Maybe It's More Sunfish and Smallies

Oliver caught fish. A few redbreast sunfish and a smallmouth bass of about nine inches. We used dry flies, wet flies, beadhead nymphs. As we walked in, Oliver saw one rise. I approached the pool carefully and sighted what I think was a brown trout a foot long. Soon, I saw two more, smaller, but my sight wasn't perfectly clear, and though I did make out the black tail fins...smallmouth bass can appear to have black tail fins. 

Upstream, I did spook a seven-inch fish from depths under a large sycamore. Looked like a trout to me.

Any case, Oliver swears he spotted trout downstream, but since--once again--he caught none, he thinks the water this far down the creek might be better suited to sunfish and smallmouths. He had fished here once about five years ago and got skunked.

I went upstream, he went down. I have no trouble driving these days, nor is work any problem, but when I'm fishing or taking photographs, the loss of awareness due to cataracts is very annoying. It makes me less inclined to cover ground. 

Oliver went all the way down to where the creek goes under a major highway. About a half mile. When we met and fished that first pool one last time, we soon hiked out, talking about the demise of a couple of our former spots. He'd been to both of them during the Lockdown. The places were pounded. Banks worn down and spent worm containers left where artificial-only regulations...simply do not work when people refuse to respect them and the law isn't enforced. 

Places where we used to catch and release wild trout. 

Oliver said people probably say online where they caught fish and a crowd follows, but I reminded him that people are mum on Facebook about spots, and besides, anyone can access the NJ Fish & Wildlife interactive map of wild trout waters. 

After I mentioned that, Oliver came up with a great idea. That local law enforcement should be given the power to hand out summons to anyone breaking with fishing regulations. 

It could seem better yet that we scrub the web entirely and start over.

The One-Pound Test

Tried Where the River's Even Smaller

Brought rod, tackle, camera to work, and afterwards--forgot. I was well on the way to Interstate 78 when I remembered, so I decided to fish well upstream of where I would have fished in Gillette. I figured, I already know pike exist down there. Sooner or later, I would try up here to find out what I can.

On my second cast, I twitched the #9 Rapala and got hit, but it could have been a sunfish. The river up here has less holding water than down below, but why would pike swim upstream as far as Gillette and not keep on going? So I made sure to fish any breaks in the uniform flow, as I made my downstream. Those included leaves grouped together behind branches in the water, a downed tree, boulders, other branches. None produced so much as a wake. If there were any pike on these spots, my plug didn't interest them.

I fished pretty far on down, and you would figure that if any pike--or bass--are in the river, they'd relate to those breaks in the flow. 

There're pickerel in the river, too. At least there are for certain on down below. I know of catches.