to conceptualize just why this may be. I know rough surface activates the environment below and predators get bold just as baitfish may stir to scatter and swim about, since less plainly visible than in light passing through the surface directly. But just the same, with calm surface, the Rapalas get sensed easier than under noise from uneven surface.

Whatever the case, the situation didn't feel right, and most of the time, my hunches judge whatever's really there.

We made three more passes, Matt caught a little trout, and then we headed back to Dow's.

New Jersey Hybrid Striped Bass Action, Some Trout

Mike Maxwell and I departed Bedminster at 4:35, arriving three minutes ahead of schedule at Dow's Boat Rentals, 5:17. By then, plenty of light in the sky brought me back to earlier times, before I bought portable running lights, and a half hour later, no visible sunrise afforded a photo op. Temperature slid a little, and though no wind made life miserable, for at least two hours, more like three, we felt pretty cold, even though we wore winter coats.

We trolled. Mike caught a yellow perch to start things off, and then a trout. I felt like out hiking, traveling such a distance way down the lake, almost into the State Park flats, turning as shallows started to hang our Rapalas with weeds. The slowness of action made me feel as if a lot of effort had gone into a leisurely boat ride. I thought of the 30 bucks I blew on a planer board. If you want my honest advice, for flatline trolling, keep it simple. That's the advice Fred Matero gave me, but I bought this piece of plastic and haven't used it yet, if I ever do. I also spent another 30 bucks on silver-plated Sutton spoons. At least they're collector's pieces, but they may prove of no more value to me than this, and I can sell them on Ebay someday if I want. By all the evidence I've gathered, these top-notch trolling spoons that reflect light like no others, no longer get made. I rigged one with a tungsten bullet weight, quarter ounce. The concentrated density of tungsten is less complication ahead of the spoon to possibly turn a fish away. I tied a small barrel swivel five feet ahead of the wafer-thin spoon, so with the weight, the spoon does ride about four or five feet down.

But we caught all our fish on Rapalas, except for a pickerel I caught on a Phoebe, small fish of about 17 inches. I caught one of the small trout the state stocks in Lake Hopatcong to feed cormorants. Oh, I forgot, the true intention is to serve fishing license holders. I guess the only way around the inevitable fate for such a large percentage of stocked trout statewide is to stock only breeders, except of course in streams where cormorants don't do their damage. Stock fewer, but fish cormorants can't swallow.

We headed towards Byram Bay when I got fed up.

"Mike, it's so slow, what do you say we buy some nightcrawlers. I know places where rock bottom has no weeds, and there's got to be some smallmouths around."

When we began, water temperature registered 56 degrees. Fifty six degrees. It's almost June. At that temperature, not even smallmouth bass spawn. When we left, 59.

I figured no hybrid bass wanted to play in water so cold, which is why I trolled a Phoebe on a second rod in a holder, figuring, well, at least trout will. Water is about as cold as was a month ago, 53 on April 17th.

Judged that wrong. I decided to make a final trolling pass of a favorite spot, before getting the crawlers. My five-pounder struck. And for the next two hours, it felt like non-stop action. What a difference some fish make. The second fish I had on much bigger than the five-pounder, you have to understand how hybrids fight with extremely energetic punches--one of those bursts of convulsive power snapped 12-pound test fluorocarbon, and not at the knot. I kicked myself 52 times, well, how many times I don't really know, but I knew with a distinct burning sensation that the loss was my own fault. I had set the drag just slightly too tight, not by a wide margin of error at all. I use thin-diameter Power Pro braid and a fluorocarbon leader of about four feet.

And then another struck and the drag screeched before the hook pulled. I fought yet another a long time, and just as Mike lowered the net, it turned broadside for both of us to judge as about the same size as the bass I caught, and the hook came out.

"Bastard!"

And then I said to Mike, "I never feel bad after a fight like that when the loss isn't my fault."

After this I caught one a couple of ounces over 3 1/2 pounds, and missed a couple of hits or they missed me. Mike had a hunch about his Rapala. It stumped him because we both used #9 silver floaters. He had caught the perch and trout on just that plug he used now.

"Bruce, could this broken hook have to do with it?"

"I doubt it, but here." I un-snapped my Rapala and handed it to him, taking his.

Minutes later, I said, "This plug is screwed." I checked the tie-on, wasn't that, but it did not run right. I snapped on a perch-pattern Rapala.

Finally Mike caught a hybrid just shy of keeper size.

Dow's Boat Rentals

Catching a Couple Largemouths Despite Cold Front

Quite a cold front came through with temperatures in the middle 40's during rain last evening, and with mostly clear skies this evening at Round Valley, temperatures fell from the mid-60's. Busy all day, I arrived at the main park entrance at 7:00, and as I expected, found that's when it closes.

Listening to a Stevie Ray Vaughan collection on the way there, I sketched plans of taking my wife through the main entrance sometime this summer, paying the entry fee, and hiking a trail into the reservoir's rear and back. Since I've been reading a book on photography--the present chapter on photographing plants--I had hoped to find some flowers today, but maybe we'll find some summer blooms, and besides, I can come in the spring during years ahead to try and find early blossums.

I began by fishing in the wind and wishing I had loaded six-pound test monofilament that deals with the likes better than braid. Pretty soon, I took Sadie and walked back into the woods to try and find those flowers, but found some pretty interesting scenes instead with sunlight quickly vanishing.

And then I went back to the reservoir, ready to slow down as the wind had died, and figured I'd get skunked with the cold front. A big hatch of mayflies danced over the water, best I could make them out, yeah, they were sulfurs. I saw a few dimple rises well out from shore, and someone told me he caught an 18-inch rainbow yesterday, so they're still in close.

Something small picked up the Chompers weightless, and after another 10 minutes or so, I caught a largemouth of about 10 inches. I stayed well into dusk, catching another of about 11 inches.

Bass, Relaxation, Photography at Round Valley Recreation Area

Some outings just invite you to slow down and relax. When my son and I fish Avon Pier on the Outer Banks, North Carolina, I enjoy hours at a stretch doing almost nothing, not that the rest of the time I'm inactive: casting a jigger, casting and retrieving for flounder, and teasing pompano from pilings. At Bahia Honda Channel, we enjoyed non-stop action with snappers and groupers, and yet we fished for six or seven hours at a stretch in blazing sun and humid temperatures in the mid-90's. It felt like the entire world stopped for me, and the suspense bridged time all the way back to summer after summer in the bay clamming for a living behind Long Beach Island, New Jersey. I experienced on a deep level a continuity between that time during the 1980's to 2012 when we last visited the Keys--as an unbroken life never lost.

This afternoon I got to Round Valley Reservoir after rain had stopped not long before and began by fishing the pond. As I approached my favorite corner, I thought of how another chapter of my life has turned, since I'm no longer coming here so often as I had since 2011, now five years ago. I fished that corner today feeling as if I'll never catch up to fishing again; this year I haven't got out much, and when I toyed with my camera--getting shots from close angles I thought pretty cool, but really aren't all that special--just afterward I felt as if photography interests me more now. This corner as dead as last year's fishing revealed nothing; I left the pond feeling a little resentful, but knowing I couldn't pin it on anything. (Last year I wondered if ice fishermen have taken a lot of fish home.) I know a lot of fishermen feel vengeance towards spot burners, but I never see anyone fishing this pond, besides a very few over the past five years.

I gathered my stuff to fish the reservoir, not possessed of any serious concern for a few big bass I lost in the pond years ago, which made the experience special, since I can never know how big. I know how a bass of about two pounds or possibly much better takes my weightless worm. Sadie, my black Labrador with me, behaved well, and I sat on the dirt and gravel and began casting, which in total I must have done for an hour-and-a-half hardly moving from one place.

Small stuff got me interested right away. Taps and hits from any sort of fish piques interest. When light from the setting sun made miracles happen, I leapt up and ran with my camera around a bend to try and get shots of amazing light on the distant Cushetunk mountains. Later, driving home, I considered buying a Nikkor 17-55 mm lens, which will cost a lot of money, but sure enough, once I tried to process in Lightroom raw images from the "kit" lens, the Nikkor 18-55 mm, the color balance for most of the images proved to be all screwed up and irredeemable. It's as if this relatively inexpensive lens is only good for ordinary light, but my expensive Tokina 11-16 mm and Nikkor 70-200 mm lenses served me just fine this evening.

Best of all, though--just sitting there fishing that weightless worm. Allowing the world to stop. Because, man, I've been busy, and if I don't relax sometimes, I will burn out. Relaxing at home just does not do it as does fishing real slow.

I caught four largemouths, 10 and 11 inches, but the possibility for a really big bass in the reservoir is enough to make me feel very patient with the small ones. Over the past five years, I caught quite a few over three pounds and one five-pounder. Who knows, maybe the likes will happen again.

Smallmouth Bass: How to Catch Them in Streams

Small Rivers Smallmouth Bass

          After springtime crowds of trout fishermen thin out to a few persistent fly casters, small New Jersey rivers and rivers elsewhere present smallmouth bass a smorgasbord of feeding opportunities, and great fishing can be expected all day long. From Mercer County’s Stony Brook and Beden’s Brook to Somerset, Morris, Warren, Sussex and Passaic County rivers, smallmouth bass appear surprisingly plentiful in part because most who fish practice catch and release. Average stream bass bulldogging nine-inchers that play well on light spinning outfits, consider the 6.6-pound smallmouth weighed in from the South Branch Raritan in 2010 at Efinger Sporting Goods. Big bass inhabit all of New Jersey’s freestone rivers. Catching them isn’t necessarily easy, but the effort may be enjoyed as a long term pursuit.

          Rather than selecting a single river to seek out stretches, holes, undercuts and other whereabouts of big bass, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with many rivers in your region. After a few years of finding spots and perhaps catching a few nice bass in the three pound range, you may begin to feel the rivers you fish bear relation according to personal knowledge gained. Subtle clues learned along the way key into possibilities directing where to go. Nothing is more rewarding than having a distant hunch and following it through to a four-pound smallmouth on the end of the line, which happened to me two years ago. Hunches don’t happen unless the groundwork of basic knowledge firmly takes root first, so get to know your rivers and they will begin to inform your outings in unexpected ways.

          I’ve fished small rivers for smallmouth bass since the mid 1970’s. Of all the variety of river structure, I judge long slow stretches best for warmwater fishing. Deep holes may seem to hold the big bass, but don’t necessarily. I know a stretch of the South Branch Raritan with moderate current leading into nine or 10-foot depths. A nice, big hole with sizeable rocks on bottom you might think loaded with bass. I fished this hole at least half a dozen times, and caught no bass from it until, finally, one September evening, I caught a bunch of them. But the same stretch extends downstream more than a hundred yards, water four feet deep close to the bank opposite from where I cast. Close to the stretch’s tailout, a modest tree with a trunk I can almost fit both hands around bends close to surface. This is where I’ve caught all of the other bass, including a two-pounder and four-pounder.  

          A favorite stretch of the North Branch Raritan is very shallow for most of its length, panning out to four-foot depths, but always full of bass. Some we catch in a foot of water. Submerged flat-topped slate marks the bottom here and there. Bass hide under this cover, darting out to grab Senko-type worms cast near. Often we sight fish. It’s always in our favor to see bass that don’t see us.

          Senko-type plastics cast a mile to visible bass. Average-size bass pounce on the five-inch size, so I never bother with smaller worms that don’t have the casting reach. Many swear by tube plastics rigged on plain shank hooks without leadhead jigs. The plastic tentacles produce tantalizing action smallmouths don’t refuse. Twister tails work too, so long as the size 1 or 2 plain shank is positioned so the lure rides evenly upon retrieve. Whichever variety chosen, plastics are almost universally acknowledged as the best summer stream smallmouth lure. Other lures work, and I believe I've discussed a diversity of methods in an earlier article, but if you want to keep it simple--and a lot of anglers prefer to try all sorts of snazzy things instead--go with a soft plastic lure and relax.  

         In my own experience, nothing beats the thick-bodied worms I can cast further than see into the water, but the drawback to taking hits from far away involves hookset. Especially where current bows the line, driving the hook home may prove impossible in some instances, not all. In any event, don’t let a bass take plastic for more than a few seconds before setting. You will miss some hits but kill fewer fish. Instead of using a flimsy ultra-light rod, employ a medium power, five-and-a-half-foot spinning rod. I tried an ultra-light just once and returned to the heavier I have much more fun with. The hooks get set and bass fight hard.

        I’ve also tried fly-fishing. From late May into September, smallmouths feed voraciously on a variety of larval and winged insects, nematodes, molting crayfish and other stream denizens besides forage fish. Before you think streamer or popping bug, try nymph. Doesn’t have to be outsized, although big black size 4 Stonefly patterns and the like with lots of attractive appendages catch bass. Casting little size 12 nymphs of any variety—brown, black and gold or any combination of color—with five or six-weight floating line can be devastating on smallmouth bass’s peace in the afternoon.

         Unlike largemouths typically feeding early and late in lakes and reservoirs, stream smallmouths strike any time during the day throughout summer, the big ones better approached around dawn and sunset. Big bass have subtler feeding habits than newbies over-wound and pouncing like kittens. Big bass will take big baits, but cast a half-ounce Hula Popper at noon and nothing big or little may take it. At dusk, something might happen.

          If you specialize in the big ones or just want to catch bass, the five-inch Senko-type worms are plenty suitable. Not restricted to long, slow stretches’ opportunities for arching casts, they work in every situation a river presents. Always, I rig Wacky with hook attached to the worm’s middle by a plastic O ring. Slip that on using a Case Plastics Wacky Tool. Place the worm inside the device, pull the O ring onto the middle. Rigging Wacky better ensures hookset, and in some situations, flutter action draws strikes, although most often bass rush the worm on initial descent.

          I’ve caught bass on these worms everywhere, including riffles with strong current, at the bottoms of deep holes by lift-drop retrieves and by flutter retrieves through the wide V’s of tailouts. Not every stretch has a tailout suitable to hold bass. Some end in inches of water, but others have one to three-foot depths with strong current and a noticeable V formation produced by current sucked downstream. Food gets sucked into the V as well. A three-pounder once nailed a worm retrieved right into dead center with force enough to wrench my arms. A fish I’ll never forget.

          The summer smorgasbord lasts into September, when smallmouths begin to feed especially on soft-rayed forage. It’s no coincidence that in the Delaware River, bass gorge on shad fry headed to the Atlantic. Inland rivers don’t offer the same situation, but in October I cast a silver-sided Rapala and do better in fast moving water. When winter comes it’s not impossible to catch bass on lures, if you want to try dead-sticking a weighted tube plastic, letting current do the work on tentacles. Those deep holes are the end of story.