How did the Ayn Rand Institute get my Mailing Address?

I-78 Exit 7. Highway 173 begins to uncoil. "I Keep Holding on," Ambrosia, completes as Warren Glenn Road unfurls on my left after a mile. Motion feels smooth as the low register of a French horn, and I wouldn't be surprised if one of the band members plays the instrument. They had performed with Leonard Bernstein at least once. I reach into my stacks stuffed in the driver's door and come up with my Outlaws c.d., load it, and select track 5."Green Grass and High Tides."

Through Finesville, into Riegelsville, I listened to what Tom Breen, during the 1980's, named our Clammer's Anthem. Tom and I had shared a house in Brant Beach or Ship Bottom during spring 1987. I lived in so many houses and apartments and rooms on Long Beach Island, Cedar Bonnet Island through which the Causeway channels, and Manahawkin on the mainland side of the bay during my 13-year adventure, I can no longer place each rental. Breen had enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, but absconded for the free-spirited and self-employed Long Beach Island and bay life. He wasn't the only Navy man among us. My 1983 and 1984 Surf City housemate, George Cunningham, served in the Navy for a number of years as a scuba diver. He came to Long Beach Island for some of the same reasons as had Breen. George summed his motive in one word. Freedom. 

George read literary classics. His favorite wasn't a classic I would have read at St. John's College, situated across the street from the Naval Academy in Annapolis and dubbed "the American Oxford," where I enrolled during the spring 1982 semester. Kon-Tiki by Peter Mathieson is the true story of crossing the Pacific by raft in 1947. I happened to read The Snow Leopard by the same author--about a soul-searching Himalayan quest--during my March and April 1984 Appalachian Trail hike from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Hot Springs, North Carolina. 

But about The Outlaws. The Outlaws achieve, to my appreciation, a very interesting evaluation. "Green Grass and High Tides" suggests an author I've read. During my second stay in Surf City, this time with George and comprising almost a year of my Island adventure's early period--I came in 1980--I had my most inspired encounters with Friedrich Nietzsche, who I began reading in 1981. The Superman idea is part of the philosophy, but Nietzsche actually names the possibility the Overman. It entails mankind beneath Nietzsche's hero and serving him, a notion that always struck me as absurdly un-American. But the Outlaws' refrain line about kings and queens bowing and playing for the implied hero of "Green Grass and High Tides," I feel amused by this.

Early in 1986, a brochure from the Ayn Rand Institute based in California mysteriously arrived in the mailbox at my front door. I had never sent them any of my contact information; I'm very sure of this. The brochure loudly proclaimed that Nietzsche's Superman idea is NOT....well, whatever were the words, not a good idea. Because, the brochure stated, it's socialist. I've lost the brochure along the way of my travels. Whether or not Nietzsche was socialist, for me it's that simple issue: Imagine you, my reader, in service to me. What more need be said? Nietzsche's notion is ridiculous.

If you read Nietzsche, though, perhaps the only way you would imagine him socialist targets that sense of him as effete despite his work--for the most part--roaring. As if an epic paean to greatness and vitality.

Ayn Rand claimed that man adjusts his background to himself, a notion which, without detail deduced from the broad grasp it implies, might seem almost as ridden with error as Nietzsche's idea. If I adjust my background to myself, this seems to include you, adjusted to me. But my background cannot possibly be your background, and if you adjust yours to yourself, we play a fair game in this world where the only good power relies on free trade and free society.

By the time I post this story, it will have been yesterday when I was on my way to Riegelsville, Pennsylvania, where, two years ago, my wife and I ate at the Riegelsville Inn. (I shot the photo of the Inn, above, before crossing the bridge to return home.) My destination Mueller's General Store. Eels awaited. So I hoped. I had phoned a second time the day before and was assured.

There I parked, slung out my camera, got a photo. Bagged the camera, went inside. "American Woman," the original version by the Guess Who, began to grind. Song I loved as an 11-year-old and still have a liking for. I thought of Rand, a novelist besides philosopher, whom I took seriously in my early and mid-20's. Conflicts with her presence in my life have continued since, though for the most part, now this is evened out, and the song was a recollection rather than any stormy confrontation. It's one thing to be very young--21, 22--and very idealistic. Another to have to earn a wage in a society that does not comprehend your artistic and intellectual ambitions. The latter is not the position of a loser. I grew in many directions. Including marriage. Any married couple knows what stormy confrontation is.

I don't know how that brochure from ARI got to my front door. Maybe I am mistaken. Maybe I mailed for information or subscribed to the Intellectual Activist. But I distinctly remember feeling completely baffled at the time it arrived in the mail. The Guess Who shouts at American Woman, telling her not to come hanging around the door of the assumed man in the song. He don't want to see her shadow no more. I felt, for an instant I remember, benevolence coming from the ARI represented in that brochure. It wasn't until many months later that I felt differentlly. Was I mistaken about the nature of the initial benevolence?

I bought nine eels. Nine to about 16 inches long. Drove home, listening to some of the rest of the Outlaws. I heard my second favorite song, "Hurry Sundown," and though I know the musical and lyrical quality doesn't measure against my upbringing--my father is Director Emeritus of the American Boychoir School--I still like the song and have my personal reasons.

"How do you like my pets?" I said to my wife as I opened the cooler, took hold of an eel, and held it for her to see as it coiled and uncoiled.

Laughter.

Oliver Round and I fish a dark bank of the Delaware miles from mainstream civilization until about 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Striped bass, I hope. And for Oliver's sake--flathead catfish. Last I heard from him, he's catching some bluegills to keep alive and use for bait. Flatheads have got very big in the river. I guess 20 or 30 pounds--at least--is possible. I caught a nine-pounder in 2008.

They are not scavengers. Live bait is--almost--the only way. Mine did take an eel that had died. I baited an extra rod and just lobbed the eel out there, where it settled to bottom about 15 or 20 feet down. This was at the beginning of the game that evening, before sunset. I also hooked and lost a striper.

Don't sparkle striper eyes with a lantern or fire. We had a lantern burning after midnight, and when the striper got close to the bank--and that light--it took off on a run so powerful I could hardly believe it. Pulled the hook free.

Mueller's General Store

Common Roadside Attractions. Chicory (blue) and Queen Ann's Lace.

An old Riegelsville, New Jersey, station. Riegelsville, Pennsylvania, is directly across the river.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/12/relationship-between-aristotle-and.html

Lehigh River Smallmouth Bass, Crappie, Musky

I didn't know Pennsylvania's Lehigh River flows to the south of Interstate 78. Cramped for time, I snatched directions off the web and set out on an equally distracted ride west, finding myself in the middle of some neighborhood at least 10 miles west of Easton, not any sort of river or stream nearby. Not surprised--because I know web directions and GPS units alike shouldn't be trusted--I headed to U.S. Highway 22 for Easton. I use a flip phone and have no interest in upgrading. Nor did I bother with a map and I didn't need any. I own no GPS. I figured I could have continued north on 512 to cross the river, but it didn't feel right to turn north, instead of south back to U.S. 22. Committed to 10 eastward miles, a highway halfway to Easton tempted me to go north, though I wasn't really sure if this effort would result in what I wanted, but if the Lehigh flowed northward of 78, surely this fast paced four-lane highway 33 would cross it. I passed Stockertown (felt humor over the name) and wound up beyond the Wind Gap 12 miles north of where I began. Big mountains with only wind getting between. So I turned back to highway 22, drove on into Easton, and within some minutes, rode along the Lehigh River.

I must have driven three or four miles before finding a pullover. Here the river flowed slowly, as it had this entire length. Not promising. I walked the edge with my black Lab, shot a couple of photos for good measure, rounded up Sadie, and drove on. A mile or two later, I found Riverside Park and some riffling water. Down by the river, we began to head upstream as here and there I fished a paddletail swimbait, focusing especially on edges between swift current and slow water, also plumbing relative depths of eddying current, but the flow in either case was not very deep.

As we walked and waded the river's edge, alternately using a trail up on the bank when things got tricky, I wondered about the sound of roaring water upstream. All this time, I didn't feel well. In fact, very shortly after I began fishing, the second or third cast, I wondered if I was going to quit. But I had told myself before we set out--by writing in a notebook I keep in my car--that those of us who achieve glory in life invariably get tested by the opposite. I concluded: "That man who does not submit is a fool." (Who does not submit to the tests he cannot escape, except by suicide...but what would happen then?) Now only minutes later, I had forgotten about the words I had written. I was left to the mercy of my habits, and since I guess for the most part they're good habits, I bore down to gather my strength and went onward.

A big dam eventually came into view. Aha. That sound of roaring water. We got up on the bank and found a paved trail leading that way. After at least a half mile's walk in total, I cut off the pavement onto a trail leading down to the river and saw good-looking water for fishing, having--I felt--arrived upon destiny, feeling that uplift of mood telling me life will be worthwhile--normal--after all.

My third or fourth cast, I hooked a small bass that got off, and almost at my feet as the cast completed, a long narrow shadow came up behind the paddletail in the shadow-enclosed water. Sure this fish was a little musky, I got a better view as I pitched the lure back it's way, and when I saw it strike, I was even more certain the fish was a little muskellunge of about 16 inches. I missed that strike, but kept working the swimbait by its indifferent nose, until after a minute or two, it leisurely descended out of sight. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission stocks the river with muskies a little smaller, which attain great lengths of 50 inches or more. They're not common, but in the river.

I snagged and broke a paddletail off, repeatedly cast and retrieved another higher in the water column to no avail, so again I let the lure drop, risking its loss by working slow and deep. Something added weight to the line and I reared back, felt sluggish weight, and then I felt a fish throbbing and--suddenly--brisk, line-straining resistance. Those tell-tale bulldog jabs. (A smallmouth bass lets you know it exists.) This one wasn't big at 12 1/2 inches. The drag on my reel had yielded, but such is the nature of an average bronzeback. I measured the fish to be sure: I had paid $26.50 for the day's licensing, and my wife likes smallmouth bass for dinner. When Old Bay seasoning is added liberally. And by the way, the fish was absolutely delicious!

Maybe a half hour or more later, I caught the crappie. Best I can judge, most of this species--black crappie, I think--are above the dam in the implied slow water above that dam I estimated at 13 feet high. I never had a look. I released this fish, unsure if it was quite keeper size, not knowing the rule on this type. I fished somewhat into dusk, losing a total of four of my paddletails to submerged rocks, the entire remainder of my package of the smaller size, and I refused to tie on one of the larger I prefer for stripers in the New Jersey Meadowlands. They're more expensive, but especially, more useful to me for that Meadowlands reason. I cast an X-Rap and thoroughly enjoyed keeping level control of the plug while imparting frantic rhythms. Nothing ever hit it. That water must be eight feet deep or so out there below the falls. An X-Rap won't get down more than four. Above all else, I had become much more of my own self again, which daily drains at labor on the job steal from me six days a week. I had become free. Freedom is never a given. It is betterment that must be fought for. And though my half-mile effort up the river really wasn't much, it was infinitely better than had I given up.

Life in our society today with its cramped and uncertain economy, its loss of purpose and values, is a sickening and fearful demise that seems to test us all. America is the freest, noblest nation which has ever existed, and I just heard these words paraphrased by my friend Santiago from Paraguay, while I sat and enjoyed a beer with him minutes before I continued writing this post. We are the pinnacle of glory. At our best. When I saw white water flowing over that dam from a distance, I didn't feel elated, but I did feel a hint of relief. I recognized possibility, though I did not yet feel it. The catch wasn't much, compared to other outings. And yet, until the hook grabbed on that third or fourth cast, I felt as if the river would remain naked to me like an unclean vagabond. The destiny I felt upon arriving upon the spot at the dam, I felt this would be limited to getting some good photographs. But we never know until we have completed a full effort.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/12/relationship-between-aristotle-and.html

Reports

Well into summer, Laurie at Dow's Boat Rentals reports Knee Deep Club's hybrid striped bass derby saw an eight-pound, four-ounce winning fish and many others over seven pounds. Don't say they can't get caught during summertime. Last week, a rainbow trout nearly two pounds got caught. That's unusual with lake stratification, cold water down where no oxygen remains present, but it does happen. I don't know of any trout caught in August, though. Otherwise, a number of walleye as large as over seven pounds have come to the scale recently. Laurie also says a number of largemouths as large as five pounds, three ounces have recently come in, as well as that numerous smallmouths have been caught.

Closer to home, my son, Matt, caught a six-pound largemouth around graduation time while fishing with a friend, Jason, who caught another slightly better than five pounds. That wasn't on Hopatcong but a local pond. They caught eight smaller, also, but neither have fished since I took Matt to Aeroflex, what with partying, going to the shore...and their jobs.

Fred Matero caught a pool-winning fluke on a fairly recent Jersey venture, but I don't recall exactly how big. Nice one, though, and congrats!

Lenny Matera, from what I can assume, has not caught a fish all year. 

Andy Still Wins Rutgers Sustainable Raritan Award

(Photo care of Andy Still.)

If you want to see hardcore environmental action at work, I urge you to go to Save the Raritan River on Facebook. Like the page. There you will see scads of photos featuring what Andy Still and the Central Jersey Stream Team do. Tons of junk they remove from the Raritan River System.

I volunteered once last year, gathering tires and shooting photos of the event I hope I can yet get published to give the efforts some more profile. It's only because I get no time off on weekends and only day off mid-week besides, that I haven't volunteered this year. It might look like a lot of strained labor--and it is true; they work hard--but everyone has a good time together.

Andy Still puts in his time on the river and online. He is a 2017 recipient of the Sustainable Raritan Award, given by Rutgers Sustainable Raritan River Initiative.

I've never seen anything like it before, and doubt I ever will again. Andy and the CJST have worked at cleaning up the river week after week for years now. The amount of good one man, unfunded, can do is staggering. What other word describes the way anyone might feel who sees post after post of dozens of tires, here and there a refrigerator, engine manifold, mattress, and two cars removed with the help of Somerset County Parks, etc. come out of the river system. This world seems to be about collective agencies and massive funds, but history shows individuals always make the critical differences.

Andy Still in Action

That is heftly pay off for Andy's friend Ken (Photo care of Andy Still)

Ambition

Yesterday was a good day off from the job, and the point of the previous post is relevant but seems to downplay ambition. I later felt as if I had denied its need. Of course, a day off spent relaxed can make me feel that way, but speaking for myself, life isn't easy and I hope I bring this life to a better self-establishment before I "retire." (I plan to keep on writing.) That's not likely, and if I don't earn enough royalties to finally let go of wage jobs, retirement will get me out of them anyway.

Many years ago at Hampshire College where all of us, students and faculty alike, labored under the motto "To know is not enough," attributed to ancient Athenian philosopher Aristotle, I received stellar evaluations for my first semester's work. Then I went to the shore for the summer, into my sixth year licensed as a commercial clammer, and felt a very deep affirmation for that work in the wild bays, the freedom of that self-employed lifestyle, and the depth of insight this life engendered. I went back for the fall semester and found myself completely at odds with the college program. In December, I took a leave of absence, booked an apartment in Beach Haven, struggled to decide whether or not to return to college...and after a month of back-and-forth, withdrew my enrollment. I did earn an Associate degree--Liberal Arts--at Raritan Valley Community College, 2006.

I had gone on clamming until 1993. When I returned to mainstream America, I had no degree, no regular employment to claim on a resume. Pretty much no more than a social security number. I asked myself what I had for any woman to feel any interest in dating me. One of my many notebooks bears the answer. "Language." She would have to be intellectual, of course. She would have to be this in any case. Actually, I found I had more than words, as my wife, Patricia, was attracted to my family's musical endeavor. My father is now Director Emeritus of the American Boychoir School.

Finding employment wasn't difficult. I built up a resume and by 2001 landed a good job in Operations with New Jersey's largest credit union. They eliminated my position in 2015, and since then, I've found work, but not corporate work as was my former job and I yet hope to find. It won't be a job involving long driving distance every day. Such jobs have vanished not only from the credit union I worked for.

I have to pay for the freedom I enjoyed in the past. Clamming paid well. But of course, it couldn't last, not in an honorable way fitting a man with the family background I have and the need of social connection a writer depends on. My dad was trenchantly emphatic. He wanted me out of clamming long before I left the Island. It's why I've worked wage jobs ever since. But better than pay for that freedom as if it were a sin, maybe it can yet inspire my best written work. And any of you who read this blog regularly, you know I express connection to the wilds and account for them not as something other than the real world, but as essential to what the real world is. I was deep into the wilds before I went to the shore, but those early years and the shore ensure days like yesterday relieve me of job hardship.  

River Respite

Last Thursday or Friday, I saw the local river--North Branch Raritan--flooded almost to the edge of its banks. Last year's drought is long gone. Today it flows clear and neither low nor high. I went over with my black Lab Sadie and my camera bag. I had thought last night of bringing my 2-weight fly rod, but I didn't wake up until 2:30, having stayed up last night until 6:00 a.m., writing. So this would be a shorter jaunt and that it was. I wore the Simms wading boots I love, got in the water and carefully negotiated my steps among stones, finding here and there an image to capture with the Nikon, which certainly should not take a dunking. I still managed to get over to the condo association pool for laps.

I recently visited posts from last year, particularly those about the river. I enjoyed catching little sunfish on that 2-weight. I caught a trout on June 21st over here at the AT&T stretch, the popular Zoo abandoned. Once the stocking trucks stop coming, the only other visitors I see, they pass through on the Hike & Bike Trail. Most of all, photography compelled me. And it did today, though I'm keeping the shots for my files. I hope to get a book of Raritan River System photography published 10 or 15 years from now.

I'm a dreamer, but I know something of how hard it is to convince people with the means to publish such a book...to actually do that. I believe the most important thing about dreams is the happiness they bestow in the present. You find they're not "dreams" (unreal), but life experiences without the clutter and hard edges of simple obvious stuff. To merely use experience valuable as an end in itself as means towards something "great" like a book's publication, is to miss the point of living.

My photo files aren't there just to serve my ambition. Once and awhile I enjoy viewing them.

Delaware River Smallmouth Bass: Summer Approaches

Summer Smallmouth Bass on the Delaware River

By Bruce Edward Litton

          During summers the past decade, I’ve taken my family float tripping on the Delaware River. Me, my son, his uncles, and also friends never failing to catch plenty of smallmouth bass. Warm water means smallmouths gorge on a smorgasbord of forage, including crayfish (especially molting), hellgrammites, other insect larvae, hatched insects, terrestrial insects, leeches, nematodes, other worms and a whole host of forage fish. Unlike summer largemouths, smallies fiercely hit lures or bait throughout the day, but if you’re keen on a big one over three pounds, the hour around sunrise and sunset makes a difference for wise old fish.

          A wide variety of river habitat holds Delaware smallmouths in quite abundant numbers, the average size about a pound, fish over two pounds fairly frequent, a bass over three pounds an unusual event, although until the state record seven-pound, two-ounce smallmouth came from Round Valley Reservoir, the record held at six-pounds, four-ounces from the Delaware. On occasion I hear stories of six-pound smallmouths getting caught. While plenty of bass come from shore or by wading, float tripping involves classic river outings. Primitive camping is allowed some places along the river, Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area permits available. If you don’t own a canoe or kayak, rental agencies exist, and arrangements for inflatable rafts work also, just be sure to bring a 10-pound mushroom anchor to make fishing more efficient.

          Floating for smallmouths involves pace. Anchoring allows thorough coverage of a promising spot, and catching as many as half a dozen bass before action fades happens frequently. Newcomers to floating should keep river mileage to a minimum and get a feel for how long they like to linger on spots. We’ve rafted as many as seven miles in about eight hours, taking a leisurely lunch onshore. A southerly wind, however, challenges headway especially for rafters but even canoeists. Typically, we take our time doing about half that distance I mentioned.

          The closest the river comes to real wilderness in New Jersey locates Sussex and Warren counties as perhaps the best smallmouth bass fishing, but Hunterdon and Mercer counties offer very good fishing for bronzebacks all the way down to Trenton. Introduced to the river’s fishing just north of Trenton during my middle teens, as soon as I earned my driver’s license, I started fishing with friends north of the Water Gap, but I fished successfully around Titusville, Lambertville, Bull’s Island and Byram in Mercer and Hunterdon also. In recent years, the Phillipsburg and Belvidere areas have proven their worth.

          Everywhere myriad river structures hold bass, but during the summer months, the best spots situate between the heads of strong rapids and deep holes or slow stretches well below the fast water. Current seams and eddies with depths of six to 10 feet complicated by boulders—smooth and jagged—give bass staging points to ambush forage awash in flow. Crankbaits such as the Storm Hot ‘n Tot, Flatmaster Tournament Series EBS, Bandit Mid-Range and Deep Diver among dozens of other choices all produce in a variety of colors, although for sunny days, I prefer chrome finish to provoke reaction strikes. Cast upstream and especially fish directly downward along seam edges, where bass anticipate forage coming to them.

          Very effective for the same sorts of spots and deep holes, jigs allow a subtler approach, and after I catch an eager bass or two on a crankbait, I like to grab a second rod and fish very close to the subsurface eddies and seams boulders create. These less obvious meanderings of current hold picky bass loyal to little lairs, and during the middle of the afternoon, the biggest bass may be least likely to lurch away from staging spots to charge a crankbait. Get a jig right on the nose and you may catch a reluctant taker. Berkeley Gulp! Leeches prove extremely effective as trailers for eighth to quarter-ounce leadheads.

          Thousands of boulders and rocks have space underneath them to protect bass either wary or eager to ambush. We’ve caught jet-black smallmouths from slow stretches two feet deep; from riffles and mid-size rapids; from seams and eddies and from the hidden mystery of deep holes. Each of these camouflaged fish shot out from darkness to take the lure. Slow stretches with just enough current flow to make the water surface look appealing often hold quite a few bass you can’t see because they hug the rocks or hide beneath.

          Many of the transitions between stretches you may float will be shallow. I’ve never lost the thrill of innocent surprise catching bass as we pass boulders left and right with barely enough water in the eddies behind to cover bass’s backs, and it seems as if every summer we catch a few of these fish with no thought to anchor. Rapala floaters will catch bass in shallows—whether of riffles, eddies behind rocks or of slow stretches---but as we rough and tumble quickly downstream towards slower water, we just toss eighth-ounce jigs about. And sometimes we don’t have to cast. We just pitch the lead behind a rock as we pass and pull the bass aboard. (These fish have always weighed a pound or less.)

          In contrast to sun-heated shallows, the best deep holes on the river drop off from steep shale ledges. Some of these underwater cliffs develop concave shapes from current erosion, and bass position in the shade. Casting a jig right against the rock face and allowing it to fall to bottom may result in a hit on the drop, so keep the line taut enough to feel the tick if it happens, but not so tight that the descent angles the jig back towards you. If the distance cast were the same as the depth below, a tight line would mean the jig coming to rest on bottom directly under the rod. You want to fish against the wall all the way down, which requires an open bail and index finger control.

          Like jigs, Senko-style worms catch so many bass, it’s possible to fish nothing else all day. Light colors with sun, dark when overcast, fat-bodied Senkos five inches long cast far and get gobbled. Almost all of the river structures serve them. Some of the holes reach great depths and quarter-ounce or heavier jigs can plumb the very bottom, but Senkos sink fast unweighted and will prove effective as deep as about 15 feet. Casting far upstream of a deep belly and allowing current to carry the worm into the hole is a deadly imitation of forage at the mercy of the river’s sweep. Line control in such situations is not a straight affair, but by keeping six-pound test monofilament loosely taut, you’ll know when a bass takes. Just make sure to reel line and use the rod tip to judge a tight hookset.

         Longer six to seven-foot, medium power rods cast further than shorter rods of the same strength, though with some loss of accuracy. For crankbaits, a fast action tip is needed, which also helps with feel when fishing jigs and to work topwater plugs during the memorable magic hours early and late.

Overview of South Branch Raritan River 

Overview of North Branch Raritan River Fishing