Casting it Off on a Nice Day: Bass Pond Tour

Much needed break from burdensome responsibilities. Fred Matero and I arrived at Sunrise Lake in Washington Township I guess about 4:45, intending to fish it quickly if nothing doing. Fred has fished it before. "It gets hit hard." I began fishing there in 1995, and my son remarked late last summer that it's his favorite place. I took him there to fish when he was two; his very first fishing he doesn't remember, but he does remember much else. Haven't cast this three-acre pond for how many years I don't remember.

It's not in the photos.

I fished my favorite sloping flat hardest, but we left after a half hour, catching nothing, Fred missing a hit from a small bass on a Rapala floater. As yet I was all hyped up on those burdens and a little pissed they didn't get relieved, but maybe Fred didn't notice. He directed me to a neighborhood pond in Mendham I didn't know about. That's in the photo above. We fished there a quick 20 minutes or so, nothing happening at all, besides a kid on that bridge up above catching a sunfish on a fly rod. As we left for the next spot in Chester, a pond Fred had never seen, I said, "Don't bet on it." Some of my tension was gone, but it felt heavy to imagine getting skunked on this beautiful day, temperatures near 70; my only chance to get out and fish bass this early April. Precious time doesn't want the insult of failure, but when Fred said, "That's alright. It's good getting out," for a second I felt the same.

You never know if a really big bass is going to coincide with your lure in such little ponds. I've caught two of about 19 inches in Sunrise "Lake." But it is really easy--at least for me--to be a fool and almost expect the likes.

Almost. And even almost can be asking way too much. That's part of the reason I bring $3800.00 in camera equipment along on every outing. I got shots of Canada geese on Sunrise Lake, centered in colored striations on water--reflections from a boathouse--which, if I were to post any of them online, I really would be foolish. Google isn't going to snatch these. A fish might not come to me. But I see plenty else and capture some of what I see on pixels when I get a moment. This compensates.

This next pond of high tannic content is not high in bass content. Last I fished it, early in September 2015, I caught two 10-inchers. Today confirmed slow fishing. That's acid water, and there's bass in it, but not very many. And apparently not big. (Who knows.) I cast a spinner, let it sink. That way, I found no water deeper than about four feet. That not very promising for big bass, either, and yet our neighborhood pond's three or four acres average about two feet deep. Four feet at deepest. My son has caught three bass there over four pounds. One of them five. I caught one near four. And I've caught two or three dozen close to three pounds.

Fred caught two in Chester--largest about 13 inches--and I caught three, including one not much longer than my #9 Rapala. The other two nine and 10 inches. All of mine hit the Rapala on retrieve and they made me a little happy. Fred's took a Wacky Senko and he was happy to catch his first of the year.

We talked about work riding to Bernardsville. After Fred and I departed, I heard sweet birdsong--windows down--unlike I'd heard all day. That's when the outing finally came together and I knew it was all worthwhile at the deep level, relieved and fully happy at last.

Suddenly, a robin flew near my opened driver's window blasting a warning call. I felt the connection immediately. Like, thanks! Nothing startling to me, just resonance. But then I wondered. Was that bird telling me about something amiss coming?

It really is a strange life in these times of incompetence at the highest social levels. Take a job at the bottom and it's like Collective Soul, the rock band, croons about all that weight falling on a man--it brings me down!

Hell of a lot of megatons. Off ma shoulders--Goddamn! Alabama is no sweet home of mine, but I like that song's ending.

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

South Wind Slabs

South Wind Slabs

          Pike fishing clued me into crappies. Something nice clobbered a large, dead shiner retrieved like a suspending jerkbait, which turned out to be a crappie of more than two pounds. I caught two more over a foot long in quick succession, and then paused to sum the situation. The corner at the northeastern terminus of Spruce Run Reservoir received a steady, warm wind from the south during an early April evening with water temperature having climbed into the 50’s.

          Big crappies turned out to be predictable over the years. With warm, southerly April winds, we counted on tasty fish fries after outings. The husky predators proved to be nothing to try and tease with little crappie jigs. They wanted big meals.

          Slab crappies longer than 17 inches and more than three pounds inhabit some waters, including Spruce Run and Manasquan reservoirs, lakes Hopatcong and Mercer. They move in pods of similar-sized fish, and although not as many slabs congregate together as smaller, the numbers may be plenty. Since the sun sets in the southwest and is warmest in the afternoon, its rays warm water to the northeast best. That southerly wind accompanying a warm front stirs shallows into a sort of soup that makes feeding opportune for gamefish forage.

          Large shiners live-lined weightless, besides a barrel swivel if you fish a leader, produce all the fish you want to catch, but shiners don’t serve as the only productive choice. A sixteenth-ounce jighead with a large wide-gap hook for a big plastic or synthetic bait works wonders. You can even take a paring knife and shave off some of the lead to retain hook size for slower descent and retrieve. With all the bulk of plastic or synthetic material displacing water, the presentation involves ability to retrieve at a modest pace, critical for crappies this time of year. A lengthy rod of six or 6 ½ feet allows further casts than shorter, and light or medium power, slow or fast action, suffices. Synthetics like 4-inch saltwater Gulp! Swimming Mullets, tube jigs, Keitechs, twister tail and paddle tail plastics of three or four inches all serve the purpose.

          Cast to downwind coves or shorelines of lakes and reservoirs with turbulent shallows of just a couple or a few feet to eight feet deep or more. Turbulence activates, since crappies have lateral line sensory receptors by which they respond to commotion at the surface. Also, sunlight on the water goes through the chop dispersed at crazy, random angles. This means a lot of light and shadow play goes on underneath and forage fish lose inhibition, since they sort of blend in with this disturbance and respond with less wariness with so much noise generated above.

          For comparison, imagine a perfectly calm surface with bright sun penetrating straight through. What forage fish will venture out to be seen in high definition? A sun-scoured aquatic environment is inactive compared to warming water in motion caused by a south wind, which gets the entire food chain accelerating into the new season. In some situations, waves crash against a muddy shoreline and discolor water, which gets pulled out and away from the bank for several yards or more, creating an edge of discolored water to fish carefully.

          Action picks up fast during spring and magic seems to strike by the wand of a rod, but you have to find the sweet spots. Lake Hopatcong is the best example of a lake with many coves. River Styx crappies come from main lake depths to shallows of four or five feet, responding to stirrings of the pre-spawn period in this huge cove the size of a small lake. Flooded timber shallows of Manasquan Reservoir find crappies suddenly present and turned on. Whole ranges of many lakes and reservoirs beckon with possibilities as the crappie population leaps from relatively inactive waiting, to feeding on baitfish among residual weeds to spur the growth of eggs for spawning by late April or so, but you’ll never find fish everywhere.

          Ranges of residual vegetation may be full of possible spots, although some reservoirs, like Spruce Run, have little weeds, submerged brush, docks or timber yet produce very large crappies. Since the acreage of a cove like Hopatcong’s River Styx is enough to ply for a very long day, break down the possibilities where many confront you. Fish docks or any submerged brush. Plenty of residual vegetation usually exists in combination with these targets, and structures with more than one kind of cover tend to hold more fish. Manasquan Reservoir has, instead of acres of vegetation, daunting fields of flooded timber. Get back in relative shallows downwind, especially where you find shallow edges of timber dropping into deep water. Search earnestly.

           The journey may involve running the electric motor and covering water to find pods bunched in spots you discover while on the move. Casting plastics on wide-gap jigs is a fish-finding method, although some anglers prefer bobbers with shiners hooked near the dorsal fin underneath, dropping the rig over tight spots and allowing a short wait before trying other timber or stumps. It all depends on what you’re best suited to: when crappies feed, they will hit.  

          They won’t be as eager to give chase as bass or pike. Striking jerkbaits on occasion especially in warmer water, slabs this early in the season better respond to fairly slow retrieves, but sluggish might not be the description of the fish’s mood. Sometimes a crappie gets caught and no more hit. Did a pod move on and out of range? Fan cast the areas near the catch site. Crappies in a pod cooperate and may vacate the area of a hookup, yet like all individual creatures—they compete. When a lure or shiner is presented within the sensory range of a group of predators, all involved may be alerted to try and take it before another does. This tension within a pod increases the likelihood of getting a hit, and fish have a short memory after being disturbed.

          Consider further fish competition. They may behave like fools for lures and bait, and when reluctant, may yet be provoked. Finesse the jig by subtle twitches to send a ripple of interest through a pod. Tube plastics have squid-like tentacles; twister tails undulate in the water, and paddle tails vibrate. Nevertheless, a regular retrieve does little to send a message to crappies’ senses, despite the fact that they’re aware of the lure. Forage fish pulsate by impulses of fright and flight, and that’s what you want to imitate. A plastic tube doesn’t really look like a minnow, but if you twitch it irregularly, giving it a life of quivering animation, you may impart just enough resemblance to forage and draw interest.

         It’s a special time of year to get out and fish for big ones. This is when everything begins again, and if you’re like me, mood begins to take ground like roots digging in, warmth on the wind a harbinger of greater happiness. Lots of slabs on the line let you know there’s life in the world willing to respond to efforts.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2014/03/spring-crappies-at-spruce-run-reservoir.html

Cosmic

Is fishing a niche, or a universal contemplation? Maybe the tackle companies and outdoor media want us to think it's the former, because they do quite well with the status quo in that respect. The CEO of Bass Pro Shops is a major player with Goldman Sachs, from what I've heard. The rest of society seems to readily agree it's a niche, but many look down their noses on people with a passion to fish, so "unimportant" compared to the professional workplace and the world of social concerns that workplace implies.

I won't leap onto the high road and write the sort of sentences you may be familiar reading of my outing accounts, words a lot of readers would get lost on. I'll just say it's obvious to me fishing is only a niche as a sort of advertisement. Food is universal. We put most fish back, but you get the point. And where we go to fish. The outdoors is no niche interest more than planet. In a universe 13 billion light years wide, all of what it is inseparable between the most distant points. 

Plans

We need the rain, but it's interfering with plans a little. Had hoped to fish a pond with Mike Maxwell on Tuesday, but we figured--muddy. That's no way to get introduced. Looks like we might get there on the 12th. Too much later than that, and the weeds forbid much hope. I made a mental note of this place last fall, and I haven't forgotten. It's time. We just have to coordinate time off from work with clear water we hope is at least 50 degrees, but I did catch a bass Tuesday in the rain here in the neighborhood with water in the 40's. Not on live bait, either.

On the 5th, we may fish Pompton Lakes, but I need to look into how rain affects clarity there, since we have rain forecast two days in between now and then, not including tonight's. (Thunder.) Especially a concern, since the chief area to fish is the creek mouth, with northern pike spawning. Bass and pickerel elsewhere in the lake might attract our curiosity, also.

Hope to get to the Meadowlands with Fred soon, striped bass. School size for the most part, but a keeper size bass--to put back--is possible. I am deeply fascinated with that environment, and would like to do a photo-study of it in some breadth and detail. This will take time, and I don't have any in the foreseeable future, but if I find the time in a decade or so, I don't think my advanced age will stop me from getting my boots muddy and my knees wet. I've read two good books on the Meadowlands, though the titles and authors escape me at present. I hope to read them both again and more yet.

New Jersey is not short of amazing, geographically. Such little square mileage, compared to other states, and yet the environmental diversity in little space might be more varied than any other. Don't know. Would be interesting to find out. 

Got One, Mike!

Hit a quarter-ounce white Rooster Tail. Right before I was about to lift for next cast. Reeled at pretty good clip, since it catches bottom a lot, this shallow pond.

Protected my camera inside my coat, rain.

That's my first fish since October 12th. Looks to me like it's all getting started. And that Rooster Tail feels about right for a deeper pond.

Round Valley Reservoir RVTA Trout Stocking

Round Valley Trout Association, with its client, Musky Trout Hatchery, of Asbury, New Jersey, by the Musconetcong River, stocked Round Valley Reservoir this morning with an as yet relatively small undisclosed number of big rainbow trout as large as four or five pounds, a hundred golden trout less than legal size, and 200 brown trout also less than legal size. The same number of browns got stocked last year. Last year's bear an RVTA6 jaw tag; this year's--RVTA7.

Especially the brown trout we want released, since the idea is to witness them grow to trophy sizes of eight pounds or more. The current state record brown trout of 21 pounds, six ounces got caught in the reservoir in 1995. Since then, brown trout's chief forage is missing. The alewife herring population is now virtually non-existent or altogether gone, due to the thinning out of the reservoir's fertility, as well as relative lack of weedbeds which herring depend upon for reproduction, apparently. However, at present the record low water level results in thick vegetation growth along shorelines. When the water comes back up, we hope in three to five years, accumulated vegetation in decay will spike the water fertility, such as happened in the early 1990's, conditions combined with the pumping of more fertile South Branch Raritan water into the reservoir. That water, reportedly, is no longer as fertile as was more than a decade ago, so our proposition is a iffy, although club members don't know of the exact difference in river fertility and what the difference will mean. If alewife herring get re-introduced, there may be another renaissance of trout fishing here, with trophy fish abundant for a few years. And these brown trout we've stocked now and last year, some of them will surely remain in the reservoir five years out.

Member turnout more than I had expected, as Musky Trout Hatchery's truck drove onto gravel at about 9:00 a.m., boats seemed to suddenly arrive from nowhere, since I hadn't noticed them coming from parts unknown on the reservoir. Naturally, the guys got on early and had fished for hours. Now four or five boats began serving a mission that benefits everyone who uses Round Valley Recreation Area, since a thriving fishery is at the heart of this crystal-clear water everyone admires. Some of the guys, including a boy about 11-years-old, carried nets of trout from the truck to the boats, which roared off powered by 9.9 horsepower. The motor power seemed a lot more than that this morning, as the force behind the effort is moved by a lot more moral motivation than the typical feeling about a little engine. A boat would disappear into distance very quickly as water-filled coolers in another got loaded with trout, and just as the two coolers had filled, another boat could be seen coming in at closing distance. A small crowd of onlookers developed, shooting pictures with mobile devices, but more than this; they really got a load through eyeballs.

Cold weather deterred no one. I wished at first I had brought my wool cap, but once action got underway, I never noticed the chill, driven hard into us all by a stiff breeze coming off the water from the east. I stepped into water over my hiking boots to get closer shots with my Nikon. Didn't care, and didn't feel it. Overcast sky, cold, wind. Instead of any disfavor, the conditions served the will behind the effort, overcoming any resistance of things all too settled in that clear water.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2015/04/knee-deep-club-stocks-lake-hopatcong.html

Largemouth Bass Population Survey Round Valley Reservoir

                       A tiny sliver under 20 inches and fat.

The recent Round Valley Reservoir gamefish survey by the NJ Division of Fish & Wildlife found largemouth bass abundant, though mostly growing at a sub-average rate, compared to statewide statistics. One hundred fifty four bass surveyed measured equal to or more than 200 millimeters long or 7.87 inches, and only 63 were greater than or equal to 300 millimeters or almost 12 inches. I think of so many 18-inchers we catch on other lakes, but here at Round Valley, the state surveyed only seven bass greater than or equal to 380 centimeters long, not quite 15 inches, but they did measure three greater than or equal to 510 millimeters or 20.07 inches. The population is unbalanced with respect to size, a relative few of the bass apparently growing better than most, and the study points out the possibility of a state-record largemouth lurking under the reservoir's surface, as evidenced by a monstrous largemouth surveyed,  23.11 inches long, weighing 8.85 pounds. Those other two big largemouths documented were over five pounds. The current New Jersey state record stands at 10 pounds, 14 ounces from Menantico Sand Wash Pond, Cumberland County.

Smallmouths did not show nearly so well, and the study indicates the population is not so abundant as in the past. Nor are the bass as large. I further speculate that with the low reservoir level, smallmouth bass spawning habitat is decreased. They need gravely bottom. Not only that. Their habitat in general is lacking now.

Keep in mind that an electroshock and netting survey is just a small sample on 2350 surface acres, even though that acreage is reduced somewhat for the time being with low water level. This recent effort by the DFW resulted in only three lake trout 9.9 pounds to 21.2 pounds surveyed, and a behemoth over 20 pounds got caught by an angler on Super Bowl Sunday. Big largemouths get caught secretly ever year. I have heard the story of a nighttime surface plugger who experienced a huge strike, terrific battle--and break off. Naturally, he believes he hooked the state record.

In my opinion, it's good culture to agree on releasing big largemouths here. The unusual growth statistics suggest something sort of like the difference between Florida and northern strain largemouths, though this surely can't be whatever it is, in fact. And yet, whatever it is--the survey results show very convincing evidence that largemouths over two pounds are pretty rare here. Those larger may be the better growing fish; I've caught and released a number of them, and will continue to release all of my bass. It's in all of our interests to practice catch and release, because the better bass stand a chance of reaching that record size.

And whoever catches that record in season. That one keep.



http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/05/lake-hopatcongs-enhanced-fishery-is.html