Another Year at Bottom Fishing Hope for More to Come

There are outings we remember because they signify change in our lives, and yet enjoying action in their midst--or at the end of the day--might trump all else. 

We didn't catch the fish, but caught sight of them just before they sank and swam away. I had hooked something in pretty close. Had got a cast out that fell short, and I left the bait alone for an hour or two, before I decided to reel in the shiner and cast again--farther out. Instead, I was hooked up, but I had to move the fish through a lot of bottom obstruction not fully decayed yet. I did that, and the fish fought freely until it got into more stuff in close, just before I would have hoisted it onto shore. I thought I saw green. Pretty sure it was a largemouth a little over a pound, maybe a pound-and-a-half. 

I baited up and did cast further out there, but I was plenty happy with whatever the fish was.

Our first stop had been The Sporting Life in Whitehouse Station here in New Jersey. A "dozen-and-a-half" shiners were really at least two dozen. I forget the guy's name again, Scott, I think, but I made sure to tip him. You never know if action is going to be fast, so releasing at least a dozen of them at the end of the day just upped the shiner population in Round Valley Reservoir. Matt bought a nonresident, one-day license this year, having come from California. Scott told him he can use the trout stamp any other day, too, but he's flying back on Monday. The nonresident trout stamp cost $20.00. I also renewed my license, and bought a pack of Kalin's jigs.

Temperatures never got above the mid to upper 30's, but wind was very light at most. I wore my new Beyond Allta Polar L8 Parka. Matt asked me what it's rated for, so I checked on my phone, finding it's good down to minus 70 F. Outdoor Life magazine says it's the warmest coat on the market. I felt like it was 90 degrees out, so I kept the coat unzipped for the most part. I wouldn't have paid the regular price of $595.00, not because the parka isn't worth that, but because the $219.00 sale price was a great deal in the range I was looking for. You would think you could pay a few thousand for parkas good for Antarctica and the arctic, but I haven't seen them online. Maybe I would just need to look harder. Mine is filled with Primaloft Gold, not down. Primaloft manages better if the coat gets wet. The Beyond website recommends sizing down once or twice, because the coat is made to accommodate four layers of clothes underneath it. I was willing to get a large instead of the usual extra-large, but my wife insisted I stay with the status quo. It is a little bulky, and I wore a base layer, a fleece sweatshirt, and a wool shirt underneath today, but it never felt as if cold air was getting underneath or bulky in an uncomfortable way. I like the feel of its presence, and I guess my wife was right. 

Especially because of what follows. I never got Cronk's hunting bib back to him after using it ice fishing three years ago, and it seems as if he doesn't care and has no use for it himself. (Still have to bring it to his attention.) I can put that bib on over layers underneath, and the Allta L8 over all that, no problem. Doubt I could do that with a merely large coat. 

Eager to put it to more tests yet.

After going on four hours, it was time to begin packing out. 

"There's a fish on this rod," I said, observing the tightened line from one of the 11-foot noodle rods I like to use here, getting a little better casting range. 

Earlier I had put a shiner pretty far out there. 

Matt came over and fought the fish, which almost got stuck in a clump of vegetation that includes some stems sticking above water surface yards from the edge. He got it through and almost to the bank when the hook came loose. The fish wallowed on the surface a long moment, and that, I thought, was behavior like a pickerel's, not a trout's. But I caught sight of how the back of the fish curved, and the orangish fins, concluding that it probably was a small laker of about 16 to 18 inches. 

The guys over from us caught a pickerel, a yellow perch or a bass, and a nice rainbow. 

Next year Matt's girlfriend, Kaitlin, visits, so we'll do something as a family, not fishing, although Matt is fully confident he and I will get back to the reservoir as yet.

Last Year

 

Converted to Kalin's Jigs for River Trout

Texted Noel Sell from work yesterday. He lives in Pennsylvania but knows North Jersey. He phoned me and we talked about a river. Made me realize I could get out for a short time in the morning, and I committed to doing so straight away. 

River wasn't high or off color. Water was cold but probably milder than last I got out two weeks ago during the cold snap. Air temperature was about 41 when I caught the trout at 11 a.m., after casting some 25 minutes including a break to get the photo below. Yesterday temperatures got into the 50's, and such spells of mild weather do increase water temperature, though it came down a bit last night.

Thus far, I've caught only one river trout with the air temp at 39, none in weather colder. Have only caught wild trout in a creek, colder, besides ice fishing once...with Noel. 

I hear a lot about worms lately. I haven't been fishing a whole lot, but I remain in communication with people who fish, though they, too, haven't been fishing. Besides, of course, what I see on social media. Garden worms are great. Pink Berkley worms drifted, too. 

I like my jigs. But I am so relieved the Kalin's brand I buy at The Sporting Life work. (The link works if you're on Facebook. The shop has no website of its own I found.) The marabou is a little shorter than the marabou on a Haggerty's jig. Naturally, if you're paying a whole lot less, it's understandable if the manufacturer is saving cost on marabou, relative to what Haggerty's puts out. But really, if length were a determining factor in the interest trout take in these jigs, then why not experiment with a full three inches of tail? Why not four inches? Some of us do make our own jigs. 

It probably gets absurd real fast. And not only will trout hit a Kalin's with a little less marabou--they'll hit a Kalin's jig with some of it's marabou pinched off, which is what I inadvertently did when taking leaves off the hook. I thought of tying on another jig, but something told me to keep that jig with a shortened tail on the line. Sure enough, I caught the trout within five minutes.

I kept fishing. The river isn't wide and I got casts almost on the opposite bank. I made one of those casts, began reeling, and had a good one on. It came up, rolled on the surface, and lost the hook. 

I kept fishing. Another one struck almost at my boots and didn't get hooked. That's what the first one did, too, leaping three or four times before I got the net under it. Fifteen-and-three-quarter inches. 

So today I've felt fully converted to Kalin's, which, again, is a good thing, because I'd not only rather spend my money at the local tackle shop; I sure as hell don't care to spend $4.75 apiece for Haggerty's! I paid a lot less two years and some months ago for that brand, but though I've looked, I haven't found anything like $18.00 for six jigs and shipping online recently. 

Jigged

 

Beasts, Gods, Bass, and the Meaning of the Higgs Boson

I doubt the rivers are high, even though significant rain fell yesterday, but I'm not going back out there in the cold and wind. I did a version of that last week, and while this week wouldn't be the same--of course not--I don't care. I thought of heading over to Round Valley for a photo shoot. It's been many weeks since I've done one, and since my suspicion is that the water's got rather low, I'd like to at least hear that from someone. 

The sky is perfectly blue, too.

Turns out I asked Google last night if firmware updates for digital cameras--my Nikon D850 and D7100--are important. AI told me they're "very important," and though I could find no evidence that my image quality will improve, I'm going to go ahead and install the latest firmware for each camera. 

In other news of the day, my day off, Jim Hutchinson at The Fisherman asked me if a January 13 deadline for a feature about South Jersey largemouths will work. (I'm interviewing Thomas Wyatt who does especially well.) Told Jim I'll contact Wyatt. I'm sure it will work out, but since I have another deadline for Jim coming up on February 1st for a Hotspot article about the Pequest River, I figure I might as well go ahead and get started. The interview for that one Gerry Dumont and I already did, when we also talked about the Musconetcong. The Musconetcong story is published online, but I believe you need a Fisherman subscription to access it.

Good reason to go ahead and subscribe. 

I guess every year about this time, I look back over it's course. I began last year fishing the river trout, though I also ice fished Cranberry Lake at the end of January and did well with pickerel. Caught a trout in February, and though I caught nothing at all in March, I caught plenty of stocker trout in April and some largemouths. Loads of largemouths and some pickerel in May, some trout, a salmon, big crappie, few panfish. In June Brenden Kuprel and I tried once for muskies, but on that day I ended up catching 15 largemouths on Senko-type worms. 

It's really not all about the fish. I'd say more about months that followed, but all of my outings besides a couple very short ones are posted about. We honor fish. I certainly don't discount that. Fishermen call them "beasts," feeling the power of big ones. One of my curiosities is the relationship between beasts and gods. And one of the things I notice about beasts is their close affinity with mythic gods, though with one big difference--beasts actually exist. Or do they? Species exist. A beast is something indefinite, or perhaps the behavior of a large animal when it inspires awe. 

In that sense, Paleolithic men experienced beasts before species became recognized. 

Many believe in God, though I know of no one but a Wiccan woman who believes in gods and goddesses in the plural. I believe God is the information that etches itself into existence, the result being a real world. Like the DNA of things, only that it also assumes our personal qualities on a larger scale than our own, so that the world--indifferent to us otherwise--has the potential to receive our addresses and answer back to us.

Maybe the "etching" is just the Higgs boson subatomic particle. I'd ask my son.

Some would say my notion of God as information suggests that we live in a simulation, but to believe we live in a simulation is to divest the world of truth. I believe the etching itself results in all the flourishing substances that make up a tangible world. It's that very tangibility--the materiality of things like water--that assures us when we value such active presence that it's real. And yet even though our very life is supported by things in the world out there, there is no care for us on its part, no meaning for us besides our own responses and the address we launch through each of our own life projects.

Mine isn't all fishing. I'm just as interested in what my thinking produces, as I am in what my fishing line connects me to. Either way, I wonder. But then, I get the hint of an answer from the very angle from which I cast a doubt, hot on the retrieve in an instant. 

What's the use? Well, if you ask a physicist who spends day after day at a task practiced some 40 or 50 years now to no avail, he'll say that when we do create more energy from nuclear fusion than put into the reaction process, we'll solve a lot of the energy problem. It's always thinking...that solves problems, which should be a no brainer for anyone,

Some think thinking is God, as everything we humans address and respond to amounts to recognition. Or more to the point, that no God exists. Only the thinking in each individual brain amounts to qualities we formerly gave "God." 

Even the Higgs boson has no meaning other than what we give it. Perhaps the Higgs boson never existed until we delineated its form, allowing it to function just so, as if indeed it has a meaning.

Does the intellect etch the identity of things into existence? I still believe God does that. Not as any Creationist's design, but as the source of the meaning we endow the world with. A differentiated, no less flourishing, existence indifferent to us, though difference itself implies the meaning we do find. Anyone who believes man's intellect "etched" the fossil remains of Tyrannosaurus rex, having "etched" millions of years into the past, is inviting intellectual chaos rather than any meaning.  

"What is the meaning of this?!" 

Do bass behave just so, in such a way that we can answer the question regarding what they are? To the degree we do know them. Every week it seems a new technique addresses something new about the fish.

Anyhow, I did catch a 20-incher this year, photographed below. Late July, I believe that was. Another was 19 3/4 inches, another 19, and one other might have been 19, didn't measure the latter fish. Every year I catch a number of 18-inchers, and this year was an exception of maybe fewer than usual. 

The walleye? Weighed in at Dow's at five-pounds, 15-ounces. The third walleye I've weighed in there at just that same weight.  

 

Big Day in May

Some Reflections on Artificial Intelligence and Fishing

Water at Wintertime Temperatures

After I shot the photo, the sun never came back out until after I had waded far downstream and come back up. I had hoped sun would be on the water, because I think winter trout like that. The water is at wintertime temperatures, as calm areas out of the flow are iced over. Air temperature was 38 and 37, which isn't much colder than the low 40's that have been productive for me.

Downstream, I caught a trout last February. Some snow was on the banks. Just because nothing hit there today doesn't mean none exist. It's probably more than the weather being cold. A front was moving through, wind speed about to increase, and that could have turned them off. Maybe next time. Before I left about 11:45, Fred Matero texted me and expressed interest in going January or February. 

I had nightcrawlers leftover from Lake Hopatcong in the fridge, and I hoped to use them, but they're dead. I'm kind of on the fence about nightcrawler or garden worm use, anyhow. I had figured I'd jig the rivers for awhile, getting used to the fishery, and then move on to fly fishing. Fishing live worms seems a step backwards, but I have a good memory of using them on the Dunnfield in February, the ground snow-covered many years ago when using worms was legal. They sure worked. 

Maybe Fred will buy a few dozen bloodworms in Ocean County, and we'll try those.

When I did make my way back upstream, a kingfisher flew into plain view a couple of yards or so over the river, something between its beak. A really astonishing sight. When I was trying to get another photo of the millhouse--as if sunlight might poke between clouds--I saw a pair of bald eagles circling overhead. 

While loading my car, I heard a popping crack, looked up, and saw a tree falling. Wind speed hadn't increased much as yet, not like what I experienced at the next spot.

I drove on downstream, planning on driving directly home that way, but when I came into view of my spot, I braked, turned, and parked. I figured it would be interesting, because I've never been skunked there on first try during either of the past two years. Perhaps the likelihood of trout being there remains high. 

The water was noticeably low. I wondered if that would make a critical difference, and I got into position and began casting, the wind making that difficult, the wind very heavy and steady, my right hand getting chilled severely. 

Nothing hit. 

I felt perhaps more satisfaction in getting skunked, given how sure I am trout remain in the two spots where I've caught them previously. If so, the trout aren't total yes-fish, hitting anytime.

Deep Natural Connection

Thought I Got Snagged, Until the Trout Took Drag

Catching fall stockers from our rivers has never been easy for me. 

There've been only a couple of times the past two years when I caught three of them on an outing. I haven't really fished the fall stockers over the course of fall and winter until two years ago, but I did find they cooperate with a thorough approach, after I decided that would be with an ultralight spinning rod and a black marabou jig. 

I fly fish too. That's the only way I fished them in the fall for a while, though that amounted to one or two outings a season. I wasn't successful, besides having a nice one break off a Woolly Bugger. Spinning might be proxy for my fly rods. Maybe I'll switch out the spinning rod for my two-weight or more likely my five-weight. Maybe I'm just learning the rivers before I approach the trout in a more difficult way.

But the rivers are plenty difficult as is. A couple of game wardens checked on me at Three Bridges. They weren't happy with my black Lab, Loki, but for good reason. Loki's growl sounds like a lion; his bark is deep and loud. 

"Restrain your dog, in case someone else comes down," I was told. 

But before the man on my left who almost got his hand bitten, having attempted to pet Loki's head, had told me to do that, I asked about witness to any action of the fishing kind. 

"We saw some caught late in October," the other man said. "Not after that."

"I'm sure they're still a few laying around out there," I said.

"Yeah." 

I've caught river trout in February, which is a stretch from October. 

You can always count on some being somewhere. A week or so before Opening Day one year, the state hadn't stocked the North Branch Raritan's AT&T stretch yet. By studying the water, I saw no trout, until I spotted one about 18 inches long. The only trout I saw in the clear water. 

Some of these fall stockers probably holdover into the next fall, though it's true that a large number of them get taken the first week or so after stocking. After that first week, most of the fishermen quit on them, though. I saw no one else fishing today. 

I like the feeling of joy in barren solitude. Even when nothing gets caught, I know it might be possible to hook one, until I leave the river alone for the day. Time and again experience has proven it happens, but if you're not happy with one or two trout, stick to springtime's smaller fish. 

I'm even happy with a fish that throws the hook. 

At Three Bridges, I began by casting under the bridge. At one point, I got snagged, and I made my way upstream along the wall of the bridge to finally pull the jig free. All the while I called out to Loki, trying to reassure him. Even though he's a Lab, he doesn't swim, and he was out of my sight. Imagine had the two wardens come jaunting in on the scene when I was under that bridge! Loki would have gone mad. 

After I talked to the wardens, I held Loki by the leash and made my way upstream, to a range of water I think is about six feet deep; maybe it's only five. I fished it persistently, and once when I believed I'd got snagged, the great trout suddenly ploughed forward, bending the rod further and taking drag for a second. 

Trout in the River but None on the Hook   

Getting Any Book Published is a Difficult and Unlikely Event

Thought I'd post that photo, since I'm hoping for ice. The climate is different now than it was a decade ago when I got this shot, but a prolonged ice season remains possible. It just isn't happening every winter as it used to in North Jersey. Even Lake Assunpink to the south used to be a reliable ice fishing destination. 

And I wish I could've got out for river trout. I checked on the North Branch here in Bedminster and it's deeply stained. Not running very high but too off color to fish a jig. About time we got some real rainfall, but the river level shows it's obvious it can use more. 

Tomorrow I go back to my job. A ritual of supply and demand. Me caught in the middle. Creating supply I meet demand, and I fill demand in turn, after it critically diminishes my supply of food items...an exercise I readily admit has its charm but limits me in a way I wouldn't have chosen, if my wife and I didn't need the money. 

It's interesting, though, how fast the six-day weeks go. I get out of bed, take my medications and supplements, dress, and leave directly to arrive at the supermarket and punch-in at the earliest I can, which means I can punch-out later as early as I can by being fair about that. And there's no compromise. I know what I have to do, and I do it. 

After I leave in the afternoon, I forget the place, and I have five or six hours free. Soon I have a day off, and then the cycle of day-in, day-out repeats. All the while I know I'm much better talented as a writer than as a food worker. But very few writers fully make their living at it, which means I'm among the majority who work day jobs. 

That will change in April. I'll be writing and doing photography full time. It might be possible to make a whole lot of money, but I can't tell if that's real or only a wish. I can try and find out. I feel fortunate to have worked all my life while writing on the side and to soon have time open to experiment, rather than time wasted for a wage as usual. I had time open when I was in my 20's, as I not only had to work no more than four or five hours a day at commercial clamming; I didn't have to work at all--and sometimes didn't--since I was self-employed. But during my 20's I got published very little in newspapers, whereas I'm publishing constantly now. I know what it is to write for an audience, so when I experiment at writing a novel, I'll have a better sense of what might work than I would have in my 20's. Whether a literary novel is also mainstream depends on the ability of the author to give the people what they want in a story, in a way that doesn't compromise literary quality. One example of such a book is A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean. Another two are Islands in the Stream and To Have and Have Not, both by Ernest Hemingway. 

Before I write the novel, I will finish my book on trout fishing. Getting any book published is a difficult and unlikely event, but I'm confident I can make it happen. I feel that way because fishing stockers has led to so much realization in my life. I doubt I would have quit Lynchburg College--which amounted to spending years at the shore--if I hadn't spent years fishing stockers every spring. I identified with the outdoors rather than the convention of college. I believe there's an inevitability to the book's success.

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving. I work until 1 p.m. Won't be going fishing. The week after that, I hope to go for stripers.   

Coming Books 

A Few Striped Bass in Sandy Hook Wash

Got the phone call just before five this morning. Oliver Round was in a Quick Check lot, where his car wouldn't start. We arranged the situation so he would arrive at my house by Uber after he got the car towed through AAA. While we fished later, a new battery got delivered to his house. 

In the meantime, Brenden Kuprel texted me minutes after the call. He was on his way to Sandy Hook. When Oliver and I got there, he had been fishing the Lot A area for going on two hours, having lost one bass and seen some caught. Oliver and I proceeded to Lot B, because Oliver knew it has a bathroom. 

We got to surf's edge to find one of the guys among two or three others had just caught a small bass that must have barely broken the 28-inch size limit. An hour or two later, we saw another caught of about the same size, maybe a little better, and had got word of one getting caught before we had arrived. 

We fished for some four hours. Obviously there were some bass in the surf, all of them having hit in the wash. A strong northeast breeze blew cold, 40-degree air onshore. Low tide I believe was 5:53, which means we did get an hour of fishing rising tide, but for the most part, water was shallow and the waves persistent. Even casting a heavy Krocodile spoon, I couldn't get it over the outer breakers until about halfway through the session, when I cast and cast to fish five or six yards behind those big breakers. I hoped I'd intercept a pod going by and one of the bass would take my offering. 

I also fished a Deadly Dick. I tried a Binsky bladebait on my lighter rod. And I cast an Ava 17 rigged with a teaser.

Oliver gave up throwing lures and tried clam. 

I used to surf fish all the time during the fall with my son. We brought foldout chairs and sort of broke camp by water's edge, holding our rods in surf-spike tubes, watching them intently, usually grabbing hold before one of them got pulled over and dragged towards the wash. 

We did catch a lot of bass. So no interest in the clam Oliver put out dismayed me a little. 

Brenden Kuprel showed up, having walked all the way from Area A. He told me he witnessed six caught, all on the Ava. He was here a week ago. With kids off for the teacher's convention, the lot was full, he told me, fishermen lined up on the beach, catching nothing at all. So at least there were some fish in the surf today. Or had been. By the time I really got involved in casts and retrieves, having had to deal with my black Lab Loki before that, it felt like nothing was there at all.

After I spoke about those years with my son, Oliver said, "Yeah. And if you didn't catch stripers, at least you caught skates." The surf felt all the more dead for none of them being around. The water is still plenty warm. 

On the way over the bridge, Oliver said, "Have you ever been up to Twin Lights?" I saw the lighthouses up on the ridge in front of us. 

"Never have."

"I'm surprised. You're into this kind of thing."

"I just never thought of it, so preoccupied with all else."

We continued driving across the bridge, and I don't remember what was said, but as we neared the other side, I said, "Do you want to go up there?"

Today I climbed to the top of one of the Twin Lights, snapping the two photos from above. 

Redfish on a Killie

 

The Kind of Guy Who Imagines Things

First photo done on my new laptop.

Had intended to work all day at setting this thing up, but after I ran into trouble with Microsoft Office, I didn't want to try Lightroom until my wife is here. Not that I'll depend on her help with Lightroom, but just her being here will make the exercise more comfortable for me. She thinks I'm kind of techy, but I am terrified of these machines. 

She'll help--I hope!--with Office.

She's actually good at it. I'm the kind of guy who imagines things. That's great for art, but it makes technical stuff a nightmare. 

So I texted her, saying I'd go fishing, 

which is what I did, but I could have been tripping on some mushrooms on the way there. Alien experience. The bodily life of things hollowed out. It was Monday night I picked the laptop up from the Geek Squad at Best Buy, after they transferred all the files and did a minimal--stress on minimal--setup. Regardless, I didn't want to transfer files through Carbonite, as I'm sure there'd be a lot coming across the threshold I had already deleted. They keep files for 30 days. That would have been a mess and would have taken a lot of time, too. Tuesday night Trish and I saw Macbeth on stage after eating seafood at Rod's in Morristown, and last night I worked on this machine. 

I recall--early in 2020--that I paid Staples $79.99 for file transfer, and that after it took a week or two, I checked the Geek Squad price. It's the same price today, $99.99. Set up is an additional $39.99. Programs you're left doing. They set up the order of the files & check that the hard drive works.

Fished a spot new to me

on the South Branch Raritan. I gave it at least an hour, probably a little more. A large pool down below the shallows near and under the bridge photographed, that pool not very deep but deep enough. I worked the marabou jig shallow and deep, never getting hit, trying to come down to reality from all the stress. 

Loki was with me and loved it. The black Lab. 

As I drove off, I felt that I used to have higher standards. I never left a fishing trip without feeling truly rejuvenated. Actually, I judged too quick, because when I got home, I felt that familiar glow of having let the garbage go. 

So it was a good outing after all. I do remember, though, having pulled onto 22 with the intention of buying inexpensive gas and feeling a strange identity with the boxy architecture of a business warehouse. I also marveled at vehicles on the road, as if it's amazing they work. But I'll get this machine up & going.

With today's weather, it would have been nice to have got out in the squareback. Lots of time for that next year.   

Last Year Going the Extra Distance Resulted in a Trout

 

River Smallmouth on the Black Marabou Jig

Mark thinks with the low water fish got caught and taken home. Seems a possibility to me, too, but maybe we just didn't see fish through the water's tannic tone, nor hook many. 

Mark caught a couple rainbows. I had a fish on for a moment that probably was another one, lost a small fish that could have been a sunny, and caught the smallmouth bass photographed below. 

Mark uses a centerpin outfit and usually does pretty well with it. On a springtime occasion, he told me his river stints are practice for Pulaski. Recently, he was up there for steelhead. The news he has today is that fish have pushed upstream in numbers since the four days that yielded him one. (He also caught three resident rainbows, each about a foot long.) One of the guys he fishes with is fantastic at using plastic beads for the steelhead and caught only four. Mark said of his fish, "It made the whole time up there worthwhile."

My sympathies exactly. The last I fished steelhead, my son, Matt, and I went up there with fly rods in November 2015. I remember fishing only three days. On the first we kind of messed around after getting up there in the afternoon. The second we fly-fished with a guide, and Matt caught the only steelhead reported on the Douglaston Salmon Run the entire morning, a fish of about six pounds on some buggy-looking blue fly. The third day, I caught one about four pounds on an Estaz Egg imitation, Matt fought one that took off downstream, and I almost hooked another. Enough to make me want to go back.

Beautiful warm day today. It's hard to believe it's over already as I write, but as I drove away from the river, the day felt full. I had given the fishing the sensible effort it required. I know these marabou jigs work. I've caught a lot of fall & winter trout on them. Mark with his egg sac under a float that positions so precisely in a pool is a little intimidating, because he seems to always catch more that way. But instead of succumbing to suckedness, I fished that damn jig as if it has the dignity it's proven to have. I was looking at pocket water that did have depth to it, for example. Instead of passing it up or fishing it half-assed, I fished every pocket thoroughly, as if a rainbow might be there that would hit. Or even a wild brown.

Instead, one of the pockets resulted in a smallmouth bass that had taken station, probably feeding. Had I not fished as confidently and thoroughly as I did, I never would have come across that fish. The mystery, though, is why am I not catching the rainbows? Last year, I caught them every outing this time of year. Water was pretty low then, too. At least I had that hit today, surely a rainbow, though I don't really know. 

Before today with Mark, I fished the Flatbrook, where I really did not see many fish, and the North Branch yesterday, where I also saw relatively few fish compared to last year. Both places trout took interest in the jig. They followed. But none lurched ahead and struck as they did last year.

North Branch Raritan flowing low

Last Year

 

Miles of Stream to Wade for Wild Fish

The Big Flatbrook is such a special place you forgive it when you get skunked. I think in all these years, I've caught one trout. Maybe two. Never have caught one in the fall. 

Today I found some. Not many, but at least half a dozen held in a pool about four feet deep. I also tried a couple of other spots where I didn't see any. The stream was almost tap water clear. Even so, if anyone remembers the situation last year, rivers were low and clear then, also. Trout stocked in the North Branch hit my marabou jig despite that condition of very clear, low water. 

That same type of jig tempted some interest, at least. A number of my retrieves had a trout follow behind, a few times two or three, but no hits.

Annually, my wife and I go up there to eat at Walpack Inn. It's not chiefly a fishing trip, and last year I didn't even give it a try. 

I don't know the status of wild browns in the brook, or brook trout for that matter. How plentiful or uncommon. The Little Flatbrook is said to have brookies, and I've read about brookies caught in the Big Flatbrook in the Blewett Tract. What I observe when I'm up there, though, is that many miles of flow exist between access points, so anyone young and full of lust to explore can have a field day.

When, I believe, I was 17, I fished the Dunnfield Creek from the parking lot at I-80 all the way up to the plateau on top of Kittatiny Ridge. Had to do some serious bushwhacking. I caught only five or six native brook trout, but most of them were nine inches, and five or six felt like plenty to me. It was a deeply absorbing, even mystical effort.

 

Low-head dam down near the defunct bridge to Mine Road. Water is shallow above and below.

Roy Bridge

Dunnfield

 

Late October Chatterbaits for Largemouths and Pickerel

One last go at it before cold comes. Late October and the weather is turning. We got on the lake before sun got on the water, temperature 56 degrees, water temperature 58 degrees. The water temp quickly rose to 59 and then 60 at about the time we got off the water at 11:54.

I wanted to feel a big bass absolutely slam my Chatterbait. I've felt it before, and of course Brian has. I never forget him saying, "They hit like they want to kill it." 

Kill it right there and then.

A Chatterbait is a vibrating jig. 

That's the key concept, vibration, which provokes those savage attacks. I have no trouble feeling the bait chatter while using an IM6 rod, because the braid I also use transmits the vibration tightly. I distinctly feel each motion back and forth. Chat-ter, chat-ter, chat-ter and so on. The rod tip bounces just enough, the tip light enough to sway with each chat and ter, but strong enough to resist any sagging.   

I caught a pickerel of 22 inches or so that gave two big thuds when it took the lure, and I thought that was a bass. But never mind, catching a pickerel is fine with me, and when I did end up with a bass, it gave a hard pull, though it hadn't slammed the lure. No matter really. The morning is what it was, and both of us appreciated it. Leave that killer impulse for another day to come. 

I measured the bass. Or tried to. Definitely over 18 inches, it might be 18 1/2 or even 18 3/4. Whatever it is exactly, it's back in the lake. Chunky fish over three pounds. 

I did try a Yum Dinger around algae matts and shoreline brush, but I got hit only once, 

from either a small pickerel or a perch, I believe. Two decisive jabs. Not the tittle sunfish transmit, but no grab when I yanked back. It was a morning for Chatterbaits. In depths of four feet and as much as seven or eight. Maximum depth in the lake is nine feet, but there's a lot of eight-foot water, though more of it is four. Using the portable sonar graph was a really good idea, and I won't forget it next time, either.

Brian's good at Chatterbaits. His favorite. He's good with jerk baits, too, but he models himself as a Chatterbait bassman. He caught a nice largemouth of at least 17 inches, I believe, three pickerel, and three or four yellow perch. He also lost a bass on the leap that was a lot bigger. Bassman regardless, he enjoys pickerel and perch. One of the perch is 13 1/2 inches, the biggest pickerel 24 3/4. I measured those fish, too, and Brian wanted a photograph of the tape measure against the pickerel, also, which hadn't been difficult for the perch, except that it's rusty. For a NJ Skillful Angler Award. If you commit to that program, buy a bump board and always carry it with you. To compromise the slime on a pickerel just for an award is no bargain. I gave up trying to arrange a photo before I would have been certain that pickerel wouldn't survive.

I had hoped to get the post you're reading finished by mid-afternoon, but I got tired, even though I had slept nine hours last night. 

Never got tired on the lake. Tomorrow I have another day of work, and then I have a week off. I groan at facing the job tomorrow but soon I'll retire. I make the best of the work anyhow. It is physical, though, and I'm happy to report that fishing Chatterbaits all morning didn't pain my upper back as the job does. Besides, Brian has invested in Trika rods made of a carbon fiber that results in rods so light I need to look into how they balance with reels. I use a Lew's Speed Stick, and the rod is heavy by comparison, so if I make some money selling photographs online, a Trika will be a treat I can't refuse, even though I managed just fine with the Speed Stick today. So long as Trika makes a medium-heavy power rod. 

I'll try to get out and fish next week. At least once. The Fisherman magazine's editor, Jim Hutchinson, told me he'll let me know if the stripers are in the surf, and if so and all else lines up, we'll fish together. An invitation from someone I've deeply respected for years working with him. If it doesn't work out this year, it might next. I'll be available for more than a week next year. 

Otherwise, I have to transfer data from my current laptop to a new one, so I won't be fishing as much as might have. Regardless, Trish and I plan on dinner at the Walpack Inn inside Delaware Watergap National Recreation Area. I'll bring a rod. 

Red Evo Chatterbait with a big paddletail trailer.

20 Inches

 

Couple Last Shots at Big Ones Before Cold Comes

With the warm weather, I didn't want to pass up on giving the river near work a shot. I fished only half an hour, and got hit only by some panfish or other. Decided that with the water temperature up, I'd use a floating Rapala rather than a Husky Jerk. Amazes me how fast that #9 Floater rises to the surface with a wire leader attached. 

Water level is very low, of course. I did manage to get the plug next to a lot of wood in the water, but apparently no pike or pickerel were on the stuff. 

Water color was a little off as usual. Not clear as Brenden and I found it far downstream closer to Little Falls. Plenty of carp seem to swim in the area. I remember Kevin Murphy, who worked as seafood manager at Stirling Shop Rite for years, telling me that during a great flood when water covered the parking lot, he stood at one of the doors, watching a big carp hugging the asphalt. 

Getting up at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow to fish bass with Brian Cronk. One last shot at a big one before cold weather descends. 

River Trout Soon

 

Vegetation on the Bottom Decomposes Quickly

At least that's as it seems. I was at the reservoir Thursday for a photography session, and I saw a lot of it that sticks above the surface is dead, dried out, and about to disintegrate. I also noticed clean bottom where I'd expect to see vegetation lingering from when the low-water exposure was a field of the stuff. 

In any event, catching trout from shore is quite possible. I spoke to someone three weeks ago who had caught two rainbows. They usually reach the shoreline shallows in mid-September, when the surface temp falls to 70. 

I haven't actually heard of trout caught since, but it's a reasonable assumption to think that if a couple got caught, more have followed and probably preceded. 

I have no plans to fish for them until late December, when I hope Fred Matero joins my son and me again. I just don't have time otherwise. I'm still busy with the photography, because I'm just doing my best to capture changes in the reservoir landscape. My hope is that I can glean a hundred or more photos from my collection of thousands for a book of Round Valley photography. And if that's too much to ask, the collection certainly exists. 

We've just seen the lowest reservoir levels in its history. We may never again see such low water. I was there, week after week, photographing results. In all those years, I never once met anyone else with a tripod, let alone rarely anyone with a DSLR. 

For your own reference, if you're interested in giving shoreline trout a shot, the reservoir level has dropped a couple feet, which means a few yards or more of space for easy casting. We just haven't got rain, and New Jersey Water Supply Authority probably pumped some water out so Somerville gets some water from the Raritan. 

Big Brown

Tried a Six-Foot Ultralight and Four-Pound-Test for Smallies

Tough couple hours with the cold front. There's a frost advisory tonight. Fished the Raritan in Somerville, trying out a Cabelas six-foot ultralight, the reel loaded with four-pound-test Berkley monofilament. (I'd use less expensive Zebco Omniflex, but I can't find any less than six-pound test, unless I were to pay shipping online, so my plan is to buy more Berkley.) First time I've ever used such a rod, and I have to say it felt unwieldy. Too loose. Whippy. I don't think it casts any further than a shorter rod. The little bass of about 10 1/2 inches put up a great fight on it, though.

Had nightcrawlers leftover from Dow's and from the Delaware River outing with Brian Peterson and his daughter. That's what I used, though I still have some. Just drifted them on a size 8 hook. Worked holes and a kind of flat four or five feet deep.

I had walked in only with Loki and my big camera bag along with my tripod. (It's the first time I've loaded both of my cameras in my car for an outing.) I have a certain subject of interest I'm working on. It so happened that when I walked out after fishing, the angle of the sun's rays had got really low and illuminated that subject interestingly. So I'll be back. I didn't have time to hike it back this evening. Going in there, working with the tripod, and walking back to the car and then suiting up in my waders to carry my fishing gear back in to the river was enough for today.

Besides, again, the main reason I came was to try out that new rod. It is a new rod. Still had the tag on it and the plastic over the cork handles. My brother-in-law Jim never got a chance to use it before he had a serious stroke and then died of an aneurism before his treatment had finished. We used to fish together some, but it's been decades ago for the most part. He's in some of the blog posts from Barryville, NY, though. The Delaware. And of course I came today to use the nightcrawlers.

Now I'm wondering if I'll use the rest over the winter for the river trout. Yesterday, I read a The Fisherman article by Captain Jim Freda about them and he says a nightcrawler will sometimes do it. I've caught so many on the jigs, but maybe after working a spot thoroughly with them and getting no action or no more action, a nightcrawler might be worth a try.

Loki

October River Smallmouths

 

Sometimes You Find Few Fish Feeding

Big day of fishing with Kevin Murphy. We met at Dow's Boat Rentals shortly after 11 a.m., when I walked Loki the black Labrador, then backed my car down to unload. A couple of guys hung out by the shop, while Joe Welsh entertained them with more of his antics--throwing live herring into the water where dozens of hybrid bass snatch them up instantaneously, splashing the surface. 

I figured with temperatures over 70, today's catches would match October 3rd last year, when Kevin's biggest hybrid weighed nearly eight pounds. As things turned out, Kevin felt really good about the fishing. He caught his first walleye and a lot of panfish and perch. It was a long and great day on the water, but I did feel disappointed. I wasn't the only one. 

"What have you caught?" I asked.

"Fishing sucks," the guy at the controls of a bassboat said. "We've caught two bass. We've been fishing for five hours." 

It happens sometimes that you find only few fish feeding. Whatever you do, results are sparse, so it's up to you to keep trying and make it good day. Perhaps you expected much better as I did yesterday, or perhaps you expected nothing, as I did last week at Sunrise Lake, and instead a little action is a very pleasant surprise. 

We marked fish like crazy along the deep end of the Ledge drop-off, most of them about 30 feet down over 45 feet of water, but even though I had live herring weighted and set under the boat, only one of those fish hit. The drag set loose, I heard the sound of drag giving and looked sharp at the rod tip. Seeing no bend or motion, I figured Kevin must have pulled on his line. Sometimes it really makes sense to voice concern! It was like 20 minutes later when I reeled up the bare hook. Then I asked if his drag had sounded off! No. 

I also saw the rod tip on one of the other herring rods start dancing, but by the time I tightened up on the line, nothing was on. Again, I reeled in a bare hook. On several other occasions I lost herring, too, though we had no evidence as to what happened on those occasions. I caught a couple of tiny hybrids out there. Little fish somewhere from seven to nine inches long. Many of the fish showing up on the graph were small but many were medium size along with some large ones. 

I had fished a Yum Dinger long and fished it hard. Around rocks. Among sparse weeds. Nothing ever hit. I fished the same spots that produced largemouths and a smallmouth last year. And I fished more spots than that. I remember how much I enjoyed catching bass on a couple of Yum Dingers. Enjoyed them a great deal. 

I also cast and cast a Binsky from another rod, and I did get knocked just once. I fished anywhere from about 10 to 35 feet down. 

I did catch a smallmouth on live herring from about 15 feet of water. A little one of about 11 inches.

Kevin caught his walleye within the first 20 minutes of fishing. He cast half a nightcrawler to the depths where I was casting live herring. I said, "You'll do better by casting to the rocks, but you might catch a walleye there." About 20 seconds later, he was hooked up to one.    

Kevin's Big Hybrid

 

Bestow Value on the Adverse Brave the Weather

I should have photographed Oliver Round fighting his 18-inch smallmouth bass. He's had a breakneck busy schedule at work without much opportunity to get out and fish, so it's especially unfortunate he lost that bass, though his having hooked and fought it, complete with aerial display, was a lot better than not. 

Caught the smaller walleye and a hybrid on an ultralight-light power, 5 1/2-foot spinning rod I built from a St. Croix blank that put me back $70.00--just for the blank--years ago. Six-pound mono. What a fight! The big one fought very hard on my son's Speed Stick, but the walleye that I'm pretty sure didn't weigh four pounds--I put it back--put up a great fight on that light rod. "Maybe a catfish," I said at one point, as if 10 pounds was dragging. 

The hybrid was 17 1/2 inches.

That big one in the photograph above? It's the third five-pound, 15-ounce walleye I've had weighed in at Dow's. Unless any of the three weighed six pounds before I had them weighed in, I've never hit the six-pound mark! I was so sure I did today!

Raw weather felt good because fishy. I know people think wretched weather is that. No matter how you romanticize it--and I do romanticize it--there's an objective element in its being adverse. I don't argue against that. I just know--otherwise--that you can bestow value on things adverse. And probably live to ripe old age, too...if not live longer than you would had you not been brave. 

Even cigarettes. Jeez, I confess I used to smoke. They are medicinal. I never hear anyone say that or write that, but they not only put off anxiety--if just enough to get an edge over it that lasts a bit--they put you in a meditative space. They will kill you, if nothing else will, though it remains likely something else will. Of course, they complicate one's health, too, so whatever kills you might not have if you didn't smoke. But a lot of medicines are adverse for health otherwise, which is not to say, either, that smoking is wise to take up. I really do not recommend it. I wish cigarettes would go away, because I hate to see people hooked on them. It's better to find out what causes you anxiety and deal with it. It's even possible that the attempt to escape anxiety by smoking only elevates that anxiety. 

All I know is that since I quit three years ago, I've desired smoking very little. It makes me feel I should have quit at age 25, but of course, I really should never have smoked. Nevertheless, to attest to smoking's medicinal quality, I began smoking in the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, aged 19, while suffering "the most severe manic-depression I have ever seen in all my 20 years of practice," according to the Director of Psychiatry of that Ivy League university hospital, Richard Brecht, who served as my doctor. My father knew whatever hit me was immense. He was not wasting a cent on anything less than great care. When Dr. Brecht told me about the severity of my mania, after I had come back around, he held my gaze unflinchingly, a big smile growing on his face. He was truly amazed, and I loved the guy for loving his subject matter and admiring such survival of total annihilation. He started to talk about Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway--manic-depressives he admired, but this guy! Right in front of him in his office! But I took a cigarette from another patient on the hall and smoked it...Dr. Brecht never complained at all. Ah, smoking did help. Talk about things adverse! Many people think manic-depression is horrible, but if you yourself are manic-depressive, I doubt you really believe that. The artistic temperament overlapping with the qualities of illness facilitates the ability to romanticize manic-depression, and no matter what others tell you, they can't take that from you. Sturm und drang! Heavy weather, man!  

I had four days of fighting urges after I quit smoking. Just said no to them. Never bothered with any of the techniques. No drug. No nicotine patch. Just NO.

A little more on the great adversity, the best book on manic-depression I've read is Kay Redfield Jamison's Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament , but according to another book, Manic-Depression and Creativity , even Isaac Newton, the physicist, was manic-depressive, not to mention that the illness is that of the saints. (Often nicknamed the Divine Madness.) And rock 'n roll. Certainly. 

China Grove!

The artists Jamison's book refers to are mostly writers and musicians, like poets Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, composers Robert Schumann and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Long digression today, but who wants to leave the world without letting his readers know just a little about him? I've got 30 years left, perhaps, but I don't want to pass on opportunity when it arises. 

The fish got caught on small herring. I always used to believe the big herring are better, but they told us at Dow's the small herring have been doing it. So we got a dozen-and-a-half small, a dozen large. I cast & cast a Binsky. Oliver cast a Sonic. No hits. Oliver did miss a hit along rocks on what I think was a Senko-type worm. My Yum Dinger only got pegged once by what I believe was a yellow perch. 

I did mark fish as deep as 39 feet, which really surprised me, but most were 20 to 30 feet deep. Water temperature 70 degrees at the surface, go figure with fish swimming as deep as 39 feet! All of the fish I caught came on no more than size 10 trebles as weight. The biggest came from the shallowest water, besides Oliver's smallmouth, which came from the same 15 feet or so. Don't know how deep the herring swam down otherwise.     

  

Released the smaller walleye

Teeth! They don't cut line.

Lake Hopatcong in the Fall