May on Lake Hopatcong

So many years on Lake Hopatcong. Have been coming to Dow's regularly for almost 15 years. When you're young and feel things are getting old, you turn to something else; when you get to my age, there's nowhere to turn! You savor what's left of life and if you've lived well, it's enough. But knock on wood. I'm only 60. It could be interesting to see what I have to say another 15 years from now.

Oliver and I got on the lake at dawn. Heavy cloud cover had just moved in. It would seem promising, but although I never voiced this feeling, it just didn't feel right. Many times I said, as Oliver concurred, that the conditions were right for feeding activity: The clouds had just come. The water was 67 degrees. We were fishing just after daybreak. But he lake was dead.

We trolled my favorite lanes, not a hit. We put Senkos on spots in my favorite little cove, not a take. We trolled my favorite shallow-water cover for pickerel, bass, and crappie, not a hit. But finally, not long before the sun came out, I caught a 13-inch smallmouth on a Senko. Shortly thereafter, I boated another about the same size. And shortly after the sun did come out, we enjoyed our best trolling action: a yellow perch, a largemouth maybe better than 14 inches, and a 17-inch hybrid for me.

Oliver had also caught a hybrid, maybe 15 inches, on a retrieved paddletail. We caught some rock bass on the Senkos, too.

It was a successful day. There have been days when much bigger fish got caught, and days when many more got caught, and in any event, there's a need to make the connection. Once I caught that first smallmouth, I began talking more fluently. It was suddenly a different day. 

And today was a day for the shallows. Oliver suggested jigging deep a few times, and I won't deny it could have worked, judging the amount of fish we marked down there. Another thing we could have done would have been to have lowered live herring to them, but we bought no herring; even though Oliver had asked about that before we departed, I didn't want to mess with them. It's May. The water is warm (rose to 70). And although many times I thought I should be letting Senkos drop into 15-foot depths, and even tried that a few times, I'm waiting a few weeks or so before I start letting unweighted worms drift down below. 

Ironically, the pickerel came from the deepest water, 16 feet. But it seemed closer to dock boards it was underneath than to the bottom.

Oliver and his hybrid.

Oliver remarked that this slide seems custom made.

Big Hybrids