Brenden Kuprel and I began fishing mid-morning on the Musconetcong River near Waterloo Village, and though the water was high with a strong current, clarity was good, and I got hit pretty quickly. I missed some more hits before I caught two trout on my microlight rod before Brenden caught his first, photographed above, on a pink worm under an arrangement of split shots of descending heaviness on the line under a float. Nice trout with a kype. I hoped the fish would holdover. Soon, he caught another, though after I lost another almost at the net, hits quit coming and we left.
We tried a few spots near Tilcon Lake, where Brenden caught his third on the worm. It's a productive arrangement for a river. I miss a lot more hits on salmon eggs than he misses on the worm. If I got hit here once near Tilcon, though, it was a very subtle take.
At Stephen's State Park, we separated. Brenden decided to fish a couple of big eddies in front of the parking lot, while I walked downstream an eighth of a mile or so. Flow seemed even heavier, With so much water in the river, fish have far to go if they please. I situated myself far from the stocking point, but surely some of the trout had made it much further downstream. My second cast yielded an 11-incher, and no more hits came after that. I had made the walk with a certain spot in mind, and it was occupied by two fishermen who looked like they wanted to stay a long time.
I marched back to the lot.
Brenden had caught nothing, and we drove off for Changewater. There I thought that with some weight on my line, it was possible to get hit, but that never happened, nor to Brenden. By then I had had it with the high water and Lockatong Creek felt promising. I never got hold of my feelings to realize I could, of course, put even more weight on the line and fish right down the torrent. Because at bottom, the current is slack. Trout hold down there.
Brenden set a new destination on his mobile device. I believe I've made my way there from Changewater without one, but it got us there faster. Midway, we stopped at Mulhockaway Creek. The water was beautiful. Clear like tap water. I never saw a trout and never got hit. Nice hole six feet deep, too. Brenden never got hit, either, and his float arrangement might have felt out of place to him. He began talking about the appropriateness of microlight method to little streams. I made a mental note to be sure my book emphasizes the fit sufficiently.
I can't remember ever getting skunked on the Lockatong, but my favorite two spots yielded nothing and possibly not a hit, as the three I thought I got were so subtle I'm not certain that's what they were. Brenden cast a spinner for nothing, and on downstream a few miles, taking Federal Twist Road, we tried a beautiful pool full of shale in its depth, and I got hit hard. Three taps followed and then no more, so I figured the trout got fed up on the four eggs. Brenden had a few taps on his pink worm that took some of it, and he thinks they could have been sunfish.
Enough.
We took State Highway 29 southward along the D & R Canal and Delaware River, getting onto U.S. 202 East above Lambertville. We were near Three Bridges when Brenden remembered Tuesday is the South Branch Raritan stocking day. I shot a look at the clock--4:51.
We got to the river where the hands of middle-aged men standing in a line had begun to turn reels. Right about opening time at 5:00.
Almost always, it's like taking candy from a baby on stocking days. When you use a microlight rod. Drifting eggs naturally along the bottom. Even when the South Branch Raritan is full of water as it was today. (Though rather clear.) But you do miss hits. Many. And you lose trout almost at hand. (And it's easier to release them by a quick pinch at the hook rather than netting them.) So when you hookup and catch three or four in row--or even 25 or 30 sometimes--that's your reward after all the preceding effort. After all, Brenden and I had spent all day for six fish. No complaint, but effort should eventually culminate in success.
Brenden did get another on the pink worm. I caught seven more on the eggs. You see the nice one in the photograph below.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments Encouraged and Answered