43-Degree Water Inline Spinner
Since November 2023, the law in NJ is that anyone in a boat must wear, until May 1st, a life preserver. I see in this photo that I need to learn how to do that. I had figured I just put it on.
Hoping Something Might Happen
We launched Brian’s boat, and I took the water’s temperature, 43 degrees. His old Laurance graph recorder doesn’t do that. I knew ahead of time an inline spinner can be effective in cold water temps in the 40’s, but Brian Cronk had suggested earlier that we troll. So, I would try one soon. We would use other lures, but just between you and me, the inline spinner is as a good as a silver dollar in mint condition this time of year.
I began by putting a Yum Dinger right up against phragmites. “You’d figure fish would be in the shallows where it’s warmer,” I said. “This deep water is significantly colder.” The boat positioned over bottom 16 feet down.
I felt as if, by being persistent, I might hook up, whatever approach I would take, but I expected pickerel. I did know that Brian once caught a 21-inch largemouth from three feet of water while ice fishing. A lot of pickerel, likewise. It wasn’t necessarily true that the fish would get caught in deep water, even though the old school thought is that until water hits 50 degrees, they’re deep.
Trolling 10 Feet Down and Deeper
Many of the shorelines like this one drop off steeply into 20 feet of water or more. It’s a former sandpit, by the best we can judge.
Brian’s big on trolling. I like it, too, but I try not to put all my eggs in it’s singular basket. I’ve fished in all sorts of ways over the past 57 years, and I like to keep options open because I have a lot to draw upon.
“We caught them trolling at 49 (degree water) on Clinton (Reservoir),” I said, “and if I remember rightly, one of those days we fished there involved even colder water when we caught fish. On Saturday, I kept the electric slow so I could just barely feel my spinner blade turn. Brian used a slow-sinking jerkbait.
We worked our way into the back when Brian got excited. His graph was full of fish. I saw it, too.
Red-eared slider turtle just ahead of where the fish schooled.
A School of Fish
I didn’t know what to do. Now that I’m at home and it’s easier to reflect in some respect, the answer is obvious. Begin with a jig suspended under a bobber. Nearer the bottom, a drop-shot would work better.
There were fish all sizes. Little, medium, three pounds and bigger. From right near the bottom of the boat to bottom 12 feet down.
My awkward approach was to cast a Yum Dinger—a fat bodied plastic worm—which Brian was doing, too. We got no hits, and I just felt put off by the situation. Except for that red-eared slider in the photo. I put my 70=200mm zoom lens on, and I got the boat right up next to it. I was thinking of posting one of those shots on FB after getting around to developing it in Lightroom, but I found a literary/nature journal that accepts photo essays, and I have photos of turtles going back more than a decade to draw on. Not that I won’t post the shot after the six months of the rights they buy are up.
The picture you see gives you more of a sense of the water that held those fish.
Weedbeds
Weedbeds proved to be the whole point of this adventure. Yes, the school of fish is a close second, and another time the like might produce, but we had more trolling to do—over residual weedbeds. It didn’t take long before I felt certain we needed to stop trolling and cast an area that was only five to seven feet deep many yards out from shore.
But we positioned near phragmites, so I could cast my inline spinner right up against them at a 45 degree angle, and begin retrieving it back. I believed I got hit by something small, but now I’m thinking it was the way weeds almost got caught on the hook, and I continued the retrieve—on the slow side—when halfway back, I was suddenly hooked up for certain.
The fish put up a blistering fight, and I felt deeply surprised when I saw it was largemouth, not a pickerel. We had no net, so I thrust my hand into its mouth, grabbed, and lifted.
I didn’t care if the spinner would hook me.
Before Brian and I got on the water, my left index finger got hooked deeply. Pulling on the metal with needlenose pliers wasn’t working, so I took another look at the bend of that hook flush with my skin the point was embedded so deep. I realized the hook had set deeply in the bone, so with that knowledge I was enabled to force it free.
Not a big deal.
So if I got hooked deeply twice in one day, so be it. I’d have my bass!
Nineteen inches. Released.