I wanted to try one of Fred's kayaks with seating improved over last time I used it. I was thinking long-term of the next chance Fred & I will get to fish a section of the Raritan. Last year, Fred caught a huge smallmouth there he told me looked about 23 inches. On the phone with him last night, I said, "That river owes me a big one," and described how the hefty one that snapped my line four years ago felt. I'm in the habit of using a spool of braid, but when I fish the river, I switch-out for six-pound mono....and I forgot to adjust the drag setting for it.
Fred arrived here in Bedminster at eight a.m. Not a cloud in the sky, I knew fishing anywhere was going to be tough. I didn't know how tough in a different way I'll explain yet. We would fish a lake to the north, which as far as I was concerned would be a great second-best after last night's rain. Jefferson Lake is 40 or 50 acres, shallower than other lakes but has plenty of 10- and 12-foot depths. Weedy, but not overwhelmingly. We found edges and pockets. Early on, Fred lost a bass that might have been two pounds right next to his kayak. I noticed he fished in close. I had been thinking maybe outside edges would produce, but Fred's hookup had an orienting effect on me. He did catch a crappie on the outside, but that fish didn't sway me. The water was clear, but not all that clear, and it had a brownish tannic look to it, seeming also to have a lot of little free-floating stuff, though I might have imagined that. I usually do best on the outside when fishing very clear water, so, especially after Fred hooked up, I began limiting nearly all of my casts to targets along the banks, searching especially for shadows.
I lost a little bass that smacked my worm in a pocket a few feet from shore, and then we made our way on down to a very low bridge where the road in to the camp there crosses where lake water slowly flows out. I put a worm not underneath but where sunlight highlighted that worm, and a bass took. That's the one in the photo below. I caught another one in the same general spot and lost another. Later, I got a good take next to a brushy deadfall, tightened up but mistook where the bass was when I set the hook. Since the line wasn't actually tight--I had really only felt it dragging against the bass--the bass must have opened its mouth when it felt that drag, and I simply pulled the worm out of it when I set.
I reminded Fred of the big one he caught near the big island a few years ago. Sometime later, I positioned there where some sticks accompanied a line of pads right in close in a shady sort of spot that could have looked too shallow to hold a bass, though my thought was to the contrary. I got a pickup, tightened, judged my best where that bass was in relation to my rod tip, and set. That's the bass in the first picture, a good 16 1/2 inches.
Not much later, I volunteered that we go in for lunch. I was thinking we'd go back out, but once we settled down--me with a sandwich, Fred with a granola bar or some such--my back felt like hell. Earlier when we first went out, I soon wondered if I could do it, because the added sitting support was not cutting it for my back. I told myself I would adjust. What I really told myself, in effect, was that I would not feel the pain, and I didn't feel it any longer. I managed. I made that kayak an effective platform for putting myself on bass while I just felt good where my body wasn't in pain and blocked out the rest, but once we got out and relaxed, I felt the pain and my reluctance to go back out was not only stubborn but reasonable--who knows how bad it could have got.
Fred told me he could fish another five hours, and I felt bad for him having driven all the way from Barnegat. We began thinking of alternatives and decided we would try Cranbury Lake, but when I saw what distance to paddle while that persistent pain would have grown, the result was that we cast from the dock for awhile. The water was of very high quality. Clear blackwater, a nice cast of tannic the way I like it. We could see bottom five or six feet down easily. We cast worms. I also cast a Storm Hot 'n Tot that reflects light sharply. Fred cast a Binsky. I kind of thought a pickerel would hit those light-reflecting lures. There were weeds and to me it seemed just the right amount of them.
Nothing hit though, and we drove to Lake Musconetcong where there's shore access. And water likely to hold bass, but the pads looked sick. They were yellow and brown. When my son and I used to fish here, we could spot a dime on the bottom of the lake's deepest six feet. Now the water looked foul. It wasn't as stained as I've seen it since they loaded it with chemical weed killer, but it didn't look very productive. We gave that shoreline a good try and came up with nothing.
Fred wants to fish the Raritan yet, and when we do, I'm taking one of my canoes and staying out as long as he wants to. Except for my back, today was too short.
