Don't Get Stuck Judging an Issue

I wonder about 40 horsepower on the Passaic River here. My electric knocked into so much wood I'm proud of how tough it is. But hit that stuff at 25 mph or better? I guess as long as it can tilt upward unimpeded...

What began for me as a grind I feared would reduce me to a quivering mass of pain and nerves, turned out to be an interesting outing. I had no seat cushion and my upper and lower back tightened, paining me. Problems like that tend to find resolution if you keep at it. I wasn't going to give up, but early on I believed I was stuck, though we would motor at least two miles upriver. Some people feel that after retiring, it's time to back off from active living and wind down, but I still feel youthful within. You can tell I do from the way I talk and write. So long as I'm lively where it matters first and foremost, I'm able to express that physically, too. 

As we progressed through the first hour or two, most of my casts disappointed me, too, which felt alienating, as if I had lost an important part of myself. It was just misplaced. I place a lot of pride in casting accuracy and I wasn't hitting targets. Getting snagged a lot, too.

That proved to be the way out of my malaise. The work it took to keep getting unsnagged began to feel like play, and not only did my back loosen up and begin to feel a hundred percent more comfortable than it had felt, my casting accuracy got right on target. Both rods. The Yum Dinger and the Chatterbait.

I had even feared I wouldn't be using the squareback much longer, which impresses me now as just laughable. Back when we met at Cronk's house, we secured the front of the canoe with a rope. We had the hood of my car opened, having tied the rope at two ends to metal inside; we let that rope go loose, and I dropped the hood on it, which made it tight at both ends. 

"When you stand back from a problem, it can seem unsolvable," I said, commenting on how loosening the rope had seemed hit or miss regarding how dropping the hood on it would turn out. "But proceed with it concretely, and it can be easy."

Same with my back and casting accuracy. Just took longer. But the point is, the mind can play all sorts of tricks on you, and if you don't persist at a problem by getting closer to the substance of it, rather than standing back and playing the judge, you can fail to solve it. It's always substance that frees you. You get into it, and then it's as if the problem solves itself. 

It's the same with writing, too. If my blog posts served as no more than generic recaps of fishing outings, no one would bother reading such thin gruel. It's easy to say, "We got skunked on the Passaic," and pretty much leave it at that. But besides using that state of affairs to make a point of the issue, I wouldn't otherwise have even needed to say we got skunked in this post. 

By digging in, stuff emerges on its own that makes my time worthwhile as well as yours. It's interesting because engagement results from reading a writer who messes around with a text until it flows together as a single unit. There might be a few glitches, but then again, I usually go back and read them, making any corrections where I see need. 

There's a chemistry involved in writing. Just as there is in fishing. It's always a little different as the subject matter or situation varies, but it gets switched on by making the effort. Or just loosened up and allowed to react.

   

On the way upstream, Brenden did get a swipe from a pickerel. I saw the boil. The two of us after big pike, that feels a little presumptuous now as twice we've motored (electric) upstream for them and have seen only a rather small one follow a plug to the squareback. I caught three largemouths and Brenden caught a pickerel and a perch when we fished here in September. I've caught pike from shore on multiple occasions, but my biggest so far is only about 22 inches. Brenden's caught them 34 1/2 inches and 36 inches from shore. Lots of smaller from his kayak.

We didn't only fish tight to visible cover. (We fished wood in the water. Pads. I used a weedless mouse.) But because the current cuts against the bank in many places, some of which involve slack and eddies with some depth, I believed I fished possible holding water there. The current, by the way, flowed considerably heavier than I remember from September last year, and I didn't like that, though I adjusted to it, including my ability to position the canoe. 

We also checked muddy shallows. For example, where the river bends in various places, there's a shallow flat like a wide point where the current is slack. I really wonder where bass spawn, there's so much soft mud. Water temperature was 64, 65. The main river channel here is generally 10 or 12 feet deep.  

Watching and listening to birds got interesting. I don't say that only as humorous irony. Lots of wood ducks. A redtail hawk examining the river by flying in tight circles just over our heads. Red-bellied woodpecker. The call of either a pileated woodpecker or flicker. Blue jays. Mallards. A species I don't remember having seen before and couldn't identify. We saw five or six muskrats. A beaver. 

The trees are light green, except for a very few still displaying red florets. Loads of pollen in the air, and lots of stuff on the river surface, even though, at least when we began, the breeze was very light.   

Home sweet home.

I keep noticing loss of access. The sign wasn't there when we came here in September last year. I don't believe it's constitutional to hamper access to public water. Unless, of course, it's an issue of private land. The Passaic River is not owned by a township, lol.

Brenden fishes wood in the water.

September

Always Good to See a Fly Rod Catch Stocked Trout

Back at it in Millington, I have to say the Passaic River really didn't disappoint, even though the lack of water clarity turned me off. Tannic when I came last year, the tannic quality there again today had somehow got stained a little by mud, even though it hasn't rained in a awhile. 

I began fishing with my red salmon eggs, but I had only a dozen or so left in the jar. I caught three recently stocked rainbows on those, missing hits from others, and then I climbed the embankment, crossed the road, and got more from my trunk.

They hadn't been salted. Three in a row departed from the hook on the cast. I thought I had salted all my eggs, and since that was the last of red ones I brought along, I switched to those off-white pale eggs I normally prefer. 

I caught a couple more trout when Brenden Kuprel showed up unexpectedly, introducing me to his cousin who had also come along. They took station downstream within distance of talking by raising the voice. We talked just a little about Shop Rite where Brenden and I both used to work, and where Brenden still does work as a manager. 

I wanted to get underneath the bridge, but when a father and daughter abandoned the spot right about when Brenden and his cousin showed, the guy who fly fished downstream took it. (Brenden and his cousin took position where the fly fisher had.) 

I said to the fly fisher, after watching him catch his second trout, "Always good to see someone doing well with a fly rod."

"I do better with the fly rod than with a spinning rod," he told me. Just before he had hooked his first trout, I asked him if he were using nymphs. "Yes." 

Downstream I watched Brenden catch a few on his Berkley Powerbait trout worm under a float. I had caught a couple more and lost another almost at my feet when I decided to go. After I would lose the last pale egg on my hook, which proved to be a very stubborn, perfectly salted egg. Staying on that hook as if destined to serve. 

And indeed. It amounted to one more rainbow for me. 

Millington Gorge

 

Trolling the Mepp's Aglia

Brian told me Clinton Reservoir's water temp reached 48 on Tuesday. The weather can be considerably cooler up near West Milford than in the Dover area, let alone Bedminster. I wonder how cold it was last night. 

Getting the boat off the trailer, I waded above my knees barefoot. Numbed quickly, it was only painful at first. I still had some feeling on the underside of my feet. I felt the point of a piece of glass--it must have been lodged in-between stone--on the bottom of that right foot. The glass wasn't lengthy enough to penetrate the skin.

We trolled here a couple of years ago, catching smallmouths. It's a mystery to me why we haven't caught more trout. I used a Mepp's Aglia Long size 6 almost all day today, almost the full four hours, and I doubt a trout would feel it's too big, but maybe that's why. I don't know.

We had trolled up along a shoreline where we've caught a few in the past. After we turned the corner of a point, my antennae twiggled. I don't always anticipate a catch, especially when cold water makes them difficult. But often, I do. I envisaged myself getting my Aglia right down near bottom among rocks, having asked Brian about depth. We had seven or eight feet, and that felt just right. I was on setting two or three of the 55-pound thrust Minn-Kota. (Brian always has me run it, which is OK. I have a boater's certificate.)

I thought I had hooked a trout, the way the fish zigzagged quickly. I soon had a smallmouth about 15 inches long in the boat. 

"I knew what I was doing," I said. I didn't tell Brian I had felt I was about to hookup.

Near an island, we stopped trolling. We cast a rocky flat with water as shallow as a foot or two, most of it five or six feet. Clear water. I made out rocks as deep as eight feet. I figured that with the abundant sunshine, those rocks would warm a little. 

Apparently nothing was there.

We've done better during the early season along the opposite shoreline. Brian trolled crankbaits, and although the shoreline does not drop off nearly as steeply, and he got snagged more than a few times, he was able to fish them. My Aglia produced once more, another 15-incher. I didn't anticipate the fish directly as I had the other, but I saw a stickup above the surface ahead, which did pique my interest. I took note of the bass having hit just yards ahead of it.

Today was a much-needed release from so much nonsense my brain keeps me struggling with. Working at the Supermarket wasn't bad. It's much better to hold a job than to live in a dystopian world after civilization collapses. If anyone can live in such a world. When the electrical grid permanently fails, won't the numerous nuclear power plants in America melt down, killing all life on the continent? And yet the supermarket did cause me stress. Extreme stress for the first four years or so. Such stress can enlarge the amygdala, which means all sorts of overkill continues to stress the brain. 

On the reservoir today, I got relief from all that.

Near the end of our outing, I heard my phone ping repeatedly, thinking that must be my son. He often pings rapidly. About three minutes later, one last ping.

We beached and I checked my phone. No. The fast series of pings had been from Brian sending me photos he took with his phone. But the ping that came three minutes later--from my son! I stood there wrapped in a moment of awe. Did my thinking of Matt prompt him to send me the message? He almost never messages me, though it is true that when he does, he often sends a few in quick succession. 

He's working on nuclear fusion at UCLA. If we can power the grid by (clean) fusion power, we'll have solved the energy problem.

We had noticed a couple of guys in a bass boat. With Brian's boat on the trailer, they passed by the ramp, asking had we caught any. They had caught one smallmouth. I asked if they had a water temp.

"It's 51 up here and 49 in the back!" 

 

Spinners

 

Water Slightly Stained, Pinkish Red Egg Made the Difference

I made up my mind to switch out my favorite pale eggs for pinkish red, since the water had something of an opaque quality, not running too high, but a little stained. I had caught one rainbow and missed another hit. It seemed to take forever to lose the pale egg on my hook, after I had decided to switch. Cast after cast. Today is Tuesday, and the South Branch Raritan Brenden and I fished got stocked. I figured they didn't stock many, but my judgment, I was about to learn, was a little skewed. 

Brenden had missed a hit and caught one on his Berkley worm--think it's Berkley--under a float. My red egg got hit on the first cast. Hits followed, almost every cast. I played two trout and lost them at the net. On my microlight rod and two-pound test--yes, Berkley Trilene XL, clear--every one of them takes runs. I caught another. Action halted after that, but I enjoyed having had some. Brenden had said about his worm under the float, "They're just knocking into it. They won't commit." 

The casts and the drifts I managed to get on that light tackle impressed me, given that wind gusts seemed to reach 40 mph. We heard a big dead branch above us crack, and we heard a tree trunk snap and watched the big tree fall downstream, everyone fishing in the vicinity awed by that event. I used the same snap swivel I had used at the North Branch almost a week ago, and I added two broken swivels to it before Brenden and I departed Bedminster. He had met me in the lot at my condo. If the air calmed, I would have removed those snaps, because even though the river seemed to flow a little high, the pace of the water would have allowed less weight.

As we continued to fish, we watched a couple of guys on the other side of the river and downstream of the bridge (we waded in the river upstream) catch a lot of trout. While Brenden and I slogged away after the trout stopped hitting, those two guys left. I guess Brenden and I had the same idea as we witnessed that happen.

"I'm going to go fish where those two guys left," Brenden said.

"So am I."

Climbing down the bank wasn't a breeze for me. I felt awkward at it. I don't know what happens as you get older, but it has to do with balance somehow. I feel like a young man, but then I'm confronted with a challenge like getting down to the river there, and it's stymying. When I'm writing, there seems to be zero difference between now and when I was younger, except that I'm even more skilled than I used to be. Life is kind of odd in the way that you can witness your own physical decline in a detached way that feels youthful. It's as if that decline is silly. And if medicine is allowed to continue to develop--if we don't become an authoritarian society and destroy progress--it's possible aging will be reversed. 

Earlier on, I had dropped my Egg Lug into the river when I pulled a stringer from my wader pocket. I reached for it with my net, soaking my right arm in the process. That contributed to my developing the shivers. Temp at 64 when we first descended upon the river, it had fallen to 56 when we left. I did have a light jacket on but shook in the heavy wind gusts. 

Not lasting very long at our second spot, I never got hit once, anyhow, but Brenden did catch one. I had planned to stay out to sunset, but the chill was enough. We fished two hours from the opener at 5 p.m.

Worm Under Float vs Salmon Eggs

 

Cold April Weather for a Catch

Temperatures in the 50's would have felt better; 44 degrees was cold. Our hands couldn't take it for too long. I recall many outings on the rivers fishing for winter trout when my hands didn't get cold, but in that breeze out there beside Oak Ridge Reservoir, they suffered today.

The water's way down. We tried a spot below what would have been a steep, gravelly drop off, and Brian got hit hard. He used what looked like a quarter-ounce jighead, giving it body by use of a three- or four-inch Keitech. 

I was casting a Binsky when Brian hiked up as the water flows. Something like 600 yards. He took position on the end of a smallish point and cast. I switched to a 16th ounce jig and Z-Man Slimswimz paddletail. I fished it as assiduously as I could, shooting a glance over at Brian on occasion. I knew a real possibility of hooking a smallmouth here where Brian had missed one existed. My being sure the water was plenty cold, because a couple of recent nights have dipped into the 20's, didn't exclude that possibility.

I started to think that if Brian were to catch one, I should be there with the camera. Besides, perhaps he and I would catch up a little by way of conversation. I didn't like the feel of the weather. It put a dank feel on my every move, but if we would head in early...not just yet.

The walk felt pleasant with my black Lab, Loki, accompanying me. I kept my eyes on the ground, looking for whatever might turn up. Old beer cans. Coke. Beer bottles. Loki found a fish vertebra about a foot long. Shortly after I arrived, Brian told me he was about ready to leave. I felt relieved. 

"I missed a few hits," he said, adding, "I had to switch out my Keitech because the fish tore it up."

I fished my jig slowly on bottom.

"This might be really nice when it's calm on a summer evening," I said.

"Yeah, topwater." 

I understood it wasn't going to be an afternoon of much said between us. The weather felt too uncomfortable. 

I don't use Keitech, but I've heard it from Brenden Kuprel, also, that they don't last, but I began feeling perhaps I should have used a larger jig and plastic combination. Brian began making his way back in the direction of our vehicles.

"Fish on," he said. A sudden change in the feeling of things. 

I saw his rod bending. A good-sized smallmouth leapt. The struggle seemed a little testy as a good fish often does. Soon, he dragged one that probably would have measured at least 17 inches up onto the mud, making it less than a good subject for photography. I gripped it by the lower jaw and washed it off at the water's edge.

Back home, I found I had driven 94 miles. You never know; it's possible I'll ride all that way, fish topwater through a perfect summer evening and never get hit. 

Clinton Reservoir 

Trout Stocking First Week After Opening Day May be Lightweight

                                                                                     

Relatively opaque water, given how clear it can be, but not stained, ran higher than I had expected after three days since rain. I got into a nice spot right at 5:00 p.m., figuring fish should be there and would hit. I cast tentatively, and as the egg drifted downriver with the help of several snap swivels attached to a snap for weight, I suddenly doubted anything would happen. And nothing did until I got a solid tap about 10 casts later. 

After four more takes of the like, besides once getting slammed and having the trout on for a second, drag screeching, I made my way upstream some 10 yards, working my body through tight spaces between tree trunks and a wooden fence. The trunks have dormant poison ivy vines strung on them. Walking on rocks on a bank sloping at a 45-degree angle, making sure my left knee didn't give out, avoiding the consequence of getting pitched into the river, that, I thought, wouldn't be so bad. It would be the loss my mobile device. That left knee had been operated on some 14 years ago, and it's not getting better. I felt surprised to see the same woman who had hooked the breeder last time. I said hi and made a cast. Then a few more. I missed another hit. She said, "Do you think they restocked?"

"I think they did, just didn't put many fish in."

"I don't think so." 

I'm sure the river was stocked, although the trout, for the most part, weren't committing to the eggs but managing to steal them from my hook. There were others fishing downstream and I hadn't seen a single trout caught. I continued fishing near the exit bridge, the bridge upstream of the former AT&T entry bridge where the trout get stocked, but I got only one more tap.  

I went downstream. There I found the water was a lot slower than I would have expected, given the power of the flow above. I downsized to a single size 14 Eagle Claw snap swivel for weight. Soon I hooked up and fought an average rainbow to the bank. I was standing about six feet high over the edge of the water, and I wasn't interested in climbing down to get the trout, so before I would have pulled it up on rocks, I hoped it would lose the hook and be on it's way, which happened a second later when the trout was about a foot from the dry edge. 

Now. I figured I might have some action. I didn't think ahead of how much I would have to work for it. At my age, it's not as easy; it's rather difficult, but if you're going to suffer for the fish, you'll get some satisfaction in return, even if you go home with some kinks to work out over long hours ahead. 

I paid keen attention to just where my egg was touching down, and I missed more of the same kind of hits right at the end of my rather short and definitely slow drifts. I set the hook on one of them and got repaid with a distinct visual of rainbow colors before the trout quickly disappeared under the cover of that less-than-clear water. Soon, I hooked another, and I played it, drag screeching repeatedly, before I got the trout--average sized--against the bank. And then I lifted it out of the water, which made me wonder if I could lift it all the way up to where I stood. Would my knots to two-pound-test Berkley XL hold? Snap swivel to mainline, hook to leader, overhand loop of leader to slip onto the snap. The knots held as I continued to lift, but the hook pulled free, the trout dropping back into the water and shooting away. 

I missed perhaps a few more hits. I had to repeatedly cast, working for these fish. I was deeply into the flow of the action and enjoying it with focused intent. When hits stopped coming to the right of me, I cast a little further upstream. I found there were trout there too, just not many. Downstream further yet, on the other side of the entry bridge, some eight or nine men fished fast water with just enough depth to hold a fairly large number of trout, although there were not too many there today. I saw one trout get caught. The only one I saw caught by anyone else the entire time out. I had only minutes left, though, having signed on for a Zoom photographer's meetup at 7 p.m. I hooked another, playing it with the same give of the drag, and once again, hoisted a trout towards me, the hook pulling out. Convenient catch and release. I tried just a few more casts, once feeling a cadence of taps...so compelling...before I set the hook on nothing. 

Someone who had been fishing downstream and caught nothing told me it was the same lack of action at the South Branch yesterday. (The South Branch is stocked on Tuesdays.) Possibly that has to do with Opening Day having been only days ago, still a fair number of trout in the streams. 

I headed home to meet up with my friends. 

Fishing Salmon Eggs  

Salmon Egg Jar Fused to Metal Egg Lug

I can't remember how long ago it's been since I fished Opening Day, and although I could riffle through my handwritten log to find out, I'll let that be. I believe it was 2016, when I fished for half an hour with my son in the afternoon, the water high and off-color, though I did catch one. Not really muddy but not clear, either. 

When I got out of my car, gathered my things and began walking, I felt pleasantly refreshed. None of that doubt scraping at my innards, generated from feeling behind at work. I am done jobbing now, but as unambiguously as everyone else seems to think I'm retired, I can't think of it that way without being reminded I have more work to do than I can possibly get done...so I have to choose as wisely as I can. But work, yes, though I don't recall feeling reminded of it as I approached the river. Someone recently called that work my hobbies, but whatever, I do need to catch up, though it might be more important to slow down outdoors. For me, the prospect of building a website feels daunting, and while others say I should simply hire someone, no, I'm not interested in paying anyone to do what I can, at least, try to do.

I walked a rather long, paved walkway. It took me to the river between two bridges. I found the spot I usually do best at unoccupied. Surprised, I quickly made my way down to the river edge, feeling fortunate. The water flowed just a little high, not stained, but not gin clear. I needed to add a couple of snap swivels to my snap for weight. Then I stood there for about 10 minutes until 8 a.m. The first drift amounted to my salmon egg staying right near bottom where I wanted it, without the rig getting stuck on that bottom. Five or six drifts yielded no hits, and I thought maybe no trout made their way upstream from the stocking point a hundred yards below. But that couldn't be. Even on stocking days they're already up there. 

Got hit and played my first trout. Everything felt like cool air to breathe. Not too cool at 53 degrees. 

Near the end of my 50 or 55 minutes fishing, I noticed two breeders in close and upstream a bit. Neither interested in my salmon eggs, I told a woman who had come onto the scene in the interim that one of them followed her spinner for a bit. Five or 10 minutes later, she hooked one of them, but it managed to free itself from the treble hook. 

Fishing was slow compared to other times I've stood there. I caught four rainbows, lost a couple of others during the fight. Missed a few hits. Plenty of other trout got caught downstream from me, though it wasn't mayhem. I had decided not to bother with waders. 

The eggs had fished well; I had salted them just enough so they stayed on the hook. Got to my car and attempted to remove the jar--still almost full--from the metal Egg Lug. It's fused on there, but since I said the same in a couple of FB posts, I'm getting advice on how to remove it. Maybe I can.

The Egg Lug I purchased during the 1970's, when the metal ones were commonly used. I own another one, although it's possible it really belongs to my brother Rick, each of us having long ago forgotten. As the Reading Eagle article I linked to features it, Pautzke's plastic egg lug available online will work. I own one of those, too...and I don't remember buying it, either, although that was much more recent.

Jar of my favorite pale salmon eggs stuck on that ancient Egg Lug.

Comparison Between Eggs and Pink Worm

Baker's Basin and Moving On

First of all, let me say today was a strange day in many ways. It coincides with the fallout of so-called Liberation Day, though I wasn't thinking about that. Since I've got home, I've made sure to watch Fox News, but I remain skeptical about the President's idea about bringing back manufacturing, as if that cultural implication will actually revive the country. And I say that because I believe the future is new forms of advanced digital industry and energy--thus new jobs--not the past forms that are simply obsolete given the mind's advance since then. I fear that we've simply been set way back on the flourishing aspect of a future that is inevitable, while threatening to increase the heat of climate change. 

Not to mention that it would have been nice if the bull market didn't end once the President was inaugurated. Gas prices going up. What next? And the big question--what for? Nothing, right? Isn't that how vengeance always works. The vengeance takes down both the assailant and his victims. 

I rode over to The Sporting Life to buy a dozen shiners. Not because the weather is too cold for lures, but because I had in mind my favorite spot on the canal, where I've usually fished colder water with shiners. Ideally, it's a mild day when I fish it, because a pipe drains a small, very shallow pond into the canal, and that water flowing out can be warmer. 

I quickly caught a bass of about 13 inches by casting from up above so as not to spook anything in close. Got it up on the bank, the circle hook came free, and it plopped back in, so no photo of it. Then I missed a few hits from something that seemed to play with the (large) shiners, more than get serious about eating. I got hit again and reeled in the small crappie. Had a few more hits like that afterwards and caught the bass photographed.

I had bought size 4 and 6 circle hooks from Melton Tackle. It's a good price, but not only will a bass swallow a circle hook as quickly as it will swallow any other, a circle hook will not rust out easily, unless it's bronze like my Eagle Claw J hooks. Have seen only corrosion-resistant finish, which of course means resistant to rusting. So you can end up killing more fish with circle hooks. Not only that. It's quite difficult to hook a shiner through the lips with a circle hook. Had little trouble hooking them through the dorsal area when ice fishing, though. So today I switched back to a J hook and consigned my circle hooks to ice fishing. Maybe for Yum Dingers, too, 1/0. 

I fished my canal spot as if alienated from something I love to do. I said I did not think about what happened yesterday and the fallout today. I did see the Dow was down four percent before I went out, so I knew for certain but put it out of mind. Or so I would have thought. It felt as if I were being drawn into facing some unpleasant truth about myself and the fishing, which for decades has vitalized my energies. It was interesting enough to keep at it there for 45 minutes, but it seemed oddly incongruous to something having to do with the present year compared to long ago.

I mentioned Baker's Basin in a recent post, and today I fully intended on visiting the place. It's in Lawrence Township near the border with Hamilton Township. Why, I wasn't sure. As I rode U.S. Highway 1 from Quaker Bridge Road south, it didn't seem good. I turned right onto Carnegie Road, after turning around at Darrah Lane, and noticed the old Allied Van Lines warehouse is now a storage company. I rode a little further to see that indeed, Baker's Basin no longer has a parking lot. Instead, I parked in a lot adjacent the canal and walked the trail along the canal to the pond. 

The first thing I noticed is that the pipe connecting the basin to the canal--when I first saw the basin in 1971, there was the large opening to the canal where mule barges of the 19th century crossed--is broken. (I think they moved coal.) The front section apparently rusted away and sank into the pond, but there's still a flow between canal and pond. Bass go in and out.

Pads were up. Usually, I'd feel that's kind of nice, but it seemed like something from Jurassic times, the way the leaves protruded above the surface. I cast along an edge and a small bass tried to take the large shiner, too small a bass to hook. I did work my way down to the deep corner, hanging out there awhile. Some people do fish the Basin; litter gave that away. Not the other side, though. It's grown over and possibly holds more bass and pickerel, though I don't think the fishing pressure here is anything like it used to be, when it consistently produced. A fence with No Trespassing signs hugs close to where we always used to park and fish on that other side. Warehouse a little to the left. 

I fished where, 50 years ago, I caught bass in late February on shiners by fishing them very slow in the 12 foot depths, live lined. That inspired my first published article in The New Jersey Fisherman in March, 1977, "Early Largemouth." That magazine became The Fisherman. You might think that would be cause for celebration today, at least a leap of joy, but neither happened. Instead, the world seemed a pretty dead place. 

I have to get a new website up before I return to my book and finish it. 

All writers suffer self-doubt. Chris Pierra of the NJ Multispecies Podcast famously said, "Suffer for the fish," and there's no doubt that artists, writers among them, suffer as well. Sometimes I do in horrifying ways, but by always applying a pinch of salt as if I'm skeptical of the frightening scenarios the mind drags up from hell. I neutralize the moods. I always have plenty of control, and my friends might be relieved to learn it always seems to happen when I'm alone.

Not that I don't like being alone. I'll always fish alone on occasion. Come hell or high water. 

Besides, Loki the black Lab came along today. It's just that voice ought to be given to this weird thing coming down the pike as stocks plummeted. According to some psychologists with advanced degrees, there's such a thing as the collective unconscious. something I've taken for granted since I was 19, and it's as if today I blew around in the winds of the spirit. Not a good thing with such loss all the way across the country and around the globe.

I did catch a pickerel as I headed back towards my Honda Civic. There was an opening between trees and brush, where obviously some fishermen approach the pond. It was a saving grace to have one of my hunches. That's something I love about fishing. The psychic aspect. The ability to have a feeling about a spot, even when all the others have failed me. And for that spot to produce. Small pickerel. But even though I had had that feeling and had followed through, it seemed kind of absurd to have caught it. I even felt today that I should be working a job. What? Now we can't retire, because we have to all lose money for no purpose but some delusion about return to outmoded forms of production?

But I mean, really, I'll get the website up. It's not the end of the world. Takes some work, but I'll do it! I'll get the book done. I'll write the novel next. It's just that 51 years since I began fishing the Basin is a very long time, and I guess the message it relayed is that I damn well better move on.    

More Big Sliders Than in the Past

Pads Up

Beavers weren't here in the past. This is a big tree, and it's as if the beaver knew that, backed off, and is awaiting heavy winds to bring it down.

Delaware and Raritan Canal

 

The Guessing Game: Let the Unconscious Pinpoint Fish

My apprehensions about water temperature quickly dispelled, because I wisely decided to bring along my portable sonar unit again. Last I did that, I learned a lot about the lake's depths, but today that temperature concerned me, and Brian and I found in short order that it was 53. Not bad. 

Of course, with the air temp never getting out of the low 50's--when we drove off at 6:03 p.m. it was 49, and an hour or more before that, I plainly saw my breath--that water was cooling. I've known early season bass to turn on when it's warming. Conditions such as Wednesday's with the high temp just about 70. Brian was out there on the same lake with Mark Licht that day, and they did great, Brian's biggest largemouth about 6 pounds, five of his six bass over four pounds, but in total, they caught 11 fish, compared to our 13 fish in the cold yesterday. 

That might be a photo of the biggest, above. I'm not sure, because I caught two bass well over four pounds--4.87 pounds, and 4.32 pounds. Another one of mine might have been only a quarter pound under four, another about three-and-a-half, a two and something 17-incher, a smallish bass of about two pounds, and another bass of about two-and-a-half. The crappie in the photo below hit a MiniKing spinnerbait and put up a real good fight on a light rod. My pickerel came off the hook when I was lifting it into the boat, falling against the gunwale, then into the water, not into the boat, so you decide if that was really a catch. 

Brian called it a cigar. 

Suffice it to say not every fish is photographed. Brian did catch three nice bass; possibly every one of them was over three pounds. His pickerel was a nice one, too. 

Brian is committed to the Chatterbait. I like to use different lures. I started with a Chatterbait. Who would argue against its success the day before? I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to bring my light rod, but that MiniKing spinnerbait was looking good, and I did not deny it. Nor once we had cast Chatterbaits for three or four minutes to no takers among residual weedbeds. The MiniKing got hit after five or 10 minutes. I repeated the same cast and hooked up. At first I thought pickerel, then it felt like a nice bass, but it turned out to be a crappie only about 13 inches long! Partly, it was that light rod. One I built from a St. Croix blank that cost me $70.00 in 2005. 

The wind was about right but a little catty-cornered. It generally blew us up towards the back of the lake but at about a 45-degree angle. Again & again, we had to paddle away from shore. For a fairly long while--altogether we fished maybe four-and-a-half hours--I cast that spinnerbait, catching the pickerel and the smallest bass. A pickerel that small never would have hit a Chatterbait. Those are big lures for big fish. The bass might have hit it. And might not have. It was only about 16 inches long. Didn't even fight as hard as the crappie. It got me thinking about small lures for small fish. I have nothing against catching smaller ones, and I caught plenty of big ones yesterday. It was nice catching small ones, too. I also caught a 19-inch largemouth on that little spinnerbait. 

I tried the Chatterbait repeatedly but nothing would hit. But I like to think I'm good at guessing where to place a Senko-type worm rigged Wacky. If you're casting to the water, you're not doing it right. Out in front of you is a lot of water. In this lake we fish, for example, it's mostly about six or seven feet deep. There's weeds, but interspersed, and much of the time you can't tell where. All that water will only blind you if you don't create a spatial abstract of it and zero in on where your mind tells you to cast. Otherwise, it's just random and will only wear you down. It's not magic, but by using the mind, you create energy rather than lose it. The argument is simple. If you're interesting yourself at a guessing game, by which you convert the raw mass of water into a grid that tells you where to pinpoint the cast, you might rise to the occasion. You will, if results begin to suggest--as they have for me--that the unconscious mind is capable of putting you on fish. 

I had a rod at the ready. Pre-rigged with a brown Shim-E-Stick, good color for the overcast conditions. I picked it up and began my guessing game, which soon paid off with the 17-incher. Brian had caught one or two on his Chatterbait. Soon we positioned behind an island, and a bass picked up that Shim-E-Stick as I let it rest on bottom. It weighed 4.87 pounds, 20 1/2 inches. I caught another one of about 18 1/2 inches after I put my rod in a rod holder, letting the worm kind of deadstick. (The canoe drifted very slowly in the calm behind that island.) The bass took drag as the rod bent in the holder. As we began heading back to Brian's truck, I caught one about 16 1/2 inches on the brown worm nearly against the bank. Brian had caught his pickerel and his last bass. Before we really began the long paddle back, I gave that Chatterbait one last try. 

I had caught fish on both of my lighter rods. I wanted to even the score. Along that island shoreline, we've caught a lot of fish. I began by casting pretty close and parallel, and intended to progressively work my way out, not getting very far when I got whomped. The bass weighed 4.32 pounds, 20 inches.   

 

I thought this one was about 16 1/2 inches. Maybe it was a little better than that.

Artificial Intelligence and Fishing 

Last Days of Winter Trout Besides TCA Waters

One last try at the river trout as only two days remain before most waters close until Opening Day. Oliver Round and Loki the black Lab came today. Fifteen minutes less than two hours. Besides a couple of fish on for a moment I think were also suckers, I might have got hit twice from trout. Oliver had a sucker or carp on for a second. A big scale on his hook. 

Notice my sucker got hooked on the nose. 

I'm glad I caught trout this time around. October and November felt very discouraging, but December yielded just before extremely cold weather resulted in some ice fishing for some anglers. Pretty much for the months of January and February we ice fished. I saw some Facebook posts that prove not everyone gave up on the rivers, though there was a lot of ice on them. Naturally, fishing pressure got reduced. 

I caught trout in March for a change, though that might partly be owing to the fact of that ice covering spots like the one I've been hitting. Trout Conservation Areas will remain open. Last year I fished two of them, catching trout on the Pequest April 1st.

Doubt I'll do the same this year, as I'm eager to go bass fishing. Brian Cronk is out fishing Indian Lake as I write, trying a new glide bait for the big ones. 

After March 31st, I'm done jobbing. By all accounts I can drum up, I'll be done for life. That doesn't mean I won't return the form to the union that will allow me to return to work and preserve my pension for later, but as awful as the economy has become in recent weeks, I doubt it will become so devastating that I have to hold a job. 

I have important to work to do as a writer and photographer. More than I can possibly get done, so I have no natural interest in holding a job after I quit my present one. Only extreme devastation coming from aberrant leadership might mean I can't do that work as fully as I will be enabled by having time I currently have to commit to a low wage. Instead of that eventuality actually happening--amounting to a dystopian society no one would want: mass death, legal chaos, and so much unemployment I probably wouldn't find a job anyway--I tend to believe that things look worse when reflected by the media. 

Reservoir Level Low Exploring Spruce Run Creek Channel

I was curious about the channel of Spruce Run Creek. What that looks like for future reference, if I ever get a boat up there near Van Syckel's Road. I wasn't just starry eyed about finding pike and bass, though I thought that possible. If the reservoir ever refills, it might be a lot easier. 

It will, but when is anyone's guess. 

Surprised at how much rock, gravel, sand, and edgy drop-offs exist as the creek flows, I felt privileged to explore it and got photos to help me remember where interesting spots lie. Surrounding all that is muddy flat. 

Carp water pretty much.

I think I walked almost a mile to access the mouth of the creek as it becomes reservoir. Loki the black Lab had a field day running around that flat and exploring the creek bed. Where the creek widens and slows, as you can see in the photos below, it gains depths of at least three feet, maybe four, so I cast a jerkbait and worked it slow on the surface as much as I retrieved it. 

Something could have moved into that space, it seems, but if anything at all was there, it wasn't hitting. I'm sure the water temp remained in the 40's, though I don't know that for a fact. I didn't bring along a thermometer. One thing to remember about Spruce Run Creek is that it purportedly hosts wild brown trout. Even if it doesn't hold as many as Mulhockaway Creek on the other side of Spruce Run Reservoir, Spruce Run Creek is spring fed and stays cool, compared to streams that don't have the same kind of groundwater influence. 

The reservoir beyond that deeper creek mouth was super shallow. It's just a slow-sinking mud flat. To have attempted--which I didn't do--gaining the edge of water, would have meant sinking in wet mud. 

 

Front Came Through and Put Fish Off

If you remember from yesterday, I wrote about muddy water from the Delaware River possibly reaching the Island Farm Weir area of the Delaware and Raritan Canal today. 

I rode I-287 to exit 12, seeing as I passed over it on the bridge that the canal was clear. I felt a little surprised at that. And then I began riding north on Weston Road. Within a mile, almost to the area of the weir where I would park, the canal became muddy. Muddy water had indeed reached the area where we fishing yesterday, but I simply turned around and parked at the little park by the South Bound Brook canal lock and fished there. Water was plenty clear. I saw my shiner three feet deep or more. 

I fished hard for two hours. I grew all the more convinced that because the front came through, the fish turned off. Extreme winds gave that away. The temperature really wasn't bad, as high as 52, but it felt cold out there. Gusts came through of perhaps 60 mph. I saw a fat limb fall from a tree into the Raritan River, enormous splash, and I was careful when standing high over the water at any edge, because I could have been blown off my feet.

When I had got there a few small cumulus formations floated in the sky. When I left, I saw only one very small puff up there. All blue otherwise. 

I usually catch at least one fish when I fish the canal. Any time of year. As it went today, I was just glad I gave it a sincere effort. I did see a large turtle. Probably a slider. 

Near the end of the outing, I went into a mild reverie. Often that's when the fish hits, but not today. I began ruminating a little bit about catching up on a few spots I haven't fished in decades. For what they are, they're a long drive away. I routinely drive an hour to access spots to the north. Mostly, they're promising places. I wouldn't say the two I have in mind are bad this time of year, however. Not when temperatures have warmed. 

One of the spots is a very shallow, very weedy pond that warms five to 10 degrees better than the canal when temperatures spike early in the spring. The pond empties through a pipe into the canal, and while lots of fish can be caught in the pond, they're usually small, although I did once catch a 20-inch pickerel. But at the pipe, I've caught some of the biggest fish I ever have in the canal, which come and bask in that warmer water. A 22-inch pickerel and I have a vague memory of encountering a nice bass. My biggest crappie, too, and lots of that species. 

Thirdly, there's Baker's Basin, which I suspect is no longer fished. I might not be able to fish the pond effectively, because overgrown, but in any event, it will be interesting to evaluate. 

Maybe next year when I have more time. 

Millstone Memories 

Bass from the Cold Delaware and Raritan Canal

The bottommost photo is of the flooded Raritan River. I believed the canal might be clear enough to fish. If not, my idea was to fish Round Valley Pond, which Oliver corrected me on. The park closes at 4 p.m. We'd have no time. 

We met at my house, then rode over to the Sporting Life in my car. Me, Oliver, Brian. Bought a dozen large shiners. Dead ones work, too. 

Brian said he wanted to throw paddletails. (At the end of the outing, he was throwing a Chatterbait.) 

Driving over really wasn't bad. We took 22 East, cut over to 28, went through Somerville Circle, connected to 206. Over to Manville. Onto Wilhousky. Soon we saw the canal. 

Normal color.

It takes a while before muddy water from the Delaware gets over here. I love fishing that canal so much, I want to do it again tomorrow, but it's possible muddy water is on the way. If I get there and that's the case, I'll go over to Round Valley Pond, unless the thought of something else crops up. A really interesting option is Baker's Basin Pond, but Lawrence Township is fully an hour away.

Besides, when I last visited there, trails had some pretty heavy overgrowth, so it's possible those trails no longer exist and the pond is just a safe haven for gamefish that is no longer fished. 

We can't "go back to the 70's." If no one's fishing Baker's Basin, it's not the 70's. The place was hit every day back then. 

It produced, too.

Do you believe for a moment a pond that's been abandoned, possibly even the extensive parking lot grown-in, is going to become the place again, fished every day by local residents? If we're going to fish in the future, we need to embrace the technology of the future, not attempt to escape it into the past.  

It was so nice to forget about all that for a while today. 

I've caught a lot of winter pickerel on crappie jigs around brush, wood, stuff in the water. That's fun, because you see the pickerel bolt out of the sticks and hit. Oliver saw the like today, when he fished a paddletail and got the paddletail bit off.

I prefer live-lining shiners. This time of year. During the summers in recent decades, I've fished Yum Dingers. But I love the cold and cooler weather of the canal, because I like the feel of pickerel taking a shiner sidewise and bolting a few yards. Today, the pickerel that hit one of my shiners bolted from a couple feet away from the bank, directly to the bank, underneath some stuff. I got to feel the fish turning the shiner around in its mouth, but I was sure it was a really small fish, like a 10-inch pickerel. (Little ones like that are common in the canal.) I didn't let it take the shiner too long, afraid of gut-hooking it, and when I set the hook, I simply pulled the hook from that shiner in its mouth.

Brian and Oliver didn't quite dress for the weather. Especially with a heavy wind barreling down the big river, it was especially cold out there. Forty-four degrees felt much worse; it was miserable, but especially after I encountered the pickerel, I felt motivated and happy. 

It was time to go. Brian has Raynaud's disease, and even though he never dipped (Oliver and I did barehanded) into the minnow bucket, his numb hands turned purple without gloves. 

I understood the fishing wasn't going to go further. I would cast some more but not much more, and before I could tell myself to stop, I saw green gills flush and my shiner disappear.

I was standing beside Brian and Oliver. "I've got a nice one on," I said. I felt the fish pulling line out into the canal, tightened up on that line, and set the hook, expecting some fun from a pickerel about 18 inches long, a nice one for the canal. 

Turned out to be a little bass of about 10 1/2 inches. It's always a blessing to catch a bass in the cold canal.    

Brian Cronk fishing for walleye

Raritan River

Romp

 

 

Judging Differences Between Berkley Fishing Lines

Naturally, I returned to where I caught the trout over five pounds yesterday. I hooked up on my second cast and caught the rainbow photographed above.

I had walked hundreds of yards to get there, feeling positively expectant. I examined the feeling and judged that it didn't have to do with yesterday's catch. It was fresh and of it's own origin in things. Next, I wondered if that really meant I'd do well. Doubted that. But "of it's own origin in things," it easily could have had to do with the temperature rapidly rising to over 60, and more than that. It could have had to do with the approaching front, which, of course, I understood could mean active fish. The coming rain could have been just as important as the rising water temperature.

Spinning was appropriate again this morning. As it was the other day when all I did was snag a sucker, the wind even heavier. Fly fishing in 40 mph wind--or 25 to 30 mph as was today--is not easy to say the least. But you can spin cast.

I fished the 16th-ounce jig. Casting the Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon line I mentioned in the previous post was not as ergonomic as casting the Berkley XL. I had had my suspicions, when I paid five dollars more for a 250-yard spool of Vanish, than for a 310-yard spool of XL Oh, well. I like to pay attention to every increment in price and come up with the best value on expenditure, and whether or not I did this time? I think I did OK, but really, I don't like how it casts. It seems just as bad as the older fluorocarbon from Berkley I tried yesterday. Sometimes I can hear the stuff rasp as it goes through the guides! Face it, it's fluorocarbon and it will not be nearly as limp as a monofilament that is specially made to be limp. That's what the "L" of "XL" means.

You can buy Berkley XT and good luck with that stuff, although I've read forum threads and it does have a large fan base, so you might like it a lot better than I would. For good reason, too. Always a trade-off. The designation of the "T" in "XT" is for "tough," and tough it is, I'm sure. Good knot strength. Abrasion resistant. 

Also clear, and I don't like the blue, Stren-like, (another line brand), color of the XL. You have to trade off, and I might trade off Vanish for XL yet.

Vanish also had less diameter, and I do like that. Or at least I thought I did, and maybe I still do. It's .17mm. XL is .20. Here's the thing though. I don't seem to get casts out there any further, although it's true that after I switched to the eighth-ounce black marabou jig, expressly in order to cast further, I did get it closer to the far bank than I ever have, though I thought because I got better umph.

I could be mistaken. Does .03mm improve casting distance by a few inches or a foot or two or does that only mean you have to use up more line to fill your spool? Besides, won't a limp line cast a little further? I would think so. And so does this particular blogger.

So what I will probably do is end up scouring the internet for limp monofilament that doesn't have that blue shade I don't like. And if it has to be .20mm, OK. But I'll try to find limp, clear, and low diameter.

I like Berkley products, though. My scale is made by them and I've tested it on a five-pound bag of sugar. Spot on. Besides, Berkley has been in business since 1937.. I was big on them as a teenager, too, and having a long track record probably means you've stayed in business because you make good products. In Berkley's case, I would say so.  

And so I had ended up catching the second trout, photographed below, although that was before I switched to the heavier jig. I did miss a few hits today, and once came up with another sucker scale on the hook, if you've been reading along with my recent posts.

Both of my trout went back into the river. The five-plus-pound trout I caught yesterday is plenty for now. Unfortunately, the area of river where these fish are means they will, in all likelihood, die before summer, unless someone catches and keeps them. 

You'd hope the trout would have enough wherewithal to swim for the Atlantic.  

Odd-looking coloration for a rainbow trout.

Back in the Beginning