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.

[bunker dunker]

it is a great lake vertical jigging.give it another couple of weeks and the bait will start to stack on the points and humps.once that happens its jigging time.

[Skunk City]

I think with the cooler summer we had, there won't be a true "turnover" like in years past, but this time of year is usually a transition period and the fish can be scattered and suspended throughout. I was out last week and had a mixed bag of Hybrid/Walleye/Crappies. Should be better the cooler it gets.

[jimmythegreek]

there was no thermocline this year, just a hint of low oxygen when the water was above 80 for a few weeks in 35feet plus. I fished herring pinned to the bottom all summer and downlined, most of my 7lb+ wipers came in 30fow and deeper. Herring are a pelagic fish and they roam suspended in open water, u can slow troll them right smack in the middle in summer and come up with wipers and eyes, I do it all the time lol

[Capt. Lou]

My neighbor loves Walleyes,so he's on the LK now for a few days. I usually go with him later in season when jigging really takes hold. See how he does last week i believe he & his brother both placed in a tornament on the LK.
I think they caugth 8 eteyballs & other species.
Once water turns over jiging shpuld pick up ,I love that in late fall.

[Bruce Litton]

We plan to go out on the 11th & then on the 26th, and reading all these posts, I'm getting the idea that the jigging might be better on the 26th. You never really know; I know that, but if the herring tighten up on points and humps, that's a definite difference for sure. I've seen the hybrids bust herring at the surface way out in the main lake in July, sounded like horses hooves on cobblestones. They did seem vaguely related to a point; they weren't dead middle, but I could be wrong--my son and I marked a huge school once in October way down near the bottom in the middle between Boneparte Point and Halsey Island. Walleyes seem more like ambush predators; hybrids school in larger numbers and seem to roam more freely. It's all fascinating stuff for sure.

[bunker dunker]

the best tip is"just go as much as ya can".every year its different with the jigging.one year its all November the next year we are breaking ice in December to get to them.the jig fishing is the best!!!!!

[jimmythegreek]

The fish all relate to one thing, their food.....herring. You will find fish relating to points and structure but not for long, they all move alot and sitting on a point is like a cop sitting on a good highway spot, eventually a speeder goes by. U have to have good electronics and knowledge to be able to tell what your sonar is showing you. Walleyes are bottom huggers, they come up to feed and then go back down, they also heavily feed on small sunfish and panfish in the lake in addition to herring. Hybrids feed on herring, they suspend right with them in the open all summer, and relate to the bottom when conditions allow via thermocline. U have to put your time in on LH, you are not gonna go kill em in summer or fall unless you get lucky, its alot of water to learn. In fall when u find baitballs tight slightly off bottom with good marks around them, you have found the stripers. Walleye are better trolled or jigged, hard to target in LH unless you know the lake, even them its tough, too many fish kept all year to have a good fishery

[Bruce Litton]

That's just what I've been thinking about last couple of years--the herring. I know Joe at Dows puts his light-traps here & there & the herring show up. I've always been of the sort of thinking that the fish will relate to structure (point & hump drop-offs, the hybrids more suspending, though like I've said, I've seen the stripers way off structure), and have fished close to the drops, until a couple of years we began drifting herring well over the depths & out a bit from the drop & hooked up. So my thoughts about the hybrid/walleye/herring relationship have been tugging me towards thinking the fish aren't as bound as I presumed. I always assumed they roam, even though I witnessed a tight school of hybrids stay in one place for many hours, many dozens of them caught. We've had other experiences when we've caught both walleye and hybrids (also many good sized smallmouths) on herring staying in place with herring right on the bottom edge of a favorite drop-off. When the bite stopped, we moved on. Unfortunately, my graph unit seems to be on the blink. I didn't use it Saturday. We caught some fish regardless, since I know more than a few drops pretty well. Sometimes the walleye hug bottom so close you can't see them on the graph anyway. I think sometimes they are inside rock caverns or undercuts, waiting to ambush. They sure do rise to hit on the surface at night early June--from what I've read, haven't done this.

It sure is exciting when the graph lights up with big fish icons. That was a point to remember you, Jimmy the Greek, made about clouds of herring with fish on the edges, stripers. We're always looking for such when we have the unit! But it's good to hear it from someone else. Want to use that Binsky and catch more than just one walleye or just one hybrid on it: the usual result. So far, we've done much better on herring.

[Capt. Lou]

My buddy returned from the Lk . Fished four days in marginal conditions , landed 10 eyes up to 6#'s . All jigged , deep water produced all larger fish, however several taken shallow.
Random temps & wind made for tough catching.