Heading Out to the Delaware River This Weekend

This weekend I am taking two good friends out to the Delaware River for some sallies.  The first thing when fishing the Delaware is to check the Gage Height at USGS Station, Port Jervis, NY.  What I am looking for is a Gage Level at or around 3.5 or lower.  For future reference, this link can be found on the right side of my blog under "Weather and River Conditions".  

I should also mention this Saturday is the opening of bass season in New Jersey, so I could not be more excited!  Our plan will be to fish a couple shore points with Wacky Rigged 5-inch Senkos.  One of those spots will be Dingman's Ferry on the PA side as well as the New Jersey side.

I am putting the over\under for keeper bass at 7 for this weekend.

The Lake Mohawk Monster

There comes a time in man's life when everything he has worked for, finally comes together.  Mine occurred 5:45 AM the morning of June 9th, 2013.  I had finally moved into the house my wife and I can only describe as, 'the last house we'll ever need.'  It is a humble little house on the outskirts of Heaven; or more commonly called, Lake Mohawk, NJ.  I have heard rumors about the fishing in Lake Mohawk, how 'the lake is private, only lake residents can fish it' and 'it's all catch and release.'.  In the short time I have had to fish, given the packing, moving, unpacking, staging previous home and staging the new home, I only managed 15 minutes the prior day (Saturday) and landed a beautiful 18-inch largemouth.  As I carved another 15 minutes Sunday morning, I remember telling myself, "What am I doing?  I am not going to catch anything bigger than the 18-incher I had caught the previous day.  Boy, was I wrong.  

When I fish for largemouth, I fish a little differently.  I fish my plastic real slow and I like to fish deep water.  Not having my kayak registered for Lake Mohawk yet, I was forced to fish from the docks.  Like the previous day, I went to the furthest point out from the docks so I could fish my 7-inch power worm in the deepest water available to me.  After a couple of cast, I finally got 'the take' I was hoping for.  Taking extra precaution with my hook-set, I immediately knew I had a big hog on the line.  It is an odd feeling to feel something sooo heavy moving around under the water.  When it was all said and done, I measured her with my tape measure at 21.25 inches.  Using the weight conversion chart  she could have been 5 3/4 pounds; given the enormous size of her belly, she might have been about 6 1/4 pounds.

This is a day and a catch I will never forget.

"Setting the Hook"

This weekend I landed an 18 inch Largemouth on Saturday and then a 21 1/4 inch Largemouth on Sunday.  Both of them were hooked with a green 7-inch power worm on a Texas rig.  I am fairly certain of two things which enable me consistently catch really big fish; 1) Fishing deep water 2) Using a big bait.  

But today I wanted to share my knowledge on how I set the hook on these big fish.  

The first thing I do when I feel a fish pick up my worm is to point the rod tip at the fish and slowly reel in any slack.  Once I feel I have taken up all the slack, I know I have pressure on the line.  The next step takes a bit of imagination, but at this point I imagine the bass' mouth is shut and he is swimming around with my plastic worm and hook inside his closed mouth.  I will then raise my pole from the 9:00 position to about the 10:30 position, or until I feel the weight of the fish.  What I am trying to do here is bring that worm and hook to the front of the bass' mouth.  For an analogy, imagine somebody pulling a spaghetti noodle out of your mouth and all you can do to try and stop it is to hold the noodle with your lips; unless at the end of that noodle there was a big meatball you could hold on to.  This is how I imagine the fishing line coming out of the bass' mouth.  At this time the eye of the hook is at the front of the bass' mouth (with the worm) and the pointy side of the hook is resting against the inside of  the bass' mouth, lined up like a surgeon resting the head of a needle against your skin.  When I bring my rod from the 10:30 position to the 12:00 position, I simultaneous give a the line a quick jerk by flipping my wrist to "pop" the hook quickly through the bass' mouth (hopefully, the top).

 In all, it is a little exhaustive process but I feel it gives me the strongest hook-set without without "ripping" the fish's mouth, gutting him with the hook or poking his eye out.

Here is the 18 inch Largemouth I caught Saturday using this hook set technique.

Texas Rigging in Early Spring

Last year I was really turned on to the Wacky-Rig 4" and 5" Senkos for fishing the Delaware.  And I learned what kind of awesome tool the Senko is in the river.  However, this Spring I am back to lake fishing and there is no greater setup then the 7" Power Worm on a Texas Rig.  My color of choice is dark green with black flecks.  I also like to put 3 or 4 red beads on my line as I feel their 'clacking' together resembles the Largemouth Bass' #1 predator during spawning season, the crawdad.

I usually put the Texas Rig worm weight on as it gives me more range and accuracy when I am fishing from my kayak.  However, given my new home at Lake Mohawk and my fishing from the docks, I suspect I'll do more flipping and will go with the natural fall of the worm.

My First Lake Mohawk Larry

It has been a crazy 2013 so far as I have had many big milestones to tackle; a destination wedding in Cozumel, MX, bachelor party in Las Vegas, a visit with Dad and taking the family to Disney.  The last of milestone I had was closing on a new home in Lake Mohawk, moving all my furniture and now renovating the old home for rental.  However, this past Friday we had a 3-family BBQ at Lake Mohawk and I got to make about a dozen cast with a green & pumpkin seed senko around sunset to nab my first Lake Mohawk Larry.

I have really grown fond of the Senko and almost exclusively rig it Jersey style.  Could be a good summer.