Eddie Prozer points to a rock and memories of fish caught come to him, He knows Culver Lake more thoroughly than most of seem to know any of our home water. And since he has lived on the lake for 20 years, home water lends a special appropriateness to the phrase.
I pulled into his driveway shortly after first light, grabbed my things, and a minute later, boarded his Ranger bassboat. It's in his back yard. An electric device holds the boat suspended over the water, which he lowered within another minute. We didn't race across the lake--that would come later--because curtesy given to sleeping homeowners is the rule. The lake, of course, is private and everyone is very mindful of the fact.
Not that the shorelines are really all that crowded with houses. It seems a little sparse compared to Lake Hopatcong. The pressure on the fish is less here, too, though today we didn't catch all that many. Eddie caught the smallmouth photographed, a nice crappie, and a pickerel of about 24 inches. I caught a 10-inch pickerel, another pickerel of 17 or 18 inches, and a largemouth of nearly 18 inches.
Eddie estimated that bass at two-and-a-half to three pounds; I said maybe two-and-three-quarters. He guesses the weight of bass accurately, because he fished tournaments for decades, hundreds of his bass weighed in. So many fishermen wouldn't hesitate to claim my fish was well over three
While we fished the far side of the lake where I caught my two pickerel on a Senko near pads, I wondered about the hybrid stripers. They seemed somewhere far off, never to be encountered, but back on the near side where we got out of the wind, we saw a great splash-rise, and then another yards away. We cast thoroughly for nothing.
"They're gone a moment later," Eddie said.
Not long after, I heard that glorious sound of horse hooves on cobblestones. We saw a whole school breaking in the distance but near to shore. Shortly before I caught my largemouth, also on a Senko, surface erupted in casting range from the boat. I had another rod with a Chatterbait attached. Eddie threw a spinnerbait. A hybrid grabbed my Chatterbait, but with that same tentativeness I observe when trolling for them. More often than not, when a hybrid bumps a trolled plug, it nips it once again, and then absolutely slams it. My fish today didn't follow through.
Eddie hooked up, though. The fish leapt, so I knew it was no hybrid but felt confused. Apparently, the smallmouth was cruising with the hybrids. In any event, it was on the herring they fed on.
"The lake is like a bowl," Eddie said of its structure. Or lack of it. Maximum depth is 64 feet. There are some drops not as steep as Lake Hopatcong's. We fished a hump. "It's a quarter acre," Eddie said. "As big as a yard." And it rises to five-foot depths. A nice flat with some weeds. I asked if he's caught many fish on it. "Some," he said, scowling subtly. Another spot, the first section of shoreline we fished, he expects to catch five bass from on any visit. We did visit an extensive pad field. Eddie didn't want to get in close and work pockets because of the pickerel, though he was happy to catch his nice one and carries the attitude of enjoying the catch of any species, rather than none. Otherwise, weeds are rather sparse in the lake except all the way back beyond the bridge in the swamp. Water color today was on the dingy side.
I'll be back. Maybe in the fall. Maybe next year. It all depends on scheduling.
Word is, my son's visiting next week. He moves to Los Angeles next month. My wife and I are very excited. He began work yesterday for a company developing nuclear fusion. This is clean energy, if it works. The company claims it will within 10 years. Matt did critical work in the effort to better understand the Higg's boson, the "God particle." In the process, he developed his skills at artificial intelligence. I think he's working in a similar capacity, but don't clearly remember how he described it. Look's like Matt and I will fish Tilcon next week.
Long ago, I described in this blog how I fall in love with places...then eventually abandon them. Tilcon may be falling by the wayside now. I bought the squareback canoe especially so Matt and I could fish the lake, and we did fish it plenty. Eddie tells me today was a very slow outing on Culver even for the summer, and that the fall is better. It will be interesting if I can make it.
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