Bass Fishing at Sunrise

Had a little tournament today on Farrington Lake with a couple of fishing friends, Danny and Nicky. Fished 4:15 AM (that is in the early morning, people) to 4:00 PM and managed only one keeper bass. Dan and Nicky were each culling (meaning that they caught over 5 bass and released the smallest ones, since you're only allowed to have 5 at a time). So now I'm royally pissed at doing so poorly and am trying to focus my anger on fishing slower and more carefully. I think my problem is that I have trouble controlling the boat in wind so end up not fishing an area as thoroughly as I should. This is evidenced by the fact that the fish I did catch was caught when the lake was calm. Also, as I get tired during the day, I start to fish perfunctorily (look it up, Dan) and lose my focus. I have to stay alert, work the lures slowly and precisely, and remain ready to capitalize on the opportunities that present themselves. I have the same equipment and the same abilities as my friends, I just need to be more confident and keep my head in the game. I'll kick their asses next time...

posted by NJFishRGuy @ 6:31 PM

Fishing buddy Danny is on Farrington Lake today with his friend John. At last count, he had 15 bass and John had 7, all on Senkos. What a difference from last week! The temperature dropped (it was 58 when I got up this morning) and the fish turned ON! The bad news is I'm stuck working while others are fishing. Why do I feel like I live to fish? A lot of people are working. I think it's because the end of the season isn't so far away. It's like the card one of my friends sent me on my 50th birthday. The outside said "50s not the end of the road..." and the inside said "but you can sure as hell see if from there!"

I can sure as hell see the end of the fishing season coming up in November. Before you know it, we'll be bundled up and trying to get a single bite on a jig or a jigging spoon. But first the fall craziness will get them biting, and I'm afraid to miss a day of that!

I have so many soft plastic baits that I've made that I don't know what to do with them. Maybe I'll rent a table at one of the winter fishing shows and sell them there. Wonder what a table costs?

One thing's for sure... winter's coming.

posted by NJFishRGuy @ 1:59 PM

I had ordered about $75 worth of Bass Stalker jigs, rattles and some Zoom trailers from Angler's Paradise on July 31, but they backordered part of my order. A few days ago I emailed a follow up, and got an email back saying that they would be shipping in about a week. So... 4 weeks to order stuff from Angler's Paradise. I think in the future I'll only order what they have in stock. Bass Pro Shops has a much better system; they tell you if something's out of stock as you're placing the order so you can decide whether or not to order it. I actually prefer to order from Bass Pro Shops, but they didn't have what I wanted in this case.

Not that it'll make much difference; I'm not doing well with jigs this year. I've got to focus on spending more time throwing them... and develop confidence in them. I think confidence in a bait outweighs all other factors.; if you have confidence, you'll keep throwing it where you would likely give up on a low confidence bait. I want to have confidence in a lot of different baits, but apparently that takes a lot of years to develop. This year was my frogging year...

posted by NJFishRGuy @ 7:37 AM

I managed to go fishing twice this week. On Thursday I fished with buddy Rob on my boat at Farrington Lake. The weather was perfect for frogging, and that's what we threw all day. My sore arm can attest to it. Rob caught one bass on a frog (2 lbs 9 oz) and I caught one on a Zoom Horny Toad (2 lbs 1 oz). Not a lot to show for 6 1/2 hours of fishing. They should have been KILLING the frog, but not so. I did get three hits on my double-super-secret frog color, but was unable to hook up with any of them. Everyone we met was doing poorly until I left, when I ran into a guy in a white Nitro who claimed to have over a dozen bass, including a 4 pounder. That depressed me; how come other people catch fish when I can't? Of course, maybe the guy was full of it, but he seemed sincere, if cocky.

On Saturday Danny and I each took our own boats to Mercer Lake, where we fished a full day. I arrived around 5:15 AM; Danny was already fishing. We left around 2:00 PM. The only bait the fish seemed willing to hit was the Senko, and then it had to be red shad. Dan caught 2 keepers, including a nice 18 inch bass, and two dinks. I caught one 15 inches and one dink. For some reason, I felt better with this one fish that the one fish from Thursday. Maybe because no one was saying they caught a dozen? Here's a photo of Danny's 18 inch bass.

They were holding a breast cancer awareness event of some kind at Mercer and it was really crowded. They had these Dragon Boats that they raced in the sculling lanes. It seemed that everyone was having a good time, and Mercer County Park is one of the nicest parks in NJ for my money. The rangers are really nice. I've never had trouble with rangers (well, except for that time at Merrill Creek), but the Mercer Park rangers are especially helpful.

posted by NJFishRGuy @ 10:24 PM