Access and Participation

Last night I decided I would drive up to the Dover area, where I keep my squareback, and get last year's registration for it from its safe box. It's perfectly dry & in shape. I compared all the codes with this year's form from the MVC, and they all check out.

So instead of fishing in Hunterdon, I fished the Rockaway River in Morris. The cold was more invigorating than uncomfortable, but my hands felt pained. I must have fished a total of two hours, and I did find interesting holes that would definitely hold trout. Fished on the outskirts of the town of Rockaway and in Denville. 

I drove along the river--best I could stay along the river--from Dover into Boonton Township. The exploration got involved; I was enjoying it, and it served as a deep meditation on given wilds and limited access due to private ownership. I don't believe that the Western way of land owning land is inherently corrupt, but a world is a commonality, and human beings should have abundant access to land and water for recreation. Think of how we tend to enclose ourselves, surround ourselves with objects we identify with, rather than to ensure our health and vitality by participation in the larger world. There are better and worse ways to do that, too, and to only seek out opportunities that cost relatively large sums of money begs the question: Are those activities being pursued for their own and your sake, or does money represent a value you produce only by work on others' behalf?    

As I fished in Denville, I thought of all the trout that must have been stocked where public access was available. Just a few hundred yards of it. Trout we pay for by trout stamp and license fees. Most of them now probably inhabit inaccessible water. 

Hunterdon 

Hoping to Fish

Hope I'm not wasting your time to say so, but I hope to fish a river on Tuesday. On call for Jury Duty, don't know what the chances of having the day free. Forecast is OK. 

I feel work & all else cramping my style. The one exception I will grant to the lack of time I fish, is photography. I've been criticized for doing it. As if someone privileged to write on fishing should fish all the time and do nothing else. 

There's a difference between working too hard...and working smart. 

That said, I had a great day on the job yesterday. All the stops pulled, I behaved like a 17-year-old--at age 62--doing hard labor deftly, and then on breaks noting brilliant ideas in a journal. (I don't write only on fishing, as if I should write only on fishing.)

But I'm truly on the fence. Would I prefer to keep working? I don't seem to have a choice until 2025, anyhow, so why think about it...except to hope I fish at least a little more.   

Nice Rainbow River Fishing

Finally, I'm beginning to get the hang of the fall & winter river fishing. This past fall I caught a couple in November, and a couple of years before that in October, an 18-inch rainbow broke the connection between my woolly bugger and fly rod. October a year ago I missed some hits on flies. But such incidents are virtually daily routine for the guys who know how to do it. While I've caught trout left and right during the spring, I've managed to get out some during the fall and winter of recent years, and though I missed the hit from a small brown two winters ago, there's been precious little action.

The main thing is that I've been true to my intent. I've been telling myself I'm going to get out on the rivers during the winter for a few years or more, and though I haven't since November this year, getting out today was a move I would expect of myself. When you stay true to what amounts to a deep desire--no matter what convenient living would have you do otherwise to keep you safe from such passion--the likelihood is that its objective will succeed. And that is to catch trout.

For two years now, I've had boot-foot, 600-grain thinsulate, neoprene Hisea waders, and though my feet and calves felt the chill, the waders did the job for nearly an hour-and-a-half spent in the water. I fished a stretch of river I might have fished on two other occasions, once with my son around 2006 for smallmouths (we got skunked), and once in 2017 with a friend when we caught lots of springtime rainbows. First, I waded downstream more than a hundred yards, hoping to find a hole.

I never did. The water might have been six feet deep. Four or five feet at least, but probably no more than that. I retrieved repeatedly, twitching a black marabou jig, until I felt sure of exploring upstream. There I found an interesting eddy, feeling disappointed in its shallows, too. Trout like holes this time of year. There was a nice riffle upstream that I would fish carefully during the spring, but I shunned it and cast directly downstream where the eddy gets lost and the river's main current begins to pick up the slack.

I felt this was a nice transition in the course of things. Not very deep but I was telling myself even four feet might do. A fisherman can make a fool of himself. I had already told myself I needed to get home and work on a cabinet for my wife. And to think a fish might be where you're casting now despite need to be elsewhere can be no more than an empty wish. And why act on the like? Ever? Because sometimes the feeling you get in relation to a spot you choose to test out is "spot" on. Especially after you've eliminated water, after you've parsed it down to what is, perhaps, the best possibility. 

I felt no more than a little nick and set the hook. The rainbow fought hard. Sixteen-and-a-half inches--no giant, but a nice fish. 

I never took another cast. I got home and got the work done. 

Two Men Dead Ice Fishing

Tap Into Madison   It's a "file photo" used to illustrate the news story. It was nearly 60 degrees on Friday after very heavy rain. Not wise to go ice fish Split Rock. Very sad news, and I hate hearing of stories like it, though it is best to hear them when they happen. 

Big Brown Trout and Lakers at Round Valley

A week ago I began planning on today. I soon ruled out ice fishing, because I realized today might be my son Matt's only shot at the laker he'd never caught before. Come to think of it, I realized also, he had never caught a brown, either. So I daydreamed about what shiners can do. Two years ago or so, I saw a six-pound brown posted on Facebook. Caught from shore at Round Valley. I daydreamed of Matt catching one...not as big, but close. No reason to push my luck. I daydreamed as if it actually would happen. I'm like a child that way. Playing in the fields of my mind.

It's not six pounds. DSLR cameras are truth tellers. Mobile device cameras are magic. I believe there are people who think that brown is pushing eight pounds. I never said how big it is on Facebook. The laker--Matt's first and only--in the photo below is one inch shorter in length. True, it weighed a lot less. But the brown is only four pounds, 12 ounces on my Rapala electronic scale. And only 23 inches long.

We got to the Sporting Life around 9:20, and after we parked in Lot 2, some guy was walking out with a brown of about 20 or 21 inches. Said his buddy had a nice rainbow on Power Bait. Well, that fish wasn't much over 15 inches, but they had got there around 8:00 and enjoyed a bite. 

Matt and I waited hours. We fought the cold. Had a propane hand warmer that helped. Matt did miss a hit on Power Bait. Actually, the line broke on hookset. One rod was baited with the stuff. 

Then, around 2:00, I walked to the car to get a stringer, just in case. Take home some lakers for dinner. I ran into someone in orange weather overalls on the road who said I looked familiar, so I told him my first name.

"You knew me when I was a little kid," he said.

He looked to be about 21. "You were the kid who caught that two-foot-long rainbow," I said. This back around 2014 when I was a lunch hour regular.

"Yeah!" he said.

Nick seemed to bring the fish in, because once he was there fishing with us, action began. He fished a Binsky and did catch a laker before the park closed at 4:00. I caught a little one of about 15 inches, and another 20 1/2. Besides the two trout Matt caught, he missed yet another hit on Power Bait. He could have caught a "trifecta"! 

Why push one's luck? Ask for too much, and next time you'll be ignored. Why is a "trifecta" so special, anyhow? Especially after one's had a day as great as we enjoyed today.

I seem as if I'm a little superstitious about things, but basically, I notice patterns as they unfold. I didn't actually dream up Matt's brown, but why daydream unless to prepare for an event? You even keep it cool by not dreaming the unlikely, so you get just the amount that's reasonable without pushing your luck and making your daydream feel "off" instead of somehow spot on.

It's daydreaming but rational judgment. 

I stood next to one of my rods. I had got a really good cast with it back around 9:45. I stood there and went back and forth in my mind for three or four minutes over whether to reel in the shiner, make sure it's still there, and recast perhaps somewhere else. Don't I seem like a dingbat unable to make up my mind? Doesn't outdoor pursuit require swift and decisive action? But three or four minutes is how long it took me to arrive upon being sure what to do about that rod. From within. 

I was sure of leaving it be.

Five minutes later it leapt off the rock holding it off the gravel and sand. I hooked our first trout of the day. After all those frigid hours.

Imagine had I put that rod elsewhere. (It would have been "sensible" to do that.) That rod in the spot that caught all three lakers.

Matt's brown came not too long thereafter, but on the rod set furthest from our makeshift camp. Matt had gone and checked on it, finding all the line unraveled from the spool, but the anchor knot holding. It was a long, drawn out battle. Once the great fish broke surface wildly, far out from us. Once I netted it, the day's fulfillment was complete.  

Trout from Shore

 

Round Valley Options

I got my stuff down by the water ahead of Fred, and while I began sticking rod holders into mud submerged an inch or two (the ground frozen), I heard a whoop, looked, and saw one of the guys nearby with a rod doubled over. As I approached him, I feared I would see a laker in the net, which is just what I saw. Nineteen-incher.

Fred shuffled down with his stuff, and I told him about the fish. Then I asked if he had a bucket in his car.

"No, I just took it out."

Later on, Fred told me he didn't even think of them, but I had debated in my head a little over whether to bring shiners or not. I finally decided it isn't a laker day. Thirty-five degrees not cold enough. Deep down, though, I just didn't want the hassle. I've been busy. The least I could have done was think of putting a bucket in my trunk. I didn't think.

I could have taken a quick ride to the Sporting Life for a dozen-and-a-half. 

Fred and I fished about three-and-a-half hours. Something took a piece of one of his marshmallow and mealworms, but I think that was a sunfish. Unless a trout would actually bite a piece off a little marshmallow. His rod tip did jiggle a couple of times. 

The guys next to us had caught four lakers and lost another at the net when we packed to go. The biggest 23 inches. Smallest 18. Two other guys near us had two lakers from where I fished with my family in November. One on Power Bait. One on a shiner. They appeared to be about 18 and 20 inches. I had fished orange Power Bait the whole time. No takers.

Fred and had sat on foldout chairs, talking constantly. He's lived down the shore two years as of tomorrow. Talking never ended until we each drove off in separate vehicles. In the parking lot, I told him about my dream of creating a book of Lake Hopatcong photos, in addition to Round Valley, but that I'll probably have to self-publish. I added that I might have to self-publish the trout book, too, but that there are many more options today for doing that. I made some comment or other about having options of all sorts once I retire in two years and some. He told me as much from experience, since he's been retired for more than two years. You have options. 

Had options today, too. So maybe next time.

Nice Rainbow Round Valley

 

So Far I'm Behind Last Year's Score

Got the urge to get out and fish. Otherwise, I'd have stayed home and continued my long quest to understand WordPress before I build a site. That one's going to be my author site, my main hub, eventually hosting galleries of photos, too, but not nearly as many as I have on Windows and on hard drives. One of my friends suggested I sell my book through a website, because he's seen how hard it is to make a go of being sponsored by a tackle company. I acknowledge it's possible my book on microlight spinning for trout won't get published by a small traditional publisher. If I do run out of all possibilities in that respect, I'll turn my attention to self-publishing. Either way, a website where I might be able to promote my book better than I can on Blogger is important to have.

I stayed out in the rain--using my Honda as shelter for most of the time--going on two hours. I never got a hit. Used orange Power Bait by the Main Boat Launch. So far this cold weather season I'm behind last year's score. Will be back. I might fish a river next Tuesday, but Fred and I intend to fish Round Valley on the 20th.