Lake Hopatcong's Enhanced Fishery is Available to All

Lake Hopatcong’s Enhanced Fishery is Available to All

On the border of Morris and Sussex Counties just north of Route 80, Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey’s largest lake at 2686 acres, offers the state’s most diverse fishery besides the Delaware River, a truly amazing variety of large gamefish. The Knee Deep Club first stocked hybrid striped bass in 1985. In 1996, KDC initiated muskellunge stockings. Since the early 1990’s, the state stocks juvenile hybrid stripers, walleyes, channel catfish, and true strain muskellunge and tiger muskies since 1997 in addition to its regular trout program. The Knee Deep Club stocks rainbow and brown trout and helps with other species as well. Fabulous results include muskies caught as large as 40 pounds, hybrid stripers easily reaching six or seven pounds, and four pound walleyes common. All of these species prevail—it seems every week another large musky is caught and returned alive to the lake. While legally a musky over 36 inches may be kept, strong persuasions for live release has resulted in virtually all muskies surviving after struggle.

          Largemouth and smallmouth bass, abundant pickerel, yellow and white perch, crappies, and panfish are long established in the lake; yellow perch go back in time long before Europeans arrived. Fishing should remain very good at least into early July. By August, however, stratification limits fish supporting oxygen to about 15 feet and shallower. Fishing is typically tough, although a cloudy day can better produce.

          Public shore fishing is limited to one or two bridges, and Hopatcong State Park, but a NJ Boater’s Safety Certificate and reasonable fee gets you a 16 foot boat with outboard at Dow’s Boat Rentals, and similar service at Lake’s End Marina. Both establishments sell live herring, great for catching hybrid stripers or walleyes.

          The method is simple, but make sure to buy a map of Lake Hopatcong. Fishing Guide Maps has accurate topography, is waterproof, and about tablemat size. Structure is visible on the map to study, and even icons of fish species help you find them. Places like Nolan’s Point, Elba Point, Sharp’s Rock, Chestnut Point, and Sunrise Point are all examples of regular haunts for stripers and walleyes. If you purchase a portable graph recorder for little over a hundred dollars, a sonar device that registers bottom and fish in between, you can inform yourself more specifically about structures, and mark fish under the boat. It all depends upon whether or not you want to fish often and knowledgeably, or take it easy. Either way, get out early is my honest advice—Dow’s opens at 5:30 a.m. on weekends and lets you on the water at dawn—and try live herring on plain shank, size six hooks without weight. Yes, just let them swim on their own, cast away from the boat into the deep water of these drop offs, spinning reel bail open. By about nine a.m., unless it’s very cloudy, you can forget it. But bass and pickerel hit throughout the day.

          Think weeds for largemouths and pickerel, rocks for smallmouths. Docks and other wooden structures are also particularly good for largemouths, and so are outside edges of weeds 15 to 20 feet deep. Bass travel the lake and stop in on various habitats, stages, or holding structures, whatever you prefer to call spots where as a rule they temporarily dwell. Largemouth probably follow deep weedline edges in their travels; smallmouths likely do much the same, so long as rocks are associated.

          My son and I haven’t done well with pickerel through the day, except in October, although spinnerbaits and #3 or #4 Mepp’s spinners fished along weedlines work for other anglers, fished deeper in the afternoon. In our experience, we have relied on soft plastic lures, like Senko worms and Culprit twister tails to catch most of our bass, besides my son Matt and his nightcrawlers. Naturally, we catch mostly one to three pound largemouths. I could point to places and tell you how, but it’s always up to the individual to make the catch. My son and I have fished here since 2006 and plenty others still do a lot better than we have. Most musky fishing, for example, is trolling, and the rental boats aren’t geared for this. I do know of one angler who caught a small musky on a herring, fished the way I explained for stripers. It’s certainly not impossible to encounter a musky, but although my son and I have tried for them through ice, we haven’t.

          My son wouldn’t feel right without his “secret weapon,” nightcrawlers. I add effectiveness for him by using a Lindy Worm Blower, available from Cabelas or Bass Pro Shops, to actually inject air into the tail. With a medium split shot 18 inches above a size six hook, the bait floats off bottom, increasing visibility—Matt always proves this is very effective for bass! He sets the hook quick so gut hooking is infrequent and the fish sure to survive after release. He also has plenty of fun with yellow perch and sunfish. Yellow perch, closely related to walleyes, sometimes reach a pound or more. Don’t be too surprised if you catch a white perch or big crappie trying for stripers and walleyes. And you never know about channel catfish—the state record, caught here, weighed 33 pounds, 3 ounces.

           



Catching Smallmouth Bass in Streams and Small Rivers

Catching Smallmouth Bass in Streams and Small Rivers

Less common than their larger cousin the largemouth, smallmouth bass are special not only because they fight harder than other freshwater fish, but because the rock strewn environments they inhabit have something of mountain purity about them. Clean, clear water has a quality of vitality and levity that turbid water lacks.

More than 35 years ago, aged 13, I discovered smallmouth bass in Stony Brook, Princeton Township, New Jersey. I caught a few seven-inchers on panfish poppers and a fly rod. The next year, I tried a three- inch Mister Twister grub set just right on a size 2, plain shank hook so that it rode straight on the retrieve. The results blew me away. I caught smallmouths in every stretch and riffle two feet deep or more. I had been surprised that seven-inch smallmouths existed anywhere near where I lived, but now I was suddenly catching good bass to 14 inches.

It took a year before my friends and I discovered really good smallmouths in Stony Brook, approaching three pounds. Then I learned that all such streams have good bass in them. Even little Beden’s Brook near the Mercer-Somerset border has 17-inch bass. Smallmouths over five pounds are very rare, but they are caught. Last summer, Raritan River South Branch yielded a 6.6-pound smallmouth which before 1990 would have been the New Jersey state record.








It's that time of year when stream smallmouth bass respond regularly. Most of the techniques I discuss are for late spring and summer--during the early fall I use floater/diver Rapalas and the like rather than plastics. And to catch stream smallmouth when really chilly weather sets in it's best to use live shiners. Some anglers catch a very few during the winter on nightcrawlers.

Hunt a Lunker

It’s so easy, once you get the hang of it, that keeping one of these special fish—smallmouth bass over two pounds—is a disgrace. It’s not easy because lunkers are abundant, but simply because virtually any hole of about 6 feet deep or more will hold at least one bass two to 3 ½ pounds, and possibly better.  

Since depth charted maps aren’t available of streams and small rivers, get out, wade, and use polarized lenses during the day while catching eager smaller bass nine to 13 inches or so. Often big bass can be seen, but not caught, in the middle of the day. They need to eat more than the smaller do, and take larger meals near sunrise, sunset, and at night. Smaller bass feed on morsels throughout the day. Trout nymphs using a fly rod are effective for them during summer.

Once the whereabouts of a big bass is known, it’s usually easy to catch. But nature may dash a plan. My son and I once sighted a large bass in the North Branch Raritan. Some days later we learned of a bass the same size we had estimated that had been caught in the Lamington upstream perhaps a quarter mile from the confluence. The bass we had seen apparently was not in the same hole where we left it; we tried for it to no avail.

The surest method is to use a large shiner, or other soft-rayed baitfish—large killies work wonders—on a plain shank, size 6 hook, no weight, just the hook tied to 4-pound test mono. The first cast is most important near sunset or sunrise. The lunker will have awakened from its aloof mood to an aggression that may move it to the bait before a smaller bass. Large bait gives you two advantages: you can cast from a longer distance so as to not spook fish, and the smaller bass may hesitate to strike while the lunker will rush without hesitation and blast the bait on the surface.

Use ultralight tackle, and especially if a downed tree or other cover is in the hole, the lunker has a fighting chance. You will know the satisfaction of having found a fish that has made it to the top of the ecological chain—besides you. And if released, it’s possible perhaps to visit the same fish next year.

Lures, Situations and Techniques

Plastics, such as Sencos three to five inches, other plastic worms, Mister Twisters and tube grubs rigged on a jig head or a plain hook; Berkeley Gulp! Imitations; minnow imitation plugs; topwater plugs; small crankbaits, standard and lipless; small spinnerbaits; in-line spinners; and fly tackle—poppers, streamers, nymphs, and crayfish imitations, may each be chosen depending on the situation and your taste. Each selection is limited to what they can do in a small stream compared to other lures.

Diving crankbaits are effective in deep, faster moving water. To rip a crankbait, or for that matter retrieve it slowly through a slow, deep stretch is a waste of time, but may work in deep, fast water. I’ve noticed over the years that stream smallmouths of any size, small or large, are more wary than on the Delaware, for example. During the summer I never use minnow imitation plugs, although during the fall I find them effective. An eighth-ounce spinnerbait, or in-line spinner also works in deep, fast water, but is too noisy in peaceful situations.

A skilled fly fisherman may out fish spinning tackle. For the latter, nothing beats plastics for all round effectiveness, but fly fishermen have a special advantage. Smallmouths feed on insects throughout the summer, and certainly on small molting crayfish, too.  Naturally, fly imitations work—so long as the angler is skilled with fly tackle, he will hook more bass. Sometimes even 3-inch Mister Twisters present a problem, especially with smaller bass, with whether the hook point is in the mouth of the bass or not.

During summer you can fish all day with a Senco, if simplicity is your desire, and catch perhaps as many bass as you would carrying a tackle tote. The advantage of five-inch Senco-type plastics is great casting range. You can get the lure way ahead of your presence. Nine-inch bass will hit this big, fruity lure with ferocity as will larger, possibly even a rare lunker. The best rod for heavier lures is a 5 ½-foot medium power, fast action.

Topwaters are best near sunset and sunrise. And if you find lugging a bucket of bait down a trail somewhere a cumbersome chore, lures like the Gudebrod blabbermouth, Heddon Baby Torpedo, Rebel Pop-R, and Arbogast Hula Popper are all certainly possibilities for an aroused lunker. Don’t be afraid to spoil tranquility by casting a big quarter ounce plug from a distance right onto the calm over a deep hole. But let it sit. Let it sit a full minute if you have to. Once a surface lure is on the water, the situation is dicey because the cadence you impart will make or break your luck. You may not get a second chance with the next cast.

Smallmouths are caught in rain stained water too. Spinners are especially effective.

 

 

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2015/05/take-clue-from-river-bass-migrations.html  This link will take you to an article on river and stream smallmouth bass migrations.