The Natural World is Always There for You

You begin a long canoe float with the normal anxiety of everyday life, as if that's all the day will amount to. Towards the middle hours, you feel you don't have it in you to let go, empty yourself, and be filled with that equivalent of necessity that moves like aquatic vegetation undulates in the flow. But it happens, inevitably. You've been gone too long for it not to.

My guess? We did about six miles. I met Brenden Kuprel, 9:00 a.m., at the Confluence. There we left his SUV, riding to Neshanic. The road mileage isn't that much, but the river twists and turns, and we got out of the canoe shortly before 4:00. It wasn't a direct float-through, as if we only moved a mile-an-hour. We anchored a lot.

I had doubted we needed the extra 10 pounds! Thankfully, Brenden thought the anchor an OK idea. Without it, we wouldn't have caught nearly as many fish.

The total for the day was 43. My single largemouth (my first fish), my 13 smallmouths, Brenden's 28 smallmouths and his single green sunfish, which he, too, thought might be a warmouth. (I used to confuse them with warmouths, and I still haven't completely clarified the issue for myself.) Brenden often way outdoes me. He's an excellent angler.

The biggest was that 19-incher photographed above. Brenden caught a 16 1/4-incher, and we watched as a 15-incher leapt and shook the hook of his Ned Rig. At least, I think it was a Ned Rig. Earlier on, he used a round-head jig with, I think, a little paddletail. He did well with that, too. I did fish a Ned Rig some, and got hit, too. But I caught all my fish on four-inch Yum Dingers and Senkos rigged Wacky. 

Shadows amounted to many of the fish caught, maybe more than half, but they weren't the only spots where we caught--and saw--bass. Shadows are pretty hard to come by under high-noon sun, but even where the river is otherwise shallow, we often pulled bass as big as 10 inches out of them. I set the hook on one of them, missed that hit, and reeled back towards the boat with the bass following! I stopped the retrieve, the bass swooped on the Senko, I let it swim swiftly a couple of yards and set the hook. I released the 10 incher, and Brenden said, "I think they're revved up because they come from being in ambush mode." It wasn't the only bass that behaved similarly. 

I paid close attention when we floated over long strands of aquatic vegetation swaying back and forth in the current, because I figured there must be some bass hiding in the shadows, not to mention that we saw a lot of baitfish among the greenery, but we never clearly identified any bass, although I saw some fish nine inches long tear out of there as we passed by. Could have been baby suckers. I'm not sure. Tons of vegetation inhabits the lower South Branch. Some of it is attached to bottom six feet down. It gives you a primordial feeling from a river flowing for many thousands of years. 

Otherwise, the river remains rocky, and it's that rock that holds smallmouths, although some will be seen--when the water is as clear as it was yesterday--swimming leisurely through perhaps three of water amounting to a gravel-bottomed, mid-river flat. We saw a couple of them 18 inches long or better doing that. Others were 14 or 15 inches, 13. And although many of the bass we caught wouldn't have measured much longer than seven inches, plenty of them ranged from nine to 13 inches. We caught a lot of fish yesterday, but think of all the bass we passed by!

The amount of deeper water impressed me. Water six feet deep, even as deep as about 10 feet, is common once you get past about the halfway range between Neshanic and the Confluence. Much of the river back there isn't accessible any other way than by floating, and even then, the river is wide enough that you're pretty much limited to fishing one side. (Often enough, one side is the deeper.) Some places move slow enough that, without wind pushing you around, you can paddle across and back upstream.

By the time we approached Studdiford Bridge, I'd got worried about the amount of sun my legs had absorbed without sunblock. It was just a passing concern, but a good one to have heeded. I was in the zone by then--the kind of feeling inviting you to stay forever. It suggests that perhaps some day each of us does leave ordinary life for a good long stay in eternity, although I've always believed--at least, since my 20s when I discovered the possibility--I'll come back, because the earth is always there to let me know it's just as good, if I will only go out to meet it. You don't feel it in the ordinary confines of civilization. 

Besides my legs frying, my wife had expressed concern (via mobile device) about what time I'd get home. Again, I got the message just as I departed. I had told her I guessed four or five, but she wanted to know for sure. I told her, how can I know that? Just the same, getting back before 5 felt like a good idea, although nature's intimation had superseded. As it always will if you do enough to go into it. 

We passed through a lot of deep water where, had we anchored at it, we could have caught more fish, though we had caught plenty and big. Soon, we saw the bridge over the North Branch at the Confluence. It's not a sad thing to go back, because you know the natural world is always there for you.   

Nice one maybe a little better than 13.

About 12 inches.

Big enough to make commotion.

Can anyone identify the species?

A better one of the little bass.

This one fought super-hard fought downstream.

Sixteen and a quarter.

North Branch

 

I Still Believed Fish are at a Premium in this Lake

Brian Cronk and I fished yesterday late afternoon and evening, but the post is coming only now because I got up this morning and did a South Branch Raritan float trip with Brenden Kuprel. (The story of that pretty much all-day trip should be out tomorrow.) 

Yesterday, we fished about three and a quarter hours. The weather beautiful, we nevertheless found the fish pretty deep. The lake is about 30 feet deep at best, by what we can tell, having given it a pretty good scan. Brian felt enthused yesterday about the possibility of the lake's getting stocked with trout, but of all the holdover lakes, I think White Lake in Sussex County is the shallowest at--I believe--40 feet. Shepherd Lake in Passaic County is--I believe--45 feet, and is also listed by the state as a holdover lake. 

I'm not so sure trout would holdover in 30 feet of water, but Brian might be correct. I can cite some evidence in his favor. Ever read Round Valley Reservoir reports in The Fisherman during summer? How deep are the rainbow trout? About 30 feet. 

So, maybe.

There is abundant evidence of herring here. The lake's 40 surface acres or so were dappled by nervous schools of them yesterday evening. 

And like last time, we worked shorelines. At least we did at first. I had just a few hits, and Brian might have got his Chatterbait knocked. I fished a Chompers worm on an inset hook. No weight added. For any of you not familiar with my technique, I like to let the worm sink slowly. Most hits come on that initial drop. A fast-sinking worm is just another thing to chase down when bass take it easy during summer. But from yesterday, the hit that stands out in memory came when I slowly began retrieving the worm back to Brian's boat. A distinct knock I believed came from a pickerel. I stopped retrieving, felt the fish on, allowed slack, tightened--and set the hook into nothing!

"Son-of-a-bitch!"

I still believed fish are at a premium in this lake. The loss burned. But as things turned out, we fished too shallow, anyway. The worm was getting down 10 feet some of the time, but even that. 

As I say, the weather was beautiful, but we found fish deep despite the moderation in temperature. By trolling. Right when we got started, by departing from a corner to proceed down lake along a weedline, I got hit about 12 feet down. The fish shook off. I caught the 19-incher photographed below further down lake and maybe 14 feet down. Brian hooked a bass I guess would've weighed nearly three pounds. The fish had suspended under a dock floating above 14 feet of water. It gave a clear account of itself by leaping...and throwing the hooks. Brian had tied on a lipless crankbait. I used the standard. A Hot 'n Tot by Storm. That plug gets down 15 feet, probably deeper with enough line out. I missed a couple of other hits about 15 feet down, and had a smallish pickerel--maybe 17 inches--on until it shook off in view along the boat. (The water is pretty clear.)

We had worked that weedline up and down a few times when I said to Brian that perhaps we should work where he wanted to fish next. He said we could follow the shoreline back to the ramp. It's steeper than the side with the weeds, although for less than a hundred yards, there's another weedbed, but the water drops off quicker. Most of the way back towards the ramp, the water drops as quickly to 20 feet as does at Tilcon Lake. 

Brian believes the lake must have once been a sand pit. Makes sense. There's concrete production within earshot. 

So I tried to maneuver us close enough to shore to get our plugs about 14 or 15 feet down, but I couldn't get too close without hanging up on deadfalls. I think I could have been running my plug over bottom 20 feet down, when, approaching another corner, I felt the kind of thump I don't associate with knocking stuff on bottom. I set the hook. The fish started moving--heavy--towards deeper water, and I believed I had hooked a bass that might go five pounds. It was give and take to the boat, some pretty serious weight feeling like a tow, but it proved not to be too serious. At 24 1/2 inches, the pickerel weighed three pounds and something or other. 

I did measure the length. 

We got to Brian's favorite spot with just enough sunlight to make it all possible. Brian had told me they want you out of there at sunset. I took that to mean trailering up.

I had completely forgotten that the particular shoreline does not drop off quickly compared to others, and we had some trouble catching weeds. When we managed to get the right depth, it wasn't a minute before, once again, I hooked a big one. (Three pounds and some.) A pickerel right at 24 inches. I just can't seem to get beyond the vicinity of approaching four pounds with a way to go yet. 

Brian switched to a Hot 'n Tot. He's bought some. 

I've been using the same two for over a decade and have caught on them countless pickerel and bass trolling. I make friends with my plugs. Why not? Starting to look like others are making friends with AI. (I make friends with AI, too, but I think I got off topic...hint, hint.)

Brian hooked up within minutes. A pickerel of about 19 inches leapt, throwing the hooks.

The sun set. The boat's bow met sand. A police vehicle had driven off, but I said, "You never know, it could come back." 

Nineteen or so Inches

Twenty Four Inches

Painted Turtle

Last Time

 

Good Day Forgetting Online Tedium

Nearing exit 67 where I would leave the Garden State Parkway, I got a text. When I got to Fred's house, he was outside awaiting me as he always does. We shook hands and began to catch up. I moved stuff from my car to his Subaru, but I also checked on that message. It was from my wife, telling me she had overlooked getting her car inspected last month. Put me in a tizzy. It took me awhile, but I re-slotted my schedule, all in my head, realizing I can probably get the car inspected in Randolph on Saturday...after I drop my canoe off. Back where I store it in the vicinity. Good thing I had that pinned down, although I didn't think to simply check my mobile device for the inspection station hours so I could be more sure. 

I suffered the four hours or so we fished the jetty, because of the insecurity of so much I have to do. Not just reminded of that, but having to shift plans. Computers are scary to me, because--in my experience--they always go wrong and I'm left to my own devices in setting them right again, until I have to seek professional help to get a computer fixed. The last I did that, the problem got solved in three minutes right at the front desk, and I wasn't charged. I've had bad experiences in the past. 

Right now, I'm stuck in the middle of building the new website, because my cursor became white against a white background in text blocks, so I can't effectively type. It's driving me nuts! I've been back and forth with support services for a week, and I can't imagine how the problem will be solved, besides maybe scrapping all my work and starting a new trial website. But then, will that one present the same problem? For the first week of working on the new site, the cursor worked fine, and I got a lot done.

It's not good for mental health to feel you're screwed by technical issues. I'm not a very technical sort to begin with. I'm a writer, and besides what I do for recreation, and the hobby of photography, I'd rather not do much else. I want to spend my time reading books and writing them. Reading my The Fisherman every month, too. Angler's Journal and The Flyfish Journal when they come. I don't want to wonder why in hell I'm singled out in this universe to have started building a website only to be unable, at least thus far, to complete it. From what the support service tells me, it happens to no one that all the hurdles are leaped and the problem remains. 

I'm one in a million.

So I was happy when Fred came up with the plan of moving on from the jetty at Barnegat Inlet to fish the beach on our way out with jigs for fluke, and then a certain bulkhead for triggerfish, blackfish, any possible sheepshead, and fluke. He had caught a fluke on his first cast on the ocean side of the jetty. Besides that, just a tiny seabass! We've always done well before. 

Fred said he got a hit as we fished the beach, if I remember rightly. When we had walked in, there was a guy doing well on live killies at the end of a groin that cuts across at a 45-degree angle from the end of the jetty. The wind wasn't bad. From the northeast and very light. When we had left the beach and got to that bulkhead, the surface of the water was flat. I caught a little seabass on one of Fred's previously frozen sand fleas and that was it, besides Fred's Gulp jig getting hit once. Someone else fishing there with a Gulp Jerk Shad had caught a keeper fluke.

I finally called it on the fishing. I'd felt better leaning against the rail and getting some interest at least from little fish tapping on that bait, but I got tired of it, nothing of any size intervening. For a moment, I had felt as if I'd rise out of my worries, but I fell into feeling pissed off about pressured fish! It's a weekday, yet the rails were crowded with fisherman, and though I have nothing else against people getting out and fishing, it can be annoying when no keepers seem to exist where they can be reached. I had felt good for about five minutes back on the jetty, when I got it in my head that if I persisted and covered ground, I might catch a sheepshead. But I lost three rigs to the rocks in about as many minutes in the attempt to do that, and it put me off.

Sure enough, not long before we left, someone came from the jetty end, done his morning's fishing, with a keeper bag containing a nice sheepshead and a keeper blackfish, so my intuition wasn't exactly groundless. I just wasn't aligned right to do it today.

"I think a nice cold Coke will do me well," I told Fred.

So we rode to the Neptune Market, got soft drinks, and sat out in front of the store on a bench and talked and talked. I began talking about pressured fish. I think that's how I got started. That led into problems of access, and from that, the pressure radical environmentalists are putting on recreational fishing. Fred mentioned PETA, which got me even more riled up. I'm only outlining what was said. I'm not going to triple the length of my post. But Fred made a really good point about our teeth betraying the fact that we're genetically suited to being omnivorous, and that led me to say something that made eating red meat sound like an exercise in metaphysics.

Just the same, to limit fish to aquaculture and commercial interests, picking on us recreational fishermen because we're somehow not serious, that won't go away. I can get very pessimistic about a dystopian future. 

I felt 100% better. We didn't talk about happy things, but we talked openly, and that lifted the cover off all the garbage stewing in me. My blog, Litton's Fishing Lines, is among the computer problems I mentioned earlier, too, as I really screwed up by offering you guys (and gals) "thin content" and "dodgy links" before I began to learn about Search Engine Optimization. That's when I promptly informed you I had to quit doing that. A lot of people liked those links! But now I have to go back and delete all those unindexed posts, because for the past four months, the Googlebot has not been indexing my new ones! You find them on other browsers and in the blog per se, but not as individually indexed for Google searches. 

We talked all the way back to Fred's house and some there. Turned out to be another good day when I forgot all the tedium of the online world.       

An old Sea Ray in the background.

Miss Barnegat Light

Four Years Ago