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