Happy New Year everyone!
I'll say 2022 was a good one and we look forward to more. Not going to get another outing with Matt, but I will try to fish a river pretty soon. Not sure what's going to happen with ice.
Matt and I will try to install a new motor for my Minn Kota Endura 55 this evening. Then Sunday he flies back to California. Hoping the best for TAE Technologies and nuclear fusion.
It's not six pounds. DSLR cameras are truth tellers. Mobile device cameras are magic. I believe there are people who think that brown is pushing eight pounds. I never said how big it is on Facebook. The laker--Matt's first and only--in the photo below is one inch shorter in length. True, it weighed a lot less. But the brown is only four pounds, 12 ounces on my Rapala electronic scale. And only 23 inches long.
Look how colorful that mobile device shot. Is it really that vivid out there?
We got to the Sporting Life around 9:20, and after we parked in Lot 2, some guy was walking out with a brown of about 20 or 21 inches. Said his buddy had a nice rainbow on Power Bait. Well, that fish wasn't much over 15 inches, but they had got there around 8:00 and enjoyed a bite.
Matt and I waited hours. We fought the cold. Had a propane hand warmer that helped, too. Matt did miss a hit on Power Bait. Actually, the line broke on hookset. One rod was baited with the stuff.
Then, around 2:00, I walked to the car to get a stringer, just in case. Take home some lakers for dinner. I ran into someone in orange weather overalls on the road who said I looked familiar, so I told him my first name.
"You knew me when I was a little kid," he said.
He looked to be about 21. "You were the kid who caught that two-foot-long rainbow," I said. This back around 2014 when I was a lunch hour regular.
"Yeah!" he said.
Nick seemed to bring the fish in, because once he was there fishing with us, action began. He fished a Binsky and did catch a laker before the park closed at 4:00. I caught a little one of about 15 inches, and another 20 1/2. Besides the two trout Matt caught, he missed yet another hit on Power Bait. He could have caught a "trifecta"!
Why push one's luck? Ask for too much, and next time you'll be ignored. Why is a "trifecta" so special, anyhow? Especially after one's had a day as great as we enjoyed today.
I seem as if I'm a little superstitious about things, but basically, I notice patterns as they unfold. I didn't actually dream up Matt's brown, but why daydream unless to prepare for an event? You even keep it cool by not dreaming the unlikely, so you get just the amount that's reasonable without pushing your luck and making your daydream feel "off" instead of somehow spot on.
It's daydreaming but rational judgment.
I stood next to one of my rods. I had got a really good cast with it back around 9:45. I stood there and went back and forth in my mind for three or four minutes over whether to reel in the shiner, make sure it's still there, and recast perhaps somewhere else. Don't I seem like a dingbat unable to make up my mind? Doesn't outdoor pursuit require swift and decisive action? But three or four minutes is how long it took me to arrive upon being sure what to do about that rod. From within.
I was sure of leaving it be.
Five minutes later it leapt off the rock holding it off the gravel and sand. I hooked our first trout of the day. After all those frigid hours.
Imagine had I put that rod elsewhere. (It would have been "sensible" to do that.) That rod in the spot that caught all three lakers.
Guys were out on four inches of it today. Caught me by surprise. Hasn't really been all that cold in Bedminster. I could ice fish with my son this coming Tuesday...if the rain and mild temps were not to wipe out the ice...and yet, even so, with the cold snap thereafter.
Kind of want to fish Round Valley again, after standing aside & witnessing lakers caught.
Options.
I got my stuff down by the water ahead of Fred, and while I began sticking rod holders into mud submerged an inch or two (the ground frozen), I heard a whoop, looked, and saw one of the guys nearby with a rod doubled over. As I approached him, I feared I would see a laker in the net, which is just what I saw. Nineteen-incher.
Fred shuffled down with his stuff, and I told him about the fish. Then I asked if he had a bucket in his car.
"No, I just took it out."
Later on, Fred told me he didn't even think of them, but I had debated in my head a little over whether to bring shiners or not. I finally decided it isn't a laker day. Thirty-five degrees not cold enough. Deep down, though, I just didn't want the hassle. I've been busy. The least I could have done was think of putting a bucket in my trunk. I didn't think.
I could have taken a quick ride to the Sporting Life for a dozen-and-a-half.
Fred and I fished about three-and-a-half hours. Something took a piece of one of his marshmallow and mealworms, but I think that was a sunfish. Unless a trout would actually bite a piece off a little marshmallow. His rod tip did jiggle a couple of times.
The guys next to us had caught four lakers and lost another at the net when we packed to go. The biggest 23 inches. Smallest 18. Two other guys near us had two lakers from where I fished with my family in November. One on Power Bait. One on a shiner. They appeared to be about 18 and 20 inches. I had fished orange Power Bait the whole time. No takers.
Fred and had sat on foldout chairs, talking constantly. He's lived down the shore two years as of tomorrow. Talking never ended until we each drove off in separate vehicles. In the parking lot, I told him about my dream of creating a book of Lake Hopatcong photos, in addition to Round Valley, but that I'll probably have to self-publish. I added that I might have to self-publish the trout book, too, but that there are many more options today for doing that. I made some comment or other about having options of all sorts once I retire in two years and some. He told me as much from experience, since he's been retired for more than two years. You have options.
Had options today, too. So maybe next time.
NJ Fish & Wildlife Interesting, reading over the saltwater NJ state records. (Albacore Tuna was caught this past October.) Striped bass are now a "retired" listing. (I sure want to catch some when I "retire.") Apparently because you can no longer keep any over 38 inches, I believe it is.
(I'd love to haul home a 50-inch striper to show my wife, but I admit the limit will protect the species.)
Also, a 13-pound & some hybrid striper caught off Brigantine. Now that's a real story to research if anyone has the time.
Got the urge to get out and fish. Otherwise, I'd have stayed home and continued my long quest to understand WordPress before I build a site. That one's going to be my author site, my main hub, eventually hosting galleries of photos, too, but not nearly as many as I have on Windows and on hard drives. One of my friends suggested I sell my book through a website, because he's seen how hard it is to make a go of being sponsored by a tackle company. I acknowledge it's possible my book on microlight spinning for trout won't get published by a small traditional publisher. If I do run out of all possibilities in that respect, I'll turn my attention to self-publishing. Either way, a website where I might be able to promote my book better than I can on Blogger is important to have.
I stayed out in the rain--using my Honda as shelter for most of the time--going on two hours. I never got a hit. Used orange Power Bait by the Main Boat Launch. So far this cold weather season I'm behind last year's score. Will be back. I might fish a river next Tuesday, but Fred and I intend to fish Round Valley on the 20th.
Me, Matt, and his Mom set up foldout chairs and enjoyed the mild weather at the Valley for some three hours. Cloudless sky overhead, I told Matt the rainbows might be 50 feet deep. Maybe they just weren't passing by our Powerbait, but in any case, we never got a hit. Six lines out, varying depths.
I had taken an inviting attitude. I vaguely felt I might enjoy the afternoon. That we would. I get so involved in all else I'm busy with...it's not like I'm a technical genius, not at all, but I'm deep in research on how to build a Wordpress website...so busy that I forget how interesting and fulfilling a fishing trip is.
Even when it's just throw Powerbait and wait. That wait loses all anxiety and little things become intensely interesting. They say an acid trip is the same way. I was sitting on the dry, dusty dirt--because, thankfully, we had only two foldout chairs--pulling clams from under the surface of the soil. Clams I couldn't open. Little ones. But just large enough to throw in the water, as if maybe I saved more than a dozen lives.
Another really fun video. Whole bunch of the Kurzgesagt--In a Nutshell videos online.
Cool cosmological animation. Matt's into Kurzgesagt--In a Nutshell videos, very entertaining.
Angler's Journal I got word of some serious striper action in the surf today. I happened to be in Sea Girt, but that was a family party, not fishing. We talked fishing. Rick's seen loads of peanut bunker this fall after long absence of them.
The article linked to is from 2017. Another blitz involving peanut bunker. Tom Lynch, the photographer from Point Pleasant, is mentioned. I think it's Point Pleasant. His gallery, The Angry Fish.
Yeah, Bay Avenue, Point Pleasant.
My son's over from Costa Mesa, CA. We went to Round Valley yesterday, his mother along. I felt astonished at how steeply the main launch drops off, there to the right of where boats go in. Looks like the water level is eight feet lower than this time last year.
We fished. Got six lines out. It began raining the moment we got there. Rain volume increased while we waited on the take that never came. (Trish sat in the car. We joined her.)
Orange Powerbait. It worked last year. And you'd think that with a steady rainstorm just coming on, trout would hit. But trout don't think. And besides, nature is more complex than any thinking we do.
Rainbow struck in about three feet of water. Fish was about 14 inches, chunky.
I thought a couple of times that I could've done better fly fishing. Four or five rainbows in little more than two feet of water followed the jig while creating big pushes on the surface like big pickerel do. I hooked one of them for a moment, a trout at least 16 inches long. It's so warm out they're up top. Using a weightless Muddler Minnow, I could've created a little V-wake, like I used to do on Fiddler's Elbow stockers successfully, and maybe got these trout to fully commit. I also saw a few rises, so I could have tried dry flies, too.
I did tie on a little jointed floating Rapala and played with that, but the trout wanted the jigs. A couple of them went after the jig after I had fished the Rapala, too. Repeat offenders that had rushed the jig before.
I'm happy I caught the one rainbow. For that matter, it was fun getting the attention of all those other fish, too.
It's beautiful back there. Had the fishing all to myself and it felt wild.
Was wild.
My father died early this morning. He had Alzheimer's but remained cogent. My Mother died from Alzheimer's in 2012. She unfortunately did not remain conversant. There were months if not a couple of years when she couldn't recognize us. Dad never lost the ability to recognize his family members. I visited every couple of weeks or so; over the past year, we've had conversations that brought us together in a way I think we always have been. Throughout my 20's, he wanted me to leave the shore and get on with college. I ended up staying at the shore and quitting college. For years after I finally did quit my clam harvesting and returned to the mainland, it was difficult for us to connect. But especially over the course of this past year, it's been as if we're no different than we ever had been, but mutually bound in understanding we couldn't relate to each other before now.
It's completely understandable when a father wants his son to finish college, but I had the strength of a team of oxen. I well remember telling Dad so many decades ago that I world work wage jobs until I made enough on royalties from books. Well, chances are I'll never make enough on royalties from books, but I've worked wage jobs all these years because I'm tough enough. I don't regret them as if I should have graduated with a four-year degree. I did graduate RVCC with a two-year Liberal Arts degree in 2006. It never helped me get a job but isn't useless. The exercise of writing papers got my mindset back to my ability to get articles published.
I had payment for an article in the form of a check to process at the bank later this morning, and I stopped at the North Branch with an ultralight and a Haggerty black marabou jig. It was a particularly conscious act of Communion, which means the sense of the finality of my father's life enclosed my sense of natural surroundings. But it felt as if all freely breathed openly--life eternal. It didn't take long for me to hook a fish. At first I thought, "What! A hoover?" I had expected a rainbow, of course. I saw brown and next I wondered if it was a big fallfish, but then I saw the colorful spots and faint yellow above the white belly, and I was simply astonished at the size of this wild brown.
We think of Bedminster river browns as coming from Peapack Brook. They're a rare catch and usually not bigger than seven inches or so. The river heats up considerably during summer, but I couldn't help but wonder if the brown I caught, photographed, and quickly released is a resident fish. Maybe there's enough relief from ground water and springs in some places to hold trout despite the summer warming of what amounts to a smallmouth bass stream. I've heard of a 16-inch wild brown caught in Peapack Brook, but surely that was very much an exception. Just the same, I fished by the 202-206 bridge this past July when temperatures were above 90 and spotted two spring-stocked rainbows.
I didn't photograph the pickerel I caught, which came on one of the live herring weighted on bottom. A first after 15 years of fishing Lake Hopatcong during October., but not the only first today and much less significant. Other than that, I caught a small hybrid on herring and Brenden Kuprel caught a bullhead. All of our other fish came on lures, but another hybrid did take a herring and take off with it at high speed, peeling line off the spool, bail opened. By the time I tried to hand the rod up to Brenden at the bow, the line was spooled! I had an extra reel to put on the rod and rig for more of the herring.
Brenden caught his first walleye today. That leaves me with lasting satisfaction, because we work together and he's talked about catching a walleye for years. Finally, we got out on Hopatcong in the fall when walleyes are vulnerable. He caught it on a Binsky after sunset. His big hybrid weighed five pounds, one ounce, according to a scale I once tested on a five pound bag of sugar. The weight was spot on. The light plastic grip I attached to the scale might have weighed an ounce or two. We didn't want to harm the hybrid's mouth. Caught it on a jig tipped with a dead herring fished about 30 feet down.
Most but not all of our fish hit about that deep. My second hybrid hit a Binsky in about 13 feet of water close to shore. Brenden even caught a yellow perch on a sizeable jig intended for bass among shoreline rocks. Water temp was 56 to 58, though, so the lake is all but thoroughly turned over, giving walleyes and hybrids reign of the depths.
It was a comfortable day. As predicted, fog had moved in, but by the time I got up to Dow's later than expected, it had rolled back out. Temps were near 70 and it rained a little only at the end. We even enjoyed a little sunlight on the colors of the leaves.
My heart was set on the Binky. I gave my arm a workout, but only to become more and more certain the fish were deeper than the 33-foot depths where I could work the lure. I've used outboards since I was 16, but I can't remember if the ones I owned at the shore had kill cords. (I do know my first outboard--a 1955 Evinrude I believe was the brand--did not.) Dow's outboards do have them, and I failed to realize that was why the engine wouldn't start. We stayed on that relatively shallow drop all morning and early afternoon, trying intermittently to get the motor to turn over!
The water temp was 58. At 56, the lake should be completely turned over. That means oxygen was very deep today, so the fish had opportunity.
I wish we had had more opportunity ourselves, but the three-pound, 13-ounce hybrid I caught was a good one. Kevin had a great time, too. A lot of sunnies, crappies, yellow and a white perch, and a rock bass caught. Also, a pickerel about two feet long engulfed one of my Binskys boatside, almost immediately cutting 15-pound fluorocarbon leader. I managed to lose two other Binkys to snags.
That hybrid sure did awaken my interest in live herring. I was thinking of throwing only lures next Tuesday, but I've thought again. I guess a lot of fisherman think bait is nasty stuff, messy and not as sporting as playing lures. But especially when it gets cold--and 40 degrees this morning in the wind was cold--bait is visceral when visceral is needed.
Nice to be back.
First I came with both the newly owned fly rod and the ultralight I built from a St. Croix blank. I got in the river and threw a little Rapala Countdown, the rod catapulting it very far on six-pound mono. The situation did not feel right for catches. And there were almost a dozen others and one trout caught. Word is, they got stocked yesterday.
I got out of the river and went home until sunset neared. I live close enough to walk there if I want.
Then I returned with my fly rod. Began under the exit bridge. I heard my friend Brenden calling me from downstream. He was fly casting. I went downstream, crossed the river, and joined him.
We talked and talked. When the sun had set, the guy fly casting upstream a little asked if I were Bruce Litton. He knew me from the blog. I asked him for his name. Doug fished, if I rightly recall, a pheasant tail, and definitely an egg fly, under an indicator. It went down and he hooked up, but he lost the fish. We also call it the Magic Hour because two guys downstream of us landed trout on plugs. I got hit and had one on half a second. I used a big blue-purple nymph with four white rubber legs just trying to irk a hit. Besides that one hit I got, I caught a red-breasted sunfish.
Maybe three weeks ago, I wrote Bedminster's mayor about the cones that have been gone a week or so. Our boys were in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and it was nice to catch up with him a little. I believe wild access is a sacred value in America. It took me some doing to come back home to this opinion when I was in my early 30's, because I had accepted much of Ayn Rand's philosophy. But if you want to live in a country where everything is privatized--go to Britain. You'll have a real hard time accessing a river there. We fought the British to win our own nation. I own a book named Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, which makes a strong point of how Russian she remained. Given her Russian character, one might suppose she didn't really understand Americans. I certainly understood the sacredness of access from my boyhood, so that remained with me until I began waking up when I was about 32 and fished the Middle Brook--near where George Washington staged his army.
It's a Cortland nine-foot, five weight. How old, I don't know. Got it as a gift from the Air B & B Superhost up at the Finger Lakes in August. I test casted by our cabin up there. Feels nicer than my six weight. Planning on trying it tomorrow.
At the Zoo.
Now that the cones have been down more than a week, I guess it's getting stocked. The purpose of a government should be to protect the freedom of the innocent, so if the removal of those cones does mean access is returned to normal, then at least the local Bedminster government acted in the favor of the innocent sooner than later.
I know Bedminster's mayor from when our boys were in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. I wrote him about the cones almost three weeks ago.
The cones at North Branch Raritan River's AT&T stretch (the Zoo) and the Bedminster Pond stretches are gone. Access is resumed and I just hope the state goes ahead and stocks next week. I plan on fly fishing on Wednesday.
Troutscapes It's been since January when Troutscapes posted the article, but I find it remains newsworthy. Dam removal and restoration makes a great difference in the natural quality of a stream or river. I've paid attention to such work in NJ for a decade or so, having interviewed Brian Cowden and many others in-the-know for articles I've written and got published.
Fred Matero wanted to catch smallmouth bass today, and so did I. We did succeed in making our way downstream along the Raritan to the railroad bridges. First, though, Fred showed me the Millstone River boat launch. It's functional. Fred told me he witnessed a 17-foot boat getting put in there. We cast for 10 minutes or so. I caught the longear photographed above on a #9 Rapala floater.
From there, we found a park Fred knew about, hoping to access a trail back to the bridges. This would be a lot easier than walking down from the Manville Bridge. We found the park, but where we would park Fred's SUV and take the trail, it was posted No Trespassing.
We parked at the bridge. I waded upstream to try a hole I knew about from 2006. My son found it by falling in. He was wading, sauntering along, and suddenly was in over his head. Like that day, also, I caught nothing.
And on down below, we were able to fish at the first two bridges. (We didn't go down to the third.) Both had deep water we plumbed with jigs and Senkos. I cast a Rapala, too, but all that happened for me were sunfish taps on the Senkos. Fred caught a couple of sunfish, and that was it.
So I forwarded to him the idea of fishing the Passaic for pike. I guess after the two fairly recent trips there, I had bass in mind, too. I didn't express my feeling, but I felt firmly confident that we would catch fish. We just had to get there, do it, and see if my feeling would pay off.
We got swiped by a couple of little pike not far from the bridge. On further down, where Oliver and I have done well, nothing happened besides a 10 1/2-inch largemouth for me on a five-inch Rapala Minnow. It wasn't until we got further down yet that the fishing broke lose, and my feeling that the river must be overfished lifted. On a Senko, Fred hooked a pike of at least 24 inches, I got a good look at the fish. It came off and went for the Senko a second time, Fred missing that hit as well. I caught a little 12-inch pike, and then for 10 minutes or so, I caught fish left and right, ending at a total of four bass and three pike. None of the bass were better than 10 1/2 inches, and the two other pike were 15 and 16 inches. Fred caught one of the bass of about 10 1/2 inches.
We had to go, after fishing maybe two hours.
Laurie Murphy:
Weigh ins this week included a large channel catfish
weighing 11 lb 14 oz, caught by Jeffrey Pelt of Landing. Jim Welsh had his
limit of crappies, the largest hitting
the scales at 1 lb 12 oz. There are reports of Large & Smallmouth Bass,
white & yellow perch and walleye also being caught. The rain, along with the cooler temps has
lowered the water temperatures some, so fishing should only improve as we head
into fall. And don’t forget to mark your calendar for The Knee Deep Clubs Fall
Hybrid Stripe Bass Contest, being held on Sept 17th & 18th. Have a great
week !
Laurie Murphy:
Several nice fish made their way to the scales this week
with Elise Brown Catching a walleye weighing 7 lbs 6 oz and Gary Bruzaud with a
6 pound + walleye. Justin Reiss while fishing with his family, landed a 42”
muskie that was released alive, and Max Hughen had a channel cat weighing 8 lbs
15 oz. Several other large Channels have been caught along with lots of nice
crappie. Small & largemouth Bass are also hitting and Hybrid Striped Bass
fishing also picked up in the last few days. Just in time, since The Knee Deep
Club will be holding their fall Hybrid Bass Contest on Sept 17 th & 18th.
We are still open with bait, tackle , with boat rentals at least thru the month
of Sept., and then depending on the water levels due to the drought. Have a
great week !
Fred offered three options: the jetty, his boat, or Raritan River smallmouths. I had to think it over. Then I told him I have yet to catch a keeper-sized blackfish in season.
Actually, I'm happy I've caught a keeper-sized blackfish at all. I tried for them with green crabs way back in 1982, during September or October when I lived in Surf City and frequented the Barnegat Light Jetty. I never caught one until Fred turned me on to them last year, but I paid only $200.00 a month for the house I lived in that fall.
We mostly caught fluke and black seabass yesterday. In fact, that's all I caught, but Fred also caught little blackfish and two cocktail bluefish on an Ava. I had decided to take a break. I guess only at my age the standing on the jetty rocks for hours at a time wears on you. I sat down in the middle of one of the basalt boulders, because the last thing I wanted to happen--my car keys tumbling out of my pocket and down in-between a couple of those boulders. No, it never happened. Fred had been watching the action at the end of the jetty. Some dude had begun tossing back bluefish every minute. Fred got on them, but by the time I had tied on an Ava and began casting, a couple of boats rudely cut in close and put the blues down.
When they came back up, they were way out of casting range.
No problem, really. Methinks we make all of our problems up. I stood on a big hunk of basalt and enjoyed the last of my killies. Unlike during the two previous jetty trips with Fred, I fished them on the inlet side, too. (Fred had actually caught a fluke on the inlet side on a Gulp! synthetic.) I found the black seabass liked them, and one of mine was 12 1/2 inches long--a half inch under keeper size and in season.
One of my fluke was about a half inch under keeper size, too. But Fred kept the two bluefish, which served as a full meal for my wife and I last night. They were delicious.
When we had hiked out and began loading Fred's SUV, I commented on the dry scales, asking if we could put some water on them. Fred had a much better idea, and I told him, after I had filleted both blues, that his observance of local advantages is spot on. He knows where you can just pull up, get out, and use a cutting board at a bulkhead where you just drop a bucket on a tether and collect bay water. Took care of the scaling problem completely.
Sometimes there's fluke out there. Sometimes not. Once I caught 12. On Sunday, I caught two. One of them was an eighth of an inch under keeper size; the other a half inch under. I also hooked something really big that I could not stop from running. It finally did stop, though, but when it started pulling again, broke off. Probably a cow-nosed ray.
There were some others fishing who caught nothing. Bait is important. Fluke love killies. And you have to rig that bait so a bank sinker of manageable weight sits below a short leader leading to, say, a size 2 hook. Beyond that it's wherewithal. Knowing how to catch them isn't an equation in the head. It's a matter of being. We say it's experience, but more than experience, it's a matter of encountering the water in the present, which certainly entails past experience, but is itself freedom.
I know plenty of fluke get caught on Gulp! synthetics, but Sunday there was so much eelgrass in the water, I don't believe trying to jiggle that stuff would have worked. Even the killies got into a mess much of the time, but I was able to keep them swimming freely for the most part.
Just got back from a half-hour stint at the Passaic, not a hit. I was hoping that with the weather shift, pike might be interested. Has been in the 90's day after day, although mornings have been cool, and late this afternoon I had 79 on the car thermometer, mostly cloudy skies overhead, and word of rain on the way.
I threw a 3/8th ounce white Chatterbait. Casts great.
Spoke to two guys in a canoe, and they hadn't got a hit. either.
My post about the AT&T stretch beat around the bush. The only way I could express mixed feelings, although I could have spent hours and days perfecting it. What you read is what you get. I probably didn't even have half an hour to work on that post, but I had a strong idea of what it was about. That said, the way I think about the situation now is simple. Why put cone markers up, inconvenience anyone who wants to fish there, when all that has to be done is for the police to do their job? Enforce the law. Cops know suspicious characters. Stake them out a little. Wait until they're leaving--and if they leave trash, issue a ticket. Whatever needs to be done to enforce the regulations posted at the pullover, which I photographed for that previous blog post. If they're swimming--issue a ticket. Etc.
Doesn't a lot of drama with dozens of cone markers making a roadside eyesore seem ridiculous?
It is.
What? It's too much work for cops to actively watch what goes on there awhile? (Until very soon it's no problem.)
If so, they should work at the supermarket.
Laurie Murphy:
Several nice fish have made their way to the scale this
past week. John Hogan took first place
in The Knee Deep Clubs catfish contest with a 16 lb 6 oz Channel Cat. Max
Hughen weighed in a Channel Cat weighing 11 lb 5 oz along with a white perch at
1 lb 7 oz. Hunter Good had a Channel Cat weighing over 12 lbs and his dad Jeff
had one that weighed 10 lb 11 oz. And lastly, Kevin Cool had a Channel Cat
weighing 10 lb 12 oz. John Moran had a largemouth weighing 4 lb 14 oz and Jim
Welsh, while fishing with his friend Robin Edwards had their limits of crappie,
with the largest being about 1 lb 10 oz, along with lots of small and
largemouth bass just under 3 pounds.
There have been several nice walleye caught also. The Knee Deep Clubs
next contest is Sept 17th & 18th for Hybrid Striped Bass. Have a Great week
!
I managed to get the photograph (above) just a day or so before cone markers forbade convenient parking along Highway 202/206 to access the same stretch. The regulations stated on the sign are a new development, too, although surely a more permanent one. Markers also forbid easy access to stretches upstream and Bedminster Pond. The constitutional legality of the town's move is a question I don't have the answer to, my not being a lawyer; I'm just pointing out I don't know. Whether the law commands open and easy access to public land--one would think it must.
Yesterday, I spoke to a friend in the neighborhood. He brought up the cones.
"They're still there?" I said.
What he divulged led me to mention it to my wife, when she told me the story of the two Hispanic trout anglers.
My friend told me in some detail about word he got of abuses. They were building fires and/or using barbeque grills, swimming in the river--Mexicans, as he put it, from North Plainfield--but the thing that disgusted me was word of the diapers left behind along with assorted other trash. If indeed this is the case. I believe he said he saw the property when it was a mess. As for the swimming, I've got GoPro footage, if anyone wants to ogle, of me and my son snorkeling the stretch. Perhaps, as would seem likely at my age now, such halcyon days are gone for the Litton's. What about opportunity for others?
No, we never barbequed there, but it seems a neat thing to do. If you keep it clean. As for the new sunrise to sunset access provision on the board I photographed--many times I've been back there in the dark. Doing night photography and waiting on the initiation of Opening Day for trout. Fishing browns, too.
I checked out the stretch today, having accessed it legally by another means than the Highway. No fire marks, though it's quite possible some barbeque cooking went on. The bottom of the river is clean and looks untouched, unspoiled, despite alleged swimming going on. No trash. I guess it was cleaned up, because if I heard my friend's word right, he saw it, and I believe him in that case. It seems to me the "Mexicans" crossed the line. (I work with people from the Dominican Republic who could be confused with Mexicans.) It's fully understandable that Bedminster residents using the Hike and Bike Trail, as well as innocent anglers who leave no trace, should not be left feeling disgusted at trash visibly left behind. There's a trash container there. If more is consumed than the trash container can take, then one wonders if things are being overdone. Now parties in excess of five must obtain a permit. It's on the board. That rule seems like a good idea to me; though it's an inconvenience to large families, there should be an element of pride in being legitimized.
Swimming--or snorkeling--was always done when it would probably offend no one. To invite lolling about in the river contradicts what that stretch is mostly used for--fishing. Lolling around in the water gets to be offensive pretty fast. On the other hand, to see a crazy dad and his son, the son who was well-known in the circles of Bernards High School, among classmates and parents alike, for being brilliant at math; or in other words, because the motive of doing more than indulging the body was evident due to a GoPro mounted on the head, a certain relief likely occurred to some witnessing us, not that anything is wrong with indulging the body except that we're referring to public property, and besides that, to an element of belonging...we knew some of the people who saw us in the river. Such a feeling of belonging eases the social nature of the situation--snorkeling that river was surely amusing to walkers and joggers, but offensive? Why should it have been?
It's just that if towns begin to bar outsiders, we lose rather than gain unity. Sometimes anxiety about others you don't know helps heighten your awareness. Awareness functions by struggling to be inclusive--it wants to gain, but in some situations it settles on drawing the line or beating back what it feels is threatening. Snorkeling itself is a way to encounter unfamiliarity and become acquainted. Largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, bluegills, green sunnies, redbreast sunfish, bullheads, suckers and rainbow trout--we've seen all of these species. We've viewed them not only in the interest of fishing. More so in the interest of naturalism. I'm not even naming the minnows viewed through diving masks there in the summer, here in Bedminster.
As a Jersey angler, I've heard stories about the fishing in New York's Finger Lakes for decades. I got the chance a couple of days to fish a little in the three western-most. Staying for three nights at Dog Meadow in Conesus was mostly my wife's vacation. She ventured the idea of going somewhere within four or five hours of Bedminster in the first place. I did suggest the Finger Lakes, because we had never been there. She knew about Air B & B. Superhost Andy's cabin, outdoor kitchen, and service are outstanding. At present, he rents three of the arrangements. Trish and I slept in a loft with the screened window open, even though temps fell to about 50. (Felt good.) As I sit in my living room before the wide screen and type now, I feel my house is stuffy. I will get used to it again, but I welcome the change of perspective, because Andy's set up really does give you a sense of living outdoors in comfort. (Don't miss the photos, below.) Over lunch today, I spoke to my wife about camping in Roscoe, New York, and though she expressed interest in staying in Roscoe--only in a B & B arrangement of some kind. She will not camp in a tent, but she loved Dog Meadow.
I had spent some time online looking at Finger Lakes boat rental possibilities, and everything I found was overpriced. Andy had put some brochures in the cabin, and I did seriously consider an hourly rate canoe rental on Canadice Lake, but the wind came out of the east at about 25 mph. Even if I had brought my anchor along, managing in wind that heavy would have been a problem I didn't care to deal with.
The day before--Thursday the 11th--we tried a NY State Fishing Access point at Vitale Park, located at the northern end of Conesus Lake. Naturally, I was skeptical, having witnessed all these decades of my life how the state behaves. To be fair, I recognized that maybe--likely not--some bass would move over the shallow flats in rainy conditions. I cast knee deep--thigh deep at most--water. Fifteen minutes of fishing was mostly spent carefully scoping out all possibilities. I then chalked up the scene to the absurdity one should expect of a "fishing access" spot, and ate my lunch from the nearby McDonald's takeout as Trish read a novel at the picnic table and minded our black Lab, Sadie. There was little, if any, really, conflict between our interests, because Trish is fascinated in these places and finds them beautiful surroundings for her habit of reading. I had suggested Canandaigua as a town worth exploring, but up and downhill with a 13-year-old arthritic dog we had to wheel out of Vitale Park in a wagon?
Hemlock Park offered some real possibility not many minutes away, but before I say more, I want to tell you I learned the next day that fishing is off limits in Hemlock Park except south of the boat launch. I had no idea until I saw it mapped out on a board located near the spillway. While I had fished near that spillway, a women had come and fished, an old man told me stories of fishing there, and a father and son came and fished. I lost a smallmouth that took my Chompers worm under a boulder. When I set the hook, the 20-pound fluorocarbon leader frayed on the rock and broke. Felt like a real good bass.
Anyhow, I refused to fish there again, after I learned of the legal limits. I tried another state access of Conesus at its southern end, where as far as I could cast, the water was six inches deep, and otherwise there, a sort of creek entered the lake, offering water two feet deep and weeds. I just didn't even bother. We rode on and I fished Hemlock south of the launch, where a weedbed extended along shore for hundreds of yards. I never saw the end of it. There was an edge in close; maybe the water there was four, maybe five feet deep, and it ran along shore endlessly, sometimes near-shore, sometimes further away. And it was where it was further to reach that interested me most.
Fishing it persistently, I told myself, a little frustrated in getting no action besides a few sunfish pecks, that if I were in a boat in New Jersey, I'd hit that inside edge, because many times similar spots have produced. But I was clearly aware that with the sun directly overhead, not long after noon, conditions were a challenge. Eventually, I did catch the 14-incher photographed, and a little largemouth less than nine inches long. I got deeply involved in working that edge, but it just wasn't yielding many bass. Well, go over to Round Valley at one in the afternoon during August, fish from shore, and see how you do there. Hemlock Lake's clarity wasn't much dimmer.
Nor was the clarity of Canadice Lake, just 15 minutes or even fewer from Hemlock. There are some pullovers along Canadice Lake Road, and I stopped at one of them. I caught nothing there, but maybe at sunset I would have succeeded. Who knows? The launch area has some possibility. I lost a little bass of about eight inches, hardly one to mention, nor the nine-incher I did catch where a weedbed similar to those at Hemlock forms a point at a drop-off, but that little bass offered me an overtone signifying larger: It took the eight-inch Chompers I had been using like a real fish. I also fished the drop off with a rocky bottom thoroughly, using a jig and Berkeley Gulp! leech. It fell away to about 12 feet deep within casting range--the deepest water I fished.
It's possible you've heard stories of 68-bass days on the Finger Lakes like I have. I don't doubt it's happened like that. It does in Maine, too. But if I were to go back up there next weekend, I would probably catch more bass than I did on this trip, just because I learned a few things along the way. Maybe I would arrange with my wife to fish at sundown, too. I know I would sling my tackle tote over my shoulder and fish that weedline much further on down than I did yesterday...and who knows what else I would find.
Take things with a grain of salt, though. Especially state designated fishing access. The Finger Lakes seem like a far-away paradise to us, but Syracuse is only 25 miles north or so of these three lakes. In other words, they have their regulars; they get pressured similarly as New Jersey lakes do. And the water of the Finger Lakes isn't somehow "pure" compared to water here.
I had an interesting encounter with a guy in a kayak. He pulled away from the ramp, visibly struggling against that 25 mph headwind, paddling within my casting range. He was trying to catch up to a couple of friends in two other kayaks that got out ahead of him. I had spoken to the guys in those two earlier. They'd caught "a few bass, none bigger than a pound."
"How's it going? I said it directly in a way that dismissed the obvious pain-in-the-ass of the wind he faced, as if to say instead, "It really doesn't really matter as much as getting what you can," but he paddled on as if he never heard me, though he had. So immediately I took stock of his four rods in fancy holders, his fortress of tackle boxes built on a sort of deck behind his seat, and concluded that this guy thinks he's hot shit. I'm standing there on a rock elevated two feet above the surroundings, and he thinks I'm just a peon.
A few moments later, he came ashore, also within casting distance. Gets out. He's hooked himself in the crotch.
He goes after the hook with pliers. I'm minding my fishing, but the next thing I know, he breaks the ice by asking if I have a band aid. I tell him I might in my car, give me five minutes. I hike up the roadway leading to the launch. Three minutes later, I give him two band aids. He thanks me.
"Fish here often?" I ask.
"I live in Syracuse. I come once and awhile."
"Ever catch any big smallmouths?"
"I've caught a couple."
"That's good," I assure him. (You know me, I meant it.)
He checks me out a sec. "You catch any today?"
I feel as if all that didn't go between us is now thoroughly redeemed. "I caught three largemouths. The biggest 14 inches from Hemlock."
That 14-incher would have made a couple of nice little fillets for Andy at Dog Meadow, but where was I going to buy ice for the cooler he supplied?
I did use my Hagstrom map to get an idea of where to begin, but actually, that idea primarily came from Tom at the supermarket where I work. Beyond those two initiatives, I used no map, no GPS, nothing but my wherewithal. That was easy, not only because I already knew some of the roads of the Musconetcong Valley--this not my first time fishing the river, and I've accumulated the experience of driving along it's entire length, on some occasions fishing it. It was easy because I don't get direction confused. Since I understand all the roads exist on a grid, as it were, all I need is the abstraction, "grid," and I know where to go. The cool thing about this "grid" is that it doesn't exist as any electronic configuration or printout as a map. It's entirely spiritual, entirely of the mind, but how can it be only "in" the mind and result in actual orientation?
Besides, it was nothing compared to what we used to do as kids. We called it the Space Cruise. On a number of occasions, we loaded into my station wagon at night, rode up from Mercer County into North Jersey where we didn't know the roads and smoked joints while listening to the Dead. We got stoned off our asses as we rode all sorts of roads for dozens of miles, but we never failed to get back by one or two in the morning. I always drove and used that same sense of unfailing direction.
Today, I felt very pleased to find a pull over right down in Bloomsbury, where I began fishing below where the river passes under Interstate 78. I missed two hits from little eight-inch bass on a *5 Rapala floater, spotted one of about 11 inches not interested, and watched a rainbow trout of about 13 inches swoop behind the lure repeatedly as it must have computed that lure was nothing to eat. Not by any conscious reason as we have. Not even if we're stoned beyond personal recognition. But trout have brains that organize perception into action instantaneously. They don't have to think.
Cool stuff.
When you think about it.
I soon realized this afternoon that it might be productive to walk and wade upstream of that access point in Bloomsbury. I had switched to a Senko and got nothing but sunfish interested, but it would have been a different day, and possibly resulting in more fish, if I had locked the car, slung tackle bag over shoulder and begun walking. What I need to do first is wrestle studs into my Patagonia wading boots.
Even though down there it wasn't rocky. Because another couple miles upstream and the river has freestone quality, but it's off limits because of club property. I don't know how far upstream I can hike from Bloomsbury, before I have to stop. In any case, some of the big trout that get stocked in the club stretches--find their way out.
I kept heading upstream and finding spots where I couldn't access fishing. Eleven years ago, my son, Matt, and I fished the river down around Bloomsbury. One or two points of access I did not find today. My next spot was just upstream of the Asbury Mill. One look at the river above the dam told me bass have to exist in the stretch, but it was relatively shallow and I knew it could hold few relative to its surface acreage. So I selected targets and made sure each got at least three casts, just in case a bass was reluctant to take my Senko--but might just yet. Nothing happened, except that, true to my assumption, I spotted three small largemouths swimming by.
I drove on and found access maybe a quarter mile upstream for the same slow water. Once again, I selected spots and worked them, but besides one bump, all I got were sunfish taps. I felt good by then, though, because by faithfully working that river, I had got over a good bit of my alien sense in relation to it. I get disgusted with myself, if a river doesn't at least begin to absorb me into itself, but catching a decent fish or two helps.
Then I did my dance with unfamiliar roadways, ending up in Hampton. I avoided being directed to State Highway 31 by veering onto other roads I didn't know. I ended up finding access with two large parking lots and fishless water. Again, one would shoulder up and wade.
But the Musconetcong River seems to have a lot of thin water. Take that, though, from a guy who has walked the river only in one area. Who found some good holes there, too.
Next I hit a spot at Changewater, catching an 11-inch bass on the #5 Rapala and a rainbow trout about the same length as the bass. Instead of photographing the trout, I very quickly released it. It was 87 degrees out, and though the water was so cool I could feel chill--the Musconetcong is spring fed to significant degree--I just wanted this fish to get back on its way. And it did that, showing no signs of disorientation.
Last, I tried off State Highway 57, before I arrived in Hackettstown to cut over to Long Valley. Again, the spot was shallow and had no fish. I waded. Fished thoroughly. You never know about knee-deep water. But no sign of fish. It wasn't the only possible access up that way, but it was about time to call it a day.
