Lake Aeroflex Fishing
Brian Cronk’s Lake Aeroflex largemouth just shy of four pounds.
Cronk caught three bass total the second April trip to Aeroflex we made in 2026. All on a Chatterbait. The fish staged on a drop-off over water 15 or 20 feet deep.
Early Season Success
Once again I got out to enjoy my fishing this past mid-April week—again with Brian Cronk, again at Lake Aeroflex. Both outings, we each caught fish. The first one was chilly, and the second warm. This past Thursday, I took the water’s temperature up near the front, where it was 63. Near the middle it was 64, and in the back, 70!
An average-size pickerel of 19 inches from Aeroflex.
Some would think the fish would be leaping into my canoe, and, in fact, two of my pickerel virtually did that, hitting my Mepps Aglia Long, ferociously, boatside.
We caught eight fish: three pickerel as large as 22 inches, a 12-inch crappie, a 14-inch bass for me. a 19 1/2-inch, an 18-inch, 15 1/2-inch bass for Brian. The week before, we caught five fish. Aeroflex can be tough fishing, but we’ve done pretty well there so far this year.
The aquatic vegetation of Lake Aeroflex reaches deep down into clear water.
Why the Lake is Worth Forgetting All Else
I want to point out that I’m not just trying to rank on Google. If I wanted to do that, I might try something stupid. My wife says I should create an entirely new website called “Man Holding a Fish,” and post only grip ‘n grins. Ditch the book, she says, people have chosen to be stupid.
(The book that has to do with trout fishing, I’ve been writing it off and on since 2017.)
Aldous Huxley predicted the fate my wife frequently expresses. In the last century, he warned us of the lowering of the IQ. As much as most people are pop culture junkies, you might think Forrest Gump’s success goes along with a level of about 70.
What do I really think of the situation, given that so few people, besides my regular followers, click on my posts?
I don’t care about not winning a popularity contest. I stick to the writing I like to do, rather than behaving as if I depend on the society. Since AI appeared, websites get 60% fewer clicks, but my former blog never got a hell of a lot, anyhow.
A handful of times, I’ve met people out there I didn’t know. They let me know they know me from the blog. I always feel good when that happens, because it means someone else cares. I certainly care about the language and the content I work with, and I care about my readers.
Humanity, not “ranking” or political power.
The “turn of phrase,” as Noel Sell believes I’m sometimes great at. That awakens intelligence.
The lake is worth forgetting all else, because it generates lasting value, true. But I forget all else when I put my casts where they want to go.
Overhead
Prop planes can be seen flying at close quarters. I photographed this one by mounting my 70-200mm zoom on my Nikon D850 and swiftly walking out to the middle of the lake while ice fishing. It was close, but it wasn’t going to look close without that zoom. I might have put my extender on it, giving me an additional 80mm.
Any of our public waters is a place we relate to for various reasons. I remember the first time I saw hikers along the shore opposite to Limecrest Road, when I thought of the possibility of hiking with my wife. I don’t remember when that incident occurred, but last June, my wife and I accessed the trail along that shore from the Kittatinny Valley State Park Office. Afterwards, we ate dinner at Andover Diner.
Ice fishing at Lake Aeroflex can result in bass you don’t want to keep out of the water too long, because the gills might freeze, and you want the beast back where it belongs.
Oliver Round with a 22-inch pickerel from Aeroflex. It seems as if they’ve been called “snot rockets” forever—an old, tired, and worn phrase. Like people who never buy new shoes. But the slime will always collect snow.
An early April salmon caught on a trolled Phoebe spoon. The fishing for them can be really good right up to about the first of July. I don’t know how people fish them through the summer, other than to jig Kastmasters and the like, using sonar to locate them. When the surface temp drops in the fall, they can be caught at the surface again.
Pickerel of 22, 23 inches are common at the lake. But like anything of else of value, they require application and tenacity to catch. This April I’ve caught shallow over emerging pad beds. In June, I’ve got them on jigs with little paddletails 20 feet deep at the weedline.
Early Season Into May
Lake Aeroflex is the deepest natural lake in the state of New Jersey. That affects its entire 119 acres when it comes to warming in the spring. You’ve probably noticed that on the two occasions Cronk and I got out to fish it early this spring, it’s been six and seven degrees warmer in the shallows in the back. But after three other days in in the mid-80’s, shallow ponds were surely warmer. Depths of 110 feet exist fairly close to the boat ramp, but even in the back beyond the bottleneck, I marked depths of at least 30 feet when I first fished it with Brenden Kuprel in June 2023. We didn’t do great that day, but we caught small bass and pickerel.
One of two trout Oliver Round trolled on a plug.
Last May, with me at the rudder, Oliver Round trolled ahead of me, catching two trout before we left the kind of circular area ahead of the shallow bar that goes all the way across. We trolled right against the weedline.
My Phoebe once got hit very hard.
Beyond the bar, you’re soon in the lake’s deepest 110 feet. To the left of that, where the shoreline drops off amazingly to 90 feet, we began tossing Senko-type worms to any possible bass, which I had my doubts about.
My first one that day in May.
But soon I had a pickup. I fought an 18-inch largemouth. (There are smallmouths in Aeroflex, by what I’ve read and heard.) We caught bass all the way to the bottleneck.
Beaver hut beyond the bottleneck, near the lake’s rear.
My son, Matt, worming for bass on July, 5, 2017. You can see the expression of focus as he worked his way along deep shoreline drops.