Even though catching a trout today wouldn't exactly count as a fall stocker caught during the winter season, I went after whatever I might catch in the Point Mountain Trout Conservation Area, where the Musconetcong River is open to fishing year round. I came with my four-and-a-half-foot St. Croix, the jig's barb broken and pressed down. I intend to graduate to fly fishing eventually but not yet.
I followed a trail in that led to a likely spot. Though I judged it a little shallow, I had no doubt about the boulder-created eddies and holes dug out by the way currents must get directed during periods of high water. They must hold trout. Once, I thought I might have got hit--hard. It seemed too hard a pull to have been a momentary snag, given the speed I retrieved, but I felt it probably was a snag.
Following a footpath downriver from Penwell Road involved parting the way between a lot of briars and bloodied hands. I fished at a couple of spots. One of them, on my way back, presented a nice seam along the opposite shore, so I made sure to fan cast that. It was all shallow fast water, but trout hide in pockets behind rocks. You really can't wade most of it, though. Rocks all over and slippery. Current strong.
I got way downstream when I came to a rock-created weir extending from bank to bank. Naturally, depth was dug in below it. A series of cuts where flow gets the best of the river bottom. I might have got hit by a small trout. (There are small wild fish, of course.) Again, I couldn't really tell. Even so, the depth wasn't much, but enough for a few fish.
I also cast out into the middle, hoping for any trout hiding behind rocks, and I got snagged. In the middle of the river where rocks studded the bottom everywhere and knee-deep or better current raced by. I put my camera bag on the ground, took off my vest, took my car keys out of my pocket and put them on my vest, and then I put my wading belt on, knowing that without cleats on my boots, slipping and getting wet was likely. And the rocks were slippery, but I found my boots just pliable enough to sort of grip bottom with my feet as I edge my way. All that for a three dollar jig, but it got adrenaline up a little.
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