Little Swartswood Lake

Day 3 of hunting for the elusive musky. Took a few days off to catch up on sleep and be with family, but I'm back on the grind. Today started off with a rather expensive mistake. I forgot to close my tackle box, and when I put it behind my seat, a bunch of lures fell out. I lost 2 $40 glide baits and 2 double bucktails. Again was fishing the lily edge, going out a bit deeper today, but no musky sightings. However, I did catch this massive pickerel. I thought it was a small musky for a few seconds, but it is my pb by 4", as well as an NJ master angler fish. Other than that, my dad caught a 1/4lb bass on a dropshot which was on my 40lb test striper rod. Heading back tomorrow and Thursday. The new moon is on Thursday, and moonrise is at 5:15am, so if the articles I read are correct,the 30 minutes before moonrise on Thursday should be my best chance to catch a fish.

Got back out on the lake at 5 am today. Unlike yesterday, there was not a musky in sight the entire day. I must've went 3 hours without a single bite, and even when I switched from musky only lures to some spinnerbaits, it was very slow. I landed this nice 19.5" bass, which is around 4lbs. I also lost 2 pickerel at my kayak, since I tried hand grabbing them. Those 3 fish were the only action I had for 6 hours. Yesterday, I saw at least 4 different musky suning themselves on the surface, but today they were all gone. I suspect the weather played a large part in this. Both days I saw musky were completely overcast with scattered showers. Today wasn't hot, but the sun was shining bright. Will probably return after the weekend and hope for some good musky weather🤞 #CatchKing

I messed up my figure 8😭. Tuesday was an insane multi species day that ended in heartbreak. I started off trying to catch a bowfin in my kayak at a completely different lake.however, the entire lake was choked with lily that came 2 feet out of the water, so thick I couldn't paddle. I was throwing a frog, and I ended up catching 2 bullfrogs, which is another species that will apparently eat the topwater frog. Anyways, I headed over to little swartswood to try and catch some bass and pickerel. I had very little action on the frog, and after a few hours, I decided to bust out the panfish setup to just catch some fish. After fishing the edge of the pads and catching 2 bluegill, I hooked into something that gave a much harder fight. It turned out to be a 2lb bass that ate the little 1" swimbait. He was barely hooked right on the lip, but I got him in. I was throwing the panfish setup for a bit more until I looked under my kayak and saw a 40" musky swim right underneath. I was totally caught off guard, and I only had my frog on. This was the first musky I've actually seen, so it was good to know they actually exist. For the rest of the day, I decided to try and catch a musky. The largest spinner I had was my size 5 mepps, so thsts what I went with. I was then drifting casting to the edge of the pads and I caught a bullhead on the spinner. This is the first catfish I've caught in years and it came on a spinner of all things. I proceeded to catch 2 more cats and a pickerel drifting the weeds until I reached theboat ramp. I decided to fish a bit longer since i still had some time before dark, so i continued drifting the shore. That's when I had my first follow. A very small musky, probably about 2ft long was following my spinner. I tried to do a figure 8 but I had too much line out, which caused the spinner to stop, and the musky swam off. After that, there was no more action by anything, so I called it quits. It was a rather successful day, but at the same time, it felt like a failure. I will be catching a musky by the end of this year.

Lol it was a little chilly that day we just went out to see whats biting and hooked to this guy!! I almost fell in the that cold ass water fighting him but all good it was landed!

Little guy fought like a champ lol

Just my lil man!!

Another little fella

Largemouth at Little Swartswood Lake