South Branch Raritan Flemington

Drove to the South Branch at Flemington to check and see if the flow is muddy. It's not. And so long as thunderstorms later today don't raise the level, Oliver Round and I are floating the river further north tomorrow. Water often gets released from Spruce Run Reservoir, raising the river level and muddying the water just enough to make fishing unproductive.

I brought a bucket with some leftover killies in it. I used some more than a week ago, when trying for fluke in the surf; the water they're surviving in is brine taken straight from the Atlantic. I thought I would have the change the water, but the fish are doing fine.

First cast to this long slow stretch behind a dam resulted in a little largemouth about nine inches long. I caught a longear sunfish, besides. I tried to access the river below the dam, but No Trespassing. Then I drove further above and found a nice hole below a rusted railroad trestle, but couldn't get a hit. I put a split shot on the line, too, after covering the area with a killie weightless.


https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/09/three-bridges-to-higginsville.html

Anti-Report on the Surf

And now for an anti-report. After all, if you read the surf reports you can find about the Jersey Shore, they all seem to promise lots of action.

A few others fished near me on Island Beach yesterday. I saw nothing caught, although someone told me he caught a kingfish so little, he didn't know it was on his hook.

Just as well I didn't waste my money on clam, because he hooked that little fish on a sand flea. Even so, I never collected any to use. I stuck to my killies and cut bunker. Trying for fluke and blues.

A couple of killies came back cut in half. I never knew if by crabs or snapper blues. Probably crabs, since once I felt some weight on my line.


https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2018/08/some-fish-in-surf.html

Furnace Lake Largemouth Bass

 Caught two this size and four smaller largemouths.

Haven't fished with Fred since January, when we tried for trout at Round Valley. Good to see him again, our late afternoon and evening fishing enjoyed.  

We first approached bass here as Brian and I did the other day--in the shade. After we got the boat in close, my first cast to a bankside pocket a foot deep yielded the bass photographed above. A spot very much like the foot of water that resulted in my 20-incher with Brian.

Then we backed off a little. I kept fishing the Chompers, targeting shaded pockets. I caught three more bass this way, and lost another a lot bigger than the bass photographed. Depth was about five feet, the weeds thick.

After awhile, we moved to the other side of the lake, because no more hits came. The shoreline dropped off steeply, and it didn't take all that long before I felt thoroughly at odds. I suggested we go back to the shallows. By then, the sun was low. "Let's try that corner," Fred said.

"Good idea."

Shallows. Five to eight feet. I quickly caught two on a 3/8th ounce Rebel Pop-R. Great casting range. Like the other evening recently, the bass responded to a slow, subtle retrieve. The first nipped at the plug. Then I barely moved that plug a few times before the bass slurped it. The second took the plug so subtly that it would have been easy not to notice without paying close attention. But both of these bass struck after I got the plug directly against weed edges close to the bank. I made careful choices when I cast each time, to get the plug where I thought it needed to go. Further along the way back to the relative shallows where we began, I caught another on the same plug. Thereafter I began to feel bored, nothing happening, so I switched to the Chompers. 

Beautiful pocket water. Calm surface. Nothing going on. Dusk beginning to settle. 

Fred switched to a spinnerbait. I had my private doubt about its use under calm dusky water, but I vaguely remembered my doubt about my son using a Rat-L-Trap on Tilcon last month, same conditions. I thought, "Well, let him follow his choice. Who knows." Sure enough, he hooked a bass moments later, boated it, and then lost another. Nothing hit my topwater.

So I thought the same about Fred. Sure enough, a moment later he hooked a musky. I saw violent commotion at the surface, "There you go Fred!" And then it was all over. It had cut his line cleanly.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/07/aeroflex-lake-bass-and-pickerel.html

Bunch of Big Morris County Bass

The first came from a foot of water near the bank under the shade of trees late in the afternoon. We had paddled directly up the lake, beginning our fishing too far out in six feet of water in the sun. The lake is nine feet at the deepest. Most of it seems around five feet. This first bass hooked itself immediately after the worm splashed down, tearing through thick algae on two solid runs that reminded me of a hybrid striper. Brian had to paddle us closer to the fish as it got stuck in the mess, and when I reached for the lip, I felt the hook fall out against my hand.

It measured 20 inches. Weighed 4.36 pounds.

We missed a couple of hits in close. Brian lost a bass of about three pounds on a Rapala before the fast action would come and go. This fast action lasted no more than 10 minutes. By twitching a Senko near the surface in about four feet of water among milfoil and algae matts, I caught four: about 12 inches, 16 1/2 inches, 17 and some inches, and 19 3/8 inches. The latter fish weighed 3.46 pounds.

After that second nice bass of just under 3 1/2 pounds, I told Brian the bite was probably over. It was. An unusual evening bite perhaps--before sunset.

I gave this post a "Big Bass" title. Though none of them weighed over five pounds, which you might say is true lunker status, for New Jersey, I figure they're big enough to have grabbed your attention. Besides, for most fishermen perhaps, a 20-inch largemouth is "five pounds." (If I used the word "nice," instead of "big" in the title, you might not be reading.)

I wondered if we would get something of a secondary bite. It took a long time. We must have fished an hour and a half before it happened, catching nothing, though Brian had taken some hits. Then, as dusk began to settle, Brian hooked a bass of about three pounds on a topwater. It got in the thick, and once that happens, it's difficult to keep line tight. When a bass has loose line on its end of the algae, it finds it easy to throw the hooks. Which Brian's bass did. 

He missed another fish or two. I can't remember the number. But using a Rebel Pop-R, I caught a 12-incher, an 18 1/2-incher that weighed 3.19 pounds--a chunky bass--and another a little over 16 inches that weighed 2.13. I know most fishermen's 18 1/2-inch chunky bass weighs close to four pounds, but that might be by the old standard of the trusty Deliar, a device that made fishermen liars everywhere, because it's nothing like a certified scale. I tested my electronic Rapala on a five-pound bag of sugar. By supermarket standards monitored by the state, I guess that bag did weigh five pounds.

None of these last three bass got photographed.

The secondary bite was nothing like the furious action of the first, when bass violently disrupted the surface when taking my Senko slightly below that surface. Each of the three I caught later over the course of 20 minutes or so first tapped at the plug, besides the biggest, which fully exposed its upper body when taking a pass at the plug while making no contact with it. The trick in each case was to keep fishing that plug. Very slowly. Each bass slurped it slightly, though each was then easy to hook, and, in fact, the big one slurped that plug down to its gullet, though removing the treble with needlenose pliers was easy.

What a day. Brian asked me if it was my best day of the summer. I told him yes. I could have made this post one of my themed stories that evokes the quality of experience more than the knick-knacks of fishing, but not only did I burn out that talent--doesn't mean I can't conjure it back--I don't have time tonight, and besides, I did so well at catching bass today that I want to emphasize this. 

Brian had raised the issue of tournaments while we fished Wawayanda, and tonight I told him I wished I had taken the advice of Tim Tingo, Mercer County Bassmasters' top tournament placer, and taken out the loan for an outboard to go further into tournament fishing. I set my goal on tournament fishing independently of him, but hearing that advice from the club's best was valuable. I did take trophies from guys mostly at least twice my age, having begun fishing bass tournaments at age 16. I remember rising to mania during those events. Intensely competitive.

You can guess what happened. I got inspired as a writer.

An afternoon and evening like today's makes me feel young and starting out. 

  

 17 inches or so.

 16 and some.

  

Brian's biggest cuts into algae where it threw the hook.


https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2013/09/four-pound-smallmouth-bass-south-branch.html (Not quite.)

Face-Off between the State and Business? Hopatcong's Algae

I refused to come out and state my opinion baldly from the start of the mess, because I had no firm evidence to back it. A friend of mine told me algae blooms go way back--he's in his 80's--and they never harmed anyone, but although I readily felt whatever's happened this year is overblown, I didn't want to say so on one account. But if you will read especially the first link I've offered, you'll hear Laurie Murphy speak about Joe Welsh doing his herring operation these weeks as if nothing's happened, getting no rashes. Mind her additional words, though. She's seen people swimming in the lake recently, but she recognizes that people with weak immune systems could get hurt. And she does not let her dogs near the water.

I don't think an advisory is a bad idea. And the second article is worth reading, also, because it tells of increased phosphates in the lake's water, causing algae to bloom. So apparently, it is worse now than in the past. But the lake is NOT closed. And misleading information got out that it is.

How bad is it? Not so bad as to "close the lake," which never happened, and yet electronic messages along Interstate 80 used language like "ban." Business takes the hit. It's reported that such messages are "erroneous." They are that, but I wonder about the intent. It seems to me the choice of such language is too obvious to be an honest mistake.

https://www.njherald.com/20190707/businesses-take-a-hit-from-lake-hopatcong-algae

https://www.njherald.com/20190710/crowd-sounds-off-on-impact--of-lake-hopatcong-algae


https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/01/open-letter-to-nj-boat-regulation.html

Caught Some Pond Bass

The late afternoon warmth after a good day off from work motivated me to do more fishing. I haven't been over to Fairview Farms in rural Bedminster Township since, I think it was, 2010, when I took my son and a friend of his. I first fished the pond with Matt in 2004, one of four bass caught nearly two-and-a-half pounds. I caught a two-pounder on another occasion, and although we didn't fish here often, we did enough to know the pond doesn't fish fast.

So it's been almost a decade. Hard to believe. Since then, the Raritan Watershed Association has installed a fishing dock. The pond needs it. I found the banks fully overgrown. Maybe had I walked the trail further, I'd find pathways in, but the best I could judge the situation from where I stood on the dock, all of the spots we depended upon in the past are completely grown in, and the only way to fish the pond is from that dock.

That's bad and good news. Apparently, most of the bass are inaccessible, as stationing along shore here and there normally gets you to them when fishing a pond. But brush overhangs have become a very interesting feature.

I came intending to fly fish, and that's how I started. The popper I tied on is pretty big, and I had a hard time casting. Mainly, it's a problem of the fly line or the rod. (It's moderate action.) The best I could get was 40 feet, before my popper got snagged on the back of the dock, my wherewithal not all that good. I did give it a good try for 15 minutes or so, but refused to retie. I wanted to catch some bass, and the overhangs looked too good not to target them with a plastic worm.

With my St. Croix medium power spinning rod, I was fully in control. I got the worm right into a pocket under brush, on the other side of a cut of vegetation, let it sink, tightened, and hooked the bass photographed. I caught another about the same size near the edge of brush photographed below. Casting a worm with a spinning rod, when pinpoint targets are involved, is a thrill.

It was getting dark and I had to leave. I didn't feel I was at such a loss fly fishing the North Branch this morning, nor when on the South Branch, so maybe I won't find the fly rod a handicap when Oliver Round and I float the latter river. I've caught smallmouths fly fishing the North Branch and Paulinskill rivers, while targeting this species. While fly fishing redfish in South Carolina, I routinely got 50 feet or better, and I didn't feel put out on the Salmon River, but I do have something to learn yet.

Jeremy Mehlhaff, our South Carolina guide, got 90 feet.

I get 60 with my worm on the spinning rod.

It's nice to have a place like Fairview Farms nearby, thanks to RWA. I may not return for another decade, for all I know, but it exists. On the way there, Larger Cross Road took me out of myself, the sun low. I realized, as I left, that in part my motive was to escape my troublesome job...and I couldn't. But I didn't think about it as I fished, if my feelings were perhaps all too conditioned by the habit of doing that job. Seeing darkness encroach and knowing it means getting up soon to go do the job again felt ominous, put me in a low mood, and yet someone was burning wood along U.S. 206, and the smell lifted that mood, reminding me of the Steelhead Inn in Pulaski. We do such damn jobs so we can go to places like that, so these jobs cannot possibly be all bad. 

I may as well confess to you that my father once observed, when I was about 22, that I "try to escape reality." I think there's nothing wrong with trying, if escaping reality, for me, is living on royalties from books written. It's just that I'm a lot older now than 35, the age at which, I hoped when I was 26, I would begin living on royalties. It's not that I was a bad writer; it's that my curiosity led me in so many directions. I was still reading books and searching out my own ideas by age 35. Fishing got me back to getting published, having first got published on fishing at age 16, and fishing has grounded my approach to writing memoir. So there's hope I'll earn royalties yet. 

These last two photos got screwed up because of condensation on my lens, having taken the camera outdoors from air conditioned house. I wiped most of it off, but didn't have the patience to get it just right.

Brush overhang is really good here. That's holding water under those bushes. Getting a worm right into that pocket near the photo's middle...a cast like that yielded my second bass.

Dow's Boat Rentals is Open and Weighing Fish Despite Algae Bloom

Laurie Murphy:


The Knee Deep Club’s Hybrid Striped Bass contest is scheduled for this weekend July 13th & 14th. They will be making a final decision on Wed,  July 10th as to whether they will be holding the contest or not due to Lake Hopatcong’s recent blue green algae bloom. DEP’s advisory is to avoid bodily contact with the water and to not eat the fish caught at this time. There has been alot of misinformation put out there, but the Lake has been open,regardless of what the signs have said,  other than the public beaches being closed to swimming only. If you go to The Lake Hopatcong Foundation page, you will be able to find out all the latest information concerning the algae bloom, with links to the latest reports from DEP.You can call Dows Boat Rental at (973) 663-3826 after Wednesday for more information regarding the contest. With little to no boat traffic on the lake , it is the perfect time to cast your line. We are open 7 days a week, from 5:30 AM - 7 PM, with bait, tackle & boat rentals. Bruce Apslund, fishing with herring, landed 4 Hybrids, the largest weighing 7 lb 14 oz. Several nice bass, both Large & smallmouth, have been being caught, along with some nice crappie. Jim Welsh landed a channel cat, weighing 4 lb 6oz, caught on some dead bait and Jim Archambault made his way to the scales with a 4 lb 13 oz pickerel.  Brandon Wood’s  walleye  weighed in at 6 lb 8 oz.

Packed House at Lake Hopatcong Foundation meeting concerning the algae bloom. More than 300 attended. Link to the news is below:

https://lakehopatcongfoundation.org/packed-house-at-lhc-meeting-to-discuss-harmful-algal-bloom/?fbclid=IwAR1Z2LsuFoyDc3btLincp4GALsHRhXCScOn4ld9VI58ZBQtC-gUYCOIDLlc