Who's Fishing Hopatcong?

[Bruce Litton]

We only got panfish, a pickerel, a 16 1/2 inch hybrid, and walleye just barely keeper sized this morning. What walleye weather! Or was it just too mild? Oxygen is down into 33 foot depths, at least, tested with live herring. My graph unit is on the blink, but I bet I would have marked fish at least 35 feet deep. Does anyone do real well with Binsky's & vertical jigging? I've caught fish this way, but never to the numbers we sometimes have scored with live herring. Putting multiple lines out with herring & managing this is harder to do, but seems, sometimes, to pay off better. The latest craze is chicken liver and some people are chumming hybrids with cat food. Neither is for me. I like using herring, but have to say I like fishing a bladebait better. But I want to catch more on them than I have as yet. I think the bladebaits fish better by bullet casts and lift/drop retrieves right on bottom. Quality braid is essential for feel. Some of the drop-offs are sunken ridge-lines and with the electric you can shimmy right along over them, casting as you go. Wind is certainly a factor, though.