Sunrise Point

Happy New Year. Beginning with a solid ice season, much more is to come. Here's a true tale published in the June 2017 issue of The Fisherman.

Sunrise Point

Every young boy lives in the sunrise of life. A gathering of conscious light growing taller like his body. During Matt’s eighth summer, Lake Hopatcong felt like a limitless mystery, potentially rewarding my son and I with fishing success that would impress us as deeply as the lake seemed to fill an entire world.

          In July, I motored off from Dow’s Boat Rentals before sun-up, our first time in a boat on the lake. We wanted to catch hybrid striped bass. While fishing a drop-off along Air Castle Isles, we caught a couple, but they were little fish not even nine inches long. A stiff breeze from the north blocked by that shoreline made fishing here pleasant compared to Pine Tree Point, where we tried first, though Matt wanted to fish Sunrise Point because the man who rented us the boat said we should. Here to the south and east of Matt’s longed-for destination we live-lined herring with no weight added just as the proprietor had recommended, but heavy surface chop only seemed carry the bait as would a river current. Air Castle Isles awaited right around the corner out of the wind.

          When we returned to Dow’s much later, the proprietor met us again. I offered a detailed report; he listened to every word. And then he said, “If you had gone where I said you should go, you might have caught big hybrid bass. A guy caught two six-pounders there this morning.”

          “We’ll go where you point next time,” I said.

          As I gathered belongings to hike to the car, I considered well this beginning of a long relationship between my son and me as customers, and the proprietor with his finger on the lake’s pulse. There would be a next time. Many.

          In August, we got word from him on where to go while I paid for the boat rental and herring bait at the desk. Sunrise Point. As if the sun rises eternally for any who hope, the spot seemed as ubiquitous as the fact of daybreak always happening somewhere on this planet.

          “That’s where we’re going,” I said. He said nothing, offering a steady look. I gazed back to confirm no breaking of my promise.

          A 9.9-horsepower outboard drives a 14-foot fiberglass boat with all the sufficiency needed on this lake. Our destination less than a mile-and-a-half distant, the journey seemed longer than it really took. Not an impatient passage, but a breaking away from routine. The world is too much with us. We took leave in hopes of catching a dream. Business can’t afford such a bet. The bottom line ties everything down for results, but nature upholds destiny for any who dare conspire with abundance.

          Who doesn’t know dreams may beguile in a deceptive way? Catching just that fish imagined is as rare an event as cornering market demand. Matt talked about hybrid bass as Sunrise Point beckoned in view. Not a dramatic-looking spot. A few boathouses jutting out from land protruding slightly. He spoke of walleye also. He had only seen the nine-inch hybrids we caught in July, except for big ones featured in photographs in Dow’s shop. Two big ones mounted on two of the walls. He had seen me and a friend catch walleye on the Delaware River.

         We anchored over 25 feet of water. This allowed us to put out two lines apiece baited with live herring and to cast broken nightcrawlers weighted by split shots using ultra-lights, tempting panfish from shallower water. Matt had caught plenty of sunfish, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, trout, striped bass, bluefish, pompano, some pickerel from age two until now, but this morning was another day; his responses to taps on his line hadn’t jaded at all.

         I enjoyed bluegills, pumpkinseeds, also. A perch or two. But as I would check on the herring lines, I felt a larger order of possibility. After an hour or so, I heard a loosened drag cricket. One of Matt’s reels.

        “You’ve got one!”

        “Give me the rod!”

        I lifted. At that moment, the fish took line rapidly, entangling between the spool and pickup guide. The spool had continued to spin when the fish slowed. My fingers began working like lightning to right what I knew could be disaster.

         “Hold the rod ready to set,” I said under my breath, getting the mess straight with a split second to spare. With line running free, giving the fish some excess so I could tighten the drag about right was a cinch. The two of us set the hook together, and then Matt enjoyed a dogged fight before I netted the five-pound walleye. He had never before displayed such pride for any catch.       

Round Valley Reservoir Trout End of the Year

Matt and I first tried fishing shoreline trout at Round Valley in November 2005, catching a couple rainbows, 15 and 16 inches long, in January the next year. I then had no idea where this simple fishing would lead, if it would go anywhere but for me to take my son once and awhile during the cold season. I was working for New Jersey's largest credit union as a courier, driving daily a 150-mile route through North Jersey. The job got especially interesting in 2009, when I started driving the Southern Route as well, alternating daily between the two routes, each about the same mileage. I became aware of opportunities to fish especially on this route new to me on a regular basis, though it didn't take me any further down state than exit 109 on the Garden State Parkway. One of these spots was Round Valley Reservoir, and by 2011, I fished here almost every other day on my lunch hour during the cold season, for trout. The experience became something beautiful beyond description in a blog post. I've written a book that devotes nearly a hundred pages to what I encountered, 300 pages in total, which I don't plan to publish, but revise as a book that will be different, though most of the words about Round Valley will remain intact. As it is, it's a worthy testament between my son and me. I sent it to him by email just before he left for Boston University this recent September, and he placed it in his document files to read. Sometimes I feel as if I live on such a thin tether that it might break, and if something were to happen to me, my son has this book. I don't tell him the likes, In case you never see me alive again; it's just the way I feel. Beyond this admittance, I don't make it anyone else's business to feel this way about me. It's the sort of inner malaise a lot of writers have to contend with, because by seeking what amounts to originality in so many other words, they've lost some connection to the sorts of everyday assurances that comfort most.

Today Matt, Fred, and myself, we hung out in bitter wind-driven cold, and the feeling of ordinary familiarity was a matter of course. Like us, I suppose, Fred had packed quickly and made the short jaunt from home easily, expecting us to either be there or be there shortly. We were 20 minutes late, but that seemed to make no difference as conversation kicked in and never stopped. We pretty much came to catch up on one another's lives. But when, a little unexpectedly--trout fishing in the cold is usually very slow at best--one of Fred's three rod tips dipped seconds after his Power Bait reached bottom in about 20 feet of water, I soon felt a touch of the past excitement in the middle of finding myself checking bait and casting it back out. Some of that passion I knew each time I came here on lunch touched me.

Fred fished the orange Power Bait and marshmallow and mealworm combinations. Matt and I fished shiners, since we're especially interested in any lake trout that might be moving in close with the bitter cold. I had told Fred we would stop at The Sporting Life for shiners and that he was welcome to dip his hand in the bucket. I did that repeatedly, and once took refuge in my car with the heater on full, hands shocked and reddened. Matt and I didn't think to bring gloves, since the fishing here is all too convenient with cars parked nearby.

If any lakers loom along these near-shore inclines, none let us know today. Anyone who wants to try for them should take advantage of this week's cold. With temperatures near zero in the mornings, I bet lakers will be there for anyone who wants to use a bucket ladle instead of bare hands. The park kicks you out at 4 pm, and as we packed it in today, Fred discovered that rainbow trout photographed on one of his marshmallow and mealworm lines.

Real Season

Serious, sustained cold--even single digits--forecast after Christmas Eve, it looks like real ice fishing and soon.

My son's on the train from Boston. I'm also hoping I can round up a few friends.

Real ice fishing defined--I like it when the ice gets thick and we have a season.

Zebra Midge

Wearing only a wool shirt to cover my upper body, vest over that, I distinctly felt a shift from the treadmill-like day in and day out of working, to slowing way down and minding my zebra midge. I try not to mean this as any complaint, since the pay is even better than my former credit union job, given some 50-hour weeks, time-and-a-half overtime and Sundays. And these days are going really fast, which is how I seem to like it, since I look forward to retirement in, say, nine years. I'm supporting my son at Boston University, and my wife says that maybe four years from now we can consider an alternative, but I'm very sure any alternative will depend on my earning some serious money from writing, which is unlikely, though despite working six days a week, I manage to get a lot done, and most importantly, hew a close line with regards to my plans. I know what it's like to lose the feel for them, and I don't like it.

This is Peapack Brook where I fished with my two-weight TFO, starting out by trying a strike indicator for the first time, that flying off to whereabouts unknown on my first cast. So I had a hard look at the instructions and managed to get three casts before the indicator hit the rod on a bad cast and flew off. That one lost also. For the next half dozen casts, I lost attention on my line, since I kept looking around for that float. A package of four cost $5.50 plus tax at Shannon's Fly Shop in Califon a week ago.

Then I settled in. Forgot about the indicators, and kept a keen eye on my floating line.

As you can see by the photograph above, that's a likely-looking hole for some wild browns. As a matter of fact, Jorge Hildago caught one nine inches long on a salmon egg intended for a stocker in April here. I took him out for his first trout success, when he performed extraordinarily well at catching many stockers....and that brown. I can only imagine there are a few in those five or six feet of water, but I must have cast five dozen times for nothing, just getting into the feel of simplifying experience for a nice change.

I also wonder about stockers. The stream supports browns year round, so why not holdovers, also? Back in the year 2000, I caught stockers in this brook in July and August. I haven't tried any summer fishing here since then.

The water's cold. I noticed some ice along edges at the second hole I fished, deep, maybe six feet deep under the bridge. Back at the dam, I had thought of Oliver Round's catching some half dozen trout, browns and a tiger, I think he said, on a cold January day on the South Branch, using egg patterns. I figured I should have picked some up at Shannon's, tied one on, and then tied tippet to the hook's bend to drop a zebra midge behind the color. If my son and I go fly fishing next month, I think we're making a pit stop. For strike indictor's too, and I hope I can get them to stay put. Trout will take a tiny fly so lightly this time of year. You never notice a twitch.

They're Out

Yeah. On two inches of ice, a 32-inch northern pike, and a 24-inch pickerel, from Budd Lake.

And I got word from my prime source, referencing interest on Ice Shanty. I got my news from NJ Fishing.com. http://www.njfishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101077

Pond and Cove Ice Maybe

There may be some ice fishing on ponds, North Jersey, this weekend. Some well-experienced guys might try some lake coves, though I don't want to be one to encourage that, and I think the sort who may do it don't need any. It will be interesting if I get any word about the likes. I always like to hear.

Noticed a pond mostly frozen over while driving home from work late this afternoon. Thin ice, but on the way to that three-inch mark, perhaps, before it will melt back, if the long-range forecast is correct.

Last late fall was like this. I got out ice fishing with Mike Maxwell on Budd Lake, five inches thick, on December 21st. After that, we never got out, and there was very little ice for anyone else. Whatever this winter brings, I plan on getting out a little. Ice or not.

New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs is Central

New Jersey Federated Sportsmen's Clubs News Managing Editor, Oliver Shapiro, catches a Boston mackerel aboard the Last Lady II this past summer.

New Jersey Federated Sportsmen's Clubs News recently published, in November, an article of mine featuring popular New Jersey bass angler, Steve Vullo, who runs the Fishing with Attitude Facebook site. I had interviewed him and completed the story with point-by-point quotations, writing "It's Never too Late for Bass," not to be confused with a Litton's Lines post a couple of years ago or so with a similar title. I urge any of you who aren't New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs members to join, if the $25.00 yearly fee isn't too much to invest. The News is published monthly, loaded with first rate 1200-word articles, a few shorter pieces, and regular columns. Every time I get my issue, read and view it, I feel transported, not so much to wild places in our state, but to a time and place embodied by the sportsman's dedication that spans many years past and future, embarked upon today. The News really transforms New Jersey, and yet this quality is not only really there for more people than me alone, it recalls the same spirit of participation I felt as a teenager, when I didn't know about the Fed. Back then I was fueled by Field and Stream and Outdoor Life magazines, and I assure you that if you read these classic publications, still going strong with no sign of stopping, you won't feel disappointed in the News. One of the regular columnists, Rick Methot, was an associate editor at Outdoor Life, and Milt Rosko, who seems to get published in every issue, has been published in Field and Stream. Here's the link: http://www.njsfsc.org/

I mustn't fail to also mention Vullo and I performed yet another interview. Expect to find "Steve Vullo on Big Prespawn Largemouths" in the February newsstand issue of The Fisherman. For such an "overbuilt" little state, New Jersey really is central as far as word gets out on fishing. The Fisherman, with its corporate office in Shirley, New York, began some 50 years ago as The New Jersey Fisherman, and then expanded to encompass the Mid-Atlantic.

My teens could have been described as a quiet rebellion, since I took fishing much more seriously than school or anything else, but I never thought of myself as that. I recognized the centrality of the outdoors to America. It was more like school rebelled against me.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/08/last-lady-ii-charter-beautiful-day.html