Cooper River at Wallworth Pond - Searching for Black Crappies

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There are fishes around us! Follow my Statistical Chart for 2012 for my catches during this year:
http://extremephillyfishing.blogspot.com/2012/01/statistical-fishing-chart-for-2012.html
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Updated:
--> Started chart and added the data from this fishing session to it.
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Happy new year, Readers! I hope you all had a good time in this holiday season because now it's time to go back to our regular lives, isn't it? Anyways...

As you all know, a new year means new fishing licenses. I have purchased mine online on the 31st - a very easy and convenient way to do it. The only thing a person really needs to purchase a license online is a credit/debit card, a printer to print the license, and patience to fill in the forms.

This year I've purchased two fishing licenses: one for PA and for NJ. As I stated in my previous posts, this year I'll be expanding my horizons! I'll adventure myself more in New Jersey, and at the same time keep my fishing constant in Philadelphia. Plus, it's so easy to get to New Jersey from Philadelphia, not to mention how close NJ is from Philadelphia.

As a fisherman, I advise everyone to fish legally. Therefore, below are the links for getting online licenses for either PA or NJ:

Also, let me remind you guys of three things:

1. It's a very good idea to purchase the Trout Permit with the annual licenses. They are stocked in both states, good eating, clean, and a good sport fish.

2. If you can't purchase it online for some reason, there are plenty of places to get it "in-person". Dicks Sporting Goods is a good example.

3. Print extra copies of your license! In case you lose it, it's always good to have extra copies!

Below are the pictures of my licenses. Yours will probably look differently in color, but should be very similar to it:




The year started good, and I decided to go fishing in a new spot, in New Jersey. I went to the Wallworth Pond, which is a section of the Cooper River located in Haddonfield, New Jersey. As a good fisherman, I always do my homework before going to a new location. One of my favorite websites is the "Fish Finder" website: it gives definitions of body of waters accross the country, as well as the species of fish that once inhabited it, or still does. The link to the website is below (note that it's directed to the Wallworth's Pond):
The weather was great today, and the water temperature was higher than usual - 37.4F (3C). The water at the site was muddy, and the deepest part of the pond hit four feet. Despite the shalowness of the place, I was happy enough to fish there. My goal for the day was to get some Black Crappies, the so-called "Fresh Water Calico Basses". For my happiness, I finished the day with a good amount of Sunfish, and 3 Crappies! I was sincerely amazed by the fact that I was able to pull even 1 Black Crappie out of there, hence the data at those fish finder websites are usually outdated.



I didn't see any Trouts swimming around, neither Carps at the site. However, due to the quality of the water there, it's very likely that there are Carps roaming the place. I fished the pond with trout magnets. Surprisingly, even though they didn't have action on their own, they worked like magic!


Below are the pictures of 2 of the 3 Crappies, and a picture of Steve with a healthy, good-sized Largemouth Bass from the Hopkins Pond, which is right next to Wallworth Pond. Steve joined me for the last hour and a half (I fished for 4 hours total), and was very satisfied with his Bass.








I finished the day with 9 Bluegill, 3 Black Crappie, and 5 Pumpkin Seed. The biggest fish was 7.5 inches (Crappie), and the heaviest fish was the same one, weighting 0.28lbs. Since readers these days rely more on statistics, I'll post below the percentage of fish I caught per species in the pond:

Bluegill --> 52.941176% (9 fish - 1.49lbs total)
Black Crappie --> 17.647059% (3 fish - 0.81lbs total)
Pumpkin Seed --> 29.411765% (5 fish - 0.71lbs total)

This means that the Bluegill are the dominant Species of fish in the Pond, and the Black Crappie are actually the rarest. Of course this data is based on my catches of today, which means that they are quite inaccurate. I just wanted to give the readers a certain notion of "what to expect to catch" if the same goes fishing there one day. For future posts, just keep in mind that these statistics serve only one purpose: to inform the reader about how frequently a certain species of fish bite on a certain bait at a certain body of water.


That's it for total - stay updated for next updates! =)

Best of luck for all of us,

Long days and pleasant nights,

Sincerely,

Leo S.