New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs is Central

New Jersey Federated Sportsmen's Clubs News Managing Editor, Oliver Shapiro, catches a Boston mackerel aboard the Last Lady II this past summer.

New Jersey Federated Sportsmen's Clubs News recently published, in November, an article of mine featuring popular New Jersey bass angler, Steve Vullo, who runs the Fishing with Attitude Facebook site. I had interviewed him and completed the story with point-by-point quotations, writing "It's Never too Late for Bass," not to be confused with a Litton's Lines post a couple of years ago or so with a similar title. I urge any of you who aren't New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs members to join, if the $25.00 yearly fee isn't too much to invest. The News is published monthly, loaded with first rate 1200-word articles, a few shorter pieces, and regular columns. Every time I get my issue, read and view it, I feel transported, not so much to wild places in our state, but to a time and place embodied by the sportsman's dedication that spans many years past and future, embarked upon today. The News really transforms New Jersey, and yet this quality is not only really there for more people than me alone, it recalls the same spirit of participation I felt as a teenager, when I didn't know about the Fed. Back then I was fueled by Field and Stream and Outdoor Life magazines, and I assure you that if you read these classic publications, still going strong with no sign of stopping, you won't feel disappointed in the News. One of the regular columnists, Rick Methot, was an associate editor at Outdoor Life, and Milt Rosko, who seems to get published in every issue, has been published in Field and Stream. Here's the link: http://www.njsfsc.org/

I mustn't fail to also mention Vullo and I performed yet another interview. Expect to find "Steve Vullo on Big Prespawn Largemouths" in the February newsstand issue of The Fisherman. For such an "overbuilt" little state, New Jersey really is central as far as word gets out on fishing. The Fisherman, with its corporate office in Shirley, New York, began some 50 years ago as The New Jersey Fisherman, and then expanded to encompass the Mid-Atlantic.

My teens could have been described as a quiet rebellion, since I took fishing much more seriously than school or anything else, but I never thought of myself as that. I recognized the centrality of the outdoors to America. It was more like school rebelled against me.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/08/last-lady-ii-charter-beautiful-day.html

Fishing December

Now is that time after fall fishing action, when I wait with anticipation for some ice fishing. As far as I know, Dow's Boat Rentals have shut down rentals until March or April, but I've little doubt some guys still get out in their own boats to jig walleye. Now might be an interesting time for Atlantic salmon recently stocked--with plenty holdovers--in lakes Wawayanda, Aeroflex, and Tilcon. Of course, streams and rivers hosting wild, native, and fall-stocked trout get some attention this month, and if you want to catch any other New Jersey species--it is possible. I shouldn't fail to mention Round Valley Reservoir and the ongoing shorebound trout fishing, nor the Delaware and Raritan Canal as an option for pickerel fairly active in cold water. I used to catch pickerel in the canal at Lawrence Township through the winter on crappie jigs.

It's also the time to have mailed my camera in for repairs, since I just don't have much fishing on my radar until ice sets in, though, as I noted in the last post, I might fly fish. If I were willing to put up the effort, I could round up Mike Maxwell, the two of us loading my squareback onto my Honda Civic, and riding over to the Delaware River once again after last year's late November to try for walleye there. Action was so dead, I don't even want to think earnestly of asking Mike to join me on another attempt, but it is true: walleye will hit in the winter river. My brother Rick and I caught plenty during the seventies, floating my 12-foot StarCraft with an Evinrude 10-horse from the fifties. December.

Smallmouth bass will too. I've caught them wading the Delaware in December.

I actually like fishing this time of year. I just don't have the balls this particular year. Maybe fly fishing.