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Tuesday, March 24, 2020

How to Build a Time Machine



We began by trolling spinners in close to the bank that drops off steeply. We passed over a few weedbeds that could have held pickerel. "Do salmon swim this close?" Matt asked. I'm no expert and haven't boated a salmon yet, but I've heard they do. I'm sure we passed over some pickerel and bass.

We tried further out, continuing to troll at the same slow speed. A Mepp's size 6 with reflective tape on the blade and a quarter-ounce Rooster Tail. The second setting on my Minn Kota 55 Enduro. As we approached our favorite weedy flat for buzzbaiting, I thought of riding over it, but when I moved us over the edge, found the water too shallow for comfort. A kayaker cast something nearby. We continued on across the lake to the opposite shoreline. Curving back towards that flat, I noticed the kayaker, now in the middle of that flat, had a fish. I saw him lift it at the side of his boat and lost sight of it when Matt said, "He lost it." We positioned at the edge and cast our spinners over the weeds, beginning to get hung up on occasion. I kept my eye on the kayaker, determining that he threw a spinner also. When we got close enough, I asked if it were a pickerel.

"Bit me off," he said.

"Ah, that sucks!"

He retrieved that spinner so slowly I thought of the homemade spinners I've run out of. I built them with minimal weight on the wire for a body so they could be retrieved very slowly at shallow depth. I told Matt just the other day about Jann's Netcraft, and the conversation we had convinced me that I should invest in components and build some more. They're easy to make. And if I had a couple today, we could have fished that flat more effectively. Spinners on the market are standardized. In especially shallow water, you'll retrieve them perhaps three times as fast.

I had been thinking especially the big pickerel, along with bass, sit on the deep edge of residual weeds, so I as I reached for my box of plugs, I had two things in mind. An off-color plug, and one of my Storm Hot'N Tot chrome finish plugs with the big metal lip. Proven for pickerel and bass on the troll here, but the idea today was to fish them slowly. Both plugs would ride at about the same depth. Instead, I changed my mind at the last instant, and pulled two Hot 'N Tots, thinking all that flash in this clear water would appeal especially to pickerel. We trolled them in close where deep, and out in the middle. "Especially a big salmon will hit them, too," I said.

Eventually, we worked back into a deep cove, where it gets very shallow near reeds, a marvelous looking spot for an 85-degree late March afternoon when evening settles in and its still very warm. I cast the plug against banks that drop off cliff-like, and noticed how garish the plug appeared in that super-clear water, reflecting sunlight. Later, I said to Matt, "A fish might see that and say, 'What the f@#$ is that!' and bolt the other way."

I thought of my off-color plug and how wise it would have been just to try it.

In the summer, the fish are all over that chrome, but with water temperature in the 40's today, I had my doubts after what I saw.

We fished three hours. Comfortably. It wasn't warm out, but not bad. We got back to Brian's house where I keep my canoes with plenty of light left, and hung outdoors together for about an hour, talking. Me, Matt, Brian, Carolyn, Sadie, and Juno. Two black Labradors, the latter. Brian asked Matt if he ever read the book he asked me to suggest to him. Matt remembered instantly, but yet intends to read How to Build a Time Machine.


Sunday, March 22, 2020

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.