Tilcon Lake Fishing
Matt Litton caught this nice largemouth on a topwater when the sun had gone down. Summertime offers the opportunity on frequent occasion.
A Recent Outing
Before I account for a Tilcon Lake fishing trip last week, I want to pass on what the the guy from NJ DEP mowing the grass told me. He said they’re talking about opening the gate. I can only assume that will lead to a parking lot cleanly paved and a boat ramp.
I’ve fished Tilcon since 2009 or 2010, from before I began blogging and before salmon got stocked. The lake itself isn’t terribly old since it formed when a great flood drove the Musconetcong River into the quarry that existed there. Even with the pressure it gets from people fishing the salmon, its bass and pickerel population remains healthy, and my friends and I like it as it is. We’re OK with wheeling the canoe in on a dolly, as difficult as it is with all out stuff and a marine battery and electric motor. (My canoe is a squareback.)
We don’t want to see any improvement. But given the tendency of that to happen, we won’t be surprised if it does. Why does big money always have to ruin it for the little guy with the squareback? So the guys with bassboats can fish there? Why not keep Tilcon the protected space it is? The place where guys with kayaks and canoes can come, knowing the pressure isn’t increased by boat traffic.
So that was how the outing started. My little talk with the mower. It was odd. The guy looked so much like Craig Lemon, who oversees the salmon stocking, I almost asked if it was him. On a mower?
A fair-sized bass for Kuprel where we fished out of the wind with Senko-type worms. I had begun with a Rick Clunn Trickster II, which is a vibrating jig like a Chatterbait, only the vibration plate is made of a soft plastic. It works, though! I caught my first bass on it. We fished the same spots (productively) out of the wind twice, though I didn’t care to do it a third time.
That’s my bass caught on the Rick Clunn Trickster II. I fished it slow and deep, if you call 12 feet or so that.
A 26-inch, four-pound pickerel caught on a Zara Spook in May 2024 by Brenden Kuprel. The biggest pickerel I’ve seen caught on Tilcon. We knew its weight because my scale is accurate.
Temperatures were about 80, but the wind heavy. Where we normally begin fishing was out of the wind, except for some variability of that wind It’s the fourth year since 2023 that Brenden Kuprel and I have been doing a May outing and catching fish, predominantly bass and pickerel. In 2024, we caught 61 between us, but understand that’s way beyond normal expectations. Last Tuesday, we caught nine.
The rock bass, caught on a Yum Dinger.
Four largemouths for Brenden, four largemouths and a rock bass for me. We did get caught in the wind. Especially when we used a sand bar to anchor—I lost a nice fish there on a Bogosian jerkbait—and the wind came up and blew water into the canoe. I was afraid we might capsize. My fears were unfounded, but with water coming in, I couldn’t tell right away.
A 15-inch black crappie caught on a jig in May at Tilcon.
The writer with a nice largemouth caught on a buzzbait at the end of June.
Last Trace of Coldwater
Before summer comes on, at the end of June or near it, you might find water temps in the mid-’70s and the bass still willing to chase down moving baits. It can be a good time to fish a buzzbiat over the big weedbed beyond the canoe and kayak launch. Or spinnerbaits when the sun’s out and the water chopped, so that the reflections from the blades take part in the chaos and attract strikes—along weed edges and on the slopes.
During the summer, it sometimes looks like this in the morning.
Or with a little imagination—just a drop added—like this.
Or do you prefer the fairness of a real sky? The absence of the painterly effect. That’s what reality amounts to. And while, if you look deep enough into it, reality is awesome … if you make a telling comparison, reality lacks. By reality amounting to “something,” the extra quality is left to long for. And we feel it in real life only when our feelings surpass.
The afternoon is slow and worth the pace. Work slow-sinking traditional worms in 10 to 15 feet of water. The secret is, as the years advance, everyone seems to want to fish at a faster pace. And remember, those fish are educated to it. It’s all something to avoid.
The writer and his son have caught Tilcon smallmouths only in 2018. This one was just shy of 19 inches, caught on a topwater plug.
Do Smallmouths Remain?
My son and I had an unusual day during the summer of 2018, when the only bass we caught were smallmouths, three of them, in addition to pickerel. My question is: are any smallmouths swimming in Tilcon now?
I don’t see why not. There’s enough rock habitat, I would think—rock and gravel—to allow for successful spawning. It’s just that we never catch any more of them.
I got word from somewhere, sometime ago, that the state had stocked them. That near nineteen-incher must have been in the lake a long while, though. It’s possible smallmouths found their way in during the initial flood of the Musconetcong River, the lake formerly a quarry owned by the company Tilcon.
Pickerel caught trolling a Hot ‘n Tot made by Storm lures.
Summer Trolling
A sure way to catch fish during the summer on Tilcon is to troll the edges of weedlines. Your plug(s) will collect a tonnage of weeds, but most of the time they’ll ride free, and some of the time get struck by pickerel and bass. One of the smallmouths I caught came on the troll.
You’ll get tired of trolling as you should. Take it slow with a plastic worm. Or if the sun is about to go down, try topwater.
This one’s bigger than most. A salmon that struck a big jerkbait the moment it hit the water. I’ll tell why in the text below.
Salmon
Perhaps for all of us who fished Tilcon before the salmon came, they’re a secondary consideration. But for years, I hadn’t caught one, and I greatly desired catching one. I hooked my first in 2016 while trolling a Phoebe near the surface of Tilcon. The rod had been in a holder, when I heard it go, “thwap!” I tried to pass it back to my son while keeping the line tight at the same time, but I didn’t perfectly succeed at that, and the fish was gone.
Hooked but not caught!
The one you see above measured 19 ½ inches, not a bad fish. (I’ve caught a couple of others.) Brenden Kuprel and I fished early in May 2024, and salmon were busting herring in weedbeds as shallow as five to seven feet. They’re not always in the depths.
I saw fish busting herring in range of a cast. My plug got blasted.
Everyone seems to know salmon will be inches under winter ice. I don’t understand the behavior, but people jig a foot under the ice and catch them. Or set fathead minnows that shallow.
Tilcon Lake when frozen can be a lonely expanse.
I was out there all by myself and it was wonderful. They say never ice fish alone, and that is something you might consider. I almost broke my arm that day. I had hiked out to these rocks in hopes of getting a really good photograph. That I got, as you can see. Walking back, I slipped and fell on my right arm. It took a month before the pain of the sprain went away.
Brian Cronk with a pickerel caught while ice fishing Tilcon. It took a shiner under a tip-up.
I’ll finish with an image of the best bass I’ve seen on Tilcon Lake. Not quite four pounds, but just shy of 20 inches, caught by Brenden Kuprel. A lot of the bass are 17 inches. Some are 18. A few are 19.