Springtime at Swartswood Lake 4/18/2014

Hello Again,

Large Mouth Bass

Today I craved a change of pace from standing in the trout streams so I headed out to Sussex County to Swartswood Lake State Park. Conditions were overcast and chilly with a fairly steady breeze throughout the day. I never fished here before so this trip was sort of a recon mission to learn the area and get a feel for just how I am going to approach this with my Kayak next time I am here.

 

I started out fishing near the boat rental shack in the park and worked my way around to the east side Launching Ramp. My first round of casts came up empty but as I approached the ramp things began to change. I was using a 2 inch West River (Sutton) spoon and watched as something huge followed my lure in and turned off at the last minute. I few casts later over the same spot and with a loud exploding splash I was into the first fish of the day. After quite an interesting fight of several strong and impressive runs I managed to land the beast... 24 inches of eastern chain pickerel! Unfortunately upon getting the hook removed from it the fish surprised me by launching itself back into the water just as I was composing a photo. Oh well, you're just going to have to take my word on that one. It was the biggest, fattest pickerel I ever seen or caught and must of weighed around 4-5 pounds I estimate.


Several casts later I switched lures to a 4 inch silver Yozuri swimmer and in two casts I was into the second fish of the day. After a pretty good underwater battle, I landed the 2 lb. Largemouth Bass pictured above.



Black Bear Swimming across Swartswood Lake

I decided after the bass to take a lunch break and drove around the western shore of the lake where I found the canoe & kayak boat launching area. Before I went to by my sandwich I decided to take a couple of casts from the dock and while standing their I heard a very large splash across other side of the cove. To my surprise here comes a black bear swimming across the lake! I snapped this shot with my phone to the best of my ability. After that I thought I best go eat that sandwich now!
 

Small Mouth Bass

After lunch, I headed back to the eastern shore boat launch area and started casting the West River spoon again. After a few casts I got one helluva bite and came up with this nice Smallmouth Bass pictured at right.

 

Not a bad day fishing from the shore of this lake! I can't wait now to get my kayak up there so I can try for some of those nice walleyes this place is supposed to harbor.

 

Stay tuned!

 

Tommy