The Place isn't Swarming with Them, but They can Grow

After a tough couple of days, I gave the local pond a shot, but it really didn't do much to soothe. If I passed the exam after two days of classes, I'll have my first professional certificate. Sure I did well, it's just that after so many questions and tricky, I can't be certain. Looks like this evening's slow bass fishing in a shallow pond exhausted after severe winters is what I get after refusing to graduate college with a B.A. or B.S., just like they told us in the high school auditorium: You'll regret it, if you don't toe the line. But down deep I don't regret any of it, not that I would persuade any young reader to drop out, and certainly my son is an example of a young man about to take every aboveboard advantage. I certainly understand how someone could regret it, but only for not having dug deep enough with the rake of the mind. Down to bedrock to build one's own foundation of a worldview. Besides, if I've earned this certificate, I think it bodes well for mobility in society, after I spent years as a clam digger.

Started with a Strike King Senko-type, had a few very small bass play with it, and after 10 minutes decided I better pull that black spinnerbait out of my bag. I then caught a six-inch bass, fortunately hooked lightly, and then managed easily to make my way to the far shoreline, since the water's so low I got around obstructions. This is where starry-eyed Mike Maxwell believes the bass have gone. No. I did catch another little one like the other swiftly put back.

And then I was back in my safety spot, catching a bass nearly nine inches long. I thought of past half hours under very good fishing conditions like this here--water temperature in the bass optimal range, falling barometer, clouds, a fall breeze--and hooking one nice bass after another. It made the value of those little ones I caught stand out, not because they'll get bigger, but because they're just there, although the fact is some of these little ones around will likely grow, though the place is not swarming with them.

Where did they come from, I wondered. Offspring of resident bass? I thought of the mystery pond above with a fence around it and No Trespassing. And above that, a secret spring on Schley Mountain where this water I fished originates. That's what really counts. The wildness of that. Many years ago, my son insisted that we hike the mountain, and we spent hours exploring the slope, finding the tiny rill that feeds both of these ponds and eventually the North Branch Raritan River. We found a very small pond up there no one else or very few seem to know about, let alone have stood beside and seen. The rill flowing in, flowing out. All of these little bass stand a chance because of a source no one seems to have discovered.



http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/05/mounthope-pond-offers-chance-at-lunker.html

Vertical and Diagonal Jigging for Hybrid Striped Bass and Walleye

Vertical and Diagonal Jigging for Hybrid Striped Bass and Walleye

          Octobers have become a habit. Eight years ago, I first sampled the walleye action on Lake Hopatcong during the month’s third Saturday with my son. Every year thereafter, we’ve been back for more, having added hybrid striped bass to the pursuit. A number of friends and I fish together throughout the month, catching walleye up to six pounds, hybrids to just over five. We always tell the difference as soon as the fish is hooked. I would never say a walleye doesn’t fight, but hybrids are fantastic. Perhaps this year we’ll catch larger, as walleye and hybrids get caught in New Jersey every fall in the seven to 10 pound class.

          Besides the big lake, Greenwood Lake, Swartswood Lake, Monksville Reservoir, and Canistear Reservoir have walleye vulnerable to vertical and diagonal jigging from October on into winter. However, the method is equally effective for hybrid stripers at Spruce Run and Manasquan reservoirs.  

          Traditionally, Rapala ice jigs and Sea Striker jigs catch fish during fall. Both resemble plugs with tie loops on top. The Rapala Jigging Rap, classically an ice fishing jig, comes in five sizes from 1 ¼ inch to 3 ½ inches, the tie loops near the centers, treble hooks directly underneath, each with a single shank hook with the bend turned upward from the rear, and a single shank upward from the head. Sea Striker Got-Cha jigs come in 10 series from 1 ¾ inches to four inches with tie loops on top of lead heads, the rest of the bodies hard plastic or chrome metal tubing, with either a forward and rear treble, or a forward treble with rear single shank hook and bucktail. For walleye and hybrids, the larger sizes are preferred.

          These two types of lures have a proven track record of effectiveness by dropping them over the gunnel, allowing descent to 15 to 50-foot depths, and jigging straight down. The idea is to drift with the breeze, compensating with an electric outboard to maintain desired direction, or if the lake or reservoir is calm, using the electric at slow speed to cover range. Line drag slowly carries the jig from straight down on bottom, to a position slightly off bottom as line moves towards a diagonal position, and rather than constantly reeling the lure to surface and dropping it again, a little line is let out so the jig makes bottom contact once more. When the angle of the line becomes too steep, the jig is reeled in and the process repeated, jigging motions generally conducted by quick snaps of the rod, keeping line taut as the jig drops back. Often, a hit comes as the jig falls, and then you often must detect the subtlest of unusual motion or a tap. 

          Another option is to continue to jig at these more or less diagonal angles that develop without reeling back so soon to start over, and I have caught fish on the Got-Cha and Jigging Rap this way, saving myself the effort of keeping the lure straight down. Eventually, I discovered the Binsky bladebait, which I find more effective for diagonal rather than vertical jigging. I soon found I like bladebaits better than the two classic vertical jigs, though I’ve yet to catch many fish on them, since they’re still new to me. The vibrating action of any bladebait brand not only attracts walleye and hybrid bass; it imparts a tantalizing feel through 15-pound test Power Pro or other quality braid line to a graphite or lithium rod. I keep my index finger on the rod just above the reel seat. If I feel vibration cease, I set the hook. Sometimes the hit is a slam, other times it’s barely felt.

          Bladebaits seem most effective retrieved, ideally by casting ahead of the boat on calm water or when the boat is propelled by a very light breeze at most. If a fairly heavy breeze guides the craft, it makes sense to jig from behind with the boat positioned for you to fish off a side while drifting, although you will have to repeatedly let line out to maintain bottom contact. The other option in windy conditions is to anchor and cast, never staying very long in a single position, just enough to fish a range of drop-off thoroughly.

          Whether you prefer the traditional jigs or bladebaits, fish them on sharp drop-offs, particularly with rocks or other structure. Main lake points, ledges, humps—wherever drop-offs fall into at least 30 feet of water—serve possibilities. It’s possible to distinguish rocks or soft bottom by the way the lure makes contact—hard or soft. Take note of what you find, because rocks in one spot usually mean more in proximity, and the area should be fished thoroughly. Casts or drifts should run as parallel to drop-offs as possible. In early October, we’ve caught walleye as shallow as 15-feet among rocks on the Got-Cha; they go deeper as the month progresses with action in the 25 to 50-foot range for both species.

          I especially try to fish on or near a drop-off’s bottom edge, not always achieving the target, but no matter if the bladebait shakes along the slope. Not only do walleye and hybrids move up and down drop-offs; a lake or reservoir’s deepest drop-offs may not necessarily be the best. Lake Hopatcong has a couple that drop to 50 feet, but my favorite isn’t quite 35 feet where bottom evens out. I know of another more than a quarter mile long, most of it panning out at about 45 feet, some of it at 50 feet—43 feet or so the deepest I’ve hooked a walleye.

          Bladebaits can involve casting as far as possible, which is a long cast, and yet the line angles more or less diagonally as the lure is retrieved back to the boat, since water is deep and line angles downward. Simply hopping the lure upward, feeling that tantalizing vibration, and letting it fall back to bottom is all the action needed. Hybrids especially, compared to walleye, swim through differing levels of the water column, often suspending off bottom, but the best opportunity for a strike is among rocks where predators station as if to wait in ambush.

          Bladebaits no weightier than a silver dollar invite you to take a bet on every cast. Know the structure of the water you fish by use of both a topographic map and fish finder, but depend ultimately on nothing but your own mind. The feel in your hand keeps you directly connected.

Maintain that feel of the lure, whether casting or drifting bladebaits or traditional jigs. A matter of persistent concentration, the challenge is to fish a deep structure thoroughly and keep fishing more, if none produce, until contact with fish is made. And then action can be surprisingly quick. However, many days are very tough, but we find no matter how severe a cold front shuts down hope, it’s always possible to avoid getting skunked.  

Merrill Creek Reservoir Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass Outing

Fred Matero has talked about Merrill Creek Reservoir all of these years we've fished from his boat Round Valley Reservoir, and neither of us have fished this other reservoir in at least three. First time I came here, with my son and a friend of his in 2009, I caught a four-pound largemouth and another bass smaller from shore. Maybe most impressive about that introduction lingering in memory isn't the bass, but the beauty of the surroundings. Or really, my boy and his friend getting their feet wet. And they really did.

We got on the water at 7:30, sun having risen not long, shadows deep on the east side, and headed straight across through the middle of about 650 acres, because Fred had caught eight bass last he came here on the spot he had in mind, including a smallmouth nearly three pounds and a largemouth nearly four. He spoke of timber and rocks, and there is some timber (and weeds associated), but what caught my attention is its isolation along this shoreline--a real bass magnet. I felt that when conditions are right, there must be quite a few around. Well, eight bass for Fred wasn't bad. He told me he caught them in the middle of a September afternoon under bright sun.

As you can see in the photo, he did have a fish on. A smallmouth bass that lost the hook boatside. Senko rigged Wacky, about 12 feet down among submerged tree branches.

I later watched him miss two hits on two consecutive casts with the Senko cast to an isolated weedline eastward--surely the same bass--and then I watched five minutes later a largemouth of at least two pounds leap and throw that Senko. Fred was fishing further along the same weedline by about 20 yards.

That's all the action we had. Merrill Creek Reservoir is a New Jersey marvel of environmental value, but the bass see a lot of lures so they're less eager to strike. I suppose quite a number inhabit the various sets of habitat, but bass are hard to catch in New Jersey where nearly a dozen boats prowl on so small an acreage on a weekday. Some of the bass that get caught and released suffer mortality, but the figures I've read put the percentage at about five. That is a pretty high figure over the course of a year, though.

Witness the fallen timber. Before we got in the midst of the trees, I told Fred I had forgotten to study my Lake Survey Map Guides of the reservoir and bring it along. I told him surely bass are deep--about 30-35 feet on rocks--in this sunlight, especially smallmouths. Water is very clear, not as clear as Round Valley and Tilcon, but very. On Tilcon recently, my son and I caught largemouths with plastic worms weighted by bullet sinkers 30 feet down. But once we got in among timber here on larger acreage, I felt satisfied fishing a 3/8th-ounce skirted jig with a weed guard 35 feet deep, amazed at such depths with timber looming overhead. We fished long and fairly thoroughly, and I say only fairly so, because there's acres of water like this, excellent habitat, weeds mixed in where relatively shallow as deep as at least 15 feet.

Later, at the boat ramp, a bassboat owner from Pennsylvania docked right behind us, remarking that he had seen the guys we also saw out in the reservoir's middle catch two smallmouths back to back. I inquired, and he said there's a hump that rises to 30 feet. Surely plenty rocky, and altogether confirming of my earlier thought about smallmouths deep down under today's sunlight.

After nearly six hours of fishing, total, I had relaxed pretty deeply. Later, when we returned to Bernardsville, Fred remarked about getting work off his mind, and I readily agreed, although for me, it isn't my job I have to shake so much, since I've pretty much put it in place where I think about it only while on it, but so much writing I have to get done. I also told him I haven't quite felt like this since driving home from the Outer Banks last summer, thoroughly immersed in flow of experience, though nothing does it like a full vacation. And driving. I love jet travel. But that doesn't compare with driving long distance and total lack of concern about where I'm getting to. But what really makes the difference are the stops along the way. I slow down. I just set the goal and then do my best to utterly forget it.

It was my amazement in that timber environment. A long-duration epiphany that took me out of myself. As we eased off towards the ramp, Fred said, "It makes a difference with no gas outboards allowed. It's so much quieter."

Absolutely. It makes a total difference for environmental quality.

Moment of exalted loss after two-pound-plus bass leapt free.

Allamuchy Pond Largemouth Bass

This year seems to have absorbed my ambition to explore new places in the New Jersey Highlands as deeply as desired, not because I ticked off as many numbers of sites as my imagination had inspired early in the year, but because I feel satisfied with enough and more to come. I'm busy otherwise and manage life well, so to get out as often as I do feels like I'm filling a big canvas. Today, I fished Allamuchy Pond my first time, along with Mike Maxwell, who's never visited this place until today. I did perhaps come here once with my wife in 1996 to hike the trail surrounding the pond, but nothing about the views reminded me of that venture. It's as if we went somewhere else entirely, and just maybe I had Deer Lake confused with this body of water.

Before we trolled hybrids in May this year, Mike fished trout constantly, mostly along the South Branch Raritan, and I kept in constant touch. Lake Hopatcong served as the background for a lot of talk between us, and Mike got me thinking more about guiding people fishing. I know he did, because I brought this subject up today as the two of us talked nonstop, telling him that's what I should do, and he immediately told me that's what he tried to convince me of months ago. But of course, with family responsibilities, it's not as simple as offering services and off we go, which he understands, though the ought is obvious, regardless of how things are. I'd like to do it, but it will be awhile yet if I ever do. Mike's not the only one who's suggested this. It's good advice from another friend also.

Sqaureback canoe launched, we immediately rode outward to see how deep, and I got 26 feet on the graph, flat bottom, before swerving the canoe in toward shore, expecting a weedline as Fred Matero has told me rounds the shoreline. Allamuchy Pond is 50 acres and we pretty much fished all the way around twice, so after one round, we knew this first edge we came upon to fish is the pond's steepest drop, quickly slanting to 20 feet. I caught a bass a little over a pound on my fourth or fifth cast with a spinnerbait, rolling it pretty slow in about eight feet of water. In the middle of the afternoon when we arrived, after effects of the heaviest rain in a long time remained as breezy conditions, and with relatively cool air circulating into the water, I knew spinnerbait time has come. Water temperature is 72 today. (Bass take chase after forage in water meeting the optimal range for their activity.) Water clarity allows about three feet of view, a greenish tint with some micro algae mixed in. Not bad clarity, and some bass fishermen prefer water stained, though I like it as crystal clear as possible (give me the Florida Keys reef). Clear water may mean wary bass, but it's cleaner.

Most of the nine bass total we caught hit my Chompers worm and Mike's Rapala floater in about four feet of water--a weedy flat towards the dam. None of these weighed more than a pound, nor did any of the other bass, besides a single nice fish of not much over two pounds that hit the black spinnerbait along a weedy shoreline of much less slope near the pond's back.

Pond Purview

With just a short window between working on an essay about a redfish adventure my family took in Charleston, South Carolina, and making the monthly Round Valley Trout Association meeting on time--which I did not make on time, due to traffic--I grabbed my tackle tote in search of Wacky Worm O-rings, and failing to find them, too harried to dig around in my study/tackle storage room, I managed to pull a Senko pre-prepared off a pile of nick-nacks on my desk, tie it on, grab my camera, and take that favorite rod to the neighborhood bass pond half a minute's walk from my front door.
I must have fished 15 minutes before I caught my first bass, feeling despair lurking somewhere down there safely at least a few miles deeper than any possibility threatening me with sinking, but I really like this pond I fish a lot less than visit nightly with my black Lab Sadie, often viewing meteors overhead, sometimes scouting a fox (Sadie barking), and once encountering a black bear.

I've reported on the fish kill here of a couple winters ago. Obviously, the pond has a long way to go before it fishes as well as used to. All three bass I caught weighed less than former average, and it took me nearly 45 minutes to catch them. But they're real, beautiful bass, and to encounter any of these fish anywhere always signals hope to me. I live in the most corrupted state a free country has ever seen--New Jersey--and yet these wild predators of astonishing vitality, coloration, and innocence coexist amidst the most dense society in the nation. Why not laugh at ourselves and take that word dense more ways than one? Our crumbling roadways may be loosening up, but we're as stiff as mythical Jimmy Hoffa's bones somewhere in the Meadowlands when it comes to change that serves everyone's well being.

River Recharge

Day off, I got some writing done, and then took our black Lab, Sadie, to the North Branch Raritan River at the exit from AT&T, sort of hoping to add some photos to my river collection, but mostly just following through on my commitment to get away from nonsense we call real life. I didn't stay more than an hour, quickly catching the little longear I photographed on the same Muddler Minnow I've been using it seems forever now.

When I first stepped in the river wearing the Simms wading boots I enjoy not for the name but the result of design and workmanship, it felt cool--like fall--and the weather's shifted to cooler temperatures, well into the 90's late last week...and I had hoped those 90's would remain indefinitely. (Not good for trout, but I love really hot weather.) But the river's really low, and what will happen when October 11th arrives we might all guess--a lot of trout that would have been stocked in rivers like this one, may get shipped to South Jersey ponds. I hope to fly cast at least once or twice for whatever trout remain when I get at them.

Some other longears took the Muddler, and then I saw a smallmouth bass that wouldn't, so I cut off the Muddler and tied on a beadhead earthworm. Nothing seemed to want to take it, until finally a largemouth of about eight inches in clear view whomped the fly. I set the hook, feeling just for a sliver of  a second as if the hook might catch before the fish vanished.

I got some photos I'm not displaying that I like, only because they suggest future possibility. (I need to use my tripod well after sundown to get them sharp.) These photographs involved my interest just as I thought I was leaving, and more than anything else today, the effort went deep and sort of flushed out refuse that accumulates working a full time job at a specialty meat counter. It's not good form to complain about jobbing, when more than a few of us are out of work and need it badly, and it's not my intention to complain but to point out--as I try to do in this blog in so many different ways--that work and family and friends are just two of three basic necessities in life. The third is recreation. Whatever form re-creation of your human self takes. Tonight is another example of fishing and photography--dog walking too--merging seamlessly together.

Result? I enjoyed a long, deeply solemn--but solemn like drinking pure mountain spring water from between rocks--moment when hope just welled up from the river I stood in the middle of up to my thighs. Re-creation. Motive to move on. Had I not gone on this little venture, my batteries never would have recharged. Either you move towards some personal goal in life, or you go backward not to childhood, but to the inhuman animal.

Fall Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass: Forage Shift

Fall Forage Shift for Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass

          At first, I dislike the change of season. I enjoy fishing a plastic worm or topwater plug as if the retrieve will take all day, because summer is the home season. An early September cold front presents a chill that makes me feel loss instead of anticipation. Nevertheless, bass fishing will get more exciting. By the third week in the month, I’ve adjusted to the new season just as bass begin to feed especially on fish as the summer smorgasbord recedes. Chilly days feel invigorating. By early November when bass fishing slows, I’m hoping for ice fishing. How odd for someone who likes a day when temperatures peak over 100, and yet fall is a transition I celebrate before eagerly accepting what comes next.

          With temperatures falling, adult insects, larvae, crayfish, leeches, newts and other salamanders, tadpoles and frogs, and the occasional small snake or baby muskrat become less and less available to bass. If you watch damselflies skitter about over an aquatic weedbed on a calm summer afternoon, you may witness a bass or two leap for these bugs that don’t seem to offer much of a meal. Most of the time, the damselflies seem too quick to get caught, but I’ve seen bass score by pointed leaps. The range of forage alternatives during summer amounts to a massive availability bass often don’t have to expend much energy to obtain.

          Fall bass prefer prey they can chase. The forage particular to summer recedes, as do weedbeds and terrestrial vegetation which help support it, and forage fish of all descriptions become vulnerable to bass’s increasing diet. The situation amounts to a fall forage shift.

          The most dramatic example occurs in the Delaware River. I’ve never seen it happen, but more than one angler has told me about smallmouth blitzes in late September and early October reminiscent of cocktail blues after spearing. By the billions, shad fry come downriver heading for the Atlantic. Rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, some evidence exists that shad fry is particularly healthy for smallmouth bass. Fish farms, for example, include Omega 3 in fish feed because it’s healthy for the product.

          In any event, forget live crayfish bait and tube plastics on the Delaware when the shad head down. Half-ounce lipless crankbaits cast a mile and can be zipped by quick retrieves right through pods of herding bronzebacks. Sweeping the rod to provoke aggressive reaction strikes may give you some of the best thrills you’ll ever experience on the river, because the bass strike as they do no other time of year. Topwater plugs effective also, quick, churning retrieves produce, rather than attempts to tease out reluctance. And in the shallower, fast moving water with eddies and slack behind boulders where bass stage to snatch fry headed downstream, a jerkbait like a Rapala or Smithwick’s Rattlin’ Rogue gets slammed like thunder.

          The lure doesn’t have to look like a shad. Nevertheless, I prefer chrome patterns for any and all plugs, if only because I think the flash better provokes quick, aggressive response. Sunlit afternoon or misty evening, the bass hit, and especially with sun rays to reflect, chrome adds appeal. Diving crankbaits especially produce around deeply submerged boulders and through deep currents. For open river situations, go with lip-less crankbaits you can retrieve at various levels of the water column.

          Small rivers experience the forage shift without shad fry in the mix. A wide range of species including spotfin, common, rosy face and satinfin shiners; blacknose and longnose dace; creek chubs; banded killiefish, and juvenile panfish and bass. They serve smallmouths’ need to increase in size and vitality. Nothing seems to work better than smaller jerkbaits like size 7 and 9 Rapalas, Rebels and any of the multitude of plugs from all over the world. Recently, Noel Sell introduced me to an Ecogear jerkbait from Japan, which cost him $18.00. It has an internal rattle and the rear lifts high as it floats upward. As the fall season deepens, live shiners become most effective in deep pools. Use a light wire, size 6 hook so the shiner swims freely hooked through the lips, and allow 18 inches between the hook and a medium split shot.

          Many New Jersey ponds have no soft-rayed fish forage, but lots of sunfish of a few species. Bluegills especially prevalent, other sunfish include the green and pumpkinseed variety, and on rare occasion a few warmouths may inhabit a pond, which resemble rock bass in shape and mouth size, but sunfish in coloration. Some ponds have crappies, and although I’ve never encountered yellow perch in any pond of just a few acres, I know of a 15-acre pond with plenty. Bass feed on the smaller of their own kind, also, and many ponds contain bullhead catfish. Small, slow-swimming bullheads serve as a summertime treat for largemouths, but may get eaten in the fall, also.

          Ponds thick with summertime forage cool faster than lakes, and a shift can happen overnight with largemouths slamming spinnerbaits and jerkbaits the next day. Despite a prevalence of bluegills and no soft-rayed forage present in many ponds, minnow-imitating jerkbaits produce as if shiners scatter everywhere. Any remaining weedbeds should be fan casted, and if a pond has no weeds, always fish any shallow flat and close to shorelines, particularly where any cover or overhanging trees present themselves. Corners and spillway areas may be especially productive.

          Lakes and reservoirs do have soft-rayed forage. Many host alewife herring—another example of forage loaded with Omega 3. Whatever the reason, gamefish of all kinds gorge on herring whenever they can. In lakes like Hopatcong, Greenwood, and Swartswood, reservoirs like Spruce Run, Manasquan, Monksville, and Merrill Creek, smallmouths may feed on herring more than largemouths, because of shared habitat. Round Valley Reservoir is also worth mention, but has seen a sharp decline in herring forage base, although I spotted a smallmouth of at least six pounds recently and caught another pushing three.

          Beginning in October, herring bunch together on the rocky drop-offs of points and ledges, and smallmouths seem to have the advantage of feeding on them, although largemouths approached with spinnerbaits in declining weedbeds and near wooden structures like docks will feed on any herring in their senses’ range. Besides, October largemouths associated, oddly enough, with rocks at the shallow end of drop-offs strike jerkbaits.

          Diving crankbaits with lips allowing the plugs to bounce off boulders and stones possess great effectiveness for largemouths and smallmouths alike down to depths of 15 feet or so, so long as the habitat isn’t weedy. Crankbaits tend to trip over submerged branches and other snags, but weeds get caught on the treble hooks. In addition to spinnerbaits, weedless jigs tipped with twister-tail or tube plastics get through thin vegetation with ease. Moderate retrieves broken by jerks of the rod tip cover water range and provoke hits, but if weedbeds remain too thick, a jig will get messy.

          We all feel the change in the air of fall. But in the water, where it counts for anglers, the bass never feel the loss of summer fervor.