Vertical Jigging for River Walleye

I have been on a bit of a dry spell fishing for walleye in the Delaware River, though I have seen others catching them.  With the air temperature dropping below 40 degrees, I have switched from nightcrawlers to shiners.  My preferred presentations have been lindy rigs and vertical jigging and I have targeted sunrise.  Today I am going to try to get on the river 45 minutes before sunset, approximately 4:00 PM. 

I found this helpful video on youtube and much of this knowledge is portable to the Upper Delaware River.  I have found Walleye hanging in the backwater sections of the Delaware River and for some reason I like the 13 to 16 foot depth..

Delaware River Was High and Muddy

I was entertaining guest this weekend, so I could only get out for a few hours on Sunday.  The fall afternoon was wonderful and I was hoping to snag some smallies on a 4-inch wacky rig.  I fished from about 2:00 to 3:30 and didn't even get a bite.  The water was high and muddy and the there were lots of leafs in the water. The Gage Height at Port Jervis, NY was about 5.3 feet.

I did get to try my neoprene waiters and they are a great addition to my arsenal of fishing.    I got a pair of Field and Stream (with no boot) waders and some accessory boots which go on over top the wader socks.  I figured I could still use the accessory boots in the Summer without wearing the waders.  There are some locations I fish on the Delaware that are just sooo rocky and potentially dangerous.  But even in the winter, these waders should keep me warm in the winter months, should I choose to fish the winter months.

I hear a lot groaning and moaning when the Delaware is high and dirty and my voice can now be added to the list.  I am still hoping for a few more good weekends to catch some more walleyes, as I think the bite will be good up to late November.

Walleye Fishing in the Delaware River

For those who know me best, I have been adamantly chasing walleye outside of the State of Minnesota (primarily in warmer climates) for some time, and with limited or no success.  So this summer was big for me as I was determined to eventually catch a keeper walleye.  This August I made another big push for walleye at Swartswood Lake and I only caught one fingerling (who my nightcrawler brought to the surface in a rear-naked-choke) and a 16-inch walleye after putting forth maybe 20 to 40 hours of lake time.  So I finally changed my tactics, gave up fishing for walleye in the summer and decided to revisit walleye fishing in October.  Well, Sunday was October.

To fish the Delaware in October, I bought myself a set of neoprene waders from Field and Stream to help stay dry and warm.  Comfort is everything when fishing and when the water is this cold, it is one of those things where you don’t realize how ‘not cold’ you are when you are ‘not cold’.  I am sure if I did not have these neoprene waders on  Sunday, I probably would have caught no fish and had a miserable time.

So Sunday morning I woke up and headed to Dingman’s Ferry.  The sun came up around 7:00ish and I was probably fishing by 7:30.  I focused on fishing behind the bridge pilings at Dingman’s Ferry as well as the backwater on the Pennsylvania side of the bridge.  Everything seemed perfect regarding water conditions as well as my presentation; a lindy rig with two floaters and a perch colors spoon on a worm harness.  As soon as my pole bent over and I picked up the pole, I immediately recognized the fish as a walleye with his lethargic fight and constant head-shaking!  I am sure my eyes were as big as saucers when I first saw this walleye about 2 feet below the surface.  He did not take me long to net him and he measured out at 20 inches and 4.1 pounds.  

New Jersey is starting to feel a bit more like home...

And a hand for perspective....

Smallmouth Taco? Delicioso!

I broiled a smallmouth fillet for lunch today and at the last minute I decided to see how it tastes in a soft taco.  Delicioso! The fillet was prepared with fresh garlic, fresh rosemary, a little white pepper and oil.  Broiled 15 minutes wrapped in foil and 1 minute with foil peeled back.

Fall Smallmouth Fishing on the Delaware

This is what Fall smallmouth fishing is all about on the Delaware river!  I found a lot of success Friday evening as well as Sunday morning, both times throwing a dark natural color (watermelon or pumpkin seed) 4 inch senko, rigged wacky style.  I search out fast moving current, preferably in the 4+ feet of water range and throw the wacky rig straight out (not up current), or maybe 10 degrees up current and just let it drift down river.  I caught 7 smallies south of Dingmans Bridge Friday evening, but none of them were larger than 13 inches.  The Delaware current seemed much weaker on Sunday morning when I went out, so I headed north of Dingmans Bridge searching out some faster current.  I caught another 6 smallies, 3 of which were about 13-inches or bigger (pictured below).  

Delaware River Update:

Friday Evening - Water was clear and low, current was moderate (for late Summer, early Fall).  The green algae which has been a bother for the past few weeks has resided at Dingmans Bridge.  I received little if no algae on my cast..

Sunday Morning - Water was clear and extremely low.  Current was exceptionally weak.  Could not fish my wacky rig South of the Bridge as there was not enough current (relatively speaking of course for the Delaware River).  Went north of the bridge and found a big rock in the middle of the river to anchor the kayak (with my feet, not a real anchor).  The smallmouth bite did not really start until late Morning (10:00 AM) when the sun finally broke.

The Delaware River

Labor Day weekend, 2012

I finally made my way to the Big D and launched my kayak from Dingman’s Ferry.  I was most impressed, and will be surprised if the Big D does not turn out to be my favorite fishing hole in the area.  On the advice of Rich at Simon Peter Outdoors, I decided to use 5-inch senkos set up in a Jersey Rig (aka a Wacky Rig).  The idea is to throw the jersey rig into the current and let it sink naturally and wait for a strike.

First thing I noticed fishing from my kayak (in a river) is that it was going to be awfully tough to fish from the kayak and not drift down river.  Since I didn’t want to spend more time paddling up river than drifting downriver (and fishing), I came up with an idea of “Park Benching” the kayak.  I deduce the river channel at Dingman’s Ferry was closer to the New Jersey side of the river (across from the boat launch), so I headed to the New Jersey shoreline.  For those who have never fished the Delaware, it is rocky.  I am not sure what type of rock it is but it is blackish with sharp edges; very dangerous to walk on, especially wet.  I parked my kayak about 4 feet from shore, parallel to the shoreline with the bow of my kayak facing up river.  This created minimal drag on my kayak from the river.  I would then sit sideways, in such a way my feet could still touch the bottom of the river and I could hold myself in place.  At this point, I was pretty much sitting on a “park bench” only one cast from the deep channel of the Delaware.  I spent the morning casting my jersey rig into the channel, letting it float down river and reeling it in.  Since I could touch the bottom with my feet, I would also walk up the river and down river, depending on where I thought the first were.

Overall, a huge success! I caught these two smallies; a 15 ¾ inche and a 15 ¼ inch.  I will definitely be back and maybe even for some wallies or maybe some muskies.

Swartswood, Day 2

My wife allowed me to go out a second time last weekend and I headed out late Sunday afternoon.  I started paddling out around 5:00 PM and had most of my action before 7:30.  This time I decided to fish with some medium size minnows on my lindy rigs.  The water temperature was still very high, teetering around 84 degrees.  I went back to my same spot but this time elected to slowly paddle up and down the bank and I tried to stay in about 15 to 20 feet of water.  It didn't take me long and I hooked up with a 22 inch pickerel.  It was an amazing fight and a lot of fun!  He hit my minnow in about 16 feet of water and when he hit it, it felt like a big log at the end of my line.  That is, until he started moving.

It was no more than 20 minutes later and I hooked up with another big fish.  This one was significantly bigger and he just played around with me, letting me pull up from the depths until he got within 5 feet of the kayak.  At which time he would take off and we repeated this dance another five times for over 6 minutes.  I never got to see him, but whatever he was he had some teeth because he bit through my lindy rig liter right above the hook.  I don't believe there are any northerns or musky in Swartswood Lake, so it was either a bigger pickerel or a large walleye.  I want to say it was a bigger pickerel based on how he initially struck my lindy rig and how strong he was when he went on his runs; there was not a lot of head shaking on his side of the line.

Swartswood Results

My first trip out was early Saturday morning and I started paddling out around 4:15 AM.  I left the boat ramp in Swartswood State Park (by the beach) and headed straight out and made a right to fish the rocky drop off.  There is nothing but rocks here and some significant drop-offs along this 200 to 300 yards of coast line.  I exclusively fished a lindy rig worm harness with a a full night crawler.  I found some structure in about 12 foot of water holding fish but did not get any bites until the sun came up.  When the sun did come up, all I was catching was giant sunfish.  I began drifting in 15 foot of water and covering more ground, but I was militant in my effort and around 9:30 I finally landed my first walleye in the State of New Jersey.

He was 16 inches, a nice catch but too small by New Jersey State regulations, so I let him go for another day.  It has been a long time since I felt this satisfied in catching a fish, these walleye are really elusive.

Plotting Out Swartswood Lake

This week I am heading to Swartswood Lake.  I have heard it is the #1 walleye lake in the area.  I got my 13' Wilderness all decked out, I have my Eagle 360c depth finder and I have my Lindy Rigger Extreme all prepared.  I found the following map of Swartswood Lake at New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife. My plan is to launch by 5:00 and attack the area labed "RO" just up lake of the State Park's swimming beach on the East side of the lake.  If I am having no luck there and I am seeing nothing on the depth finder, I'll paddle over to the jetty at Nelden's Brook, although I suspect this would be a much better spot in early spring and pre-spawn.

I am also very thankful for my father and step-mother who are always so good to me on my birthday.  This year they got a full outfit of lindy rigs and a Lindy Rigger extreme.  They obviously know what they are doing as they live in South Dakota and both being retired, fish 4 days out of the week.

The Fishing Kayak

I purchased my kayak last fall and really have made minimal enhancements.  The only thing I have added is the control box to store my motorcycle battery and attach my Eagle 360c fish finder to the lid of the control box.  The box is nothing more than a gray utility box you can buy at Home Depot.  I painted mine black.  I also attached two strips of velcro to the kayak and bottom of the control box so the control box is both detachable and secure.  I also got a Scotty arm extender so I can put the transducer down when I would like or put it up if I am padeling through some thick lily pads.

Got my Big'un at Silver Lake

Had another great day at Silver Lake.  Fished exclusively with my 8-inch power worm on a Texas Rig.  I caught 3 largemouth and 2 perch, the biggest was an 18-inch, 2 3/4 pound largemouth, photo taken below with my daughter Dagney.

I have definitely found at least 3 spots I really like at Silver Lake.  One of the spots has yielded me the above 18 inch largemouth and two smaller ones..  I also think Silver Lake has a nice population of perch and I will have to return at some point to catch me a few of these fine eating fish.  The first perch I caught today was pretty impressive, but I had doubts I would catch another perch and released him.  Moments later I caught another and decided to start keeping them.  I was impressed the perch would go after my 8-inch worm.

Silver Lake was Good to Daddy on Father's Day

air temperature 65 degrees
water temperature 71 degrees
Fishing with a floating broken rapala and a 6 inch power worm on a Texas Rig.

I hit Silver Lake early with one of my fishing buddies Ty, who is a volunteer firefighter for Sussex Township.  It was an overcast morning that never warmed up.  We thought we were going to get rained on once or twice and the lake temperature was warmer than the air temperature.

I threw the Rapala for about 4 casts and still got some weeds.  I switched poles and on my second cast I got young largemouth.  There would be no putting the Texas rig down at this point.  Overall, the lake had a lot of vegetation and a lot of rocks.  My Eagle 360c depth finder was picking up a fairly rocky\sandy bottom as well as some big rocks in 6 to 9 feet of water.  Silver Lake never got any deeper than 10 feet but she was beautiful!  Although section (D) was very overgrown with small lily pads, I caught my second bass in section (D)!

I worked my way back to the other side and Section (C) was as sweet as I thought it would be.  In section (C) there is a rock about 15 feet from shore where there is another rock; this little bit of structure will most likely produce a fish every time, it really is that nice of a spot.

Ty finally hooked up a pickerel as we were heading back in and he gave the fish a nice sportsman release, although he did get his hands on it.  By the end of the day, all three of my largemouth bass were about the same size and there were two strikes that I missed.  I am sure there are some 5-pounders in Silver Lake, but I'll have to come back for them on another day.  However, I may have to bring a new worm as today's worm got beaten up.

Heading out on Silver Lake

I strongly believe on fishing day, the longer the line is in the water, more fish will be caught.  So to cut down on the time it takes me to change baits, I hit the water with two poles; each with a distinct setup and I will rarely vary from either two as I prefer to be casting instead of tying.

The floating broken Rapala (left)

From viewing the google map of Silver Lake, I suspect the lake will have lots of weeds. The floating broken rapala will  allow me to fish the surface, avoid most of the weeds and provide me with the best opportunity to cover as much of the new lake as possible.

The 6 inch power worm on a Texas rig (right)

Bar none, my favorite and most effective lure in my arsenal.  There is no circumstance in which I will throw this with no confidence.  I expected to find lots of big rocks and natural structure on Silver Lake and when I did, I want a setup that will kill it.

Planning Silver Lake

One of the advantages of having a kayak is I can get to some hard to reach places, which means I can fish lakes that receive little fishing pressure.  This week I am going after a small local lake (large pond?) called Silver Lake and there is no topography map available for Silver Lake.  However, given the technology available to us today, I was able to take this photo using Google maps.  Although it does not tell me what a good topography map would tell me, it still tells me quite a bit.

First, I can still see the whole lake.  I can see where the kayak launch is (A) and the small damn (B).  What I can also see from this image is where the vegetation is growing in the middle of the lake and more importantly, where it is not.  I can assume where the vegetation is not growing the water is a little deeper.  But overall, it would appear to be a very shallow lake.  Because the lake is so small, I am sure I will be able to fish the entire lake on Sunday morning, but I highlighted two areas that may be the most interesting to me.  (D) Would appear to have the most structure with some deeper water (no vegetation) right off the structure. (C) Has an upside down 'U' of vegetation that may be some underwater rocks which looks appealing.  But (C) also has a big rock away from the shore line which I will certainly give some extra attention.

I hope to arm myself with two weapons.  I am going to use a floating broken rapala (which has been a family favorite for 30 years) so I can cover lots of water surface quickly while avoiding what could be an abundance of underwater vegetation.  I will set up my second pole with what is now my favorite setup, a 7" plastic worm in a Texas rig.  This will allow me to fish specific targets such as an underwater rocks or submerged trees.

Thoughts?

Monksville Recap

June 10th, 2012

blue skies, 80 degrees
Water Temperature 72.5 degrees
used medium sized flatheads

My alarm went off at 4:00 AM and I must really love fishing because I pulled myself out of bed to head to the Monksville Reservoir.  On a recommendation, I checked out Frank's Tackle in Wanaque, NJ.  Frank's Tackle was clean, well stocked and organized ... a real nice tackle shop.  The gentlemen who came in the morning gave me a gloomy forecast for catching walleye in Monksville.  He recommended Greenwood Lake as a better prospect for catching walleye.  Nonetheless,  I headed out for Monksville and got my kayak in the water by t 6:00 AM.  It was beautiful ... and deep from the South Boat launch!  

I first headed towards target area (A), but I ended up on the on the other side of the rounded point (slightly uplake from target area (A).  It was a nice solid bottom and I found some structure in 7 and 14 foot of water.  I bounced the bottom with a lindy rig and a flathead minnow and had a hookup right away.  The fish (did not get a good visual) jumped out of the water and shook the hook out.  I changed back to a bobber and minnow and eventually drifted to the other side of the rounded point and into target area (A).  There were more weeds and vegetation in target area (A), but there were so many big and medium size rocks, that I definitely want to come back here again.  I got halfway past the rounded point in the direction of the inlet when I hooked up this giant 6 pound rock bass!  It was actually much, much smaller but my bodaciously awesome photography skillz made it look so much bigger!

As I went into the inlet, I kept seeing these large abandoned spawning nest up on the shore.  I tried to take a   picture (below), but they are hard to see in the the top of the photograph.  They look like giant dark circles.  They were not abandoned that long ago.  The day was getting slow and I only had about 5 minnows left, so I wanted to check out target area (B) just for a bit.

Area (B) would be an ideal walleye location.  The drop off is significant from shore and having viewed the slope above the shoreline led me to believe there were lots more rocks below the shore line. Immediately, my Eagle 360c fish finder told me there were a school of fish hugging the bottom around 25 feet.  I think these could have been walleye so I setup up my second rod with a lindy rig (again).  It didn't take me long to get snagged on the bottom and it took even less time for me to break my pole.  Let me be honest, this was only a $20.00 pole from Wal-Mart, so I was not surprised.  I decided to fish the shoreline again and saw a couple of low-cut tree stumps.  It did not take me long to realize those trees were chopped down and the rest of the trees were the structure I was seeing at 25 feet of water ... and most likely what I was getting snagged on.  I did catch another rock bass, but then called it a day at 10:30.

Planning Monksville Reservoir

This Sunday morning I am going to head out to Monksville Reservoir to see if I can catch my old nemesis, the walleye. 

I brooded over the topography map during the week and eventually decided my top target area will be (A). I feel the accessibility to the deep water as well as the shallow area will serve me well.  My second priority will be (B).  Based on the topography map, it would appear it is a steep shore line with possible a possible rocky drop.  Again, this location is accessible to deep water.  When I first looked at the map, I thought the hill would be (C) my first target.  But the more I think about it, I now believe 30 feet will be too deep to hold any sort of bait fish for the walleye.  But I'll check it out anyway for no other reason to test out my depth finder.


Any thoughts?

Lake Aeroflex

June 3rd, 2012
blue skies, 80 degrees
Water Temperature 72 degrees
used medium sized flatheads (these were much bigger than I expected)

This was my first fishing trip in New Jersey and my first fishing trip with my new kayak, a 13 foot wilderness sit-on fishing kayak.  I was super excited to try Lake Aeroflex with having just set up my new Eagle 360c Fish Finder and a side mount for my transducer. 

My first objective was to find the saddle running across the middle of the Lake Aeroflex and fish it.  For those of you not familiar with the lake, the lake has a gradual drop to about 40 feet when leaving the boat ramp.  The lake then slops back up to about 3 to 5 feet of water (for about 10 yards) before dropping off to 90 feet of water.  For those without a depth finder, it is apparent where the saddle is because you can visibly see the bottom at times and there is quite a bit of weed growth coming up from the bottom.  I first fished the weed line in about 10 feet of water and then when into the weeds.  I fished in the direction of the Northeast shore first.  I didn't catch anything nor did I see much activity on my Eagle 360c.

My second objective was to fish the 'old house' on the Northeast shore.  There are some old concrete steps coming down from the 'old house' as well as a concrete platform.  There is an immediate drop off from shore, possibly 30 to 40 feet straight down.  Heading north and immediately after the concrete steps (on shore) the bottom rose up to about 25 feet and there was a big school of fish towards to the bottom.  I tried fishing off the bottom but never caught anything.

My third objective was to paddle the full length of the saddle and then fish the southwest shoreline.  I hardly saw any arches on my Eagle 360c covering the saddle, much to my surprise.  The biggest influence in deciding to fish the Northwest shoreline was wind, which is a big force in a kayak.  The southwest shoreline still has a dramatic drop but not as dramatic as the Northeast shoreline.  I was in about 20 to 25 feet of water casting to the shoreline.  I had my only strike under an overhanging tree and it was a good one.  My first reaction upon setting the hook was, "I might have too much fish for my boat".  Whatever it was, it gave me a good, strong, deep first run.  I eventually got him towards the surface and it most definitely was a good size largemouth bass.  He made another deep run and this time the drag started letting out line.  Another much larger boat began to creep in behind me and my first thought was "They probably think I have too much fish for my boat."  After the largemouth tired a bit more, I got a better glimpse of the fish as he rested near the surface and looked me in the eye.  I guess the fish must have been about 16 or 18 inches.  He made one final run and wouldn't you know it, the hook came out of his mouth.  I really could have used a net this day, so I will have to figure out where I am going to store a net on my kayak.

I continue to fish the southwest shoreline, heading in the eastern direction (away from the saddle and boat ramp) but I had no more bites.