Rainbow Trout Early Season High Water

Took a trip to the Pequest Trout Conservation Area. It's not as I remember from 13 years ago. I expected an easy trail to walk and a couple of deep holes with relatively slow water. I really didn't expect the river to be high and muddy yet, either, because the last time I fished in heavy rain, back in January, the North Branch remained in good shape. But I don't really know when the heavy rain began. When I awoke at 10:00 a.m. it was raining moderately at best, if that much, and it was easy to assume not much water reached the rivers yet. I went online and checked United States Geological Survey for the Pequest, too, and the water level had got pretty low since the last rain, having risen only one increment.

I'm looking at the graph now. It still shows that single increment, but after that, the level rises almost in a perfectly vertical line and it's quite high by now as I write at 6:35 shortly after getting home. I managed to get my casts in just in time.

The water had just enough clarity. Back in early March, I confronted much the same of the South Branch Raritan and didn't even bother trying. The thought of getting a winter rainbow to hit in water discolored and high. But now it's spring, and who knows, the water might be three degrees warmer. Any case, my feeling was altogether different. The photo I shot of the spot just after I released my only rainbow shows there was still some clarity. An hour later and the bottom somewhat visible in the photo wouldn't have been visible. And though I did find a spot that proved to be productive...where the water slows somewhat and has at least a little depth...most of the river moved very fast over shallows. I did try behind rocks breaking flow and behind trees in the water, but the only action came here where I took the photo. A nice rainbow of at least 14 inches got hooked there, too, but it leapt high and threw the hook. Using a jig with a barbless hook is a problem because the lead at the head means it can get thrown easier than a fly would get thrown. 

Both TCAs--Point Mountain and Pequest--gobble up jigs. I got snagged more than once at Point Mountain, though I never lost a jig, but today I lost three jigs. On the way home I stopped at the Sporting Life and bought four packs of four jigs each pack.

Did I get wet? A little. I guess last time, I put my rain jacket on over my neoprene waders, because water managed to run down my back and get the front of my thighs wet, too. I brought no gloves. Temperature was about 44. Pretty cold. But my wet hands never felt cold. I never felt cold anywhere, but especially during my drive home, after I took my waders off, where I got wet felt uncomfortable.  

Pequest

 

Georgia Dugouts, Glued, Other Boats Prompt Own Appreciation

My Caravelle 17 1/2-foot runabout, which a nor'easter did some damage to, and I used for my clam treading business out of Long Beach Island.

National Fisherman Very interesting article on Georgia boats, originally published in 1980. Same year I began treading clams commercially, and probably the same year I learned of the National Fisherman, reading a little of it. For commercial fishermen. Some business on the island had that magazine for sale, but I can't place it!

Boats are definitely "crafts" and I'd say there's certainly an art to creating the dugouts photographed in the article. Cypress again. I can't quite place that kind of tree, though I've heard of it from boyhood, but I might have seen some and taken note of them while in Florida or Louisiana. 

Nothing beats handcrafted boats, but even commercially molded boats are cool for what they're made of. My squareback canoe is rotomolded polyethylene plastic, and though I can never rid the impression altogether of that being cheap, it's durable stuff and shows no signs of aging after eight years. I did have to buy a plastic welding kit and fix where the bottom rubbed through on the keel, but that worked, so no problem. Flex Seal and the like does not bond to polyethylene. Virtually nothing does, and I judged it best to weld the material. (The weld sticks are polyethylene also.)

I worked on my Caravelle after the starboard side got punched through by a bulkhead, nor'easter winds pulling it out of its mooring, when the top and bottom constructions also separated. Used fiberglass strips and fill, then painted it. Very pleasurable. 

So I found the article's descriptions of epoxy use in boat building interesting. And the mention of composite plastic/wood construction--cool. When the words came to the part about making sure one is doing it right, I felt "aha" because I was thinking the same thing from the moment I read the caption about the glued boat. (I don't always read an article from first word to the last, though I usually do.) 

I still think the coolest thing is the dugout canoe at the article's head. How a boat that well proportioned was dug out of a tree trunk. Wow.

Shore Adventure 

Point Mountain Conservation Area Trout Outing

Penwell Mill

Even though catching a trout today wouldn't exactly count as a fall stocker caught during the winter season, I went after whatever I might catch in the Point Mountain Trout Conservation Area, where the Musconetcong River is open to fishing year round. I came with my four-and-a-half-foot St. Croix, the jig's barb broken and pressed down. I intend to graduate to fly fishing eventually but not yet. 

I followed a trail in that led to a likely spot. Though I judged it a little shallow, I had no doubt about the boulder-created eddies and holes dug out by the way currents must get directed during periods of high water. They must hold trout. Once, I thought I might have got hit--hard. It seemed too hard a pull to have been a momentary snag, given the speed I retrieved, but I felt it probably was a snag. 

Following a footpath downriver from Penwell Road involved parting the way between a lot of briars and bloodied hands. I fished at a couple of spots. One of them, on my way back, presented a nice seam along the opposite shore, so I made sure to fan cast that. It was all shallow fast water, but trout hide in pockets behind rocks. You really can't wade most of it, though. Rocks all over and slippery. Current strong. 

I got way downstream when I came to a rock-created weir extending from bank to bank. Naturally, depth was dug in below it. A series of cuts where flow gets the best of the river bottom. I might have got hit by a small trout. (There are small wild fish, of course.) Again, I couldn't really tell. Even so, the depth wasn't much, but enough for a few fish. 

I also cast out into the middle, hoping for any trout hiding behind rocks, and I got snagged. In the middle of the river where rocks studded the bottom everywhere and knee-deep or better current raced by. I put my camera bag on the ground, took off my vest, took my car keys out of my pocket and put them on my vest, and then I put my wading belt on, knowing that without cleats on my boots, slipping and getting wet was likely. And the rocks were slippery, but I found my boots just pliable enough to sort of grip bottom with my feet as I edge my way. All that for a three dollar jig, but it got adrenaline up a little.

Shallow Flow

Footpath recently traveled

Pequest

 

Morris County Brook Trout Stream

Inspired by John Garbarini's wild trout catches displayed on Facebook, and remembering what Gerry Dumont told me during a recent interview, I decided to try a native brook trout stream that careens down a mountain. 

First, I tried to access the brook from below, from near where it enters a river, but I found residential lawns bordering on it. So I parked in the lot of a county park, realizing I might have to hike well down below to avoid the warmwater influence of a dammed pond. (I caught a 14-inch largemouth on a spinnerbait in that pond some 10 years ago.) Of course, this time of year, who knows? Do brook trout swim upstream?

In any event, from what I've gathered, a quarter mile below from where the South Branch departs warmwater Budd Lake, the river is full of native brook trout protected by myriad springs that keep the water chilly. I figure the same must happen here, but how far down? In the photo above, you see I found a plunge pool I couldn't pass by. But it was maybe 300 yards below the dam. 

I went further downsteam and attempted to work a good-looking pool with a seven-and-a-half-foot 6X leader and two feet of tippet. A mess. Not nearly enough control. So I removed the leader and just tied on three feet of two-pound test. Gave me all the control I needed, until I came to another deep plunge pool. Put a BB split shot on and got the #12 Pheasant Tail down there. 

I found the rocks difficult to walk. They were everywhere. I had to climb a steep hill back towards the car. I hadn't much time and did not get very down below the dam. In the open-air Loree Chapel, I sat on a varnished bench that looked new, and I felt deeply moved by the cross in front of me. So I stayed put maybe five minutes. 

I came to resolve I hadn't expected to come to. Down among those rocks, I feared for my lower back, as traversing the terrain required putting it into positions that caused pain. And I never want to get hospitalized for it again as I did last summer. Besides, throw it out down among rocks and I might have a very trying time getting back to my car! 

Well, sitting on the bench I recognized I felt no more pain, my fishing had been successful insofar as its management was concerned. So the problem was less real than complicated by subjective fears. I'm no old man, not yet. I can do this. 

Skunked, though. Again. I see what's online, so I know something of what's possible in New Jersey. I'm proud of the fact that I've caught some natives and wild trout myself. Wild browns and one wild rainbow, besides a number of wild rainbows I caught in the mountains of Georgia.. Native brook trout, I've caught plenty of them in New Jersey, some in New Hampshire. But I'd like to make some outstanding catches, besides once catching four or five native New Jersey brookies as big as nine inches, and today I was trying to gauge how possible it might be, given that my elasticity is not that of a young man now, and I have only so many years. I catch a lot of largemouths. You know? Maybe stick to what I do best. 

But I'm not going to give up. Only a couple of years ago, I felt the same about fall and winter river trout. I had gone after them, had a few on, lost one at my feet, but just could not make any catches. Now I've got that fishing under control. At least with a spinning rod. (First step.)

Speaking of which, I noticed today that the South Branch at Long Valley is running reasonably clear and not very high. At High Bridge, it was somewhat high but on the clear side. My wife and I had taken a hike at Round Valley, our black Lab Loki and my camera along, got take out from Metropolitan Seafood, and driven to Gronsky's after eating at the main launch. I realized I should have taken my spinning rod with black maribou jig along. There's a good spot right above where we sat at a picnic table and ate ice cream. 

Brook's rocks and riffles.

Sort of pool I know from experience can hold a trout or two.

Look at the rocks.

 

You can see Trish in the lower middle.

4.23-Pound Rainbow

Georgia Yellow Perch Has New Jersey Beaten

Round Valley Reservoir

 Southern Fishing News A tie for the Georgia state record yellow perch at two pounds, nine ounces was recently made by angler Emerson Mulhull. The fish measured 16 inches long, and my first impression was that it had to be smaller than New Jersey's record. But I checked NJ Fish & Wildlife, and ours is two pounds, six ounces from Holiday Lake, 1989. Since I'm witness to Lake Hopatcong yellow perch 14 inches long, I figured they must grow considerably larger here. More than 16 inches. And as a matter of fact, the Fisherman and other sources speak of the world record yellow perch caught in Bordentown, New Jersey, 1865. Is that too long ago for our governmental authority to remember? I know attention spans of shortened, but really.

Let's say Georgia has New Jersey beaten...recently. Both chain pickerel and yellow perch are native New Jersey species. It's appropriate, in that way of a downtrodden state in so many opinions, for New Jersey at one time to have held world records for each of those fish. NJ Fish & Wildlife still lists the 1957 catch of Frank McGovern from Lower Aetna Lake as the state record chain pickerel at nine pounds, three ounces. But Orvis News and other sources claim the new world record chain pickerel--nine pounds, six ounces--was caught in Homerville, Georgia. 

Congratulations, Georgia, on two counts. But I remember that Bordentown yellow perch...now I do...from boyhood. We didn't have the worldwide web, but we had magazines and books. I was informed of that perch. Even if our state government has forgotten it, I haven't. Georgia has us beat on one perch count, enough for the title of my article, but Bordentown resonates a hell of a lot bigger.

Besides, the International Gamefish Association lists the Bordentown, New Jersey, 1865 yellow perch, four pounds, three ounces, as the all tackle world record.

To Be Passing Through Georgia 

I'll be passing through Georgia, I hope, in two years from this past January, as I plan my Florida trip. I might spend some time in Georgia, although as yet, I don't know where to fish. I have caught fish in that state long ago, but way up in the mountains, when I discovered a small trout stream while hiking the Appalachian Trail. Caught wild rainbows. Good eight-, nine-inch fish.

I'm certainly interested in catching big largemouths in Florida. Brian Cronk wants to meet me down there, and in addition to fishing the Keys for big saltwater gamefish, try Rodman Reservoir for big largemoths. He's good at bass fishing, but we hope Florida has our big ones up here beat. 

I'm driving down. Brian will fly down and I'll meet him at the airport. Fred Matero is my inspiration for the driving and he would be great to meet at the airport, too. 

Ice Perch

Links to Bass Fishing History of the Northeast

I fished Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts with a Hampshire College economics professor. He caught a largemouth as big as mine, photographed here from Merrill Creek Reservoir in New Jersey, but never mailed me the photo I took of him with it. So I have no photos of New England bass. I quit Hampshire shortly after we fished.

onthewater.com 1 

onthewater.com 2 A couple of articles from On the Water, one on the history of largemouth bass in the Northeast, the other on the history in New England of black bass in general--largemouth and smallmouth. It wasn't until 1850 when Samuel Tisdale acquired 27 bass from Saratoga Lake in New York and put them in Flax Lake near Wareham, Massachusetts, that New England had any. 

Both of these articles are good reading for anyone interested in history. And any of us should at least know bass in the Northeast are not native, including here in New Jersey. 

I read James Alexander Henshall's The Book of the Black Bass years ago, but that book got published in 1881. The evidence On the Water presents is that the movement that amounted to making the black bass the nation's most beloved gamefish, which Henshall applauds, as I remember, was already well underway. 

I love the stories I read somewhere. Maybe in Henshall's book. Maybe elsewhere. About smallmouth bass loaded into stream locomotive water tanks in the Midwest and driven by rail to the Northeast, where, I believe, the trains would stop on bridges over rivers and throw bass into the water below. 

How many years have bass occupied the Raritan system? We probably will never know...

Nice One

NJ Trout Stocking Meeting Thursday

New Jersey Fish & Wildlife Thursday, March 7th, 7:00 PM online. Everyone invited. I've never attended because I've been busy. Thursday at 7 I'll be on the job at the supermarket, but I want to give voice to my appreciation. Whatever some say about New Jersey's trout stocking program, for state officials to invite anglers to meet about the issues is as it should be, I think. 

I know a lot of people wonder if the state will ever stock browns again. I never hear about brookies, because I think everyone understands that with the (relatively) new legislation enforcing catch and release in the interest of preserving native populations, we can let stocker brookies go. I've heard no one protest that new legislation. It seems understood we're doing the best for the State Fish.

I also hear that feeding the rainbows at Pequest Hatchery is becoming onerously expensive. Maybe the price of a trout stamp will have to rise, I don't know, but if costs are becoming too much to meet, what else can be done? 

Any event, like so many others, I enjoy fishing stocked trout in the spring. When I'm doing it, it feels as natural as the stream itself. They're raised in spring water, after all, and none of our public waters is outfitted with feeders. They acclimate pretty quickly. I keep in mind the original trout stockings of the 19th century. The thought of "introducing" trout, essentially an idea in keeping with nature. True, in many streams they won't last until July, but even there, they're introduced for a couple of prime months. 

New Jersey Trout Fishing