Enchantment with a New Portion of the State and a Pattern of Return

This afternoon I visited a part of the state I'm familiar with but not in detail. The Scotch Plains, Fanwood area, invited by Garret Daniels to fish crappie. I ended up catching a small largemouth, and Garret a small crappie. If that were the end of the story, there'd be no point in wasting my time on Google. I lived in North Plainfield with my wife-to-be for a year, and a few times we visited Westfield nearby. I fished the Green Brook repeatedly in the spring for stockers, which now happens to be some of Garret's favorite water, but this was before he was born. I remember once passing through an area, I believe on State Highway 28, and seeing a pond to my right as I traveled south. It was full of map turtles. Whichever, it was a major roadway with the pond right next to it. 

New Jersey is rich with waters to discover. It's not upstate New York or Utah, but if you live here in the same state I do, why waste your time dreaming if you want to fish? I'm not mentioning the place Garret and I fished today, nor showing a photo of it, but everywhere you can find public water. 

And new adventure, as well as to touch base, perhaps, on former. We fished only an hour, it's all the time Garret had today, and as I drove home, I switched on WDHA. I hadn't heard "Mystery Achievement" by the Pretenders in more than a decade. Is it a guy who is the girl's achievement, or is it herself? Read the lyrics and you can't tell exactly, except that, "Don't breathe down my neck, no," at the song's beginning does suggest it's someone else. 

Whatever. The instrumental tone, the instrumental refrain like church bells, and the verbal refrain on "mystery achievement" used to make me feel no matter how unfinished my own work--I was busy at keeping hundreds of handwritten notebooks--they've achieved an integral cultural value. It's not the only way I believed that, of course, but the song was a "thing." This was back before I had any internet, too, so no way existed of promoting the work, and I lived too far out on the edge to publish as yet. 

I turned the radio off. It was the only song I heard on the drive home. Garret and I had talked about long COVID and a little else about "COVID times." A little about the possibility of a July 4th incident of another sort. Clearly, this is a somewhat dystopian time we've entered into over the course of the past decade, but speaking for myself, I never give up on the soil that roots the trees. Roots are absolutely necessary to what we see of trees outright, but they're all underground and out of sight. 

Like my handwritten journals, but also like qualities of my experience anyone else might also relate to, because patterns belong to us all. 

I had switched off the radio when I passed under Interstate 78, recognizing that I had been here on March 17, 2020, the day businesses began to get shut down because of COVID. I had driven to Scotch Plains, the Stonehouse Coin Shop. I had some silver coins I wanted to sell, but the proprietor turned me away, telling me that with what was coming, they wouldn't be able to sell them. He told me to come back after things returned to normal. 

They have but in a way inclusive of long COVID and other unease in many people. I'm not a political writer, but anyone can turn on the news. I'm someone who can recognize in an underpass not hope exactly, but the mystery of recurrence after a portion of the state new to me had awakened enchantment. Not a dark shadow under that highway. Recurrence has a way of suggesting closure, as if maybe new values will seek the light as the old are absorbed into the ground. I had felt excited to be at the Stonehouse perhaps the last day it opened before the Shutdown. Why would that be, unless I already knew it wouldn't last? 

Outsmart It

Hillsborough NJ River Largemouth

Often an encounter with the wild isn't the serenity and bliss we expect, though we still manage to finish the outing feeling it was worthwhile. I got back home before my wife was up and before the tv got turned on, so the feeling of early morning peace remained in the air, though she turned it on within five minutes. (Not even 6:30 a.m.) That's when I understood that for all the conflict the news brings, it comes from the world we call home and feel proud of, if we're successful. We occupy our own property and achievement within that world, and though it stands in relation to the wider world of others, we don't abandon ourselves nor our belongings, as if politics determines us altogether. No. And like war, the wild is a place that will swallow us whole if we stay too long; even a short outing can subtly remind us that its beauty has a dark side. Politics that has gone astray always seems to involve so-called leaders who have abandoned their own. Ultimately, the penalty is death. Just as the wild exacts the same eventuality on those who do not build. The difference is that within society, laws bind us together. In the wild, it is the absence of law that will assure us of death if we establish nothing. Not only have leaders abandoned their constituents. Why on earth would those constituents have voted them in? The agreement moves both ways. 

It was a feeling I had today. Possibly because the South Branch Raritan River at Hillsborough ran off color after recent rain. And possibly because, when I got there, it was still too dark out to tell.

I put a Rebel Pop-R, quarter ounce, along the break between evident bottom and darker depths. At least, that was the situation when I fished there during the winter for rainbow trout stocked in the fall. I couldn't actually see today. I had decided I'd go with a quarter-ounce plug, because I felt I stood a better chance with a bigger bass. I did bring smaller along, as if I might try one of them, too. Casting, I felt reminded that the quarter-ounce plug casts a lot farther.

My second cast came down near some wood in the shallows. I popped once and got hit. I believed from a fairly big fish. Just what I had been hoping for, and it felt too good to be true. Even so, I'll amend those hopes a little. If it was a good fish, it was no 22-inch smallmouth as I had dreamed of. (Some day, I'd really like to catch one that big in the river.) I thought maybe it was 15 inches, judging from the weight I had felt for a moment before the plug came free. I put another cast there. Within a moment or two, I was aware I didn't see the plug. It was dark out, but I could just barely make it out on the surface. That is, unless a fish had taken it under. It has white feathers tied to the rear treble and sometimes a fish will take the plug down by nipping them. Though I set the hook into substantial weight, you might think of sunfish pulling on those feathers. 

A good fish, but it didn't feel like a smallmouth. I believed I had a largemouth on. The splashes it let loose were heavy and powerful, but the fight had that comparative sluggishness. I got the fish along in front of me, where I thought I could just barely make out the horizontal stripe of a largemouth in the dark. And then on the sand and pebbly gravel, there it was--largemouth bass. I measured it at 17 inches. 

I made sure to fish out and across the river where I knew the water got shallow. It moved through there a little faster, too. I worked the plug thoroughly, but didn't tempt another hit. My plan had been to switch to a Wacky rig, once I was satisfied the bass weren't going to hit up top any longer. In that nice, deeper water I figured I had a chance. 

But it wasn't looking very petty. By now enough light on it revealed that it was off color. I had gone over to the North Branch near home yesterday just to check, and it ran plenty clear. I knew the lower South Branch is another story and might not be clear, though. I had also checked the United States Geological Survey and it showed the water still up a bit. 

I don't like fishing off color river water with a Wacky rig, and even if I had a noise-making Rat-L-Trap with me, I wasn't sticking around.

Years Back

 

Shark River Pier Fluke on Jig and Gulp

In the choice between Farrington Lake and destinations further east, I wanted the adventure at the shore over a real long haul for my squareback canoe from Brian's house. Originally, I floated the idea of Twin Lakes in Kittatinny Valley State Park, but Brenden's good at Google Earth and got right on that, showing me the thickness of the aquatic vegetation between the "two" lakes seems to forbid passage. Besides, we'd have had to cart the canoe, and especially with the marine battery and electric motor, it's difficult to do that. The surface area of the "second" lake where the primitive launch is, isn't much.

It's still interesting, I admit.

Anyway, we had a good time at what we chose to do. Beginning at Manasquan Inlet, we threw metals and plugs for bluefish at high tide and before it actually stopped coming in, got slack, and began to drop. Brenden did hook one before that current turned. He thought that might bode well for us, as if the bluefish might turn on as the water turned out. He knew what he was thinking, because he's caught a lot of blues up to 10 pounds here this spring. Some of them turned on just after the tidal change. 

But pretty soon, I let him continue to throw for blues and switched to a jig and white Mister Twister. I had witnessed four fluke caught, so I was interested. As it turned out, nothing took any interest in my presentations. Nor did any more fish slam Brenden's. 

After more than two hours--the tide was going out--we abandoned hope for the inlet, and I felt eager to move on as if getting there as soon as we could might make a difference.

Whether or not it would have, Brenden caught fluke. We found a little pier on the Shark River adjacent to or belonging to a public park. At first, I feared this was going to be a bust, as if the water would be too shallow, but then again, I figured, if it were three or four feet deep, fluke might move over such a flat. 

It's more like six or seven feet, and plenty of fluke moved over it. Besides Brenden's three--two about 16 inches, another smaller--I saw four others caught, including one of 22 inches. We didn't fish shoulder to shoulder, but I felt it was crowded.  

When Brenden caught his third, a while after he had offered to lend me a white Berkley Gulp bait, I said, "Do you think the Gulp really makes a difference?"

"I have no doubt it does."

"I'll borrow one."

I also took him up on a half-ounce jighead like the one he used to get longer casts into the wind and better feel in the rough water. That replaced mine, 3/8th ounce. Let sink and then wiggle the rod tip as you retrieve at slow to moderate pace. The Gulp has no twister tail, but by jerking it around, the resemblance is of a baitfish. 

How sensitive to scent fluke really are, I have little idea, but given the mass of water out there today in the heavy northeast blow and swift, sideways tidal current, they must be very sensitive to scent for Gulp to really make that difference.

There's evidence it's true. Comparisons between Berkley Gulp and Zman to gain insight into scent dispersion suggest the molecules get to the nostrils of fish, and that one brand might do it better than another. But in any case, we caught no more fluke, though speaking for myself, I deeply enjoyed trying for some. We fished there about two-and-a-half hours that felt longer owing to my absorption into the process of attempting to make that river produce.

We drove on, arriving along Raritan Bay perhaps a half hour later. There's another pier, and I made for it. Brenden pointed out we wouldn't be able to net a big one, the distance between the rail and the water surface too much. 

To the left of that pier, a jetty looked inviting to me, and Brenden was interested in it. But the water had fallen to the point that sand was exposed in front. Little waves breaking to the side suggested very shallow depth. Casting confirmed that. We could have waded, but we decided to make a break for a much larger jetty about a half mile distant. Brenden told me it channels an inlet. I figured a small one, but no matter, any ancillary water might be interesting to fish.

It's small and might hold fish especially at high tide. But I hadn't noticed until then how muddy Raritan Bay's water. Inside that little inlet where boats pass from a marina--plenty off color but not as outright muddy. We made our way back where rocks are replaced by bulkheading.

The smell of creosote jogged my memory. It brought me back to when I was 12. I caught bullheads that impressed me as especially big at about 12 inches, in the Delaware and Raritan Canal at Lawrence Township, while sitting on bulkheading by a bridge. I came home to the inherent peace of the planet while people in the distance crabbed and fished, and although the experience was short lived, it still reminds me that all is well on earth, despite the acridity of ordinary life. 

Manasquan Inlet

 

Calico Bass in the Kelp and Rocks from a California Head Boat

Calico bass inhabit the kelp and rocks along the California coast. They fight hard, and the International Gamefish Association lists the world record at 14 pounds, seven ounces, caught at Newport Beach, California in 1993. Fish over five pounds are uncommon; aboard the Monte Carlo of 22nd Street Sportfishing, San Pedro, the biggest of well over a hundred caught was about four pounds. Matt's biggest was about 17 inches. Legal size is currently 14 inches, limited to a take of five. Between Matt and I, we took seven. I caught six fish, including a Pacific mackerel about a foot long, and Matt lost count, also catching a sand bass.

We might have had 30 guys and gals on the boat, including a few staff who joined in and caught calico bass near the end of our half day of six hours. The pool winner, however, was a 9.6-pound California halibut, the biggest of at least four of that species caught. Halibut are commonly caught, but not commonly in numbers like fluke get caught on head boats here in New Jersey. They're typically larger, though, and the IGFA world record is 67 pounds, five ounces. 

Bait supplied included live anchovies about six or seven inches long, and squid. Matt and I stuck to anchovies, and a lot of the bass got caught by others on jig and plastics and also colored diamond jigs. 

Just as well that I judged bringing our standup rods as too much of a hassle, and we rented rods, because those (spinning) rods supplied by the outfit for $15.00 apiece were not the extra-heavy power that would have been too much on these fish. Along with the rods, we were given a four-ounce torpedo sinker apiece, four quarter-ounce egg sinkers, and a pack of Mustad size 1 bait hooks of excellent quality; though we had to pay additionally for that tackle, we never needed more than that. We lost the torpedo sinkers and a couple of hooks to the rocks. Thereafter we used quarter-ounce egg sinkers that worked great.

Depths ranged between 35 and 50 feet, and we fished pretty close to the rocky beach here and there. Periodically, one of the mates netted and flung live anchovies out into the water we cast and dropped to, and more often than you might think, calico bass struck those anchovies on the surface. I once cast directly on top of where a bass had broken water, kept my bail open, let the fish run with the bait a moment, and set the hook, catching the bass. On too many other occasions, I had bass take the bait in the middle/upper column, only to attempt hooksets unsuccessfully. 

Once, I just dropped the rig and let it sink to bottom about 35 feet down. I let it be for a while, then decided to reel it up. That's when I felt a fish on that didn't feel like one of the bass. More like that slightly uncertain weight of a fluke as it slowly follows along with the pressure you exert. I tried to set the hook but failed. 

Matt and I managed to position at the stern. Generally, that's often the best place to fish, at least according to the conventional wisdom. The current takes your rig more and less directly further back, since the boat is anchored from the bow, although the alignment isn't necessarily perfect, as I'll get to in a moment.  Matt and I held our own there, until after a few hours the current had greatly increased. All the lines ended up back there, and people shouldered their way in, no way to ram rods butts against foreheads to hold our own! At first we successfully resisted others, but the game evolved, becoming a matter of revolving from the left corner of the stern to the right, and starting over. That way, lines--all tending to drift slightly in the direction of that right corner--had their play. 

I gave up on the game. My back hurt and the competition was intense. I tried unsuccessfully to fish towards the bow, and then sat in the cabin for the last minutes before we headed back to the dock. I felt proud of my son who held his own at that game, but really. He's 26 years old and it was a cinch for him.

  

The Port of Long Beach is second only to the Port of Los Angeles, right next door, for the honor of being the largest in the U.S. Here I focus on one cool container ship.

Matt and I managed to position at the stern...at least at first.

Mackerel

 

Big Pickerel Go Deep in Summer

Brian's 22-inch Pickerel

Clinton Reservoir doesn't always produce much for us. I did better in April when the water was in the 40's, trolling a Mepps Aglia, but Brian caught the 22-inch pickerel photographed above, while trolling a chrome Storm Hot 'n Tot. I had a smaller one rush my Wacky rig as I retrieved it for another cast, a fish hanging out in shallower water. We find the larger pickerel are in depths of about 12 feet and deeper from early June onward through the summer. I recall fishing with Brenden Kuprel a couple of years ago when I was catching 18- and 19-inchers on the deep edges of weedlines in 20 feet of water on little 1/16th ounce jig and paddletail combinations. I've caught pickerel 20 inches and better while trolling 15-foot depths of Tilcon Lake in the summer, too. To the best of Brian's recollection, his pickerel yesterday came from 15 feet of water. He had more line out than I did, so it's possible his plug was just about right on bottom. The plugs always gathered weeds when we got as shallow as 10 feet. 

I did catch a bluegill on a jig and twister, a 10-inch smallmouth bass, "if that," Brian said, on a 1/4-ounce Rebel Pop-R, and another sunfish of a different species on that same plug. Unfortunately, I lost a better bass that felt the hooks, and missed other hits. Brian's Whopper Plopper got hit twice under the same pine tree where he caught one almost 18 inches long on a Zara Spook two years ago. He ended up using a Zara Puppy yesterday, as I was drawing more hits on my smaller plug, and he got more hits on that Puppy, too, including one from a sizeable bass I witnessed. He had another bass boatside when it threw the hooks of the same plug. 

And the big bluegill photographed below. 

Most of the action came from an area I'd rather not disclose, and though we've had action there before and set getting there as a goal, when we came into view of it, there were a couple of guys in a Bass Tracker working it over. Given that added pressure on the fish, I think we did pretty well in terms of the interest we got from them, even though we pulled only a few over the gunwale. 

It's not the first time we've trolled big pickerel deep from Clinton Reservoir. On other occasions, a chrome Hot 'n Tot has produced pickerel of about 21 inches for me here. About the same depth. Twelve, maybe 15 feet. Once I hooked something enormous. Brian tells me there are 30-inchers here. That might have been what I had on. I had just caught a 21-inch largemouth, and whatever it was I hooked felt bigger, taking off on a lightning-quick run, just like a northern pike would for short duration, only I think I might have hooked a pike-sized pickerel. Trolled. The Hot 'n Tot, but it threw the hooks. 

Big Bluegill on Topwater Plug

The way the light illumined the rocks mesmerized me.

Clinton

 

Trail Along the River Offers Access to Shoreline

The Delaware ran high, and we didn't catch any fish, but my Wacky rig did get hit once or twice. I felt something and thought I saw a bass swooping through the water's dingy two-foot clarity. Then I cast again and that time really did get hit, but upstream from where the former action happened. I fished in Frenchtown with Joe Beckerman, who I hadn't seen in 14 years. 

He's scouted around, having lived in Frenchtown for months. If you drive along the river, which many people do for recreation, taking in beautiful views, stopping at quaint little towns like Lambertville, Stockton, Frenchtown, and Milford, you'll probably get the impression that most of the river is barren of any fish-holding structure and depth. The truth is, there are smallmouth bass all along the shorelines for the most part. I once fished somewhere near Bull's Island by just casting a spinnerbait parallel to shore for some 45 minutes as I made my way downstream and caught three. Not big ones, but bass. 

At Frenchtown, there's a Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park "towpath," though the canal begins downstream from there. You don't have to walk very far in the upstream direction from in front of the Frenchtown-Uhlerstown Bridge before finding a trail leading down into the trees closer to the river. If you take that trail to access the river when it's flowing low, you might be able to work your way along the river itself while casting, even without getting your feet wet. Otherwise, you might still find spots where you can gain access.

Joe had a specific spot in mind that we accessed today even though the river barred us elsewhere. It didn't surprise me too much that I got hit. He asked me if I had a spinner, and I wished I had brought along the little box I can fit in my hip pocket. It has a couple of spinners in it. I just carried a couple bags of Yum Dingers, hooks, and an O-ring tool.

The Delaware is a fascinating complex of wild and traveled space that really isn't worked over as much as you might think. A man could spend a lifetime fishing the river and nowhere else, and he would still be surprised by something new each time on the water.

Frenchtown-Uhlerstown Bridge

\

Foot trail along the river.

Joe's spot was more than a half mile above the bridge from Frenchtown where we began walking.

Lambertville

 

We Always Used to Cut Sharply Around the Bend

Every May or June, Kevin and I pay a visit to a certain cove that used to produce big hybrids on the troll. I started fishing with Kevin in October 2021, and every spring thereafter we've tried the sinking Rapalas that used to catch them and some trout, too. But not since 2019 have friends and I caught any there.

We always used to cut sharply around the bend and motor all the way to a shallow cove where we've done well trolling especially for plate-sized crappie, though we've caught some pickerel and largemouth, too. About a mile-and-a-half distant. Maybe a little more. Today, my mind riveted on the features of the bank right where we would have left, and I decided we would work our way along, tossing Shim-E-Sticks rigged Wacky. I didn't know for a certainty that any of it would produce, but similarly as I remarked in another post recently, I didn't know spots here and there along the way wouldn't.

It didn't take very long before we got a clear signal. I put my worm right in the corner where a dock created a 45-degree angle with the bank. So close to the bank, I felt relieved to be able to subtly flutter the ends and let it sink into deeper water. And then, suddenly, I lost all feel, felt alerted and tightened my line. Then I set the hook. OK fish. A largemouth surfaced and threw the hook.  

So now the question was whether anything else would happen. It doesn't always, but we were already doing better than Brian and I had done on Furnace last week--besides the musky Brian lost. Hard to believe that's already been almost a week, but it's nice to measure time by fishing trips. People say fishing is always better than work. It has something on spending time at home, too. Which is work after all, even if my writing and photography is a hobby because it doesn't pay big time.

Does money define things?

There's no doubt it's work. To write well, one must work. But is it a business? Something always grates at me, anyway, when I think of writing as a business. If all my handwritten notebooks were published, they would be contained in about 500 books of 300 pages each. Wasn't all of Kafka's work published posthumously, that hobbyist? What about William Blake? And who doesn't know of Friedrich Nietzsche, after some 100 copies of his books got published before he went insane?

And stayed that way.

Don't you just love people who have to put you in a slot like a take-home striped bass. You're either a hobbyist or businessman. Can't be any other way.

We made our way along the bank. As if something would happen, though I maintained the presence of critical reason. I wanted more to happen. That was sincere. I wanted Kevin to get on a bass too, and three years ago, Kevin caught a 20-incher on a Wacky rig. He's caught other largemouths, smallmouths, panfish, perch, pickerel, walleye, and a seven-and-a-quarter-pound hybrid, as well. So he's used to catching fish. In fact, at the present juncture, he had never been skunked on Hopatcong.

Not much later, I felt a pickup and carefully tightened the line, observing that the fish swam directly towards me. I understood that meant an uncertain hookset, and I gave it all I had. Fish on. Kevin did a good job with the net, after I had extended the handle before we began fishing. Smallmouth bass. Eighteen inches. And then another smallmouth bass maybe a hundred feet further along. Sixteen inches. Again, it took on the subtle flutter, and it swam with the worm at a right angle to me. 

It was a wonderful day and our conversation was good as always. But something went a little south with my style after that last bass. I still hit targets on the tip of the nose. You can ask Kevin about that. But I ended up losing four more bass. One of them actually hit after we made a divergent move I thought thereafter had been a waste of time. That we should have stuck it out with the bass. Almost a mile of shoreline lay ahead of us. Pretty much out of the wind. That wind came up and stayed up. After it had been so nice. 

But mostly, it was the weeds. The shallow cove wasn't fishable. There was some kind of Scuba diving event going on where we caught smallmouths last year. And as I say, like Furnace Lake--much more weeds than last year. And that wind. A couple of other shorelines I just passed by, where we've caught bass in the past. We trolled all the way around Byram Cove, and where it was critical to get in close at the edges of shallows, we couldn't, because of weeds. 

I had a spot across Great Cove in mind that I gave up on before we would even try.

Kevin had the attitude. "You caught two good bass. There's no complaining about that."

It was a good day, and fishing the docks was tough. You really have to minimalize the water, hitting the targets and moving along. One of those bass I lost also came towards me, but to the side, and I didn't get a good hook set. The fish swam at high speed before I could completely get the curve out of my line. Another one was actually associated with weeds, so I believe it was a largemouth. (A lot of rocks exist around the docks we fished.) Again, I felt disoriented for a moment, as the bass had moved away with the worm without my knowing. I tightened up, set, and felt very heavy weight before the hook pulled out. All of them were good bass. 

I told Kevin, "When we fish in October, you're going to catch fish," which is true. We fish bait in October, which almost guarantees it.  

 

   

Early on, the smoke from Canada was thick.

Later, blue got through.

Kevin's Hybrid