Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Morris County Brook Trout Stream



Inspired by John Garbarini's wild trout catches displayed on Facebook, and remembering what Gerry Dumont told me during a recent interview, I decided to try a native brook trout stream that careens down a mountain. 

First, I tried to access the brook from below, from near where it enters a river, but I found residential lawns bordering on it. So I parked in the lot of a county park, realizing I might have to hike well down below to avoid the warmwater influence of a dammed pond. (I caught a 14-inch largemouth on a spinnerbait in that pond some 10 years ago.) Of course, this time of year, who knows? Do brook trout swim upstream?

In any event, from what I've gathered, a quarter mile below from where the South Branch departs warmwater Budd Lake, the river is full of native brook trout protected by myriad springs that keep the water chilly. I figure the same must happen here, but how far down? In the photo above, you see I found a plunge pool I couldn't pass by. But it was maybe 300 yards below the dam. 

I went further downsteam and attempted to work a good-looking pool with a seven-and-a-half-foot 6X leader and two feet of tippet. A mess. Not nearly enough control. So I removed the leader and just tied on three feet of two-pound test. Gave me all the control I needed, until I came to another deep plunge pool. Put a BB split shot on and got the #12 Pheasant Tail down there. 

I found the rocks difficult to walk. They were everywhere. I had to climb a steep hill back towards the car. I hadn't much time and did not get very down below the dam. In the open-air Loree Chapel, I sat on a varnished bench that looked new, and I felt deeply moved by the cross in front of me. So I stayed put maybe five minutes. 

I came to resolve I hadn't expected to come to. Down among those rocks, I feared for my lower back, as traversing the terrain required putting it into positions that caused pain. And I never want to get hospitalized for it again as I did last summer. Besides, throw it out down among rocks and I might have a very trying time getting back to my car! 

Well, sitting on the bench I recognized I felt no more pain, my fishing had been successful insofar as its management was concerned. So the problem was less real than complicated by subjective fears. I'm no old man, not yet. I can do this. 

Skunked, though. Again. I see what's online, so I know something of what's possible in New Jersey. I'm proud of the fact that I've caught some natives and wild trout myself. Wild browns and one wild rainbow, besides a number of wild rainbows I caught in the mountains of Georgia.. Native brook trout, I've caught plenty of them in New Jersey, some in New Hampshire. But I'd like to make some outstanding catches, besides once catching four or five native New Jersey brookies as big as nine inches, and today I was trying to gauge how possible it might be, given that my elasticity is not that of a young man now, and I have only so many years. I catch a lot of largemouths. You know? Maybe stick to what I do best. 

But I'm not going to give up. Only a couple of years ago, I felt the same about fall and winter river trout. I had gone after them, had a few on, lost one at my feet, but just could not make any catches. Now I've got that fishing under control. At least with a spinning rod. (First step.)

Speaking of which, I noticed today that the South Branch at Long Valley is running reasonably clear and not very high. At High Bridge, it was somewhat high but on the clear side. My wife and I had taken a hike at Round Valley, our black Lab Loki and my camera along, got take out from Metropolitan Seafood, and driven to Gronsky's after eating at the main launch. I realized I should have taken my spinning rod with black maribou jig along. There's a good spot right above where we sat at a picnic table and ate ice cream. 

Brook's rocks and riffles.


Sort of pool I know from experience can hold a trout or two.

Look at the rocks.


 
You can see Trish in the lower middle.


Monday, March 11, 2024

Georgia Yellow Perch Has New Jersey Beaten


Round Valley Reservoir

 Southern Fishing News A tie for the Georgia state record yellow perch at two pounds, nine ounces was recently made by angler Emerson Mulhull. The fish measured 16 inches long, and my first impression was that it had to be smaller than New Jersey's record. But I checked, and ours is two pounds, six ounces from Holiday Lake, 1989. Since I'm witness to Lake Hopatcong yellow perch 14 inches long, I figured they must grow considerably larger here. More than 16 inches. 

Put into perspective by the south. 

I'll be passing through Georgia, I hope, in two years from this past January, as I plan my Florida trip. I might spend some time in Georgia, although as yet, I don't know where to fish. I have caught fish in that state long ago, but way up in the mountains, when I discovered a small trout stream while hiking the Appalachian Trail. Caught wild rainbows. Good eight-, nine-inch fish.

I'm certainly interested in catching big largemouths in Florida. Brian Cronk wants to meet me down there, and in addition to fishing the Keys for big saltwater gamefish, try Rodman Reservoir for big largemoths. He's good at bass fishing, but we hope Florida has our big ones up here beat. 

I'm driving down. Brian will fly down and I'll meet him at the airport. Fred Matero is my inspiration for the driving and he would be great to meet at the airport, too. 

Ice Perch

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Links to Bass Fishing History of the Northeast



I fished Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts with a Hampshire College economics professor. He caught a largemouth as big as mine, photographed here from Merrill Creek Reservoir in New Jersey, but never mailed me the photo I took of him with it. So I have no photos of New England bass. I quit Hampshire shortly after we fished.

onthewater.com 1 

onthewater.com 2 A couple of articles from On the Water, one on the history of largemouth bass in the Northeast, the other on the history in New England of black bass in general--largemouth and smallmouth. It wasn't until 1850 when Samuel Tisdale acquired 27 bass from Saratoga Lake in New York and put them in Flax Lake near Wareham, Massachusetts, that New England had any. 

Both of these articles are good reading for anyone interested in history. And any of us should at least know bass in the Northeast are not native, including here in New Jersey. 

I read James Alexander Henshall's The Book of the Black Bass years ago, but that book got published in 1881. The evidence On the Water presents is that the movement that amounted to making the black bass the nation's most beloved gamefish, which Henshall applauds, as I remember, was already well underway. 

I love the stories I read somewhere. Maybe in Henshall's book. Maybe elsewhere. About smallmouth bass loaded into stream locomotive water tanks in the Midwest and driven by rail to the Northeast, where, I believe, the trains would stop on bridges over rivers and throw bass into the water below. 

How many years have bass occupied the Raritan system? We probably will never know...


Nice One

Monday, March 4, 2024

Grouper Season Restricted


Red grouper from behind Big Pine Key


sportfishingmag.com From what I understand, the grouper fishing in Florida isn't what it used to be, so it's not surprising regulations have cropped up to try and rebuild the fishery for gag groupers. Charters have lost bookings due to the restrictions on seasonal closures, but there're more fish inshore and offshore.

I'm all for better fisheries in Florida, where my son, Matt, and I have caught some groupers. As I remember, my first was a 16-inch black grouper I caught from the bridge to No Name Key while fishing a jig at night. That was 2007 and an interesting memory to entertain. I certainly made sure not to miss out on trying for them after dark as well much of the days we spent during a week there. The fish fought as if I had hooked a bull. A 16-inch fish. Almost as hard as a tog fights. Tog you have to horse away from rocks. I remember hooking another grouper, I believed, which I lost. Had to have been four pounds, I figured. 

Matt caught a grouper of unknown kind while trolling from a sailboat in the Keys. He was on a Boy Scouts adventure. Estimated the fish at seven pounds. The two of us are very interested in the grouper family of fishes, although Matt is even more interested in catching a mutton snapper. 

I'd rather catch a keeper grouper. My biggest red grouper during our 2020 trip, 19 inches, missed the legal mark by an inch. They all fight very hard.



Grouper  I caught at Ocracoke NC, possibly a gag grouper.


Matt's black grouper trolled in Bahia Honda.


Not sure which species, but feel free to comment, if you know. We had been catching snappers under legal size and other small fish on shrimp. I got the idea of trying cut bait, which a few grunts supplied. Right away we started catching small groupers like this one.  

Thursday, February 29, 2024

NJ Trout Stocking Meeting Thursday




New Jersey Fish & Wildlife Thursday, March 7th, 7:00 PM online. Everyone invited. I've never attended because I've been busy. Thursday at 7 I'll be on the job at the supermarket, but I want to give voice to my appreciation. Whatever some say about New Jersey's trout stocking program, for state officials to invite anglers to meet about the issues is as it should be, I think. 

I know a lot of people wonder if the state will ever stock browns again. I never hear about brookies, because I think everyone understands that with the (relatively) new legislation enforcing catch and release in the interest of preserving native populations, we can let stocker brookies go. I've heard no one protest that new legislation. It seems understood we're doing the best for the State Fish.

I also hear that feeding the rainbows at Pequest Hatchery is becoming onerously expensive. Maybe the price of a trout stamp will have to rise, I don't know, but if costs are becoming too much to meet, what else can be done? 

Any event, like so many others, I enjoy fishing stocked trout in the spring. When I'm doing it, it feels as natural as the stream itself. They're raised in spring water, after all, and none of our public waters is outfitted with feeders. They acclimate pretty quickly. I keep in mind the original trout stockings of the 19th century. The thought of "introducing" trout, essentially an idea in keeping with nature. True, in many streams they won't last until July, but even there, they're introduced for a couple of prime months. 


New Jersey Trout Fishing   

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Removal of Musconetcong River Warren Glen Dam


Free flowing Musconetcong River

musconetcong.org   Musconetcong Watershed Association  I don't have a date as to when the project is slated to get physically done, but I got the written press release from the Musconetcong Watershed Association, which has no link to it, but informs us about funding. Quoted below is information about the check itself copied from that release. The two links I have provided for you will tell you more about the Warren Glen Dam and the removal of it coming, as well as about other dam removals the Musconetcong Watershed Association shares critical responsibility for. 

"To advance this project, MWA will present NJDEP with a check for $210,000 on Thursday, February 29, 2024, from 11 am to 12 pm at the MWA River Resource Center, 10 Maple Avenue, Asbury, NJ 08802. MWA received this nationally appropriated funding from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for preliminary studies needed to remove the dam, and coordinated efforts with New Jersey Fish and Wildlife, a partial dam owner, to strategize the removal of the dam. These funds will be used to finish an engineering report critical to the execution of the project.

The event will feature remarks from NJDEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette, MWA President Richard Cotton and MWA Executive Director Tom Dallessio, followed by a presentation of the $210,000 check to NJDEP, symbolizing the mutual commitment to this crucial environmental restoration effort. Attendees are also invited to join a tour of the historic Asbury Mill and Musconetcong Island Park, showcasing the direct benefits of the project to the community and environment," says the Musconetcong Watershed Association.

It's been an exciting decade and some additional years, regarding all of the dam removals and stream restorations. I've done my best through these years to keep abreast of and report on the issues not only in the blog, but for different news outlets, including the New Jersey Herald, Central New Jersey News, and USA Today. I know the work I've done is not as much as some have expressed desire of me to do, but first and foremost I can say I'm proud of the work they and others have done. To be associated with these dam removals at all is a good thing.  

Burnt Mills Dam Removal

Friday, February 23, 2024

Delmarva Fishing Report Nostalgia

Matt Shark Fishes Ocracoke

fishtalkmag.com  Delmarva reports. Nostalgic for me, because I've been riding down that peninsula to Virginia Beach and on south to the Outer Banks since I was eight-years-old, at least until 2018. You never know if you're ever going back, when your son has moved to the West Coast. BUT...once I retire, I can just drive down there. lol. 

It is 13 hours to Ocracoke. Including the wait for a ferry, which can be an hour, and the ferry ride is at least 45 minutes. It is a long way down the beach from Kitty Hawk. And at Ocracoke, that's where the buck stops. The Outer Banks are only about halfway done at that point, but no more highway or roadways exist to take you further south, although there are boats to various island sections. 

But about Delmarva, I have fished the Susquehanna Flats, which these reports call "Way North." The other day, I wrote about being a member of Mercer County Bassmasters. I remember that for our Spruce Run tournament, we stayed at the Sunset Motel, but I have no more memory of that. It is interesting, though, that many decades later, I met a man some 10 years younger than me, a popular New Jersey poet, BJ Ward, lauded with many honors, who had worked as a waiter at the Sunset Motel's restaurant. I told him about that, but if he was awed--as I was--it stayed hidden. He autographed a copy of one of his books for me, joking about how, if you change the "a" in waiter, the word is "writer." One of Ward's books, Gravedigger's Birthday, is endorsed by Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Stephen Dunn. Another greatly awarded poet, Stephen Dobyns, also endorsed the book. 

Another decade and some years passed, and BJ and I communicated on Facebook Messenger about pike fishing...at Spruce Run Reservoir. He was going with his son? Or was it a friend?

In any event, it's one of those cosmic connections that keep repeating themselves. Trying to get a message through. We think we think in the head. But something else thinks us. 

But here's what I was getting at. Mercer County Bassmasters not only held a tournament on the Susquehanna Flats; it was the most memorable tournament for me. I might have caught a smallmouth bass. I know one was caught. The water is big. Wide. Bay-like indeed. Biggest bass caught was an even four pounds, but there were some others. We stayed at a motel, and I distinctly remember playing cards. 

Amazes me how long ago that was. Going on 50 years. And to have living memory from events that long ago. I had passed that region while traveling south to Washington DC a number of times. Havre de Grace. 

I kind of like having a Delmarva fishing report I can find online. 


Big One