Converted to Kalin's Jigs for River Trout

Texted Noel Sell from work yesterday. He lives in Pennsylvania but knows North Jersey. He phoned me and we talked about a river. Made me realize I could get out for a short time in the morning, and I committed to doing so straight away. 

River wasn't high or off color. Water was cold but probably milder than last I got out two weeks ago during the cold snap. Air temperature was about 41 when I caught the trout at 11 a.m., after casting some 25 minutes including a break to get the photo below. Yesterday temperatures got into the 50's, and such spells of mild weather do increase water temperature, though it came down a bit last night.

Thus far, I've caught only one river trout with the air temp at 39, none in weather colder. Have only caught wild trout in a creek, colder, besides ice fishing once...with Noel. 

I hear a lot about worms lately. I haven't been fishing a whole lot, but I remain in communication with people who fish, though they, too, haven't been fishing. Besides, of course, what I see on social media. Garden worms are great. Pink Berkley worms drifted, too. 

I like my jigs. But I am so relieved the Kalin's brand I buy at the Sporting Life work. The marabou is a little shorter than the marabou on a Haggerty's jig. Naturally, if you're paying a whole lot less, it's understandable if the manufacturer is saving cost on marabou, relative to what Haggerty's puts out. But really, if length were a determining factor in the interest trout take in these jigs, then why not experiment with a full three inches of tail? Why not four inches? Some of us do make our own jigs. 

It probably gets absurd real fast. And not only will trout hit a Kalin's with a little less marabou--they'll hit a Kalin's jig with some of it's marabou pinched off, which is what I inadvertently did when taking leaves off the hook. I thought of tying on another jig, but something told me to keep that jig with a shortened tail on the line. Sure enough, I caught the trout within five minutes.

I kept fishing. The river isn't wide and I got casts almost on the opposite bank. I made one of those casts, began reeling, and had a good one on. It came up, rolled on the surface, and lost the hook. 

I kept fishing. Another one struck almost at my boots and didn't get hooked. That's what the first one did, too, leaping three or four times before I got the net under it. Fifteen-and-three-quarter inches. 

So today I've felt fully converted to Kalin's, which, again, is a good thing, because I'd not only rather spend my money at the local tackle shop; I sure as hell don't care to spend $4.75 apiece for Haggerty's! I paid a lot less two years and some months ago for that brand, but though I've looked, I haven't found anything like $18.00 for six jigs and shipping online recently. 

Jigged

 

Beasts, Gods, Bass, and the Meaning of the Higgs Boson

I doubt the rivers are high, even though significant rain fell yesterday, but I'm not going back out there in the cold and wind. I did a version of that last week, and while this week wouldn't be the same--of course not--I don't care. I thought of heading over to Round Valley for a photo shoot. It's been many weeks since I've done one, and since my suspicion is that the water's got rather low, I'd like to at least hear that from someone. 

The sky is perfectly blue, too.

Turns out I asked Google last night if firmware updates for digital cameras--my Nikon D850 and D7100--are important. AI told me they're "very important," and though I could find no evidence that my image quality will improve, I'm going to go ahead and install the latest firmware for each camera. 

In other news of the day, my day off, Jim Hutchinson at The Fisherman asked me if a January 13 deadline for a feature about South Jersey largemouths will work. (I'm interviewing Thomas Wyatt who does especially well.) Told Jim I'll contact Wyatt. I'm sure it will work out, but since I have another deadline for Jim coming up on February 1st for a Hotspot article about the Pequest River, I figure I might as well go ahead and get started. The interview for that one Gerry Dumont and I already did, when we also talked about the Musconetcong. The Musconetcong story is published online, but I believe you need a Fisherman subscription to access it.

Good reason to go ahead and subscribe. 

I guess every year about this time, I look back over it's course. I began last year fishing the river trout, though I also ice fished Cranberry Lake at the end of January and did well with pickerel. Caught a trout in February, and though I caught nothing at all in March, I caught plenty of stocker trout in April and some largemouths. Loads of largemouths and some pickerel in May, some trout, a salmon, big crappie, few panfish. In June Brenden Kuprel and I tried once for muskies, but on that day I ended up catching 15 largemouths on Senko-type worms. 

It's really not all about the fish. I'd say more about months that followed, but all of my outings besides a couple very short ones are posted about. We honor fish. I certainly don't discount that. Fishermen call them "beasts," feeling the power of big ones. One of my curiosities is the relationship between beasts and gods. And one of the things I notice about beasts is their close affinity with mythic gods, though with one big difference--beasts actually exist. Or do they? Species exist. A beast is something indefinite, or perhaps the behavior of a large animal when it inspires awe. 

In that sense, Paleolithic men experienced beasts before species became recognized. 

Many believe in God, though I know of no one but a Wiccan woman who believes in gods and goddesses in the plural. I believe God is the information that etches itself into existence, the result being a real world. Like the DNA of things, only that it also assumes our personal qualities on a larger scale than our own, so that the world--indifferent to us otherwise--has the potential to receive our addresses and answer back to us.

Maybe the "etching" is just the Higgs boson subatomic particle. I'd ask my son.

Some would say my notion of God as information suggests that we live in a simulation, but to believe we live in a simulation is to divest the world of truth. I believe the etching itself results in all the flourishing substances that make up a tangible world. It's that very tangibility--the materiality of things like water--that assures us when we value such active presence that it's real. And yet even though our very life is supported by things in the world out there, there is no care for us on its part, no meaning for us besides our own responses and the address we launch through each of our own life projects.

Mine isn't all fishing. I'm just as interested in what my thinking produces, as I am in what my fishing line connects me to. Either way, I wonder. But then, I get the hint of an answer from the very angle from which I cast a doubt, hot on the retrieve in an instant. 

What's the use? Well, if you ask a physicist who spends day after day at a task practiced some 40 or 50 years now to no avail, he'll say that when we do create more energy from nuclear fusion than put into the reaction process, we'll solve a lot of the energy problem. It's always thinking...that solves problems, which should be a no brainer for anyone,

Some think thinking is God, as everything we humans address and respond to amounts to recognition. Or more to the point, that no God exists. Only the thinking in each individual brain amounts to qualities we formerly gave "God." 

Even the Higgs boson has no meaning other than what we give it. Perhaps the Higgs boson never existed until we delineated its form, allowing it to function just so, as if indeed it has a meaning.

Does the intellect etch the identity of things into existence? I still believe God does that. Not as any Creationist's design, but as the source of the meaning we endow the world with. A differentiated, no less flourishing, existence indifferent to us, though difference itself implies the meaning we do find. Anyone who believes man's intellect "etched" the fossil remains of Tyrannosaurus rex, having "etched" millions of years into the past, is inviting intellectual chaos rather than any meaning.  

"What is the meaning of this?!" 

Do bass behave just so, in such a way that we can answer the question regarding what they are? To the degree we do know them. Every week it seems a new technique addresses something new about the fish.

Anyhow, I did catch a 20-incher this year, photographed below. Late July, I believe that was. Another was 19 3/4 inches, another 19, and one other might have been 19, didn't measure the latter fish. Every year I catch a number of 18-inchers, and this year was an exception of maybe fewer than usual. 

The walleye? Weighed in at Dow's at five-pounds, 15-ounces. The third walleye I've weighed in there at just that same weight.  

 

Big Day in May

Some Reflections on Artificial Intelligence and Fishing

Water at Wintertime Temperatures

After I shot the photo, the sun never came back out until after I had waded far downstream and come back up. I had hoped sun would be on the water, because I think winter trout like that. The water is at wintertime temperatures, as calm areas out of the flow are iced over. Air temperature was 38 and 37, which isn't much colder than the low 40's that have been productive for me.

Downstream, I caught a trout last February. Some snow was on the banks. Just because nothing hit there today doesn't mean none exist. It's probably more than the weather being cold. A front was moving through, wind speed about to increase, and that could have turned them off. Maybe next time. Before I left about 11:45, Fred Matero texted me and expressed interest in going January or February. 

I had nightcrawlers leftover from Lake Hopatcong in the fridge, and I hoped to use them, but they're dead. I'm kind of on the fence about nightcrawler or garden worm use, anyhow. I had figured I'd jig the rivers for awhile, getting used to the fishery, and then move on to fly fishing. Fishing live worms seems a step backwards, but I have a good memory of using them on the Dunnfield in February, the ground snow-covered many years ago when using worms was legal. They sure worked. 

Maybe Fred will buy a few dozen bloodworms in Ocean County, and we'll try those.

When I did make my way back upstream, a kingfisher flew into plain view a couple of yards or so over the river, something between its beak. A really astonishing sight. When I was trying to get another photo of the millhouse--as if sunlight might poke between clouds--I saw a pair of bald eagles circling overhead. 

While loading my car, I heard a popping crack, looked up, and saw a tree falling. Wind speed hadn't increased much as yet, not like what I experienced at the next spot.

I drove on downstream, planning on driving directly home that way, but when I came into view of my spot, I braked, turned, and parked. I figured it would be interesting, because I've never been skunked there on first try during either of the past two years. Perhaps the likelihood of trout being there remains high. 

The water was noticeably low. I wondered if that would make a critical difference, and I got into position and began casting, the wind making that difficult, the wind very heavy and steady, my right hand getting chilled severely. 

Nothing hit. 

I felt perhaps more satisfaction in getting skunked, given how sure I am trout remain in the two spots where I've caught them previously. If so, the trout aren't total yes-fish, hitting anytime.

Deep Natural Connection

Thought I Got Snagged, Until the Trout Took Drag

Catching fall stockers from our rivers has never been easy for me. 

There've been only a couple of times the past two years when I caught three of them on an outing. I haven't really fished the fall stockers over the course of fall and winter until two years ago, but I did find they cooperate with a thorough approach, after I decided that would be with an ultralight spinning rod and a black marabou jig. 

I fly fish too. That's the only way I fished them in the fall for a while, though that amounted to one or two outings a season. I wasn't successful, besides having a nice one break off a Woolly Bugger. Spinning might be proxy for my fly rods. Maybe I'll switch out the spinning rod for my two-weight or more likely my five-weight. Maybe I'm just learning the rivers before I approach the trout in a more difficult way.

But the rivers are plenty difficult as is. A couple of game wardens checked on me at Three Bridges. They weren't happy with my black Lab, Loki, but for good reason. Loki's growl sounds like a lion; his bark is deep and loud. 

"Restrain your dog, in case someone else comes down," I was told. 

But before the man on my left who almost got his hand bitten, having attempted to pet Loki's head, had told me to do that, I asked about witness to any action of the fishing kind. 

"We saw some caught late in October," the other man said. "Not after that."

"I'm sure they're still a few laying around out there," I said.

"Yeah." 

I've caught river trout in February, which is a stretch from October. 

You can always count on some being somewhere. A week or so before Opening Day one year, the state hadn't stocked the North Branch Raritan's AT&T stretch yet. By studying the water, I saw no trout, until I spotted one about 18 inches long. The only trout I saw in the clear water. 

Some of these fall stockers probably holdover into the next fall, though it's true that a large number of them get taken the first week or so after stocking. After that first week, most of the fishermen quit on them, though. I saw no one else fishing today. 

I like the feeling of joy in barren solitude. Even when nothing gets caught, I know it might be possible to hook one, until I leave the river alone for the day. Time and again experience has proven it happens, but if you're not happy with one or two trout, stick to springtime's smaller fish. 

I'm even happy with a fish that throws the hook. 

At Three Bridges, I began by casting under the bridge. At one point, I got snagged, and I made my way upstream along the wall of the bridge to finally pull the jig free. All the while I called out to Loki, trying to reassure him. Even though he's a Lab, he doesn't swim, and he was out of my sight. Imagine had the two wardens come jaunting in on the scene when I was under that bridge! Loki would have gone mad. 

After I talked to the wardens, I held Loki by the leash and made my way upstream, to a range of water I think is about six feet deep; maybe it's only five. I fished it persistently, and once when I believed I'd got snagged, the great trout suddenly ploughed forward, bending the rod further and taking drag for a second. 

Trout in the River but None on the Hook   

Getting Any Book Published is a Difficult and Unlikely Event

Thought I'd post that photo, since I'm hoping for ice. The climate is different now than it was a decade ago when I got this shot, but a prolonged ice season remains possible. It just isn't happening every winter as it used to in North Jersey. Even Lake Assunpink to the south used to be a reliable ice fishing destination. 

And I wish I could've got out for river trout. I checked on the North Branch here in Bedminster and it's deeply stained. Not running very high but too off color to fish a jig. About time we got some real rainfall, but the river level shows it's obvious it can use more. 

Tomorrow I go back to my job. A ritual of supply and demand. Me caught in the middle. Creating supply I meet demand, and I fill demand in turn, after it critically diminishes my supply of food items...an exercise I readily admit has its charm but limits me in a way I wouldn't have chosen, if my wife and I didn't need the money. 

It's interesting, though, how fast the six-day weeks go. I get out of bed, take my medications and supplements, dress, and leave directly to arrive at the supermarket and punch-in at the earliest I can, which means I can punch-out later as early as I can by being fair about that. And there's no compromise. I know what I have to do, and I do it. 

After I leave in the afternoon, I forget the place, and I have five or six hours free. Soon I have a day off, and then the cycle of day-in, day-out repeats. All the while I know I'm much better talented as a writer than as a food worker. But very few writers fully make their living at it, which means I'm among the majority who work day jobs. 

That will change in April. I'll be writing and doing photography full time. It might be possible to make a whole lot of money, but I can't tell if that's real or only a wish. I can try and find out. I feel fortunate to have worked all my life while writing on the side and to soon have time open to experiment, rather than time wasted for a wage as usual. I had time open when I was in my 20's, as I not only had to work no more than four or five hours a day at commercial clamming; I didn't have to work at all--and sometimes didn't--since I was self-employed. But during my 20's I got published very little in newspapers, whereas I'm publishing constantly now. I know what it is to write for an audience, so when I experiment at writing a novel, I'll have a better sense of what might work than I would have in my 20's. Whether a literary novel is also mainstream depends on the ability of the author to give the people what they want in a story, in a way that doesn't compromise literary quality. One example of such a book is A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean. Another two are Islands in the Stream and To Have and Have Not, both by Ernest Hemingway. 

Before I write the novel, I will finish my book on trout fishing. Getting any book published is a difficult and unlikely event, but I'm confident I can make it happen. I feel that way because fishing stockers has led to so much realization in my life. I doubt I would have quit Lynchburg College--which amounted to spending years at the shore--if I hadn't spent years fishing stockers every spring. I identified with the outdoors rather than the convention of college. I believe there's an inevitability to the book's success.

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving. I work until 1 p.m. Won't be going fishing. The week after that, I hope to go for stripers.   

Coming Books 

A Few Striped Bass in Sandy Hook Wash

Got the phone call just before five this morning. Oliver Round was in a Quick Check lot, where his car wouldn't start. We arranged the situation so he would arrive at my house by Uber after he got the car towed through AAA. While we fished later, a new battery got delivered to his house. 

In the meantime, Brenden Kuprel texted me minutes after the call. He was on his way to Sandy Hook. When Oliver and I got there, he had been fishing the Lot A area for going on two hours, having lost one bass and seen some caught. Oliver and I proceeded to Lot B, because Oliver knew it has a bathroom. 

We got to surf's edge to find one of the guys among two or three others had just caught a small bass that must have barely broken the 28-inch size limit. An hour or two later, we saw another caught of about the same size, maybe a little better, and had got word of one getting caught before we had arrived. 

We fished for some four hours. Obviously there were some bass in the surf, all of them having hit in the wash. A strong northeast breeze blew cold, 40-degree air onshore. Low tide I believe was 5:53, which means we did get an hour of fishing rising tide, but for the most part, water was shallow and the waves persistent. Even casting a heavy Krocodile spoon, I couldn't get it over the outer breakers until about halfway through the session, when I cast and cast to fish five or six yards behind those big breakers. I hoped I'd intercept a pod going by and one of the bass would take my offering. 

I also fished a Deadly Dick. I tried a Binsky bladebait on my lighter rod. And I cast an Ava 17 rigged with a teaser.

Oliver gave up throwing lures and tried clam. 

I used to surf fish all the time during the fall with my son. We brought foldout chairs and sort of broke camp by water's edge, holding our rods in surf-spike tubes, watching them intently, usually grabbing hold before one of them got pulled over and dragged towards the wash. 

We did catch a lot of bass. So no interest in the clam Oliver put out dismayed me a little. 

Brenden Kuprel showed up, having walked all the way from Area A. He told me he witnessed six caught, all on the Ava. He was here a week ago. With kids off for the teacher's convention, the lot was full, he told me, fishermen lined up on the beach, catching nothing at all. So at least there were some fish in the surf today. Or had been. By the time I really got involved in casts and retrieves, having had to deal with my black Lab Loki before that, it felt like nothing was there at all.

After I spoke about those years with my son, Oliver said, "Yeah. And if you didn't catch stripers, at least you caught skates." The surf felt all the more dead for none of them being around. The water is still plenty warm. 

On the way over the bridge, Oliver said, "Have you ever been up to Twin Lights?" I saw the lighthouses up on the ridge in front of us. 

"Never have."

"I'm surprised. You're into this kind of thing."

"I just never thought of it, so preoccupied with all else."

We continued driving across the bridge, and I don't remember what was said, but as we neared the other side, I said, "Do you want to go up there?"

Today I climbed to the top of one of the Twin Lights, snapping the two photos from above. 

Redfish on a Killie

 

The Kind of Guy Who Imagines Things

First photo done on my new laptop.

Had intended to work all day at setting this thing up, but after I ran into trouble with Microsoft Office, I didn't want to try Lightroom until my wife is here. Not that I'll depend on her help with Lightroom, but just her being here will make the exercise more comfortable for me. She thinks I'm kind of techy, but I am terrified of these machines. 

She'll help--I hope!--with Office.

She's actually good at it. I'm the kind of guy who imagines things. That's great for art, but it makes technical stuff a nightmare. 

So I texted her, saying I'd go fishing, 

which is what I did, but I could have been tripping on some mushrooms on the way there. Alien experience. The bodily life of things hollowed out. It was Monday night I picked the laptop up from the Geek Squad at Best Buy, after they transferred all the files and did a minimal--stress on minimal--setup. Regardless, I didn't want to transfer files through Carbonite, as I'm sure there'd be a lot coming across the threshold I had already deleted. They keep files for 30 days. That would have been a mess and would have taken a lot of time, too. Tuesday night Trish and I saw Macbeth on stage after eating seafood at Rod's in Morristown, and last night I worked on this machine. 

I recall--early in 2020--that I paid Staples $79.99 for file transfer, and that after it took a week or two, I checked the Geek Squad price. It's the same price today, $99.99. Set up is an additional $39.99. Programs you're left doing. They set up the order of the files & check that the hard drive works.

Fished a spot new to me

on the South Branch Raritan. I gave it at least an hour, probably a little more. A large pool down below the shallows near and under the bridge photographed, that pool not very deep but deep enough. I worked the marabou jig shallow and deep, never getting hit, trying to come down to reality from all the stress. 

Loki was with me and loved it. The black Lab. 

As I drove off, I felt that I used to have higher standards. I never left a fishing trip without feeling truly rejuvenated. Actually, I judged too quick, because when I got home, I felt that familiar glow of having let the garbage go. 

So it was a good outing after all. I do remember, though, having pulled onto 22 with the intention of buying inexpensive gas and feeling a strange identity with the boxy architecture of a business warehouse. I also marveled at vehicles on the road, as if it's amazing they work. But I'll get this machine up & going.

With today's weather, it would have been nice to have got out in the squareback. Lots of time for that next year.   

Last Year Going the Extra Distance Resulted in a Trout