5-Pound Bass Squareback Canoe Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage of our Old Town Sportsman Saranac square back canoe on Spruce Run Reservoir. Last summer, fishing an informal bass tournament with iBass360, Eric Evans and I happened upon a whole bunch of big hybrid stripers, hooking many. This made such an impression I felt desperate to get back out on the reservoir last summer, and since that never happened, felt eager to try this June when supposedly the hybrid fishing is at some of its best.

Matt and I found quite a number of hybrids in the same spot. Not as many as last July, but a lot, all of them marking on the graph as big fish. These fish today wouldn't hit at all. Wind almost completely absent, it would have been so easy to put live herring over the side on medium split shot. The hybrids positioned 10 feet under the canoe! Sure, we jigged and jigged. We cast. We trolled. And the truth is, not always will hybrids take live herring, either. I didn't kick myself for not having any. I wanted us to try with lures, like last July.

Later I wanted to beach the canoe, have us take a swim. Then I realized getting underwear wet isn't comfortable. I also realized the sun had got low. Fifty-five pounds of thrust got us almost two miles from where we launched at Black Brook Cove, but it would take some time getting back.

We started moving in that direction, entering a fairly large cove, trolling. On the way out, the graph marked a big fish at 14 feet, so I slowed the motor speed to the lowest selection and allowed my Rat-L-Trap and Matt's tailspinner to drop. Seconds later, fish on. Not a tremendous strike as a hybrid hits, but whatever this fish--big.

"I don't know what it is," I said, having expected the fish on the graph to be a hybrid. "It's heavy."

The fish didn't come easy.

"Get the net." Seconds later, right in front of us, a five-pound largemouth leapt three feet out of the water. That half-ounce Rat-L-Trap shook off easy as butter.

I kept the line tight on the jump! "At least five pounds," Matt said. We can never know. Maybe it was four. Maybe it was six.

Today I managed to use the planer board. Planning this trip weeks in advance, I realized Spruce Run's gradually sloping flats with 15 to 20-foot depths mean the planer board makes sense, unlike on Lake Hopatcong with tightly dropping shorelines. We managed to troll a Mann's Little George off the board without ever getting hung up, getting down relatively deep in about 12 to 15 feet of water over bottom a little deeper.

"Lake Hopatcong is where we never get skunked," I said later.

"That bass was a good fish," Matt said. He meant it doesn't matter we didn't get to measure and photograph the fish. 

Fished Around the Corner

Not by the water since the 4th, I started to feel the need a couple of days ago, and instead of taking my black Lab Sadie to the Bedminster dog park, opted for the North Branch Raritan with my fly rod at sundown, not with designs on fairly recent stocked trout--no doubt some remain; I've witnessed rainbows caught at this spot in August--but smallmouth bass. Instead, just after I waded in for a camera shot I decided not to post, a largemouth of less than a pound came in close, stimulated to search the water I stirred with my wading boots.

I could have used my waders, very limited by shorts with my cell phone and wallet in pockets, no desire to get my underwear wet, but Sadie never left my side as the arrangement worked out. My fly casting seems to have improved a lot this spring. I cast a lot on the Salmon River last November, too, so maybe I just don't remember. A lot of getting OK at it is just telling yourself you're as in on the action as many who do no other kind of casting.

A beaver as big as Sadie swam on under the U.S. 202/206 bridge as a tractor trailer and a dozen cars zoomed overhead.

One hit during this short stint. Could have been anything. The Muddler looked plenty deadly in the water, but what drew this scant attention--dead sticking it in the slow current, river low. Just long enough, I guess, before it would have settled on bottom. 

Artificial Leech Jigs for Smallmouth Bass

Artificial Leech Jigs for Smallmouth Bass

          Several brands of synthetically produced leeches are on the market, three to five-inch lengths serving as great trailers for 1/8^th to ¼-ounce jigs, wide gap hooks not necessary with the leech riding behind the hook’s curve. Bass’s eagerness to gobble them sometimes involves the scent, the mixture tank tested for effectiveness by at least one company, and artificial leeches have a fluttering action like no other bait or lure. Actually, they’re a combination of bait and lure. On descent and retrieve, the leech waggles up and down similarly as natural leeches swim by ribbon-like undulation.

          In reservoirs, lakes and rivers where leeches lurk, smallmouths eat them aggressively. If leeches aren’t nearby, smallmouths will grab your bait anyhow, opportunistic feeders fooled by natural quality to quick response, a plastic bait perhaps ignored when an artificial leech works. In any case, as an alternative to twister tails and tubes, leeches may whet your own curiosity. On one occasion, I used a three-inch size on a round-headed jig in the North Branch Raritan while seated in a canoe. Casting to four feet of water, I let the jig and leech descend to bottom and rest a full 20 seconds or so before, sure enough, I got a pick-up and caught an average stream bass. Sure that scent did the trick, I knew lake and reservoir bottoms or deep holes of the Delaware can produce the same way.

          Regardless, essentially a jig is a tool to tap rocks when it comes to smallmouths. Whether or not the sound emitted makes any difference seems irrelevant, because the action of the jig on the bottom is lifelike, the best cadences requiring subtle skill. I don’t always achieve them.

           The most sustained jigging skill involves a trance-like state, not merely of mental concentration, but bodily dexterity from arms, hands and fingers. It’s no big deal to people who don’t reflect on it, but rather than being mechanical technique, jigging is not a calculated rhythm, but motion from nature within an individual going on down the line and behaving like something alive in the water. It’s like performing music. Art imitates life, it’s said, and this is possible fishing a jig. It’s not something anyone can always do to peak performance, since inspiration is episodic, though practice invites this controlled play and can create a magic touch to some degree anytime you fish, and most of the time the bass display some reluctance to hit and need to be teased.

          The slightest difference in how a jig is fished by irregular cadence on stone, compared to just jerking the rod tip, can result in a take. Look at the minute irregularities of creatures like crayfish moving on stream bottoms. They give you some idea of what pains can be taken to retrieve a jig with a bass anticipated nearby. When fishing rivers, let current work in your favor. Forage gets swept into places bass await, as does your jig. It’s not always so easy in still water.

          Be aware of rocks with space underneath. Whether you fish an undercut river ledge or let a jig drop off the edge of a big submerged lake boulder with space underneath, the sudden appearance in free fall amounts to a deadly tactic. If you’ve ever caught a really dark, if not black, smallmouth bass, it came from deep remove away from daylight. Bass hide back under stones if they can. More often they wait in ambush at an open area underneath or just under a ledge. When a jig falls right in front, the bass has little more to do than suck it in. Flathead swimming jigs work best this way.

          If you fish 35 feet deep along a drop-off where a point deepens, you’ll need at least a quarter ounce on six-pound test monofilament. It’s easy to get lost in depths greater than 20 feet. A half-ounce football jig will give you good solid contact on six-pound test quality braid. Some anglers have no qualms about going this heavy or heavier, but my own preference for going light involves subtlety I try to present. I lose feel, but with each tap—if that much is felt before the lug of a bass—connection increases and the difficulty diminishes.

          It’s a lot easier to let fast current sweep a jig into an eddy where a bass nails it hard, but current also takes some work. Keep enough tension in the line to feel a tap and set the hook, without dragging the jig unnaturally in the flow. If you fish the river, it’s best to cast upstream at about a 45-degree angle, but if you’re floating fast in a canoe through riffles, just pitching the jig across to get it behind boulders in shallow water is very effective. Haul the bass over the gunnel and release it quick, because opportunities pass you by in no time. Always carry a 10-pound mushroom anchor in a canoe, raft or kayak. All sorts of deep, fast runs with enticing boulders, slower stretches rock strewn, deep black holes and sharp ledges present themselves in a wonderland of bass opportunity.           

           Working a jig on bottom isn’t the only way to fish. Artificial leeches move with an undulating rhythm on retrieve, just as real leeches swim. So a jig can glide on a slow to moderate, steadily arching retrieve back to the boat, thus possibly being effective for bass in limbo over anoxic water. In any case, experimenting with retrieves and flat-headed swimming jigs can yield results, so long as you get the lures where bass await.

          I’ve witnessed a lot of impatience and blind casting over the years. It’s not enough to know a structure. The jig has to get on the spot, or very close to attract a bass to give chase. Bass have lateral lines sensing anything in the water for yards around, but typically they won’t move five yards to overtake a lure just cast out and reeled back. Too much gets compromised for demon speed on the water. An electric motor is a great—f necessary—tool. Falling to the temptation to letting it carry the excursion away invalidates use.

          

          On the other hand, sometimes bass surge with life and no point exists in painstakingly detailed


cadences to get them to bite. A quicker retrieve and heavier jig takes heavy hits. These may be the


times best remembered, especially if the action dies before we’ve had enough.


P.S. Sorry about the odd typography of this last paragraph. It's not intended. For some odd reason, Blogger won't cooperate. 





    

Father and Son Fishing: Recreation's Way on Lake Hopatcong with Lots Caught

Once and awhile an outing let's me know it's touched the reason--with flying colors--of why any of us live on this planet. Whether walking, floating, sitting, or laying back on this ball in space we call Earth, today I feel I've done the best for myself, my guests and the whole global event. I guess this doesn't leave Mars out of consideration, since my mathematician son wants to get involved with NASA in the effort to go there, but today Steve Slota, his son Tom and I stayed put on 2680-acre Lake Hopatcong, covering some range while especially pursuing hybrid striped bass but not failing to find a spot with promise, anchor and slow down...as interest from six species of fish increased.

About slowing down to speed up, I read Marilyn Ferguson's book Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980's a long time ago, in 1984, but I've never forgotten her specific idea. To move about all too fast, consumed in means, is to forget the end, the reason anyone cares to live--happiness or at least the pursuit of happiness. Perhaps the pursuit confuses a lot of people who don't know how to stop and let the world catch up to them. Pursuit involves means, but happiness is an end in itself, the final reason for everything we do. Even the worst examples of destructive people exhibit acts of frustration at the lack of happiness in their lives.

Nearly 400 years ago, Izaak Walton wrote The Compleat Angler, a book destined to become one of the most bestselling book of all time, next to the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer reprinted more often than any other book besides the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, according to BBC Radio. Ever since Walton developed the theme of fishing as a contemplative recreation in his book, writers who fish have echoed him, because the proof is in the experience. Walton didn't create the fact, but exemplified the truth by fishing and writing as no one else before him had. The notion of contemplation and fishing goes back to Jesus Christ--who chose fishermen as disciples--and long before.

To separate the prefix of the word recreation by hyphen emphasizes what it's all about, re-creation serving as the way to renew life. Ever since 2004, the year Steve introduced my son and me to camping and fishing the Delaware River at Barryville, New York--the four of us floated a 3 1/2-mile stretch with all day to take our time--ever since that year I've honored my son as responsible for getting me back into recreational fishing with a passion. After years of fishing during my boyhood and teens, I worked as a commercial shell fisherman for 13 years until I met Patricia, my wife, and that clamming endeavor involved the most hardcore outdoors efforts I've enjoyed. I worked New Jersey brine in wetsuits during January and February, and besides all that, summited Mount Washington in New Hampshire and camped on top during the winter, to go on and hike the rest of the Presidential Range during a long weekend, but that backpacking experience--despite 80 mph wind and zero-degree temperatures--didn't trump clamming.

With clamming finished, it took me 10 years to figure out I really needed to fish seriously again, thanks to Matt. I had fished all those 10 years at least two dozen times each year, often a lot more, but why Matt got me so involved hints at more of what recreation's all about. To have a child is to re-create in the deepest possible way, and raising my son through fishing, capturing and photographing snakes and other reptiles and amphibians, hiking and camping, fossil and mineral collecting, birding, has proven not only beneficial to the success of his intellect but the balance of his temperament. So I feel very honored to have taken a father and son fishing on this Saturday. Especially since they're both good family friends.

We began trolling my favorite spot, Tom and Steve each quickly catching two small hybrids minutes after sunrise, and just about as quickly, I judged we needed to move on, further trolling passes yielding nothing. Instead of trolling along shore, I revved the Dow's Boat Rentals Suzuki engine to full speed in forward gear, and pretty soon we entered Byram Cove where a roundabout trolling pass brought nothing aboard and again I moved us onward.

Familiar with our third spot to explore, I felt the hunch--as if everything so far this morning led to this area--and yet the first pass did not feel right, and I felt a little anxiety, as if maybe I had guessed wrong. How could that be? It's never a guess made merely in my head; my hunches come as experiences making it more difficult to apply words and concepts than to simply proceed and catch fish. Or split. Sometimes all I can judge is absence.

I had a fish on as we had turned about to angle through the large cove differently, and then soon boated a big crappie. Rather than relate all the details--we caught too many fish yesterday for me to do that, let alone provide photography for each--it's worth mentioning I lost my first Lake Hopatcong trolled largemouth bass, a bass of nearly a pound-and-a-half, and pretty soon caught a hybrid striper of about the same weight, clued in immediately to the spot worth slowing down for. The cove itself large, a sort of mouth to one of its sides features a bowl of 24-foot depths and a rise on up into shallows 10 feet deep. The hybrid stuck a shallow-running X-Rap over 14-foot depths just beyond the present weedline.

This time I ordered live herring before going out. Just before stopping to anchor, Tom had another fish on he lost, and said, "I like how it feels right after they get hooked."

I told Tom I knew exactly what he meant. That's my favorite feeling while trolling, too. And it only happens just that way by trolling.

How long we stayed put, I have little idea, but fishing felt fast, even though we felt the world stop for us. "This place is amazing," Tom said. "We're hooking fish all the time."

I knew, however, the likelihood of hooking a really big hybrid here hadn't much hope, so we tried two spots on the way to our favored trolling passes. Three dozen herring had seemed enough to buy. When we ran out, we had finished our attempt with them and tied on lures. I cast a weightless Chompers worm to a dock and on the third cast hooked a largemouth.

When we began making the last trolling passes, Steve soon caught a 15-inch hybrid. We missed some other hits--they struck short, except for one that slammed my Rapala X-Rap, throwing the hook when it boiled the surface.

Hybrid stripers, crappies, yellow perch, pickerel, largemouth bass, a smallmouth bass--an interesting eight hours on New Jersey's largest and most convoluted lake.

Hainesville Pond, Little Flatbrook, Millbrook Village Outing

Hainesville Pond has been on my mind for years now, and I must have been verbally introduced by Oliver Shapiro's Fishing in New Jersey: A Guide for Freshwater Anglers, forever after intending to come here. Well, we have been going up to the Ridge and Valley on Memorial Day weekend for many years, and finally I incorporated a visit, knowing full well that this 37-acre pond is notorious for weeding in early, but hoping my son and I could fish it anyhow. Actually, the wide angle lens from which I shot the photo, above, makes the water seem more open than really is. Although Scum Frogs and the like really would work, I just didn't have the heart to make the effort today, especially with a thunderstorm coming right up behind us, and so much water out there just spells out: Use the canoe or forget it.

Maybe in March or April. It's nearly June now and this place is very forbidding this late. And very shallow. Kind of interesting to find a Jurassic Swamp up here in the mountains. 

We headed back down U.S. 206 to connect with CR 615, arrive in Layton and the Little Flatbrook, indeed find a Division of Fish & Game posting behind a local venue that apparently doesn't mind people parking and walking in--everyone we encountered friendly--and yet, to fish this little creek, you really need to bushwhack and wade upstream with no trails to guide your progress, apparently. At any rate, that thunderstorm bore down, and before we could search any further, lightning and rain erupted as we drove off, two-weight TFO and Matt's five-weight with us unemployed.

Next stop Millbrook Village, although I felt very tired, we could possibly hike up along Van Campen's Brook and at least get some difficult fly casting in. The stream is noted for wild brown trout, but they don't come easy. Patricia and I hiked up a few years ago, and though I hooked a little one, we really need to hike further and fish harder to do anything more memorable.

I got a shot of the Millbrook Village Methodist-Episcopal Church that turned out better than it looked on the Nikon's screen. God's angry with us, wouldn't you say? And so the storm clouds faithfully hint at the truth, though the rain and thunder that came as an absolute deluge I can't show you, because I didn't capture that.

Before we geared it out with rain on our tracks again, Patricia and Matt caught up with two National Park employees, who, in conversation, told them the staffed event with open doors to various preserved buildings and period dress closed at 3:00, this to my wife's sadness, but there's always next year! OK. So I might have preferred to explore some other Ridge and Valley corner, but we can go to Millbrook Village...and hike the Van Campen's a lot further than last time.

Don't get me wrong. I had a wonderful time with the history here. But once might be enough?

We got pretty far up the creek, too. And I would rather wade the Little Flatbrook, but I can't imagine Patricia slipping on those wet rocks in good conscience.

We drove on down U.S. 46, after passing through the Water Gap enshrouded with fantastic cloud configurations, and as I drove past, I got that great view up the almost vertical rocks rising 1200 vertical feet...and what an adventure that would be, to climb that. Bet you'd get arrested, too.

And down along the Delaware, where once, many, many years ago, we stopped, got out fishing rods, and Matt and I fished as his mother witnessed. Yes, we caught smallmouth bass where the river runs very deep with jagged bank boulders in and out of the water. How many smallmouths, exactly, I don't remember. But those were days my son was really into the fishing.

To Johnny's Hot Dog Stand. The climax of the trip for Patricia. Well, before we got there, again, as this is the third year of that now, I stopped at the soft ice cream shop in Buttzville. Nearly 40 years ago, friends and I always stopped here, a landmark for us, as we drove from Lawrence in Mercer County to fish, hike, and camp in the National Recreation Area.

Don't misunderstand "outdoors people." Or at least not us. We don't denigrate culture, technology, and developed means, but we do believe in progress and making things of better quality and value, the invention of new applications more appropriate to reality. And that's what it's really about for us--the real world, whether exploring local history or enjoying a world class Broadway play in Manhattan, Beethoven's 9th Symphony in Morristown, or the Van Campen's Brook, a creek which happens to really exist and is therefore significant. Or using the mobile device to get pertinent info as we travel. (I haven't bothered to own one of those yet, but my son and wife do.)

 Little Flatbrook at Layton

 Well, you can wade up from here.

 Millbrook Methodist-Episcopal Church

Walpack Valley

I'm writing The Microlight Quest: Trout, Adventure, Renwal, a memoir I intend to get published.

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.