Litton's Fishing Lines: 2024-06-02

We pulled 12 fish over the Dow's rental boat gunwale, but like all of these I photographed, they were small. We never hooked a good-sized fish, though my remembering a 2020 outing in May on Lake Hopatcong with my son somehow led to discovery of future possibility. If conditions serve that possibility. I told Kevin Murphy early on about Matt and I catching 10 largemouths, four of mine over two pounds, one of them 20 inches. It's fascinating how that memory presaged what we would discover near the outing's end, as if we might someday fish under similar conditions again in May and do even better than Matt and I did that day years ago.

Kevin I had begun unloading shortly after 6 a.m. The night before, I messaged him, saying I might phone in the morning. The weather forecast had improved since I had last seen it--no thunderstorms expected until noon--but no one knew what morning would bring. I actually woke up an hour ahead of my alarm when rain fell heavily. I went back to sleep and soon got up with that alarm--to peace, quiet, and humid warmth at 70 degrees. Kevin had left a message 15 minutes earlier and was on the road. I like his determination.

He arrived two minutes ahead of me. No sign of rain existed besides clouds hanging low. Later, as we persistently trolled plugs, the sun came out. When we docked back at Dow's at 2:22 p.m., that's exactly when rain began to fall, but for only about 10 minutes. Not very heavy; not very light. Otherwise, we escaped rain all day, and those promised thunderstorms never came. I had been told I might as well cancel for next week. but bottom line, I go by what the planet presents. I pay attention to the media, but I judge what I see out in the world itself.

Trolling to Begin With

Beginning in my favorite hybrid striper trolling lanes, I quickly surmised that with the 74-degree water and otherwise summer-like conditions, we weren't going to hook any. I took us through our second pass and abandoned that approach, imagining a certain cove would produce that fishes well for pickerel and crappies once the water warms well. Otherwise, I've done well trolling for big hybrids with the water as chilly as 57.

We trolled the cove, never getting hit, but Byram Bay proved to be productive for small fish. We began by casting Senko-type plastics among rocks--getting snagged a few times--where I caught my first smallmouth bass. Neither of us could buy a second hit, so we moved on to another rocky area that's produced smallmouths in the past.

I began there by fishing a Z-Man paddletail, almost catching a sunfish, but I soon went back to the Senko, never getting hit. We trolled out of the area, and I soon caught a small hybrid striper on my favorite Rapala Sinking Minnow, Kevin trolling another of the same plug. The rear treble of my plug got snagged on my portable graph unit's fabric housing, and I pulled it out with pliers, breaking two of the tines. So I switched out, using from thereon--when trolling--a smallish Rapala X-Rap.

More Than Expected

The forecast still had thunderstorms on the agenda. I decided that rather than doing our usual tour by following the far shoreline around and beyond Cow Tongue Point, we would fish the far shore of Great Bay, where we could easily duck back and dock at Dow's, if we heard thunder.

"That shoreline produces fish," I told Murph. "We've trolled brown trout and nice pickerel."

Instead of beginning with trolling, I immediately got interested in casting Senkos to docks and boathouses, a little underneath them, and between them. We ended up fishing a couple hundred yards or more of really interesting structure that I didn't remember discovering, besides once taking note of it when ice fishing almost two decades ago. It seems as if by trolling by, the spots never registered as worth casting to.

Worth Waiting on Favorable Conditions?

We fished a long range of docks and boathouses pretty hard. All for one rock bass on a Senko. Why no bass, I couldn't guess, besides thinking they had taken to 16-foot depths at the bottom edges of weedlines. And why that on a low-pressure day when it's not quite summer, I don't know. Besides, I often let my worm sink into 16-foot depths.

But for sure. That memory of Matt and I in 2020 re-emerged, and I said to Murph, "If Matt and I had thought of fishing here four years ago, we might have done even better!"

Four years ago, wind blew very heavily from the southwest. Since Murph and I fished the western shore of Great Bay, Matt and I would have been out of the wind. That was requirement Number 1 of the conditions we faced. To get out of the wind. Second requirement--fish five feet deep or shallower. And plenty of water that shallow exists along the shoreline I had re-discovered.

And I knew about, not only this particular shoreline, but the similar western shoreline of Lee's Cove, too, where Matt and I have caught both largemoths and smallmouths on different occasions, but it just never occurred to me that day to try either area. So who knows. Maybe Murph and I will, once again, set back our spring Lake Hopatcong outing to mid-May like last year, when we did so poorly in Byram Bay and around towards Henderson Bay, besides an 18 1/2-inch smallmouth.

If we can remember!

One Last Shot at Trolling

I knew about these docks and boathouses, have passed them by while trolling more than once, and yet they definitely served as a discovery. Similar spots surely exist on other lakes nationwide, too.

We got tired of throwing worms around. I couldn't quit for the day without one last troll. Kevin still felt eager. I caught my third smallmouth bass, really little at eight or nine inches. We put a couple of yellow perch over the gunwale, too.

Nice to know the shoreline still trolls well, but will the docks ever produce?

Even a little hybrid about a foot long takes drag on runs.

We caught a couple of white perch.

Crappie nearly a foot long.

Second smallmouth on Senko. I knew the floating mat was a bass magnet.

Largemouth I caught by casting underneath a big willow-like bush overhang. I lost another largemouth of about 13 inches on the jump that hit under there.

Rock bass.

Yallor

Apparently the orange floats are for sailboat laning.

Couple of boathouses in Great Cove.

May 2020

From the Trolling Lane

Brian Cronk's 19 1/4-incher

I haven't been on the lake in two years. Memory needs to inhabit you, if continuity is going to be met at the start. It has nothing to do with the likes of the breaks between sunlight we experienced, as such are discontinuous rather than the opposite, but has to do with the nature of human interiority itself--whether it's accustomed to the wilds, or civilized constructions. The poet Robert Frost wrote of "inner weather," and I would say it's a fine thing if you can afford the sustained reverie of an inner life as attuned to nature. I don't mean that as a complaint, because I've known it myself, and working hard for not much more than minimum wage is an experience in its own right that teaches me to shut up and get the job done. It doesn't give me much time to entertain the comings and goings of leisure. It doesn't add much to my wealth. But as I struggle to constantly do the job, which means improving on it, I learn something about demand and creating supply.

Partly Cloudy from the Beginning

We waited until 6:30 a.m. to meet at Brian's house, having planned at first on 5:45. When I pulled into the driveway, my car thermometer registered 52 degrees. We had wanted to make sure the rain would be gone, and Brian reminded me the fish hit there all day anyhow, a point the outing would prove abundantly correct as a kind of half-measure, as I believe our last attempt at them failed when the inconsistency of sunlight gave way to a completely clear sky, which I'll get to.

Partly cloudy skies accompanied us to the lake and we paddled downwind towards an island with the same overhead, the temperature remaining chilly though we were dressed for it. As I say, I didn't feel as familiar as I know I've felt in the past. It's not that the job "takes it out of you," but that you "give your all" to it. That way it's there for you in the morning as something you've already achieved. Anticipations are reserved for the work, getting home, and other home activities. I'm not oriented to the Grand Affirmations I enjoyed through most of the previous decade of fishing, when I worked an easier job.

I man a specialty case that was its own department when I began working at the supermarket eight years ago. I worked under a salaried manager and an executive chef who oversaw our department and others pretty much the same at different supermarkets. The executive chef often worked with us. Some of the time we also had a part time worker in the department. The salaried manager is long gone. The executive chef quit and moved to Georgia. No part-timer is assigned the case.

I do it alone.

We fished a spot we've found good during the early season, where I had a nice fish on for a moment, having cast a blue Chatterbait with a blue Dinger trailer. Brian was intent on the area in front of the island where our Chatterbaits did get hit a few times. He observed that when he was here three weeks ago, the water was weedy. "It seems to have been weed harvested," he said.

We moved further up lake by taking the narrow passage between the island and shore. I felt concerned about how cold the weather, about how that might be affecting the fish negatively. Consistent sun might have warmed the lake a little, and though the mist rising off the surface gave away the fact that it was cooling, it also proved that the water temperature was much warmer than the air. I switched-out for a Yum Dinger and soon caught the first fish. A largemouth my bait found lurking near a stick-up, the bass a product of my typical effort at casting accuracy. About 16 inches. Brian soon thereafter hooked up on a Chatterbait. Largemouth, 18 inches and chunky.

Inconsistent Sunlight Advantages Largemouth's Predation

Brian did catch three pickerel, a crappie, and a 13-inch yellow perch. I don't know how inconsistent light affects those species, but I read Will Ryan in Field and Stream, academic studies cited by him in his article, on largemouth bass having an eye structure (not the same as walleye's) that advantages them for predation when light is changing. Situations include the magic hours early and late, and any time during the day when partly cloudy skies mean the quality of light is inconsistent.

Will Ryan is on the staff of Gray's Sporting Journal, last I checked, and teaches at Hampshire College. By what I understand, he has privileged access to a large academic database, finding out all sorts of fishing facts. I fished with Ryan on one occasion. He was a good friend--maybe the best friend--of my economics professor and academic advisor, Stan Warner. I fished with Warner at least twice during my second semester at Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, when I knew him. Last I checked, Ryan still teaches there.

Action Until the Sky Cleared

We got into a pattern of paddling against the wind out into the middle of the lake and further than that, nearer to the opposite shore. Then we would drift under force of that wind almost to shore. It worked in spades. Every drift yielded at least one fish. At one point, Brian called the big, low hanging cumulus of dark grey "storm clouds." His Chatterbait got hit too many times to recall. He had fish on he lost, and my Pop-R took hits I missed, also. Right off the bat we discovered weeds that rise from bottom about five feet deep almost to the surface, and my having remembered Lake Musconetcong topwater success from decades ago, that Pop-R got violently assaulted on my first cast!

Topwater is fishing I love. It helped wake me up. After nearly three hours.

We paddled and drifted, paddled and drifted, and eventually we began to talk about going home. We gave the weeds one last long try, and I felt puzzled about why nothing was hitting. After persistently trying for one more, we decided to engage the long paddle. Against the wind and back to the launch and pullout site. On the way, we got closer yet to that opposite shore, where weeds became more visible, and I felt moved to a deep reverie. Such reveries are natural to me, but instead of resenting the job that denies me many hours of them, I accept that social structure has further lessons to teach me, which should be helpful when I begin writing a novel once I retire.

I also realized that something Brian had said earlier, now made a load of sense. Brian had spoken about fish moving from the front of the lake to the back. Whether a weed harvester--a device mounted on a boat that pulls aquatic vegetation from a lake--or a chemical treatment had removed weeds from between in front of the island to the lake's dam, it made all the sense that fish would move to where weeds provide habitat.

When we got to the launch and pullout, I noticed there was not a cloud in the sky. Instantly, I understood why the fish had stopped hitting. Cold front conditions had set in, and the sameness of the open sky had surely put the fish off the feed for the time being.

The temperature hadn't risen all that much from when we began, either.

It was about 11:00 a.m. Brian had caught four largemouths, three pickerel, a crappie, and the 13-inch yellow perch that also hit the Chatterbait, as had the crappie. I caught four largemouths and two crappies. If I remember correctly, both of my crappies hit the Pop-R.