How Catching a Fish Can Make Such a Difference

Brian Cronk and I explored a new lake, apparently a former sandpit from long ago. A concrete operation exists nearby, so it makes sense it would have been a sandpit. Shorelines quickly drop off to 20 feet and deeper. Sound familiar? 

Right there at the ramp we cast topwaters over a very appealing weedbed at about 8:00 a.m. under cloud cover and some raindrops, but we failed to raise any action. I began to feel it would be a tough morning. 

Pretty soon we motored across the lake (maybe 50 acres total) over depths as great as 27 feet. Brian phoned a friend who fishes here with shiners and live herring. He wanted any help. Told to fish to the left of the concreate company and an "inlet," we happened to find the little creek leading in he mentioned, right away. I started a process of picking apart weeds and shoreline cover with a Yum Dinger rigged Wacky, soon switching out the color in case that would help, but I came to the realization pretty quickly that I needed to use a Chompers rigged on an inset hook to manage those weeds. 

Meanwhile, a nice pickerel had followed Brian's Chatterbait to the boat. 

Neither of us had had a hit.

Sunfish like to play with my Chompers. Maybe it's the garlic. Any case, they're signs of life but can be a little annoying. Soon, though, I saw my line moving towards deeper water with authority in the motion, so I tightened up, set the hook, and then I saw I played a fairly good sized pickerel. (The one photographed below.)

One would have thought bass, but it was a pretty fish. 

Deliverance! I struggle with getting skunked. When it happens, I struggle to feel good about the outing. I wonder about how catching a fish can make such a difference in life, but catching them really does amount to a whole other quality. It can't all be in the numbers, because that's quantity. It's like the difference between being lonely and left out, and being a member of the community. 

You can fish an entire outing and never get hit. That happened to me at Furnace Lake this spring, although Brian lost a musky. And it happened at Aeroflex four years ago with Jorge Hildago in June. Neither of us got a hit. Cloudy, not too warm. I usually do well at both places. On one occasion, I caught 15 largemouths, just about all of them good sized, at Furnace. 

So you can't just say the lake sucks the first time you try it--if it goes sour on you--and be entirely certain that's true.

Brian had wanted to stop at noon and I agreed. Possibility of thunderstorms, though since I've come home, none have showed up at least in my corner of the state. We situated in the back of the lake, and Brian suggested we troll Hot 'n Tots from there to the ramp.

We had a clean run--no weeds on hooks, no snags--all the way back to that original weedbed, and that's where hell broke loose. I felt like a pilot. Managing the troll along that weedline edge. It seemed as if weed clusters rose almost right beside the boat. If I wasn't going to foul that deep-diver of mine, that would be something. Brian was fishing the deeper side of the boat. My skill in getting that plug of mine right in the zone made all the difference. I did feel the fish when it hit, but I couldn't help but think weeds, just too good to be true otherwise. Now that fish was taking drag.  

I've never measured a pickerel I've caught longer: 24 3/4 inches. I've caught more just about that size than I can count, having measured another 24 1/4 inches once, and maybe having caught one longer through the ice. I released it quickly to avoid exposure. I called it 24 inches, but it might have been 25. Even if not, it was a very hefty fish and probably weighed more than the one I caught today. 

We made two more passes along those weeds. Up and back twice. On the first of those last passes, I hooked something that felt just like a hybrid. Pickerel kind of lug. Largemouths bulldog. Neither species gives those hard and very quick jabs--altogether distinct--that a hybrid does, or otherwise a salmon. No possibility exists of salmon in this lake, but Brian told me hybrids got caught last year. My fish got off the hook, unfortunately. 

We did see what looked like herring dimpling and leaping at the surface when we arrived. 

 

Furnace Last Year

The Bluegill Sunfish Aren't as Common in the Rivers

We caught a lot of fish. Fifty of them easily, but no big ones. Mostly sunfish. I think last summer we passed on fishing here, but we've been coming in July for years now. I remember Mark telling me about a pool below a waterfall full of smallmouths, and you can just imagine...how I imagined that. Even so, we've caught some good ones. Mark's caught a couple about 15 inches and better, and he lost one that looked like 17, easily. I saw that fish before the hook popped out. I hooked a big one on a little #5 Rapala I believed was 18 inches, but you never know until you measure the fish.

Last year we tried the Paulinskill, but not far upstream, unknown to us at the time, a dam was being removed, so the water was muddy. We diverted our plans and went to the Pequest. We caught some bass and a trout. 

Mark had fished at least a couple of the pools we fished today a week ago. He did pretty well. Smallies were a little bigger, and he caught a rainbow trout.

The best part of the morning for me involved fishing a shallow stretch that still manages to hold bass. We've always caught them there. We also catch longear or redbreast sunfish, and today I caught a single bluegill, as well as a few rock bass. The bluegills aren't nearly as common in the rivers. One of the longears that took a Rapala #5 off the surface was good sized, bigger than my hand. I caught a couple of little eight-inch smallmouths, too, losing another on the leap, and missing hits on the surface, mostly from sunfish. It's just an involving way to forget about everything else. Mark texted me since we fished, and I like his suggestion of trying it again before summer's out. 

Mark's always brought along nightcrawlers to resort to. I succumbed to them right from the start. I must have cast my 1/8-ounce swimbait three times before I gave up on it and took my ultra-light in hand instead. I caught a couple of bass about nine inches long on the worms and lots of sunfish. A few bass smaller. Casting the plug instead, I got to thinking about how clean that approach is. I could feel the difference. And yet, when I use salmon eggs for trout early in the spring, part of what makes the fishing what it is and is appealing to me is the smell of the oil. It does smell like salmon, of course, and salmon are great to eat. 

It's possible the allure of the smell has something to do with Omega 3 fatty acids, too. Who knows. The desirability of them. Whatever it is, I like to get involved with the mess and catch trout on the eggs. 

Mark caught the smallest bass. That's a fingerling, isn't it.

A Few Years Ago

 

Enchantment with a New Portion of the State and a Pattern of Return

This afternoon I visited a part of the state I'm familiar with but not in detail. The Scotch Plains, Fanwood area, invited by Garret Daniels to fish crappie. I ended up catching a small largemouth, and Garret a small crappie. If that were the end of the story, there'd be no point in wasting my time on Google. I lived in North Plainfield with my wife-to-be for a year, and a few times we visited Westfield nearby. I fished the Green Brook repeatedly in the spring for stockers, which now happens to be some of Garret's favorite water, but this was before he was born. I remember once passing through an area, I believe on State Highway 28, and seeing a pond to my right as I traveled south. It was full of map turtles. Whichever, it was a major roadway with the pond right next to it. 

New Jersey is rich with waters to discover. It's not upstate New York or Utah, but if you live here in the same state I do, why waste your time dreaming if you want to fish? I'm not mentioning the place Garret and I fished today, nor showing a photo of it, but everywhere you can find public water. 

And new adventure, as well as to touch base, perhaps, on former. We fished only an hour, it's all the time Garret had today, and as I drove home, I switched on WDHA. I hadn't heard "Mystery Achievement" by the Pretenders in more than a decade. Is it a guy who is the girl's achievement, or is it herself? Read the lyrics and you can't tell exactly, except that, "Don't breathe down my neck, no," at the song's beginning does suggest it's someone else. 

Whatever. The instrumental tone, the instrumental refrain like church bells, and the verbal refrain on "mystery achievement" used to make me feel no matter how unfinished my own work--I was busy at keeping hundreds of handwritten notebooks--they've achieved an integral cultural value. It's not the only way I believed that, of course, but the song was a "thing." This was back before I had any internet, too, so no way existed of promoting the work, and I lived too far out on the edge to publish as yet. 

I turned the radio off. It was the only song I heard on the drive home. Garret and I had talked about long COVID and a little else about "COVID times." A little about the possibility of a July 4th incident of another sort. Clearly, this is a somewhat dystopian time we've entered into over the course of the past decade, but speaking for myself, I never give up on the soil that roots the trees. Roots are absolutely necessary to what we see of trees outright, but they're all underground and out of sight. 

Like my handwritten journals, but also like qualities of my experience anyone else might also relate to, because patterns belong to us all. 

I had switched off the radio when I passed under Interstate 78, recognizing that I had been here on March 17, 2020, the day businesses began to get shut down because of COVID. I had driven to Scotch Plains, the Stonehouse Coin Shop. I had some silver coins I wanted to sell, but the proprietor turned me away, telling me that with what was coming, they wouldn't be able to sell them. He told me to come back after things returned to normal. 

They have but in a way inclusive of long COVID and other unease in many people. I'm not a political writer, but anyone can turn on the news. I'm someone who can recognize in an underpass not hope exactly, but the mystery of recurrence after a portion of the state new to me had awakened enchantment. Not a dark shadow under that highway. Recurrence has a way of suggesting closure, as if maybe new values will seek the light as the old are absorbed into the ground. I had felt excited to be at the Stonehouse perhaps the last day it opened before the Shutdown. Why would that be, unless I already knew it wouldn't last? 

Outsmart It

Hillsborough NJ River Largemouth

Often an encounter with the wild isn't the serenity and bliss we expect, though we still manage to finish the outing feeling it was worthwhile. I got back home before my wife was up and before the tv got turned on, so the feeling of early morning peace remained in the air, though she turned it on within five minutes. (Not even 6:30 a.m.) That's when I understood that for all the conflict the news brings, it comes from the world we call home and feel proud of, if we're successful. We occupy our own property and achievement within that world, and though it stands in relation to the wider world of others, we don't abandon ourselves nor our belongings, as if politics determines us altogether. No. And like war, the wild is a place that will swallow us whole if we stay too long; even a short outing can subtly remind us that its beauty has a dark side. Politics that has gone astray always seems to involve so-called leaders who have abandoned their own. Ultimately, the penalty is death. Just as the wild exacts the same eventuality on those who do not build. The difference is that within society, laws bind us together. In the wild, it is the absence of law that will assure us of death if we establish nothing. Not only have leaders abandoned their constituents. Why on earth would those constituents have voted them in? The agreement moves both ways. 

It was a feeling I had today. Possibly because the South Branch Raritan River at Hillsborough ran off color after recent rain. And possibly because, when I got there, it was still too dark out to tell.

I put a Rebel Pop-R, quarter ounce, along the break between evident bottom and darker depths. At least, that was the situation when I fished there during the winter for rainbow trout stocked in the fall. I had decided I'd go with a quarter-ounce plug, because I felt I stood a better chance with a bigger bass. I did bring smaller along, as if I might try one of them, too. Casting, I felt reminded that the quarter-ounce plug casts a lot farther.

My second cast came down near some wood in the shallows. I popped once and got hit. I believed from a fairly big fish. Just what I had been hoping for, and it felt too good to be true. Even so, I'll amend those hopes a little. If it was a good fish, it was no 22-inch smallmouth as I had dreamed of. (Some day, I'd really like to catch one that big in the river.) I thought maybe it was 15 inches, judging from the weight I had felt for a moment before the plug came free. I put another cast there. Within a moment or two, I was aware I didn't see the plug. It was dark out, but I could just barely make it out on the surface. That is, unless a fish had taken it under. It has white feathers tied to the rear treble and sometimes a fish will take the plug down by nipping them. Though I set the hook into substantial weight, you might think of sunfish pulling on those feathers. 

A good fish, but it didn't feel like a smallmouth. I believed I had a largemouth on. The splashes it let loose were heavy and powerful, but the fight had that comparative sluggishness. I got the fish along in front of me, where I thought I could just barely make out the horizontal stripe of a largemouth in the dark. And then on the sand and pebbly gravel, there it was--largemouth bass. I measured it at 17 inches. 

I made sure to fish out and across the river where I knew the water got shallow. It moved through there a little faster, too. I worked the plug thoroughly, but didn't tempt another hit. My plan had been to switch to a Wacky rig, once I was satisfied the bass weren't going to hit up top any longer. In that nice, deeper water I figured I had a chance. 

But it wasn't looking very petty. By now enough light on it revealed that it was off color. I had gone over to the North Branch near home yesterday just to check, and it ran plenty clear. I knew the lower South Branch is another story and might not be clear, though. I had also checked the United States Geological Survey and it showed the water still up a bit. 

I don't like fishing off color river water with a Wacky rig, and even if I had a noise-making Rat-L-Trap with me, I wasn't sticking around.

Years Back

 

Shark River Pier Fluke on Jig and Gulp

In the choice between Farrington Lake and destinations further east, I wanted the adventure at the shore over a real long haul for my squareback canoe from Brian's house. Originally, I floated the idea of Twin Lakes in Kittatinny Valley State Park, but Brenden's good at Google Earth and got right on that, showing me the thickness of the aquatic vegetation between the "two" lakes seems to forbid passage. Besides, we'd have had to cart the canoe, and especially with the marine battery and electric motor, it's difficult to do that. The surface area of the "second" lake where the primitive launch is, isn't much.

It's still interesting, I admit.

Anyway, we had a good time at what we chose to do. Beginning at Manasquan Inlet, we threw metals and plugs for bluefish at high tide and before it actually stopped coming in, got slack, and began to drop. Brenden did hook one before that current turned. He thought that might bode well for us, as if the bluefish might turn on as the water turned out. He knew what he was thinking, because he's caught a lot of blues up to 10 pounds here this spring. Some of them turned on just after the tidal change. 

But pretty soon, I let him continue to throw for blues and switched to a jig and white Mister Twister. I had witnessed four fluke caught, so I was interested. As it turned out, nothing took any interest in my presentations. Nor did any more fish slam Brenden's. 

After more than two hours--the tide was going out--we abandoned hope for the inlet, and I felt eager to move on as if getting there as soon as we could might make a difference.

Whether or not it would have, Brenden caught fluke. We found a little pier on the Shark River adjacent to or belonging to a public park. At first, I feared this was going to be a bust, as if the water would be too shallow, but then again, I figured, if it were three or four feet deep, fluke might move over such a flat. 

It's more like six or seven feet, and plenty of fluke moved over it. Besides Brenden's three--two about 16 inches, another smaller--I saw four others caught, including one of 22 inches. We didn't fish shoulder to shoulder, but I felt it was crowded.  

When Brenden caught his third, a while after he had offered to lend me a white Berkley Gulp bait, I said, "Do you think the Gulp really makes a difference?"

"I have no doubt it does."

"I'll borrow one."

I also took him up on a half-ounce jighead like the one he used to get longer casts into the wind and better feel in the rough water. That replaced mine, 3/8th ounce. Let sink and then wiggle the rod tip as you retrieve at slow to moderate pace. The Gulp has no twister tail, but by jerking it around, the resemblance is of a baitfish. 

How sensitive to scent fluke really are, I have little idea, but given the mass of water out there today in the heavy northeast blow and swift, sideways tidal current, they must be very sensitive to scent for Gulp to really make that difference.

There's evidence it's true. Comparisons between Berkley Gulp and Zman to gain insight into scent dispersion suggest the molecules get to the nostrils of fish, and that one brand might do it better than another. But in any case, we caught no more fluke, though speaking for myself, I deeply enjoyed trying for some. We fished there about two-and-a-half hours that felt longer owing to my absorption into the process of attempting to make that river produce.

We drove on, arriving along Raritan Bay perhaps a half hour later. There's another pier, and I made for it. Brenden pointed out we wouldn't be able to net a big one, the distance between the rail and the water surface too much. 

To the left of that pier, a jetty looked inviting to me, and Brenden was interested in it. But the water had fallen to the point that sand was exposed in front. Little waves breaking to the side suggested very shallow depth. Casting confirmed that. We could have waded, but we decided to make a break for a much larger jetty about a half mile distant. Brenden told me it channels an inlet. I figured a small one, but no matter, any ancillary water might be interesting to fish.

It's small and might hold fish especially at high tide. But I hadn't noticed until then how muddy Raritan Bay's water. Inside that little inlet where boats pass from a marina--plenty off color but not as outright muddy. We made our way back where rocks are replaced by bulkheading.

The smell of creosote jogged my memory. It brought me back to when I was 12. I caught bullheads that impressed me as especially big at about 12 inches, in the Delaware and Raritan Canal at Lawrence Township, while sitting on bulkheading by a bridge. I came home to the inherent peace of the planet while people in the distance crabbed and fished, and although the experience was short lived, it still reminds me that all is well on earth, despite the acridity of ordinary life. 

Manasquan Inlet

 

Calico Bass in the Kelp and Rocks from a California Head Boat

Calico bass inhabit the kelp and rocks along the California coast. They fight hard, and the International Gamefish Association lists the world record at 14 pounds, seven ounces, caught at Newport Beach, California in 1993. Fish over five pounds are uncommon; aboard the Monte Carlo of 22nd Street Sportfishing, San Pedro, the biggest of well over a hundred caught was about four pounds. Matt's biggest was about 17 inches. Legal size is currently 14 inches, limited to a take of five. Between Matt and I, we took seven. I caught six fish, including a Pacific mackerel about a foot long, and Matt lost count, also catching a sand bass.

We might have had 30 guys and gals on the boat, including a few staff who joined in and caught calico bass near the end of our half day of six hours. The pool winner, however, was a 9.6-pound California halibut, the biggest of at least four of that species caught. Halibut are commonly caught, but not commonly in numbers like fluke get caught on head boats here in New Jersey. They're typically larger, though, and the IGFA world record is 67 pounds, five ounces. 

Bait supplied included live anchovies about six or seven inches long, and squid. Matt and I stuck to anchovies, and a lot of the bass got caught by others on jig and plastics and also colored diamond jigs. 

Just as well that I judged bringing our standup rods as too much of a hassle, and we rented rods, because those (spinning) rods supplied by the outfit for $15.00 apiece were not the extra-heavy power that would have been too much on these fish. Along with the rods, we were given a four-ounce torpedo sinker apiece, four quarter-ounce egg sinkers, and a pack of Mustad size 1 bait hooks of excellent quality; though we had to pay additionally for that tackle, we never needed more than that. We lost the torpedo sinkers and a couple of hooks to the rocks. Thereafter we used quarter-ounce egg sinkers that worked great.

Depths ranged between 35 and 50 feet, and we fished pretty close to the rocky beach here and there. Periodically, one of the mates netted and flung live anchovies out into the water we cast and dropped to, and more often than you might think, calico bass struck those anchovies on the surface. I once cast directly on top of where a bass had broken water, kept my bail open, let the fish run with the bait a moment, and set the hook, catching the bass. On too many other occasions, I had bass take the bait in the middle/upper column, only to attempt hooksets unsuccessfully. 

Once, I just dropped the rig and let it sink to bottom about 35 feet down. I let it be for a while, then decided to reel it up. That's when I felt a fish on that didn't feel like one of the bass. More like that slightly uncertain weight of a fluke as it slowly follows along with the pressure you exert. I tried to set the hook but failed. 

Matt and I managed to position at the stern. Generally, that's often the best place to fish, at least according to the conventional wisdom. The current takes your rig more and less directly further back, since the boat is anchored from the bow, although the alignment isn't necessarily perfect, as I'll get to in a moment.  Matt and I held our own there, until after a few hours the current had greatly increased. All the lines ended up back there, and people shouldered their way in, no way to ram rods butts against foreheads to hold our own! At first we successfully resisted others, but the game evolved, becoming a matter of revolving from the left corner of the stern to the right, and starting over. That way, lines--all tending to drift slightly in the direction of that right corner--had their play. 

I gave up on the game. My back hurt and the competition was intense. I tried unsuccessfully to fish towards the bow, and then sat in the cabin for the last minutes before we headed back to the dock. I felt proud of my son who held his own at that game, but really. He's 26 years old and it was a cinch for him.

  

The Port of Long Beach is second only to the Port of Los Angeles, right next door, for the honor of being the largest in the U.S. Here I focus on one cool container ship.

Matt and I managed to position at the stern...at least at first.

Mackerel

 

Big Pickerel Go Deep in Summer

Clinton Reservoir doesn't always produce much for us. I did better in April when the water was in the 40's, trolling a Mepps Aglia, but Brian caught the 22-inch pickerel photographed above, while trolling a chrome Storm Hot 'n Tot. I had a smaller one rush my Wacky rig as I retrieved it for another cast, a fish hanging out in shallower water. We find the larger pickerel are in depths of about 12 feet and deeper from early June onward through the summer. I recall fishing with Brenden Kuprel a couple of years ago when I was catching 18- and 19-inchers on the deep edges of weedlines in 20 feet of water on little 1/16th ounce jig and paddletail combinations. I've caught pickerel 20 inches and better while trolling 15-foot depths of Tilcon Lake in the summer, too. To the best of Brian's recollection, his pickerel yesterday came from 15 feet of water. He had more line out than I did, so it's possible his plug was just about right on bottom. The plugs always gathered weeds when we got as shallow as 10 feet. 

I did catch a bluegill on a jig and twister, a 10-inch smallmouth bass, "if that," Brian said, on a 1/4-ounce Rebel Pop-R, and another sunfish of a different species on that same plug. Unfortunately, I lost a better bass that felt the hooks, and missed other hits. Brian's Whopper Plopper got hit twice under the same pine tree where he caught one almost 18 inches long on a Zara Spook two years ago. He ended up using a Zara Puppy yesterday, as I was drawing more hits on my smaller plug, and he got more hits on that Puppy, too, including one from a sizeable bass I witnessed. He had another bass boatside when it threw the hooks of the same plug. 

And the big bluegill photographed below. 

Most of the action came from an area I'd rather not disclose, and though we've had action there before and set getting there as a goal, when we came into view of it, there were a couple of guys in a Bass Tracker working it over. Given that added pressure on the fish, I think we did pretty well in terms of the interest we got from them, even though we pulled only a few over the gunwale. 

It's not the first time we've trolled big pickerel deep from Clinton Reservoir. On other occasions, a chrome Hot 'n Tot has produced pickerel of about 21 inches for me here. About the same depth. Twelve, maybe 15 feet. Once I hooked something enormous. Brian tells me there are 30-inchers here. That might have been what I had on. I had just caught a 21-inch largemouth, and whatever it was I hooked felt bigger, taking off on a lightning-quick run, just like a northern pike would for short duration, only I think I might have hooked a pike-sized pickerel. Trolled. The Hot 'n Tot, but it threw the hooks. 

Clinton

 

Trail Along the River Offers Access to Shoreline

The Delaware ran high, and we didn't catch any fish, but my Wacky rig did get hit once or twice. I felt something and thought I saw a bass swooping through the water's dingy two-foot clarity. Then I cast again and that time really did get hit, but upstream from where the former action happened. I fished in Frenchtown with Joe Beckerman, who I hadn't seen in 14 years. 

He's scouted around, having lived in Frenchtown for months. If you drive along the river, which many people do for recreation, taking in beautiful views, stopping at quaint little towns like Lambertville, Stockton, Frenchtown, and Milford, you'll probably get the impression that most of the river is barren of any fish-holding structure and depth. The truth is, there are smallmouth bass all along the shorelines for the most part. I once fished somewhere near Bull's Island by just casting a spinnerbait parallel to shore for some 45 minutes as I made my way downstream and caught three. Not big ones, but bass. 

At Frenchtown, there's a Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park "towpath," though the canal begins downstream from there. You don't have to walk very far in the upstream direction from in front of the Frenchtown-Uhlerstown Bridge before finding a trail leading down into the trees closer to the river. If you take that trail to access the river when it's flowing low, you might be able to work your way along the river itself while casting, even without getting your feet wet. Otherwise, you might still find spots where you can gain access.

Joe had a specific spot in mind that we accessed today even though the river barred us elsewhere. It didn't surprise me too much that I got hit. He asked me if I had a spinner, and I wished I had brought along the little box I can fit in my hip pocket. It has a couple of spinners in it. I just carried a couple bags of Yum Dingers, hooks, and an O-ring tool.

The Delaware is a fascinating complex of wild and traveled space that really isn't worked over as much as you might think. A man could spend a lifetime fishing the river and nowhere else, and he would still be surprised by something new each time on the water.

Frenchtown-Uhlerstown Bridge

\

Foot trail along the river.

Joe's spot was more than a half mile above the bridge from Frenchtown where we began walking.

Lambertville

 

We Always Used to Cut Sharply Around the Bend

Every May or June, Kevin and I pay a visit to a certain cove that used to produce big hybrids on the troll. I started fishing with Kevin in October 2021, and every spring thereafter we've tried the sinking Rapalas that used to catch them and some trout, too. But not since 2019 have friends and I caught any there.

We always used to cut sharply around the bend and motor all the way to a shallow cove where we've done well trolling especially for plate-sized crappie, though we've caught some pickerel and largemouth, too. About a mile-and-a-half distant. Maybe a little more. Today, my mind riveted on the features of the bank right where we would have left, and I decided we would work our way along, tossing Shim-E-Sticks rigged Wacky. I didn't know for a certainty that any of it would produce, but similarly as I remarked in another post recently, I didn't know spots here and there along the way wouldn't.

It didn't take very long before we got a clear signal. I put my worm right in the corner where a dock created a 45-degree angle with the bank. So close to the bank, I felt relieved to be able to subtly flutter the ends and let it sink into deeper water. And then, suddenly, I lost all feel, felt alerted and tightened my line. Then I set the hook. OK fish. A largemouth surfaced and threw the hook.  

So now the question was whether anything else would happen. It doesn't always, but we were already doing better than Brian and I had done on Furnace last week--besides the musky Brian lost. Hard to believe that's already been almost a week, but it's nice to measure time by fishing trips. People say fishing is always better than work. It has something on spending time at home, too. Which is work after all, even if my writing and photography is a hobby because it doesn't pay big time.

Does money define things?

There's no doubt it's work. To write well, one must work. But is it a business? Something always grates at me, anyway, when I think of writing as a business. If all my handwritten notebooks were published, they would be contained in about 500 books of 300 pages each. Wasn't all of Kafka's work published posthumously, that hobbyist? What about William Blake? And who doesn't know of Friedrich Nietzsche, after some 100 copies of his books got published before he went insane?

And stayed that way.

Don't you just love people who have to put you in a slot like a take-home striped bass. You're either a hobbyist or businessman. Can't be any other way.

We made our way along the bank. As if something would happen, though I maintained the presence of critical reason. I wanted more to happen. That was sincere. I wanted Kevin to get on a bass too, and three years ago, Kevin caught a 20-incher on a Wacky rig. He's caught other largemouths, smallmouths, panfish, perch, pickerel, walleye, and a seven-and-a-quarter-pound hybrid, as well. So he's used to catching fish. In fact, at the present juncture, he had never been skunked on Hopatcong.

Not much later, I felt a pickup and carefully tightened the line, observing that the fish swam directly towards me. I understood that meant an uncertain hookset, and I gave it all I had. Fish on. Kevin did a good job with the net, after I had extended the handle before we began fishing. Smallmouth bass. Eighteen inches. And then another smallmouth bass maybe a hundred feet further along. Sixteen inches. Again, it took on the subtle flutter, and it swam with the worm at a right angle to me. 

It was a wonderful day and our conversation was good as always. But something went a little south with my style after that last bass. I still hit targets on the tip of the nose. You can ask Kevin about that. But I ended up losing four more bass. One of them actually hit after we made a divergent move I thought thereafter had been a waste of time. That we should have stuck it out with the bass. Almost a mile of shoreline lay ahead of us. Pretty much out of the wind. That wind came up and stayed up. After it had been so nice. 

But mostly, it was the weeds. The shallow cove wasn't fishable. There was some kind of Scuba diving event going on where we caught smallmouths last year. And as I say, like Furnace Lake--much more weeds than last year. And that wind. A couple of other shorelines I just passed by, where we've caught bass in the past. We trolled all the way around Byram Cove, and where it was critical to get in close at the edges of shallows, we couldn't, because of weeds. 

I had a spot across Great Cove in mind that I gave up on before we would even try.

Kevin had the attitude. "You caught two good bass. There's no complaining about that."

It was a good day, and fishing the docks was tough. You really have to minimalize the water, hitting the targets and moving along. One of those bass I lost also came towards me, but to the side, and I didn't get a good hook set. The fish swam at high speed before I could completely get the curve out of my line. Another one was actually associated with weeds, so I believe it was a largemouth. (A lot of rocks exist around the docks we fished.) Again, I felt disoriented for a moment, as the bass had moved away with the worm without my knowing. I tightened up, set, and felt very heavy weight before the hook pulled out. All of them were good bass. 

I told Kevin, "When we fish in October, you're going to catch fish," which is true. We fish bait in October, which almost guarantees it.  

 

   

Early on, the smoke from Canada was thick.

Later, blue got through.

Kevin's Hybrid

 

Musky Hooked on HJ12 Husky Jerk

First he caught a hand-sized pumpkinseed to sacrifice to the musky gods...I'll give you a hint, it went to the channel cat demiurge...then he hooked a musky at least three feet long on an HJ12 Husky Jerk only minutes later with the pumpkinseed out under a couple of big bobbers. We both saw the musky jump. Intense. I thought 40 inches, but three feet is a conservative estimate. 

So we had the action we came for. It made Brian's day, and I'm glad for that. The outing ended well for me, too, because the magic hour affects everything living--me included. Placed in a good mood. And I knew it was possible a bass was going to take my Rebel Pop-R. That none did is less important than being there for them, my back not so sore as to disrupt my fishing. 

I had said to Brian earlier about that, "It's just a pain in the ass. I feared it could get so bad it would be disabling, but it's just something to deal with."

For some reason, there are a lot more weeds in Furnace Lake than last year on June 20th with Brenden Kuprel, when I remember catching most of my 15 bass from seven feet of water. We went yesterday with the intention of fishing muskies, but I told Brian I would try for bass, too, and he was good with trying for them himself. He mostly used the Husky Jerk, until it was lost to the musky. He also used a Berkley Nessie, which has a crippled side-to-side action like an underwater Zara Spook. Later towards evening, after he lost the Husky Jerk, he threw a double-bladed Mepp's. I threw a large single-bladed Mepps, but as I say, we didn't fish only muskies. For better or worse. Besides, I think so much heavy lure action might have worsened my back pain. Fishing a worm is easy on the back, and it's how I began my lackluster approach to the bass, with a Shim-E-Stick rigged Wacky. Putting it on the edge of thick weeds. I think of the irony of fishing with Oliver Round last week, who chose Lake Aeroflex when we did so well after I had wanted to try Furnace. I certainly was wise to accept Aeroflex once it was chosen and let Furnace be.

Yesterday, I soon realized I was fishing a lot deeper than I fished last June. The edge was about 11 feet deep. I switched to a Chomper's worm on an inset hook. (Later, by Brian's suggestion, I realized I might have done better had I used an inset hook in a Shim-E-Stick or Yum Dinger and just fished it straight rather than Wacky.) I did get a sudden pull on the slack that probably was a pumpkinseed like Brian caught or a bluegill. Something else ticked the line and took it aside, but though I fished edges and pockets alike, and I got the worm down towards the bottom, I never experienced that familiar strong pull of a bass. 

We lifted the Minn Kota and used a paddle to maneuver into the weeds, getting casts into shallow pockets. On one occasion, we saw big blow-ups back behind the thick of water chestnuts. I got the boat in close enough and cast a weedless frog. To no result. 

And we cast again for muskies. And I worked the Pop-R at the edges and in pockets, once again moving the boat into the thick just before we gave up. I backed us out so the electric motor wouldn't gather weeds, and after having kept the pumpkinseed under two bobbers and it's having become emaciated, Brian set it free...surely vulnerable to big channel cats in the lake.  

Brian Cronk fishes for a sunfish on the inside edge of thick weeds. His catch he used as musky bait.

Water chestnuts are an invasive vegetation that were cited as a reason to submit Lake Musconetcong to chemical treatment. There are a couple of fields of them in Furnace Lake, which I worked by retrieving a weedless frog over them.

Wonder if the beach will open.

2019

Bass Remain a Mystery Despite Publication Online

We haven't been to Blue Mountain Lake since 2015, when my wife, my son, and I searched for the nonexistent Upper Blue Mountain Lake, believing at the time that it did exist. We did find an area well grown over that looked like it might have been the lake before the dam was removed, but I'm not certain the lake ever existed, though it seems likely it did, given that many decades ago the area was a vacation community.. My uncertainty about Upper Blue Mountain Lake goes to show that even with the internet, facts can still elude their certain representation. All that's left to do is hit the trail and see for yourself. You find what looks like the imprint of an impoundment from many years ago, but you can't be altogether certain. You view the map featured by the best article on the situation you've found, and it looks like Upper Blue Mountain Lake was planned on but never created. 

I didn't fish during our 2015 visit, but in 2014, I did, when only my wife and I came. I caught a bass, but in the post on the outing I gave way to a rant about the Tocks Island Dam ordeal. In that post, I said the dam project was all for nothing, but given that the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area came into being instead of the reservoir, it's clearly arguable that something good did come of it. It's good I've grown up since 2014, but I still feel sympathy for the people who lost their homes.

Today's bass came on my second or third cast with a Wacky rig. When we had walked the quarter mile or so into the lake from the parking lot, and I had got to the water's edge before my wife showed up, a young man got in the water and swam across to the island. I put a cast near where he had got in after she had settled, imaging that the swimmer's having stirred up the bottom might draw a bass over. It would have measured nearly 16 inches long.

I lipped the fish and carried it over to my wife. Standing in front of her sitting there, I held the bass, and she said, "Let's bring it home."

"Can't. Out of season." 

She loves largemouths, but I only bring one home if it's so badly hooked it bellies up. Most fishermen believe largemouths taste bad, but that was not the prevailing opinion of the 1950s and 60s.   

I continued to work my way toward the dam. A couple of trout anglers had taken position there in such a way that I could get around them and fish the corner where I caught the bass in 2014. But where I fished at present, I felt something peg the worm, and I set the hook into a little bass that got off. I did fish the corner to the right of the anglers in the photo below, but not much more than that. It's nice feeling satisfied with one fish, and there are times when that's a good catch. Besides, to really fish Blue Mountain Lake effectively, haul a kayak in. Or ice fish it.

I ended up hanging out with my wife and black Lab Loki before I made my trek to the corner, to be certain whether or not I would run into another bass. There's well to be said for relaxing beside a lake in the wild as if nothing else matters, and I lay on the grass and took it all in for about 20 minutes before I finally tried the corner. On my walk back, I tried my Merlin bird song identification app on my mobile device, only to be informed no service was available. 

Not only is there no service up there, the bass remain a secret, even as I write about them and publish online. If you want to catch some, you'll need to jockey in a kayak a quarter mile. Otherwise, consider one bass a good catch, and marvel at the mystery of all the rest. 

And at all that wild space, which nor very long ago was hundreds of affordable summer homes.  

Waterfall on Van Campens Brook, which I didn't fish.

The corner is to the right of the end of the grass.

2013

A Search Bait on the Slow Side

I wasn't expecting our success. I think Oliver asked me where we might fish, and I said Aeroflex or Furnace. I wanted him to choose, and he chose Aeroflex because he had hope for salmon. I had hoped we'd fish Furnace, water cool enough yet for muskies. Last I fished Aeroflex from a boat was June 2023. Brenden Kuprel and I fished about six hours and caught eight fish, most of them pickerel. A couple of Junes before that, in 2021, Jorge Hildago and I fished about six hours, getting skunked. Before that, in 2017, I fished Aeroflex with my son, Matt, and we caught three fish: two bass and a pickerel.

Given my lack of success in the past, it's understandable I'd feel surprised when Oliver quickly caught a trout on a trolled Hedden Sonic. We made another pass when my Phoebe got smacked hard, and Oliver caught yet another trout on a Rapala Countdown. We made another circular pass, trying to keep near the weeds in water deeper than 20 feet. I like the idea of trout and salmon attracted to the fertility. 

Nothing more happened, so we went through the shallows and into the deepest water beyond them, hundred-foot depths showing on the graph. 

Temps today never got out of the 50's. The water was 62, a good temperature for the trout and salmon, though I wasn't sure if it hadn't fallen too much and put the bass off. It definitely hadn't. We had a lot of rain. Oliver got chilled in the end, and I was glad we went in when we did, so he didn't suffer any worse. I wore a base layer under my pants, and another under a Woolrich shirt, a neoprene jacket over that, and a raincoat. I felt comfortable all day.  

As if we fished the steep shoreline drops of Tilcon Lake, I imagined the fishing as one and the same, only Aeroflex gets more pressure. At first I felt tempted to use a 1/16th-ounce jig with a little two-and-a-half-inch paddletail, That's how we fished two years ago, getting the jig down into 20-foot depths at the edge of the weeds, but only by using Wacky rigs to search out the weeds and wood in front of us did the fishing make sense today in the way it does at the other lake, and pretty soon, it paid off. The bass fought hard, and I measured it at 18 inches and imagined it must have weighed nearly three-and-a-half pounds. A fat fish. Minutes later, I caught my second, about 15 inches.

We worked our way down lake, catching bass. I watched Oliver hook one that we watched as he moved it from about four feet of water towards the depths where it got off. We believe that bass had to be at least 20 inches. No pickerel today, although one of them attacked Oliver's Wacky rig as he reeled it in to make another cast. I finished with a total of six bass; Oliver caught two. Most of mine were about 15 inches, though another one of them was 18 inches. You have to fish thoroughly. A Wacky rig isn't ideal. No rig is ideal for the weeds in May. If it were July, I'd have used an inset hook on a traditional worm. But the weeds haven't fully grown in yet, and even though a Wacky rig gets caught in the weeds, I can snap the worm free, and otherwise keep it from getting hung up by working it over the tops of the weeds. Fluttering the ends. Only one of my bass took the worm on the initial drop. The Wacky rig is a good one to use as a search bait, but a search bait on the slow side, and that worked very well today. I also caught a rainbow trout while trolling the Phoebe out over deep water on our way back to the launch ramp. We had fished a total of four hours.

 

2023

End of the Spring Season Trout

Fred arrived shortly after 11 when I worked on a poem set in the clamming life. I saved my work, shut down my laptop, and headed out the door, telling Fred he was free to ride with me. It took a minute or two to load his gear. 

I had told him we might do well because recent very high water interrupted the pressure on the fish, but it is Tuesday and the North Branch's last stocking day is tomorrow. Not to mention that Peapack Brook might not have been stocked in two weeks. But I believed in the possibility, though our first stop wasn't going to pan out. 

I began to think my worst fears might be the case. That the excessively high water last Wednesday meant the state didn't stock at all, and whatever few fish remained in the stretch got carried miles downstream! Fred had said we might get away with wet wading, but the drop in temperatures took us by surprise. I'm glad the temps got cold last night and never rose out of the 60s today, though, because the chilly water favored the trout, for sure.

So we put on our waders and walked into the AT&T stretch from River Road Park. I didn't even want to think of limiting the fishing to the spots and casting angles accessible from the bank. I catch a lot of trout there that way, but I wanted to reach the holding water from the bottom of the stretch to the head with no encumbrance. 

It was almost too deep with the camera slung around my neck and the bag getting a little wet. Fred pointed out, though, that the stretch has filled in a great deal recent years. We worked our way upstream. I got hit a couple of times. And then again near the end of our foray I did once, but suddenly, I saw a trout cut across my field of vision. And then shortly after I saw three or four of them holding on golf-ball sized stones where I would have stepped if I didn't see them first. I tried to get them interested in my salmon egg, and one of them seemed to take interest, but I never hooked up. I had already begun thinking of where to go next, and I caught myself thinking we should go directly to Peapack Brook. As if we'd catch nothing behind the police station. Instead, I told myself, "I don't know that."

Fred and I drove to Miller Lane and made our back to the river across the field. Conversation got our minds off the walk, which seemed to take a minute. 

I got hit right away. I kept getting hit. Finally, I caught one. We kept catching them. The action eventually slowed dramatically, but I still managed to lose another trout right out in front of me. By the time we felt ready to move, I had caught seven and Fred four. Fred got them on worms and maybe one on his favored jig. I was into a new jar of eggs.

The first series of stretches we tried apparently had no fish in them. I tried some very fishy-looking riffles and rocks with depths as much as two or three feet, but drew no interest at all and turned my attention to trying the waterfall before we would run out of time.

There we each caught two. 

Fred knew a bigger deep hole, and I was interested. There I caught one more, and Fred caught two, all four of his Peapack trout on the jig. 

Fred's been fishing the salt, hasn't caught a trout since he lived up here, I believe. He was very happy to do well today.

I happened to be framing Fred on the dam when he hooked up on the jig.

Last May