Fred arrived shortly after 11 when I worked on a poem set in the clamming life. I saved my work, shut down my laptop, and headed out the door, telling Fred he was free to ride with me. It took a minute or two to load his gear.
I had told him we might do well because recent very high water interrupted the pressure on the fish, but it is Tuesday and the North Branch's last stocking day is tomorrow. Not to mention that Peapack Brook might not have been stocked in two weeks. But I believed in the possibility, though our first stop wasn't going to pan out.
I began to think my worst fears might be the case. That the excessively high water last Wednesday meant the state didn't stock at all, and whatever few fish remained in the stretch got carried miles downstream! Fred had said we might get away with wet wading, but the drop in temperatures took us by surprise. I'm glad the temps got cold last night and never rose out of the 60s today, though, because the chilly water favored the trout, for sure.
So we put on our waders and walked into the AT&T stretch from River Road Park. I didn't even want to think of limiting the fishing to the spots and casting angles accessible from the bank. I catch a lot of trout there that way, but I wanted to reach the holding water from the bottom of the stretch to the head with no encumbrance.
It was almost too deep with the camera slung around my neck and the bag getting a little wet. Fred pointed out, though, that the stretch has filled in a great deal recent years. We worked our way upstream. I got hit a couple of times. And then again near the end of our foray I did once, but suddenly, I saw a trout cut across my field of vision. And then shortly after I saw three or four of them holding on golf-ball sized stones where I would have stepped if I didn't see them first. I tried to get them interested in my salmon egg, and one of them seemed to take interest, but I never hooked up. I had already begun thinking of where to go next, and I caught myself thinking we should go directly to Peapack Brook. As if we'd catch nothing behind the police station. Instead, I told myself, "I don't know that."
Fred and I drove to Miller Lane and made our back to the river across the field. Conversation got our minds off the walk, which seemed to take a minute.
I got hit right away. I kept getting hit. Finally, I caught one. We kept catching them. The action eventually slowed dramatically, but I still managed to lose another trout right out in front of me. By the time we felt ready to move, I had caught seven and Fred four. Fred got them on worms and maybe one on his favored jig. I was into a new jar of eggs.
The first series of stretches we tried apparently had no fish in them. I tried some very fishy-looking riffles and rocks with depths as much as two or three feet, but drew no interest at all and turned my attention to trying the waterfall before we would run out of time.
There we each caught two.
Fred knew a bigger deep hole, and I was interested. There I caught one more, and Fred caught two, all four of his Peapack trout on the jig.
Fred's been fishing the salt, hasn't caught a trout since he lived up here, I believe. He was very happy to do well today.
I happened to be framing Fred on the dam when he hooked up on the jig.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments Encouraged and Answered