No Sign of Life Yet

No sign of life at Bedminster Pond, besides light itself. Cast a #5 Rapala Floater. Worked it on the surface and slowly underneath. Wanted to get a taste of the fishing before the warming weather comes. Didn't fish more than 10 minutes, and I hope to return tomorrow.

 

Sheet of Ice on Round Valley Reservoir Cove

Went over to Round Valley for photography yesterday, and I found the corner at Lot 2 frozen over by a thin sheet. The photo makes the scene appear, perhaps, as if the height from the ice to the top of the point across from where I stood is maybe six feet, but it's close to 26 feet. When I got there, a man and woman walked the edge of the ice, and though I tried to snatch a good shot, I blew the shot and they were gone. But before I trashed the photo, because out of focus, I marveled at how small they seemed. You can see a black space just above the whitish edge. They weren't even as tall as where the brush begins to appear.

I was surprised there was any ice on the reservoir at all, but it would have a long way to go... 

Later...I stand corrected. I still had a copy of the image:

They're to the right near the iced-over cove corner.

Paradise Fishing Club Ice Derby Winners

Big Swartswood Lake's Paradise Fishing Club had an ice fishing derby last Sunday. The amazingly big first place largemouth is the new club record.

Results:

1st    Place:     Ryan Bradley         6.98 #    Lg Mo Bass

2nd  Place:     Tim Soja Sr            5.22 #     Lg Mo Bass

3rd   Place:     Troy Valdez           4.82 #     Pickerel

Panfish:           Ryan Catton          1.98 #     Crappie 

 

Secure Site

I'm not technically brilliant, but I get by...at least eventually. And I'm glad I got no word of any user of my site getting into any trouble because it wasn't https secure. I myself only noticed it wasn't tonight. Apparently, everything online used to be http insecure. 

I figured it's best to have changed the setting before anyone has trouble...

Even though no one ever would have trouble. Don't I know that. I don't really, so I'm being sensible.

But there's a catch I've been leading my words to. The Share Bar, those numbers that used to be at the bottom of each post, is apparently locked out. That must have been an old http device. Someone had emailed me in 2013, offering me the code to install. Those were innocent times. Today, I might have suspected him and his code as a phishing attempt. I remember that email. I didn't feel any suspicion at all, and there you go--the Share Bar worked.

Those numbers were a lot of fun. 

I know they're still there, because I tried reverting back to http to see if they remained. Unless there's only a temporary glitch, no one will be able to add more, though.

I'll still see on the dashboard how many visitations each post gets.

Guess I'm going with security. I believe it was Ben Franklin who said that to choose security over freedom is to gain neither, but besides the loss of the numbers game, the only freedom lost is that a cyber criminal might have.

So I'll hit the publish button now... 

Steady Action

We got up before first light. I felt good about the outing ahead. It wasn't as hard an effort as last time two weeks ago, and almost as cold. Brian had an accumulation of ice on his windshield and no scraper, so Oliver and I would meet at Dow's and buy the three dozen large shiners. The temperature was five degrees, but it didn't even feel cold. I was dressed for it. There was none of the sense of going from a comfortable place to an extreme, as last time at one degree. That was when the winter was younger. While Oliver and I went into Dow's, Brian cleared his windshield by using some kind of solvent, I think he told me. We would meet at a BP. 

Dow's was so crowded with guys and one gal buying fishing licenses and bait, that Oliver and I weren't back on our way for 45 or 50 minutes. We began hiking across the ice to the spots when the sun hit trees on the ridge. 

It took awhile before we started catching fish, but once we did, action was steady. I got a real kick out of the difficulties these two guys had setting tip-ups. It's a procedure that's entirely second nature to me, but Brian and Oliver are still new to this, so while my reactions were a little flamboyant, I confess my patience as I write now. We could have caught more fish, if shiners (before I checked on tip-ups and corrected the problem) weren't sitting on bottom, for example, but we really didn't need to catch more. We caught over a dozen as it was. One of Brian's got the hook. About an hour later, I caught the same pickerel, about 20, maybe 21 inches, with the wire leader from Brian hanging out of its mouth. And it got my hook, too, so it was released with a second wire leader hanging out of the mouth, but both hooks were little size 6 bronze hooks that will rust quickly. 

I'm not crowding the post with photos, and we didn't get a shot of every one of them, anyhow. 

It does continue to fascinate me that pickerel seem much more active in cold water. The bass have to eat...so I wonder if they don't have to eat as much. That there's as much difference in the metabolism as proves to be an inverse proportion between the approximate number of ice-caught bass and ice caught pickerel, and summer-caught bass and summer-caught pickerel. One bass today, 10 pickerel or more, and a couple of big yellow perch. During the summer, we sometimes catch about 15 bass and no pickerel. 

We used up all the shiners. Right about when the bucket was empty, it was time to go. We had retired a few tip-ups. but we didn't feel at any loss.

  

 

Last Year

Some Ice Action

Oliver Round and I fished Round Valley Pond this morning, beginning at 14 degrees. In the photo, his pickerel had just broken off at the hole. We missed four other hits. 

When I last ice fished here, four years ago with my son, we caught three pickerel, and he lost one at the hole. He caught one 22 inches and let a college girl, who with a friend had fallen into conversation with him, catch one.

When we got out today, there was another guy fishing in the distance near the beach. We did see him catch something. Another guy came and set most of his tip-ups over water about 45 feet deep, and a party of three went way into the back where there's a shallow flat.

We got most of our hits relatively shallow, about 10 feet down among residual weeds, although another one was from 15 feet or so of water. The great exception was something taking a shiner in about 25 feet of water, which might have been a bass. I see no reason for the bass having not receded into the pond's deepest 45 feet, except that there's surely not enough forage there to keep them fed.

2018

Ice Season Ahead of Last Year's

My friend Oliver's been getting out a lot and catching pickerel. Photo is of nice one he caught at Aeroflex. Just about everywhere it's been eight or nine inches of ice. That doesn't include Round Valley Reservoir. I was there shooting photos on Tuesday and there wasn't even skim ice in the back of Ranger Cove. These past couple of weeks would have been good ones to pursue lake trout from shore. I assume Merrill Creek Reservoir isn't frozen, either. It's deeper than Round Valley, but does have a much smaller surface acreage. Aeroflex is pretty deep, too, at 110 feet, but it's well frozen.

This winter's ice season got underway earlier than last year's. A year ago yesterday, Oliver and I fished on five inches of ice at Lake Hopatcong State Park. The last ice fishing I did was in early March, on a foot of ice remaining over Aeroflex. Wonder how thick it will get this year and how long it will last?

Plan on going ice fishing with Oliver on Sunday morning.