Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Topwater Bass Small North Jersey Lake


Don't remember what I laughed about, not the bass.
Here's a piece ahead of time about fishing a small lake in North Jersey. Information may be helpful for any number of destinations.



If you own no larger than a small boat and trailer, you may enjoy good largemouth fishing on any of fairly shallow eutrophic lakes. The primitive gravel ramp we employed provides convenient launching for a kayak, canoe, inflatable, portable, or cartop boat, and I’ve heard of the successful trailer launch of a 14-foot V-hull. My son, Matt, and I discovered that our 12-foot inflatable Intex Excursion really is a very comfortable and efficient craft. It inflates quickly with a 12-volt air pump used for tent mattresses. We’ve launched it on Merrill Creek Reservoir and Split Rock Reservoir, two undesirable outings we don’t care to repeat. I was reluctant to use the boat again! Rolling over Merrill Creek waves and hauling the heavy boat and marine battery a long distance at Split Rock wasn’t pleasant. But so long as water surface rests relatively calm, the boat feels like a comfort chair, casting from it easy and unimpaired. We power the boat with a 55-pound thrust Minn Kota electric motor. Perhaps needless to say, gas outboards are not allowed on most small lakes.

          My portable Humminbird graph recorder showed 10-foot depths not far beyond the ramp, and we found that most of the water on the near side of the island is about this deep. We didn’t fish the back of the lake, but I imagined shallower flats. The lake’s acres brim with water of good quality, but it’s not as clear as Lake Musconetcong used to be, for example.

          Aquatic vegetation abundant, it's not as thick as I had expected. The lake mostly open water, the challenge is to fish edges and pockets of weeds very carefully. Senko-type worms and slower sinking traditional plastic worms rigged weightless with an inset hook would be effective, particularly in the middle of the day when topwater plugs usually get ignored by bass. My son and I favor surface fishing whenever we can catch fish, and that’s when light intensity increases or decreases, sun fading from the time of our arrival, and the bass sight-advantaged over prey.

          For the first 20 minutes or so, we became anxious. Then I hooked my first bass, and we sank into the pleasant reverie of being on the water with the skunk off. There’s nothing like a good-looking lake letting us down to spoil our estimate of the Highlands region of which we're familiar. That sort of event turns the world upside down. Another bass struck minutes later, both fish only about a pound apiece, but making the lake feel promising.

          Quickly released, they have the potential to grow quite large in a lake like this. Matt pointed out a school of forage fish with small predator fish of some kind bursting into them. The forage seemed like herring, but surely shiners of some variety caught our attention. We watched dazzling reflections on silvery scales caught in vanishing sunlight as the fish leapt. The presence of these brilliant, tiny pulses of energy relative to the focus of our concentration on them, they seemed more significant than the physical size of the fish. Whenever I see baitfish in addition to bluegills and other sunfish, I think the lake has good potential for lunkers just as important to let go.

          We didn’t take any hits from big fish, but we caught several more one-pound bass before dusk deepened. All struck topwater plugs. Particularly aware of my casting as I repeatedly plunked my Hedden Torpedo on the proverbial dime, the practice will last until next time. This involved more than hitting the target. I fished with persistent, yet relaxed, energy. Allowing the mind to feel out what seems to be the best possibility of a lair will, over time, put you on more fish. How do animals in the wild find prey? More is involved than assessing facts. Animals other than humans have no concept of facts anyhow, but they possess acute senses that lead them where they need to go.

          Do we still have senses like other animals buried beneath our everyday minds? Not only do we in the form of intuition; to awaken such productive guesswork also heightens aesthetic appreciations, and can lead to unexpected solutions of any sort of problem in life. That’s why we call fishing re-creation. Above all, a good evening on the water clears the mind so you can face tougher challenges in life refreshed.     



9 comments:

  1. It's wonderful you and Matt still fish together! I enjoyed this piece very much, only having one or two quarrels with your grammar. Most of the time when I read your posts here, I am not tempted to take up fishing. This time I felt the pull. What really surprises me time and again is the detail, the type of pole, the kind of line, the sinkers, hooks, lures, the areas where you cast, how you cast there--there is so much more to it than just inserting a hook into a frantic worm and trying to cast it without hooking it onto a branch or having it wedged between some immovable boulders.

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    1. In case the reply didn't go to your in-box, once I again I forgot to reply directly to your comment.

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  2. Thanks Catherine. Fishing's like any other complex endeavor: lot's you can do. I went directly into edit function, got rid of the comma after animals in the first sentence, last paragraph, felt the pause unnecessary. What else did you notice? "Not only do we in the form of intuition;" could be a stand alone sentence, as could be the clause separated by semi-colon. We is the subject, do the verb, seems to me. I'm not the best at mechanics, so I wonder if you see something I don't. Please, let me know where you take issue, as this sort of thing helps to know.

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  3. There you are, I must have forgotten to hit the send me notifications! I thought I got you mad at me! You haven't visited my wall since! So sorry. Since it's been several days I need to reread it. Just happy to see this!

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  4. I reread it, and didn't notice any difficulty this time. And I like that last paragraph. I have been sharpening my mind with Lumosity. It's a series of workouts and games designed to increase memory, problem solving, agility, speed, etc. For me, quite addictive. Some of the exercises are particularly difficult for me and seeing how I can increase my effectiveness is very pleasing.

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    1. Some time before I posted this story, I revisited a good grammar book. I still think the sentence with the semi-colon seems awkward, and since I can't quite name its mechanics, decided to spend a couple of hours or so with the same book tomorrow. I've written other sentences I can't completely parse out. I have studied grammar thoroughly & seem to be pretty good at it, but the way my mind works, hasn't been easy to learn. And I think the refresher will help. Luminosity seems to be productive for you.

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  5. As a child, when learning to read, I would talk it to myself phrasing it out over and over again until I got the meaning of what was being said. I don't think any of it 'came to me naturally.' It was all a very conscious exercise. I think one of the biggest joys of reading Ayn Rand's works was her conciseness. There was never mistaking her meaning, whereas a lot of writers get fuzzy. I sheer off of it. If the writer doesn't make it easy to follow, I don't want to bother. Bad grammar for me is like running with your legs crossed. Ain't getting nowhere, nohow fast! Horrible grammar there, but it's plain as day! ;)

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    1. Did it again, Catherine. No matter how I try, simple things like choosing "reply" I fail.

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  6. Nah, your grammar's sound. I was extremely jealous of younger brother who learned to read on his own at age 3. I didn't give myself enough credit. Didn't learn to read early, yet despite what they thought at school, really wasn't difficult. I had some sort of classroom attention problem, not reading problem per se. Yet off I got whisked with a few other slow students into remedial reading.

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