Bass Fishing at Sunrise

I fished the Hudson River up by Catskill on Friday, October 28 with fishing buddy Rob. It was a beautiful morning but cold. The water temp was 46 when we first launched around 8:00 AM (had to stop at Wal-Mart and get NY licenses to fish the creeks first; fortunately, they run from October 1 to September 30 of the next year). I can't seem to get the hang of fishing tidal water, except that fishing slack tide is a waste of time, and the first couple hours of high tide going low seem to be the most productive. I finally caught one 12 inch keeper smallmouth on a drop shot... I also managed to catch a striper, I'd guess 6 pounds, on a Senko, of all things. It put up a good fight, especially since I was using 8 pound line, and I was pretty disappointed when it turned out that it wasn't a black bass.

Lakes are going to be frozen soon, and we'll just be talking about fishing. Depressing thought...

posted by NJFishRGuy @ 10:22 PM

Fished Farrington Lake this past Sunday. Got there around 6:45 AM and met up with fishing buddy Danny. I threw spider grubs, drop shots, Senkos, hard jerkbaits, spinnerbaits and crankbaits, but the bass would only take crankbaits running in 4 feet of water or less. All the lures that worked were firetiger or a yellow-brown color. I ended up with only one keeper 15" long and two dinks, plus a little perch. Danny ended up with three keepers (17 1/2", 15", and 13 1/2") plus some dinks. We left by 3:00 PM.

It was COLD and the wind was blowing pretty well. We stayed on the west side of the lake after passing under the road and heading north. Fished all the way up to the dam and back. After such a hot summer, I'm not used to the cold and was bundled up pretty well.

We ran into a really nice Park Ranger who Danny chatted with at the ramp. I have never had a bad experience with a Ranger ("Naturalists" don't count!) and they have never been anything but polite and friendly. The few who have checked my license have been polite and professional, and not one has ever hassled me about not wearing the license. (I do wear it when fishing from the bank, but I go on the theory that they can't see it from a distance when fishing from a boat and have to approach me and ask for it anyway. I started doing this after dropping it into the lake a few times. I also make it a point to print several extra copies when buying my license over the internet, in case I do lose one into the drink.)

Not much fishing time left... and then it's the deep freeze and wishin' I was fishin'!

posted by NJFishRGuy @ 8:00 AM