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.