Winter Stalled

Last year, I posted about a real ice season ahead on December 21st, and we got just that. In short order. For more than a week now, with two warm Fridays and buckets of rain each of these days, weather seems more like April.

Nothing in the 10-day forecast indicates much more than skim ice when temperatures dip to the low to mid 20's three consecutive nights.

Happy New to all of you. I thought I better touch base since I haven't posted in awhile.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/12/real-season.html

Some ice was available

I know from http://www.njfishing.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=8 NJ Freshwater Fishing.com that guys got out on Budd Lake and Lake Hopatcong two days after I posted about the possibility. Haven't paid attention since then, but looking at the forecast for the week ahead, nothing's promising.

Maybe some ice is available

Past few days I've watched skim ice thicken to a pretty good cover on local ponds. Maybe to the north of here where I sit in Somerset County there's some ice fishing on ponds, and maybe even locally it's possible here and there, especially by tomorrow morning. By the mid-point of the 10-day forecast, there's rain and milder weather.

It's early yet. Whether or not we have another good ice season this year is anyone's guess. I know at least a couple of our readers do ice fish, and I hope to get out with both this winter.

Excellent Mechanic Available for Your Auto Needs

A while ago, I posted "Mike's Cortland Corner." Since then, my fishing buddy Mike Maxwell has expanded business a great deal. If any of you need a car repair or other mechanical or handyman work, I highly recommend his services, since he really has excellent ability and commitment.

Here's the link to his website:

https://go.thryv.com/site/mikesmobilemechanics  

New Jersey Mammals and Habitat Fragmentation

New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, Endangered and Non-Game Species Program is busy learning about mammals in relation to habitat fragmentation, for one example of their work. I link you to the latest press release I got. At the rate they're coming in and getting posted, it's quite evident that NJ DEP is a very active concern:

https://www.njfishandwildlife.com/ensp/pdf/chanj_geneflow.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

I Never Let a Crazy Idea Go

Some say as you get older, nothing's better than fishing with a good friend. I sure fished alone a lot when I was younger, but as I age, I find my preference is to catch up with someone else as we at least attempt a catch. Fred got here earlier than me by about an hour, telling me when I arrived that someone else had our spot when he had got there, catching a rainbow on a marshmallow and mealworm, leaving as Fred arrived to go to work. The man had released the fish, so we don't know how big, but of course, they average about 16 inches. It's very rare to catch a trout less than 14 inches, rather common to land a 20-incher--my biggest here was almost 26 inches--but far and away most are 15 or 16 inches at least in our experience. 

Cold as hell this morning. I'm reminded of ice at the core of Dante's Inferno, because as Fred and I conversed incessantly, he spoke about a series of a dozen adventure novels he's reading, and how Atlantis as one of the story's focus has anything to do with the poet Dante and his trilogy would probably seem crazy on the face of it, but I never let a crazy idea go. I make sure I finish my thought, even if that takes 60 years. By then, it's rational.

We compared writing and invention. Fred would be an inventor. He told me he once had a million-dollar idea. He was certain of it. The next day, he remembered he had the idea, but couldn't remember what it was. I didn't tell him...had he written the idea down.

Oh, well.

So back to fishing. Last I spoke to Zach Merchant at Round Valley Bait and Tackle, unless it was the time before that, he expressed his doubt about the reservoir sustaining the great shoreline fishing of a year ago, and I guess mostly two or three years ago. I really don't remember unless I would resort to skimming some of my past posts. I never got any news this year of outstanding catches along the banks, so I guess that's over and done. Speaking for myself, I missed out on it. Of course, most of the action was during October and November.

We'll probably be back later this month or during January, along with my son, Matt.

 Grass grew here on dry land earlier in the year.

Hey, it's the Superdeck. If you click on the image, you can read for yourself. Huh, I used to read Nietzsche. During an episode of almighty zest, I imagined decking the whole shebang of this Animal House we call civilization.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2014/11/69-pound-rainbow-trout-round-valley.html

Where We Feel the Power of this Planet

Fred calls them brain farts. Not always bad ideas. Besides, when you step into streambed muck this coming spring, smell that sulfur gas...anything released from underneath this hallowed planet can't be all bad. The last couple of days, I've been musing a little on the naturalist within me, sort of uselessly hoping for time to read Darwin, read Ewell Gibbons, read taxonomic botanical texts, read more about reptiles and amphibians, go out and apply some of my learning. Now I add, use my camera equipment besides. Re-connect with my young genius as a nine-year-old when I read Aristotle. Collected reptiles, amphibians, fishes, insects, arthropods, blithely unconcerned with and naïve to any laws that might have then existed, as if I perhaps were born millennia before my time, my manic mind racing to try and catch up, and yet I still don't know what the laws were in 1970. Twenty terrariums in the basement of our family home serving as looking glasses for my ethological studies, note cards at hand, obviously my parents didn't care a whit about any laws either, but I did care about natural law and trying, years before abstract thought normally sets in at age 14, to devise a theoretical scheme to frame behavior of animals in captivity, though in reality, I was far from the status of a zoologist. Not from that of a young naturalist.

I don't remember keeping any of the fishes until I was 12. One aquarium. I still have 3 x 5 notecards with my writing and diagrams on them depicting a little of what sunfish, bass, a stone cat did in the tank. I let all this go by age 13.

Today another day off, the plan was to write my monthly article for New Jersey Federated Sportsmen News, which I not only did, but progressed further than the anticipated rough draft to perhaps the finished completion, although I always seem to find a word or two to change after I think a piece is finished. I also sent an essay to Boston Globe Magazine, not that I altogether anticipate acceptance. I worked on a poem: "Numismatic Prism." Most of all, I worked on a big article assignment, but not under the sort of feverish state of nerves anticipated, and by working with a sort of deliberate slowness instead, I've managed to get more of it done than I really expected to do.

Past two hours, I've been drinking a little of a sulfurous substance--red wine. Rick got back to me in the morning, telling me it was unlikely he'd leave the bank early to fish the surf for those stripers with me, but that he would call if he could. We chatted online about someday trying for Pulaski steelhead in the spring. Read--years from now. Shift work and very little Paid Time Off means no time for that. At least for now.

Let me take another sip. That might help me remember that fart.

Two sips. And here it is, as I anticipated it would come, and don't think for a moment wine was not essential to its arrival. Fishing and naturalism melded together in my head. But I'm convinced this idea is not subjective, because I--rather fuzzily, I admit--see that naturalism, taken for what it is, has to do with observance in the field of natural facets. Fishing has to do with catching fish, but more than this, we do observe not only how they are caught, but take note of all sorts of interesting facets of their behavior, so we might catch more, all this obvious to anyone who fishes seriously.

But here's the thing as it relates to naturalism. Naturalism per se is supposed to appreciate nature as it is. But do we turn over rocks, capture specimens, move apart brush, etc.? Sure. So interaction is part of it, just as, while fishing, we appreciate nature while interacting with it by the use of varying levels of sophisticated tackle. We go a step further while fishing, perhaps. We modify nature, the fish, as once they are hooked, they bring our entire method and approach, basically technological, if very basically so, into play as a gaming success if the fish is caught, and so we include ourselves as tool masters in the whole scheme of nature, if we so presume a naturalist's perspective at the same time.

Who cares about naturalism, right? But remember home base. None of our fishing will come to anything at all, if we were to destroy life on this planet, not that I think there's much danger of this, but for certain this planet is changing very rapidly. It's not a superman issue, as if we as mankind can "save the planet." It's way too late to avoid a changing climate, so the issue really involves how we will change with the change. But even that idea is too grandiose to attract much interest. It's true enough, but in our own lifetimes, it's much less an issue of what we can do, than how any of us might better appreciate nature as it really is when we're out. And as we fish it.

Don't forget sulfur. That's the key. It's what's underneath it all that calls us to the depths. And that's where we feel the power of this planet.

As we might become this power.

Striper Run Flares Up for the Holidays

Quite a run of schoolie stripers in the surf. Similar happened about 10 years ago, when Steve Slota Jr. caught some 75 of them, all about 20 inches long, on one outing. If I vaguely remember, there've been a few lesser runs since then, and now the news includes something in the neighborhood of one keeper bass 28-30 inches long for every 20 shorts.

Jim Stabile first informed me several days ago. Now that I've got info on numbers caught and extent of the schools, I'm motivated to get out and give them a try, especially since there are some keepers moving with the shorts. Not that I'm starving to death, but that thus far, despite my losing a number of big stripers, my largest striped bass was only 28 inches long. Don't get me wrong--beautiful fish--and I caught another minutes later just the slightest sliver short of the same length, but I wouldn't mind catching a 30-incher.

Have emailed my brother Rick. Notice is probably too late for my day off tomorrow, and after the two of us hoping since July or August to fish the surf together this fall, I doubt very much I'll go alone.

Here's a link to an Asbury Park Press article on the event:

https://www.app.com/story/sports/outdoors/fishing/hook-line-and-sinker/2018/11/19/hook-line-sinker-nj-fishing/2053399002/

Available: 2019 Licenses

Just got word in my inbox that 2019 licenses are available. Think after you click on this link, you click on "link to mobile friendly website" for the fishing license. Anyhow, I'm waiting until the last minute and probably buying my license at Round Valley Bait and Tackle, so long as Zach issues license.

https://www.njfishandwildlife.com/als/websalesintro.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Concern for Menhaden (Bunker)

Over the years, I've followed the concern somewhat for our primary saltwater forage fish. Here's a link to an article from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership:

http://www.trcp.org/menhaden-recovery/

A Pine Snake and the Law

Sitting here bummed out a little, I reflected on my state and asked myself what to do next. I thought of posting my concern. I admit I'm a naïve sort. All of these years herping with my son, who no longer does much of this, now a Sophomore physics major at Boston University, I never managed to inform myself much on the law. I knew you can't keep reptiles from the wild, and we never had the slightest intention of doing so. But you can't "harass" non-game endangered species like the pine snake, either.

I believe 100% in a boy's natural inclination not only to look at such a snake, but engage with it. Of course, when Matt did just that, I was his grown-up father who had no desire to run after and capture the six-foot creature with the powerful jaws to get around without getting bitten by them, which Matt managed to do. I did put on the brakes for him. He saw the snake from the window as we traversed a Pinelands sand road with New Jersey Audubon, and before the car even came to complete sudden halt, his door was open and he was out running clad only in socks, having taken his sneakers off for some reason.

We did no harm to the snake. Matt held it briefly as not only I photographed it, but a dozen or so NJ Audubon members did so as well, not a word of protest from anyone about the broken law, only amazement, photos immediately circulating online. Actually, the link I've connected you to features a pine snake he caught a year later in the Pines, but the point here is moot. No law about "harassment," as if we had any such intent--no, not at all--trumps a higher natural law about boys and their engagement with nature. Nothing will ever prompt me to take this post I've linked you to, and the photo, down.

Who knows. Maybe Litton's Fishing Lines has never taken any awards--many other New Jersey blogs have--because we're too edgy. If you're with me, though, you believe not only in freedom of speech, honesty, candor, and rigor, but freedom to act, as well.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/04/snakes-in-new-jersey-and-waiting-for.html

Shifting Borders

Another fall nears closing as once again the surf striper run on the Jersey coast has fallen apart. This fall, a lot of bass got caught three miles or so out to sea, but repeated nor'easters contributed to vacant surf lines. I don't know much of the whole story, but my brother Rick and I have been talking about surf fishing since August, so we were ready to take our opportunity, which never unfolded. He lives in Wall a mile from the beach, and he's been at the ready to say go.

We also hoped to fish Lake Hopatcong. I doubt he's even seen the lake since January 1978, but he's up for walleye and hybrids sometime. Our plan got cut short because Dow's Boat Rentals had to pull the boats, the lake level sinking too low. Every five years, the lake gets drawn down five feet so docks can be maintained.

I also hoped to fly fish on Wednesday, but rivers already high and off-color are flooding plenty now with the next heavy rain falling two days after the previous. More rain is in the forecast for later this week, too.

The climate is mixed up. It seems to me as if the bulk of the stripers weren't interested in the surf line this fall or last regardless of waves as high as 15 feet. Why specifically I don't know. And I don't know if climate has anything to do with it, just that my gut tells me it might. Borders will change as seas rise. The way maps divide regions now will alter. 

3 Degrees

It got cold. Three degrees recorded at Walpack. Four degrees at Pequest. Even seven degrees right over here at Basking Ridge, but we took a road trip today, down through Musconetcong Valley, back over in our home direction on I-78 and getting off to drive by Round Valley, where the pond has no ice on it, though that pond is very deep and exposed to the wind that's been pretty persistent the past few days.

A pond with 35-foot depth takes a while to cool off, and though I am curious about how thick ice got and is getting yet on shallower ponds to the north, I feel just as disappointed because my hunch tells me the wind prevented much from developing.

Back up to 50 degrees tomorrow. I wonder if we'll enjoy some 70-degree temps before January. 

6 Degrees

Happy Thanksgiving! (Watching "Sorry to Bother You" on TV with my family.)

Took Sadie for a walk in 21-degree cold, temperatures expected to fall to 11 here in Bedminster overnight: https://www.bing.com/search?q=temperature+bedminster+nj&form=EDNTHT&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&refig=a159f7fad2ea45a5c2be9bc0e929ffe7&sp=-1&ghc=1&pq=temperature+bedminster+nj&sc=1-25&qs=n&sk=&cvid=a159f7fad2ea45a5c2be9bc0e929ffe7

North of here in Sussex it's 19, the temperature expected to plummet to 6, and with cold persisting into Saturday morning, I suspect ponds up there may support ice fishing for anyone who would care to do it:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=weather%20forecast%20sussex%20nj&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=weather%20forecast%20sussex%20nj&sc=5-26&sk=&cvid=8B8026C040654893869F1956234E5243

Just a fascination of mine. I probably won't ice fish until January, and not a whole lot this winter. Walking Sadie, I paid my respects to the pond, not frozen. Wind is always a factor when it's present.

Looks Like Marginally Safe Ice

Come Wednesday night, temperatures are expected to plummet to the mid-teens, getting down to 15 after a high of 27 on Thanksgiving, and then dropping to 24 Friday night. This is Bedminster's forecast. In the northwest corner of the state, it's likely marginally safe ice will have formed on ponds, although after early Saturday morning, milder weather will return and knock out anyone's taking advantage of November ice fishing.

Here's a link to the forecast. Think it will get dated quickly: https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/USNJ0032:1:US

Winter Trout Stocking

Fred used to catch winter stockers at Speedwell Lake, but this late stocking of ponds and lakes is largely about ice fishing, and none is allowed there, so they phased out the stocking. A pond I fish a lot, Mount Hope Pond, I know supports some jigging--and catches--when the freeze comes. I will keep you abreast of developments concerning ice or lack of it as ice season comes.

Here's the link to Fish & Wildlife information:

https://www.njfishandwildlife.com/wintrstk18.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Ice Watch Begins

Skim ice will likely develop overnight on ponds in the northwest corner of the state. Recent years have seen this happen about now, as the link (below) takes you to a November 24, 2016 post with a photograph of Lake Musconetcong frozen over, although that ice was very thin. The photo leaves something to be desired as far as making that freeze evident goes, but that was the case.

Less than three weeks ago, the trees remained primarily green here in Bedminster, and now most of the leaves are down. We took a very sharp turn in the weather, so here I am beginning my yearly ice watch already.

We shall see how much snow we get tomorrow, if any.

Wouldn't mind a solid ice season, although I don't plan on getting out more than three times. I don't rule out four ventures, but I do like to use winter as a time to get a lot of writing done. Matt looks forward to ice fishing this winter, especially after having so much fun on Round Valley Pond last January, and he's interested in what I have to say about ice fishing Tilcon Lake.


https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2016/11/delaware-river-at-interstate-80-and.html

Excitement You Never Forget

Haven't fished since October 31st. My brother Rick and I would have gone tomorrow, but the prospect of surf casting for stripers in pretty serious cold does not feel right with most of the catches three miles out and further. He fished them a few days ago in the surf and didn't get a hit.

Like last Wednesday, rivers and streams are high after rain, but I wouldn't have fished a week ago anyhow, nor tomorrow, besides the surf. Too much writing to do, which I'm enjoying a great deal. You see the announcement on the page about coming books. Whether or not a publisher takes the book on trout fishing I'm finally working on again, I enjoy writing it so much that I actually feel that if no cares to publish it, it will still have been fully worthwhile. It's as if I can't lose. As a case in point, the novelist Barbara Kingsolver is probably more introverted than I am. As a matter of fact, I took a personality test the other night for the fun of it, and I scored 65% introverted, 35% extraverted. I've thought for years that I'm ambiverted, and this balance of percentages shows this is pretty much the case, anyway. But about Kingsolver, she said in an interview that she would have written all of her novels just for the joy of writing, and then stuffed them in drawers, as if never to be read by anyone else.

I figure if no one will publish my book, I'll figure out how to publish it online, but I really do want a good commercial publisher to take it. The trick is not to invest too much hope in this, in case it never happens. And besides, the best writing, though it addresses readers through every word and punctuation mark, is written on the level of language, not as an expediency with designs solely to cash in. So every move this writer takes is redeemed by the fact that it's for the joy of it. That feeling does want to reach out. It's just that nay saying can't ruin the work.

I got word from Fred Matero tonight, in answer to my suggestion that we swing over to Round Valley maybe sometime in December. He's up for it. I never forget the last lake trout I lost. I'm assuming it was a laker. They come in when it gets really cold. A few of them. That afternoon early in January, think it was, wasn't so cold, but it was winter, and I had cast a really big shiner way out there by use of an 11-foot noodle rod with great range. Fishing bottom can seem a bore, but once line starts moving in a world shut down by the season that keeps most people indoors, you feel excitement you never forget.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/05/coming-books.html

Crouching for Trout

Told myself recently today would be a day for catching up. No fishing. Ha! I finished a query I needed to write at 1:30 pm, after spending more than an hour-and-a-half before this at cleaning up my laptop. As my reward for good work done, I rode out to Scherman-Hoffman Preserve and signed myself in for some Passaic River fly fishing. I was notified I had to be out by 4:45, this at 3:12, so I briskly hiked directly to my favorite pool.

I got fully absorbed in the fishing right away, crouching with my Simms-covered seat in the water, but I caught no trout. I caught a silver shiner, the same species I use as bait, amazed at the three-incher's gumption at striking a size 16 beadhead. Soon I hooked something else small that got off, and then later caught a five-inch chub that fought like it might have been a little brown or rainbow, both species reproducing here in the big river's headwaters.

I can dig this sort of fishing. The particularity by use of my little six-foot, two-weight TFO involves plenty of reward for developing skills, which have paid off in the past, even though, so far, none of the trout have measured more than nine inches long. I have spotted them in this Bernardsville flow about a foot long in the past.

New Jersey offers a lot of opportunity for wild and native trout. It's no wonder they don't get much pressure, given the size of most of them, and relatively sparse populations for the most part, but I like the feel and I will be back, connecting at least to my own practice at gaining on some success.

On the way home, I swung over to the North Branch Raritan at AT&T, fishing persistently, wading across the river and upstream after fishing by the exit bridge, getting a beadhead deep in a nice pool with strong and deep current leading into it. I felt a nice trout had to lurk there, and I kept trying to get a hit, feeling as if maybe I could do this for a hundred years and nothing would happen, but who knows.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2018/01/wild-and-native-trout-in-small-high.html 

Kittatiny Ridge Frames a Good Mood

On Millbrook Road, accessed by first navigating a series of roads new to my travels, we approached Kittatiny Ridge. Trish and I got a very clear look at the face of it. The walls of schist or whatever looked smaller in the distance than they are, but still appeared prominently, distinctly off-white like marble. I said, "Matt and I climbed that ridge from the bottom when he was seven-years-old." The vertical elevation from the start of the Mount Tammany trail to the summit is 1200 feet. I think the Rattlesnake Ridge trail Matt and I climbed is about the same ascent. At the top, there's a pathway no more than four feet wide between a gigantic boulder face, and an edge over which distance drops about 900 feet to treetops and rocks. I felt very nervous walking that. My young son showed no fear at all, once standing right at the edge and looking down as frankly as had he looked at a floor. I was stunned.

Further on Millbrook Road today, views from the ridgetop felt thrilling. And after the last view passes, descent is steep and swift, Millbrook Village appearing on the right quickly. No event held by the park service today, we came to hike further up along Van Campens Brook, further than we had walked several years or more ago. I slung my camera bag on my left shoulder and carried my two-weight TFO fly rod with my right hand. We did work our way further up the Donkey Hollow Trail, but I remember last time somehow finding a trail that follows the brook closely. This time that wasn't evident. I did manage to fish the spot photographed not long after we left the village, and also cut off the trail far upstream, making sure moss on stones I braced my boots against didn't slide under them as I worked my way downhill to the water. This second spot was a nice hole, bottom four or five feet deep perfectly visible, but I felt as if I had imposed on the fish there, fish I suspect are present but had dodged me and my bead-head nymph.

Later, when I unloaded gear into the trunk, a man a little older than me came up and asked had I caught any. We launched into an informative chat about the fishing, his experience and success a lot more than mine up there. "You have to approach them with stealth."

"I did feel I imposed on them," I said. "Do you crouch?"

"Oh, yeah." And he said he wears camo. He kept mentioning the trout's weakness for bead-head nymphs, that they like the reflective gold surface on the tungsten. He wasn't fishing today, but he's done quite a lot up there.

The hike wasn't for the fishing. It was for my wife. And mainly, we came up here for that hike and for dinner at Walpack Inn. As events proved out, Walpack Inn was the main reason, but before we parked among hundreds of other vehicles and carried books into the restaurant, anticipating a wait, we visited Roy Bridge again, where I didn't fish, but did perform a productive photo shoot.

The view of the ridge as we traveled back on State Park 615 to the restaurant felt grand. Green tone recently gave way to yellow on the rusty side of the color spectrum, I could tell. Down here in Bedminster, the color tone is still predominantly green. We got a table without waiting. I felt utterly amazed, as we were led to it, at the size of this place. Where do the dozens of employees come from? It must be 45 minutes to the nearest gas station. Maybe that's hyperbole, since Layton isn't far, but Layton is a hamlet. Despite a lot full of vehicles, getting a table was no problem, the place is so big, and the food was fantastic. I had prime rib, Trish a strip steak. Each of us got baked potato with sour cream and horseradish. Doc Joe's (think it is) Hard Apple Cider is so fresh it reminds me of a Class 1 trout stream like my favorite Dunnfield Creek. The apple pie with ice cream was a huge serving for each of us. And as we ate, aside from us, a huge picture window admitted a full view of Kittatiny Ridge whenever we turned to admire the mountain.

We took a walk behind the building towards the ridge before we left. It's certainly not the highest mountain on the east coast, but to deny it if you haven't taken its challenge is cheap. And if you were to deny it and then take it's challenge, it might not be safe...

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2016/05/hainesville-pond-little-flatbrook.html

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2014/05/blue-mountain-lake-largemouth-bass.html

Savage Summer Flushed Clean

As we departed our cars for the river, Pat asked if I expected us to catch any. I said, "I would be surprised if we didn't." Such is my belief in this river and the stretches we fished, but if reality never checked my presumptions, I would get all too full of myself very quickly. We found the South Branch running high but very clear. So clear and cold my first impression told me the bass weren't going to come easily. Pretty soon, I figured they weren't going to come at all, but part of the game involves narrowing down where those fish might be, in spite of their refusal to let you know for sure.

The edges and shallows where bass struck last I was here weeks ago were empty. No hits, and by wading these areas, we sighted nothing but a little smallmouth about five inches long. Pat waded across the river and examined the edge on the other side, the first of any of my parties, including myself, to do this. He sighted a carp about three feet long and nothing else but rocky ledges and bottom. Eventually, I crossed the river and though I distinctly saw bottom five and six feet deep, no fish made themselves evident at all. My conclusion that the bass must be down in about eight feet of water hugging bottom felt all the more certain. The current moved powerfully through these depths, but right at bottom it doesn't move much. We probed that bottom repeatedly, but nothing was interested.

Cold and clean, the water gave us no doubt fall has settled in. Trout water, but bass will still hit sometimes. Today we fished the middle of the afternoon under sun and clouds, but a lot of sun. Last November, I came here with Steve Slota at daybreak, frost crunching under boots, and I caught a smallmouth about a foot long on my second cast. The magic hour early or late makes a difference. It is possible water somewhat off color that morning did too, although I'm more under the impression that the clarity it has now would be even better for catching bass.

There was an impressionistic feel to the place. I've never before experienced it like this. Seurat could have filled a canvas with dots as if things weren't quite real in the hard-edged ordinary sense, and yet every time I looked down through that clear water at bottom--whether soft, gravelly, or rocky--I felt nature had flushed the savage life of summer clean, as if all that is left are the elements without the waste life inevitably leaves behind.

We drove downstream where trout got stocked weeks ago and fished salmon eggs for whatever still awaits in the currents. Not a hit. But I got absorbed by use of my three-and-a-half foot wand, not doing any more magic than controlling the drift. That's a matter of allowing the egg to ride with the current near bottom, while keeping monofilament nylon fairly tight so a strike can be detected and hook set. Pat was into it, also. I thought of springtime ahead, and I realized that perhaps the most beautiful thing about fishing in April, before trees green and confirm the fact of spring's presence really here, is the expectation.

What a Try for Trout

Plan was to wake up, pack up, go trout fishing. I didn't care to go at all, and instead of making myself do it, I respected our mutual endeavor and gave myself a break, rather than put the kibosh on what I always want to go well.

Sure enough, by early afternoon while I continued to struggle with an essay I will submit to a high-end fishing magazine, and felt frustrated over losing time to query yet another, I began to feel like going. Trish and I had plans to go over to the Lamington for a photo shoot as the sun would get low, but I had plenty of time to scoot over to the local AT&T stretch and dip some salmon eggs.

I got over there, reached to open the door, and realized I had left the salmon eggs in the fridge. "Goddamnit!" I drove home, fetched them, and soon worked the current under the exit bridge, polarizers revealing very nice depth, though I sighted no trout hugging bottom as I began a process of covering water swiftly. I knew there was no point of continuing to cast when I didn't feel this would yield anything, but not only do I trust my fish sense very tightly, I plainly saw no fish. I imagined there might be a few camouflaged, but I had my doubts. Finally, I settled on the fast water below the entry.

Standing in front of four foot depths, I realized I needed to add a couple of barrel swivels to my snap to get the egg near bottom. First, I took the safety pin holding swivels off my vest, clumsily emptying the prong of all eight or nine swivels onto the leaves at my feet, recovering only two of them, but I got them on the snap...in the process losing my leader and hook. So next, I got involved in the frustration of tying a new leader by the use of my bad eyes. Those size 14 hooks and ultra-thin two pound test are not easy for me now. After long minutes of intense frustration--all I wanted to do was come and have an easy go at this--I found that somehow I had broken off the hook I had tied to the fluorocarbon. So I tried again, and this time I completely screwed up on the loop knot, finding--after I tied a second loop on a leader that was about three feet long, not half that length as I had misjudged it--that I had indeed tied a successful loop in the first place, which was about a foot from the hook. So there I was with two loops, and when I tried to break the leader so it would measure about a foot long, I destroyed that first loop I had tied. Finally, I ended up with a leader attached to my snap about four inches long. Absurd. But it would have to do. I had had it. Battering off defeat, I thought very hard on making a new leader wallet, because there is no way I'm going to have trouble like this in the spring. It popped into mind that there's probably no reason to trouble over making my own wallet. I owned a wallet I made during my teens until I lost it a couple of years ago, but nowadays of course, I could just check on what's for sale online. I got a cast in, the swivels took the egg near bottom, and then when I made the second cast, the rig got caught in branches hanging pretty high over the current I hadn't noticed. I broke off and said the hell with it.

I haven't felt frustration as I did this afternoon since my teens. A burning kind of frustration. But I got my head together before I marched entirely off the premises with that resolve to buy a leader wallet. At least I know now I need one this spring. Yup. Had I driven all the way to the South Branch to have this sort of trouble, it would have sucked a lot worse. I got home and immediately ordered a 10-leaf leader wallet from Amazon. Then Trish, me, and Sadie went for that, successful, photo shoot.

After we got home the whole afternoon felt very invigorating.  

Relaxed Beside an Island, Ordinary Life Seems Absurd

Every fall, I manage to get out on Lake Hopatcong and fish the drop-offs, but even worse than last fall, the warmth had kept the lake from turning over and the trees from changing color. For longer than a week, I was aware of cooler weather forecast, and I hoped it would make a significant difference, because with temperatures in the 70's and 80's, I knew fish would be suspended over drop-offs at best. Mark Licht and I met at Dow's Boat Rentals just after 6:00 a.m., and instead of temperatures in the mid-30's as forecast, they hovered around 40, but of course that's a lot better than the 71-degree reading I noticed at first light on Wednesday.

Brian Cronk was supposed to come, but he phoned me Saturday night, telling me a friend of his had shot a bear and he had to help in the morning. Brian and I have tried to get out and fish together since early June. We're jinxed. Instead, I would meet his UPS driver. I found Mark to be great company. Brian and I have planned on fishing Lake Wawayanda for what seems an eternity now, me interested in going Old School and fishing live shiners for big pickerel common there, Brian wanting Atlantic salmon usually referred to as landlocked salmon here. It so happened that when Mark and I got off the lake, a man and his wife of foreign description were busy cleaning a good-size pickerel, so I went across the dock and joined them for a moment, admiring a limit catch of pickerel that seemed to range from 18 to maybe 22 inches. I know of one angler who claims he prefers eating pickerel to walleye, a radical dissent from the usual derision about these pike family members, just because of Y bones in their backs. In any case, and I've tried pickerel and they're good, this moment before Mark and I departed to go home seemed portentous to the fishing Brian and I will do yet, and it's good to be reminded that deep drop-offs in October are not the only possibility on Lake Hopatcong.

"The motor is quiet!" Mark spoke above the hum as we motored away from Dow's. He has a large center-console, but wanted to try from one of Laurie Murphy's boats. He told me fishing for him is about the big picture, not just the narrow limitation, as he described it, of keeping eyesight glued to the linear form casts create. He takes the environment in, and I said it's the same for me. Readers of this blog know I take great liberties, perhaps less so at description of environments I fish, than of rendering accounts of complex ideational moods these places inspire in me. I haven't written any posts recently true to what I've called grand affirmation, not since the Tilcon Lake posts, keeping instead to more conventional accounts of the fishing, but perhaps by the time I finish writing this one, I will have written material that Lenny Matera and Fred Matero--each other's best friend with nearly identical last names--say they can't understand.

Mark and I began fishing a mid-lake drop, finding suspended fish stacked over 38 feet of water, but instead of fishing them right off the bat, I put a marker buoy in the water, and then with the words of Jimmy Welsh at the shop in mind, "I've been catching them 20 feet deep," we anchored in 14 feet of water to the side of that buoy set near the drop-off's deep end. Jimmy had also said, "Striper fishing sucks," mentioning smallmouth bass this deep instead. Well, maybe a walleye would take a live herring.

We set our baits 14 to 25 feet deep, and soon Mark hooked the first walleye he's ever caught. Sun had barely reached the horizon. Later Jimmy would weigh this fish at four pounds, seven ounces. Five minutes later I caught a two-and-three-quarter-pound walleye. And then besides my catching a one-pound (or so) walleye an hour later, nothing else hit and so we went after those fish near the buoy.

There must have been hundreds of stripers under the boat and around the boat. We tried to catch them for a solid two or three hours. The lake almost dead calm, we had no trouble putting herring and also chicken livers on their noses. We jigged. I rode a Binsky bladebait through the school repeatedly. Not one hit. Later, I would discuss this with Laurie, and she said it happens all the time, "And then, like last week, someone will catch 40 or 50 of them." Seems like you can always depend on largemouth bass. Just put a proper lure in a bass's lair, and you'll catch some, as Mark and I did on this trip, but these hybrid stripers seem downright weird regarding feeding habits.

We had to give up, or else we wouldn't use our dozen nightcrawlers. And this is when the trip got to feeling especially good, or at least it did for me. With the electric, I pushed the boat at a pretty good clip up to an island where my son and I have fished for more than a decade. We used ultralights to catch all sorts of panfish and bass. Mark also used a heavier rod and Senko to catch a bass and lose a pickerel at the boat. I set three lines out deep for walleye, and eventually, Mark caught a walleye a little bigger than the larger of my two.

But best of all, whatever you want to call it--psychological resistance, habitual responses, suppression, all the big words for a simple problem--the tension, which doing a hard job day after day builds as a defense to doing anything amiss, gave way. I had first uttered some words to Mark I forget now, but a moment's reflection on them was pleasing to me for their spontaneity and grace. So much is written against language, among spiritual circles of the Eastern variety, as if talk is a hindrance to Zen and what not, but nothing could be further from the truth on this outing. Once I had spoken a few times, words devoid of mannerism and more intelligent than anything typical, the bottom dropped out under my tendency to suppress natural flow to get the job done, and I was free. For at least an hour before we left as 1:00 pm approached, I lived purely in the moment, completely accepting the mess we made of the boat and the sort of helter-skelter character of dipping many lines. And upon reflecting on it for a moment, ordinary life seemed so absurd and a waste of energy and life, as if the whole problem with society is that we don't let go.
 

Most of the fish we marked were at 17 feet, but sometimes the graph was almost full of fish icons across the screen. Some fish did mark as deep as 31 feet, so the lake is turning over, but not any deeper than that as of yesterday.

All these years fishing herring, this had never happened, but it happened a second time after I shot this photo.

Mid-October normally features peak fall colors. So far, there's barely any change from summertime.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/10/an-american-fishery.html

Ignorant of the Natural World

Told my wife I would get up minutes before first light, fish two hours, clean the fish, and get a little sleep before spending my day off from work at various tasks. Then we would go out and see a movie after she got home from work, as we will, but so far, the day hasn't gone as planned. Got up before first light, but contrary to expectation, I wasn't the first there at my local river. Three cars had parked. I soon positioned riverside with Sadie the black Lab, who is mellow in old age, but stupidly I had rigged my 3 1/2-foot microlight rod with two leaders. Naturally, they had tangled. On the spur of the moment back home, I decided I "wouldn't need" my headlamp. Sheer stupidity, that. Presently, as I cut line with my teeth, I remembered that I hadn't made the coffee, so most likely, the coffee pot was boiling out stovetop, and I made a mental note to phone my wife. An arduous process of tying a new leader in the semi-dark felt frustrating, but of course, I had to get this right. Amazing how you can focus with all your feeble intent on a simple action--as mosquitos tear at your skin--and finally look up to see that night had become day during the interval between discovering the problem and solving it.

Those mosquitos didn't seem very out of place, because it was so warm I could have just worn a T-shirt. Sickly temperatures for this time of year. Leaves show some signs of color, at least. I didn't bother snapping a photo, but those leaves are nowhere near the depth and range of color they should be by now. This coming Sunday I have off--most likely--and Brian Cronk and I have been messaging about fishing the Hopatcong drops. It's supposed to turn sharply cooler, so water temperature isn't likely to be above 70, a temperature that is just insane for mid-October, but will it really get down into the low 60's so there's appreciable lake turnover by Sunday? My fish sense tells me I will relate more bad news on this blog that evening, so I'm kind of hoping we schedule for the 28th...if I get that Sunday off.

I guess New Jersey is the new South Carolina. Recent years have been all too warm, and it gets worse. Ninety-degree days in November? Is this really impossible in our future? Here come the tupelo trees and palm fronds. And how many more Category 4 hurricanes will bear down on our coasts in the next 10 years. People care about the economy, right? So why destroy it, time and again, by emitting undo megatons of carbon?

Here it is fall, and I was wondering if the trout wouldn't hit--no one there caught anything while I was present--because it's too warm. I've fished these fall stockers very little over the years, and mostly by fly fishing. I decided to try the salmon egg method on them, the first time I've done this besides back when the trout stocked in the fall were small, and I caught lots of those on three occasions. I was disappointed this morning, but I heard bird song of various species; I saw a bunch of nice trout, and in general I got outdoors and enjoyed the dawn of new day, in spite of the sort of sick feel of inappropriate warmth. Having fished for about 20 minutes, I sped back home to get that coffee pot off the stove, fearing it had...overheated.

No, I was wise. I had taken it off the burner before I left.

As I drove, I thought again of the oddity of people who pursue stocked trout, as I sometimes think about the peculiar social situation, me among it in my own microlight way, and yet when I recall one of my favorite waters from my teenage years, Stony Brook in Mercer County, I always think first of the smallmouth bass, not the trout. (Stocked trout only.) For the most part, I had those bronzebacks--many, many dozens of them--all to myself. I fished with my brother Rick a lot, my brother David some, my friend Steve Rosso, but I best remember outings alone after school and on weekends or over the summer. I used to walk and wade at length and catch bass after bass on three-inch Mister Twister grubs on plain shank size 2 hooks. Strong, lean wild fish. No crowds flocking for them at all. Of course not.

And we know why. The media mentality and the ignorance of people all too beholden to the media, in regards to the actual world they live in, is here to stay. At least for a while yet. By and large, no fishermen knew about the smallmouth bass in Stony Brook. If most freshwater fishermen in New Jersey pursue stocked trout, I can say almost for a certainty that some of them possess but little inkling that fish other than what the state puts in exist, besides some sunfish. You might second guess that and correct me: no, that's the population at large who don't fish. But I've talked to people who know a bass here and there gets caught, but who otherwise have no idea whatsoever of the healthy resident populations existing here in this state. I have been fooled, too, though in a different way, because I was thinking of a mud-bottomed river ecology with regard to the possibility of smallmouth bass in a certain Morris County stream. (I won't get into certain follies from my young years.) Oliver Round put a wager on me regarding this judgement of mine, and later gathered information to contradict my opinion. I also didn't know that stream hosted wild browns upstream, until Oliver showed me the steady fly fishing. There's a whole lot more involved in knowing the real world than what the internet and TV can provide. Newspapers and other media faithfully report on trout stocking, and crowds of people obediently respond, as if this media effect is what fishing is all about.

That's just how any society is. By and large ignorant of the natural world. And we all would well agree--just as well that crowds don't go after the wild fish. They never will.

Besides, if you think posting information like this is detrimental to fish populations, think again. Who has read this far into this post, but few of you. And if you're intelligent enough to have come this far, you're wise to the conservation of these fish anyhow.


http://fishinginnewjersey.blogspot.com/2011/10/north-branch-raritan-river-release.html  

Nice Largemouth South Branch Raritan

Killies left over from the time of my "Rough" post, the Island Beach State Park outing my wife and I took on September 16th, have survived very well even without use of my aerator, although three of the largest did die when I was keeping the bucket indoors about two weeks ago. Cooler weather and keeping that bucket on the porch was perfect.

So very late this afternoon I finally went to the South Branch Raritan, to my favorite stretch alone except for our black Lab Sadie, and found the river running very high but not very off-color, visibility a little better than two feet.

I had to check the depths where I often catch bass, the killie rigged with a medium split shot, though I was all but certain nothing was going to hit there, because the current was strong. Two drifts, the split shot clipping bottom, were enough. I aimed a cast downstream to the edge between current and slow water, an edge not very well defined, but the cast veered left to put the killie into the slow water. I let it sink a moment and then began a slow retrieve, feeling a firm pick-up within a couple of seconds, letting the fish take for another two seconds, and then setting the size 6 plain shank hook into a nice fish.

Not only did I forget my new Rapala digital scale; I forgot to set drag to accommodate six-pound test instead of 15-pound braid, just as I forgot last October when Mike Maxwell witnessed a big smallmouth snap my line of the same test. This time the fish didn't threaten a heavy run so fast, and I was on that drag, loosening it.

This fish wasn't nearly as big as the one I lost last year, but it was a nice largemouth, the largest of this species I've caught in any of these small New Jersey rivers, 16 inches, and though there are bigger largemouths in the rivers, you don't very often even come upon small ones. Before I left after sundown, I had caught additionally three regular-size smallmouths of nine to about 10 1/2 inches, all these fish hitting along edges between that heavy current and where it slows against shallow water.


http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2013/09/four-pound-smallmouth-bass-south-branch.html

Deep Drop-Offs: October Top to Bottom

Deep Drop-Offs: October Top to Bottom

Lakes and reservoirs with enhanced fisheries offer anglers the possibility of catching multiple species from a single anchored position, thanks to New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife and organizations like the Knee Deep Club and Round Valley Trout Association. In October, many steep drop-off’s hold largemouth and smallmouth bass, yellow perch and pickerel among rocks and weeds as shallow as a foot or two, perhaps crappie in mid-column depths, and walleyes, hybrid striped bass, and in some reservoirs, trout, 20 to 45 feet down. Classic grand slam catches of various species take laurels among many angling circles, but it’s possible to do three or four better, if you include channel catfish as factor 8. Sunfish don’t amount to nothing, either, and a variety of colorful species inhabit our waters. If you succeed in lifting a painter’s panoply of all sorts of gamefish over the gunnel, an outing can feel like a dream, fulfilling the sort of action making fishing feel easy for a while. Hitting it just right, especially after mid-October, isn’t all that difficult to do, once you’re clued into the right spots.

Anchor Mid-Point

As a general rule, setting anchor in 15 to 20 feet of water allows you to fish herring weighted by ¾-ounce slip sinkers on bottom with two rods per man, while fishing shallows with the likes of Senkos, spinners, jigs, or nightcrawlers. Perch and sunfish provide plenty of action if you use what my son used to call his “secret weapon.” Under Matt’s influence, I deeply succumbed to using nightcrawlers, contrary to my typical preference for artificials. They teach me a lot about nature’s rewards. When offering a nightcrawler, if a bass awaits nearby, sunnies or perch scatter and let the aggressive predator have the bait. I’ve caught October largemouths on several or more consecutive casts without a tap from panfish. You can also jig 10 to 15-foot depths and score crappies in some situations.

When Round Valley Reservoir fills again, rip-rap will produce. Weight rigs for trout 15 to 30 feet down, and catch smallmouths and largemouths situating among shallow rocks. Merrill Creek Reservoir may offer similar opportunities. Spruce Run Reservoir (northern pike possible) has rocky drops with hybrids possibly on the deep end. Greenwood Lake and Monksville Reservoir have sharp drops, walleyes and bass. Is a musky an impossible factor 9? Of course not.

Finding the spot is everything. If you don’t own a boat, Dow’s Boat Rentals at Lake Hopatcong will accommodate you. If you’re not familiar with the structure of the lake or reservoir you intend to fish, go to NJ Division Fish & Wildlife Lake Survey Maps online, buy the same in book form or purchase a Fishing Guide Map of the lake or reservoir in question. You’ll see deep drop-offs holding fish designated by close contour lines. A fish finder will possibly help you pin-point schools of hybrids or walleye pods, although especially walleyes may hug so close to bottom that they don’t mark on the graph. Chiefly, use the sounder to orient where to anchor and set bait deep.

Deep Drop-Offs and Oxygen

An all-around figure for walleyes and hybrids is about 35 feet deep, but experimentation yields results. By using multiple rods, you can set bait up and down a drop-off from 20 feet to the bottom edge. In my experience, the bottom edge is key, and I like to spread herring apart by 15 yards or so, casting so the sinker drops where I know the slope ends. Don’t worry about getting this exactly right. Experience will teach you, because walleyes and hybrids will take your generous offers, even if they have to swim a few yards from that edge we only suppose they like to follow closely.

By October’s third week, Lake Hopatcong usually isn’t entirely turned over with oxygen re-established in the deepest depths of greater than 40 feet or so. By noticing how deep fish mark on the graph, you get an idea of how far that oxygen has penetrated. Far from cove and shoreline protection, out on the main lake, Nolan’s Point and the Ledge, for examples, take greater wind action and may feature oxygen deeper than other spots. When you first set herring, let them be for 5 or 10 minutes, and then reel back at moderate speed so as not to force them off hooks. See if they’re alive. If so, you’re good to let them bait your quarry a long while. If the spot is new to you, try to determine if bottom is rocky by graph indication or by feeling rocks while retrieving the sinker on bottom. That’s hazardous and you may get snagged, but this will tell you the spot is fishy. Rock is better than mud. And any sort of snag usually means additional cover.

Worthy of mention, a hybrid striped bass revolution has occurred in recent years, many anglers switching from live herring to chicken livers. In my opinion, this is about as close to the definition of revolution fishing can come, since the difference between a super-lively (but delicate) herring, and a piece of dead bait from the innards of a bird is divergent, but the new method, involving chumming with liver cat food, is very productive. For our purposes of anchoring in one spot to access both shallows and depths, chicken livers are problematic, not best right on bottom. You would have to use slip floats, and that is doable, though less so with heavy chop. Part of the beauty, however, of letting a herring do its thing on a 4 or 5-foot leader anchored deep by a slip sinker is simpler focus on fishing. Frequently looking at reel spools with bails open to spot any movement is easier than the demand on attention a bobber inevitably compels. Line either rapidly leaping from the spool (hybrid striper), or slowly unwinding towards the pick-up guide (walleye), may feel more thrilling than noticing the same associated with the drag of a slip float out there.

Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass, Pickerel

As mentioned earlier, October largemouth and smallmouth bass often inhabit very shallow depths of as little as 1 or 2 feet. Fifteen feet is about maximum, pickerel sometimes in the mix. Rocky shallows top side of the best drop-offs are great for both bass species this time of year, especially with some weeds associated. Water is cooling quickly and bass like a sharp incline into depths as they begin orientation for the cold water season.

Especially if you can find a large, undercut, flat-topped boulder—cast a jig, weightless Wacky rigged Senko, or a nightcrawler inflated by a worm blower and impaled on a size 6 plain shank hook, weighted by a split shot. Right on top, slowly pulled over the edge so it drops as close to the rock as possible. If any bass is waiting in shadow to ambush something highlighted outside, it will likely pounce. Some lakes have huge boulders with 10 feet of water or more directly in front of them. We’ve caught bass after bass in situations like this.

Walleye, Hybrid and Trout Rigs

Walleye and hybrid rigs are simple: 6-pound test monofilament, size 8 treble hook through a herring’s nostrils, 4- or 5-foot leader of same test tied to a small barrel swivel, ¾-ounce steel egg sinker allowed to slip on the mainline. Whether a rod is fast action, slow action, moderate, 5 feet or 7 feet, this matters little, though you will get a longer cast with a longer rod and better accuracy from shorter. We use medium power. Set the herring; let it swim wildly on the leader. Tangles happen less often than not, but if you want to spend the money, fluorocarbon mainline sinks and gets out of the way of that herring. Braid line does tangle much easier than monofilament or fluorocarbon. I don't recommend use of braid for this kind of fishing.

For trout, use single shank size 6 hooks, same rig otherwise, although leaders as long as 10 feet by use of longer rods may prove effective on suspending trout. Marshmallow and mealworms, Power Bait and shiners produce.

Don’t wait to set the hook, once you notice line moving. Line passing through an egg sinker can get caught around an obstruction or gut hook, if you don’t tighten up and set immediately. The herring wear each treble hook like a crown. Single shank hooks placed through nostrils turn awkwardly against the bait’s head. Usually, walleyes or hybrid stripers get hooked near the outside of the mouth, but have a pair of plyers or a hemostat handy for a walleye that gets hooked in the back of the mouth.

High Winds and Interesting Results

If you double anchor, you can beat wind swinging the boat side to side. We simply use a single 10-pound mushroom anchor. If windy, a long length of rope allows the anchor hold. Even with the boat moving left and right, the herring lines manage not to tangle, but for some, this might feel nerve wracking.

Some of our best catches have accompanied high winds. Motoring from one spot to another, we’ve noticed everyone else fishing out of the blow. Asking them about catches, unhappy reports came. Gamefish like a lot of commotion in the fall, rough surface overhead just right. Brave it, and you might do especially well.

Bass and pickerel get caught on crankbaits, jerkbaits, spinnerbaits and traditional plastic worms in addition to jigs, Senkos or nightcrawlers, possible choices too many to mention, but my son and I, friends besides, like keeping it simple. Whether you fish lures or nightcrawlers, catching bass and pickerel, perch, sunfish, and crappie while keeping an eye on lines out for deep denizens makes fishing more interesting, particularly when a good-size bass rivals big walleyes and hybrids down below. 


http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/05/lake-hopatcongs-enhanced-fishery-is.html   

Work Hard, Fish Hard

Caught in a quandary between the job I hold, and possibly a new opportunity, I take the chance to reflect just a little as this pertains to fishing. At present, a company in Summit wants me to take an online interview involving webcam use, so I tried a practice question and felt appalled at speaking into a screen. If they allowed written response, you might agree I might do well, but my point would be that even though I would be advantaged, because practiced at words on a screen, I would be able to follow through with the promise. I let this interview go, I'm not doing it, because even though I might not interview in person as well as some do, I've done it before and can do it now, even if my cynicism has increased greatly facing such scrutiny since I was younger and more sincere.

That might read: Bruce doesn't really want a new job. And perhaps this is true. When Oliver and I waded Mulhockaway Creek Friday morning, I noticed that my stamina and energy on a streambed is better, now that I'm almost 58, than it was three and five years ago. A couple of North Branch Raritan posts relate my self-doubt as I had aged, feeling the stress of exertion as I walked and waded. Three years ago, I lost about 60 pounds, but this was just the beginning. Actually, I went from 266 all the way down to 192 last summer, now up to 210. (Last summer I was on a lower dose of a certain medication.) At 210, I'm not terribly overweight, over six feet tall, but now its the exercise I get on the job I notice saliently. Upper body musculature has returned. I carry heavy stuff. I feel muscle in my upper back and deltoid region working as I carry out tasks during the day. I walk here and there throughout the supermarket gathering items to prep and from the kitchen. I'm always on my feet.

The difference is big. I remember the shape Affinity left me in after sitting in a car most of the day for about 13 years. At the country club, I sat too. That left me in terrible shape to take on the supermarket, and I pushed like all hell. Now it all goes a lot easier. A major stumbling block for me, considering a new job with those regular hours, increased vacation time, holidays off, and maybe interaction with more intelligent people--important to me--is the loss of exercise. If I am to take a mailroom job, I'll be on my feet some of the time. These jobs typically require ability to lift 50 pounds, and I see lifting as one of the opportunities, not a drawback. But the customer service I see as a possibility will require even more sitting.

I'm not certain, either, that a corporate environment will offer that intelligence I seek. Where I used to work, it took more than 10 years before I became friends with the Security Officer, an intelligent man about 10 years younger than me. We share the photography passion and still connect often on Facebook. It's true that I settled into connections with people from all sorts of departments and branches sooner than that, relating perfectly well with people on all status levels, and by the time I got laid off, I had developed into a dignified older man who could have taken on responsibility at a much higher level than I occupied, but not only is convincing anyone else without paperwork--a suitable degree--all but out of the question...I did try to get a position with Business Development...the cultural atmosphere today, as it was three years ago, maybe not as badly then, is distracted and uncertain, cynical and indifferent, which is not to say conversations characterized by verve and focus never happened where I worked, they happened often, but to say that the bottom line is broken everywhere. Trust at the fundamental level of competence is missing. Without this, the balance sheet itself is a blur.

Companies of all sorts depend first and foremost on the people who comprise them. Without a firm gut--I'm always writing about my fish sense--the bottom line ultimately cannot hold.

For a large part, I can't complain about my customers at the supermarket. My boss, who I work with a couple of hours each day, suddenly treats me with kindness, as if the spirit has informed him I might go elsewhere. What the specialty counter would do without me, I don't like to consider, because it would be awful to leave it in the lurch just as my boss finally seems to realize I do the work, do it well, and am not a bad guy. I'm friends with a man in seafood who has the best workingman's ethic I've ever come upon. Many other people there I like, and yet anyone who reads my blog can tell I should be doing better than wage work, corporate office or not. That's a story too long to relate, one I've struggled to understand for decades, enough to know that I will die knowing I could spend many lifetimes and still not grasp the answer altogether. (The post I will link to explains a little.) Suffice it to say that I live the writer's life. By and large, writers hold day jobs and appreciate the privilege of getting published when and where they can.

More vacation time, weekends off, holidays off, would advantage my time to fish and with friends, but I was particularly impressed with my wading performance Friday. I used to think 60 was old age. I wondered if I could still wade streams in my mid-60's. My guess, especially if I stay in the position I'm in now--I should be able at 70 or older. Work hard, play hard.

I've gone into edit function to add a remark. Many years ago, Bob Marley wrote that one day the bottom will drop out. Perhaps I'm profoundly old school and just don't get it, as if today's man is doing just fine, thank you--and we will pass on you and hire a young guy. But biologically, it's a fact that a diaphragm supports the lungs and deepest speech, just as the bottom of the gut has neural connections involved with intuition and certain judgment. Perhaps when the bottom drops out, the men of the mind will be needed again, as Ray Bradbury wrote in Fahrenheit 451. I just hope the nuclear power plants are prepared to shut down without melting down and killing all of us, if this becomes essential to survival.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2018/02/opposite-man.html

Fly Fishing Mulhockaway Creek

Down and immediately around the corner, Mulhockaway Creek empties into Spruce Run Reservoir.

I phoned Oliver Round Thursday afternoon about the possibility of high water; we decided we would arrive at the Mulhockaway Friday morning just after first light as planned, hoping the water would come down enough for any trout to see our flies. As the morning turned out, I got there right at first light, which I understand as the moments when blue tones slightly emerge in the sky from blackness. That was shortly after 6:00 a.m., when shortly after that I began writing in the notebook I keep in my car, using the overhead light so I could see. Oliver arrived 25 minutes later. He had ventured the idea of us bringing spinning rods and spinners, just in case the hole near the reservoir we read about were to be fishable. I told him that flood events like this result in browns running. Whether or not they move into the creek prior to spawning this early in the fall, I don't know. My feeling is that it doesn't happen until about November. A number of really big brown trout--supposedly born and bred in this creek--have been caught in the reservoir during recent years, as big as 10 pounds.

We found the creek running high but pretty clear, visibility better than two feet. This is our first time fishing here, and we didn't expect to find the creek as large as it is. I felt very pleased at our discovering a number of deep holes, and fairly near the tailout of one them as we quickly progressed downstream, I caught a nine-inch rainbow trout while fishing a beadhead Wooly Bugger/#16 beadhead Pheasant Tail dropper arrangement under a strike indicator. That must be a holdover from spring stocking, unless wild browns get all the word and rainbows reproduce, too, silently overlooked. Why rainbows reproduce in some New Jersey wild trout streams, but not others, I don't understand.

We had to get to the reservoir quickly, because I had to be at work at 1:00 pm. Rather than getting to the reservoir itself, we fished about a hundred yards of widened slow water, most of this shallow, but down closer to the reservoir itself, it does deepen. On the way down to position himself to fly cast this deeper water, something pulled on Oliver's Wooly Bugger. I tried a Mepp's spinner in that deeper water, just to be sure.

On the way back up, we hit the holes, but took no strikes in return. The Mulhockaway is widely known for its wild browns, but I wasn't surprised they weren't evident to us, not after some experience these past five years fishing them here and there. But Oliver and I--more than five years ago--have caught them elsewhere. I had to remind him of one occasion when we did pretty well, and now another, on the North Branch Raritan headwaters, comes to mind. We caught a few there, too, and that's not doing badly in New Jersey.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2014/11/fly-fished-somerset-county-nj-trout.html

She's Thinking of an Ice Season Ahead

With a low turnout for Knee Deeps Hybrid Striped Bass Contest, the fish did not cooperate as well. Lots of smaller fish, and only 4 making the board. Jack Dziduch, with a 4 lb 4oz Hybrid took 1st place. Second went to Ryan Gilfillan with a 4 pounder, Tom Sarnacki took 3rd with a 2 lb 12 oz, and 4th place went to Lou Marcucci with a 2 lb 5 oz Hybrid.  Hopefully a better turnout  with contestants and fish for next year !!!  The last contest of the year will be for walleye on Oct 6th from 5AM until noon on Sunday  Oct 7th. We will be open early for the contest weekend.  With the five foot drawdown being done this year, there will be a lake wide cleanup being held on Nov 3rd. If you are interested in helping remove debris from the lake, please check out The Lake Hopatcong Foundation’s website for more info. Even an hour of your time would be greatly appreciated…Several walleye have made their way to the scales this week in the 4 pound range, along with pickerel  some nice crappies, and lots of white perch.  Also being weighed in was a nice smallmouth at 3 lb 4 oz, caught by Robert Glinka. We will remain open until November sometime with boat rentals, and are always stocked with bait & tackle. Hoping for a good ice season...

Laurie Murphy

A Number of Really Big Smallmouths this Year

Another four-pound, eight-ounce smallmouth. Jealous. Laurie Murphy's report:

Just a reminder that The Knee Deep Club’s  Hybrid Striped Bass contest is  being held this weekend Sept. 22nd & 23rd. Stripers here have been hitting on chicken livers and herring. We have both available here at the shop and will be open at 5 AM for the contest. Entries are accepted up until 8 AM on Saturday. Gary Gurevich of Randolph NJ, fished with live bait and herring and had a variety of fish that kept him busy for most of the day. Jake Cerami, along with his friend Trevor Nilesen, caught pickerel and bass on their outing, the largest being 3 lbs 5oz. Jack Dziduch, fishing with his son casting small jigs and Rapala rippin raps, landed his 4 lb 8z smallmouth out of shallow water. Maquire Bruce - Lockhart (age 9) , landed a smallmouth also, weighing in around 3 pounds.  Although the lake drawdown begins this coming week, we will still have boats available thru November sometime, depending on the weather. We’ll be stocked up with plenty of Rapala ice jigs for the fall jigging season. We also have new Bomber colors in stock. Have a great week...