Trout on Salmon Eggs

Well, my friends, the last I wrote you, I thought I had been crazy when I wrote you earlier. Now maybe none of us are so sure I was. 

I hope none of us dies. I'm watching Pence on TV. Plenty of younger people without underlying conditions are dying. Contrary to what he said.

I've lived a full life. If I'm gone soon, the blog will stay up, so long as any of my family remains to keep it up. Not that I quite believe I'm going to die. 

Matt and I got out for the recently stocked trout. On the way to the South Branch in Califon, we saw a pond neither of us had noticed before. I pulled over, turned around; we checked it out because it seemed as if it might be public. It is.

Sometime soon, maybe.

Matt's photographed fishing what I consider the main hole of the area. When we first arrived, someone fly-fished there, so we drove on to let him be. I found that my favorite sluice is now posted and fenced in. I'm glad Mike Maxwell and I enjoyed excellent fishing there in 2017. That was the best microlight action I've had in many years.

We went back to the hole and found it empty. Fished maybe 15 minutes, no hits, so we concluded the river here hadn't got stocked. Got some photos of three mergansers. A second male came and challenged the other.

First casts at the North Branch Raritan Zoo got hit. Mine, and Matt's. Then three youngsters approached. We told them we had just begun. One of them, also casting a single salmon egg with minimal weight, hooked up immediately in shallows just upstream. Then he caught another. I landed a rainbow about 11 inches long a moment later. Matt was missing hits and me too, but the hits were slowing. After all, the river was hit hard all day and maybe yesterday. One of the youngsters went to another favorite spot of mine not far downsteam. He caught one. The other two went down there with him. All three of these guys caught trout left and right fishing salmon eggs lie we do. One of them 16 inches. I had my ass handed to me. I had waited on the initial spot too long, instead of moving.

I'm the guy who's writing the book on fishing salmon eggs.

I went further down, down below the bridges to a sluice that often produces. I was angry at myself and wanted to cool off. A song sparrow helped. The delicate beauty of its music. I got hit once and that's all. 

I felt good about those youngsters, Matt's age, maybe two years younger. Getting out and fishing with excellent craft. The only things I disliked, and I disliked them intensely, included the good ole' boy language they spoke. I guessed they watch fishing shows on TV. (I never watch them.) You don't have to make yourself into a yokel to fish well. I can't deny they fished well, though.

Except for chumming with corn. That results in fed-up trout. And it's possible corn kills some. 

Opening Day