Summer Hybrid Bass Attempt

Mike Maxwell and his friend Phillipe got on hybrid stripers in Spruce Run Reservoir little more than a week ago, dropped herring among them, and began hooking up. I happened on the two of them with Phillipe's trailered boat in front of Mike's house as I came home from work, and my hopes for this Lake Hopatcong trip with my family rose. But you know how it is, if you fish hybrids in the summer. Not the same as May or October, not when it comes down to catch expectancy. I know guys like Zach Merchant on Spruce Run, and Ed Mackin on Lake Hopatcong, score frequently. Guys with thorough knowledge of fish movements in these waters, highly skilled with sophisticated techniques. They put in the time and the effort necessary to achieve results that would graph a little exponentially during the slow summer season.

Laurie at Dow's Boat Rentals told me the hybrids have been moving along the shelf from Bonaparte Point to Sharp's Rock across the lake from her Nolan's Point station. Someone or other had action inside Davis Cove the other day, hybrids actually boiling the surface, a situation reminiscent of springtime, although I've never seen hybrids go on the jump during the earlier season. We started there and worked our way to Sharp's, having fished the Pickerel Point area thoroughly, something having grabbed one of Matt's herring. I should have made sure my fish finder was charged; apparently, it got inadvertently turned on, and so we had some but very limited use of it. My mistake was to forget to disengage the power terminals from the battery stored with the unit.

The day had already worn on well, when by a sort of inevitable motivation I decided we go try the ledge, where at least I caught a smallmouth a year ago, and also a six-pound walleye last October. We drifted this small range of that edge across the lake from where hybrids have been moving recently--out beyond the drop-off, on that drop, and in a ways--for more than an hour, Matt catching a nice-size yellow perch we took home for part of our dinner afterwards, that on a live herring, but also a pumpkinseed on chicken liver, both of these fish from the shallower side of the ledge; all the while we made sure not to weight baits too deeply, as the lake stratifies without oxygen deeper than about 25 feet. The water temperature at the surface, however, ranged between 74 and 76.

Well, rather than stay on that edge, I had Bonaparte Point prominently in mind, because just west of this spot I have marked a lot of hybrids in the past. So we got at least 20 minutes fishing that area and the point thoroughly before the sun touched down and we motored back. By that time, Patricia was well into reading a John Grisham novel, having read Mary Astor's Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936 by Edward Sorel cover to cover, all during this afternoon on the water.

Cliff's Homemade Ice Cream is a busy place, and listed among the top 33 American ice cream joints by the Huffington Post.

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