A Bucket of Fatheads

Blogger, the outfit that supplies this blog format I use, did maintenance the past few days, which is why I've been absent. I fished my favorite North Branch area, AT&T, on Wednesday just before sunset. I found the browns very picky. Several of them would take the minnow, run a few feet, drop it, pick it up again, and so on three times over, so I didn't know when to set the hook. In fact, twice I pulled the fathead from the trout's gullet without hooking the fish, to remove from the hook what appeared partially digested.

Both of those minnows fully measured over two-inches in length, but most of my supply were almost pinhead size. If you can find a bait dealer who will sell you full-size fatheads, you're fortunate. 

Nevertheless, the browns struck these little offerings just as well, it seemed, but casting them isn't easy, even with a split shot. I saw very few trout caught by others, who cast artificials, salted minnows, and worms.

I missed hit after hit, more than 15 altogether, losing three I browns had on, but frustration never got the better of me. I had first fished a little further upstream, getting no hits at all, with plenty of bait and some time left. Pretty soon I had one, and since the hits came steady, I focused on making connection. I began to land trout as the flow of experience began to bring everything together. That's re-creation--allowing the power of nature's unity to make you whole and affirming of life. The only way to it is close attention to details that lead the way.

In fewer than the last ten minutes of my visit, I caught three trout. I had found the knack to setting the hook. The last of these three filled my limit, and I didn't take another cast.

(Round) Valley of the Sun

For my lunch break, I visited Round Valley Recreation Area, intent upon fishing the pond, 20 or 25 acres of clear water--not nearly so clear as the reservoir--separated by a long dike, and featuring a swimming beach. As I made the long walk, grateful for exercise, I felt compelled to fish the reservoir on my left as well, but didn't have time.

Sun beat down on my forehead and on the water so intensely I knew catching a bass would be a tough nut to crack. But shade protected part of the corner where my sun had caught an 18-inch largemouth a couple years ago. I hoped I'd get a take. But nothing happened. I had fished my 7 1/2- inch Chompers worm, no weight, thoroughly in shallow water and down to 10 or 12 feet. As I moved down the path, casting as I went, at first it seemed hopeless, but within ten minutes or so I was in the flow, fishing with intent, and I knew directly that this is how results always come. Each of my casts served the purpose.

I came upon a pair of small downed tree trunks reaching into the pond from a bush extending over shallows. I got my first cast in close, my second in six to eight feet of water just where perhaps the tips of the small trunks extended. The line jumped and began to move off. I set the hook. For the first moments, I thought I had hooked my first real good one of the year. Then I knew I had a good fish, but nothing so special. I measured it at 15 1/2 inches, about two pounds.

Answering Danial's comment on Manasquan Reservoir, I just use a portable Humminbird graph recorder. They told us at the visitor center bass fishing had been very good all week, but people I spoke to Saturday hadn't done well. Most of the afternoon a lot of sun hit the water. And when clouds finally came, so did ferocious wind. My hope is that next time we fish the reservoir 1. We get a battery that is fully charged 2. The cables hold up. 3. It's not so windy and sunny. I know that during the summer fishing is typically tough. These bass see a lot of lures, so live bait fisherman have an ace up the sleeve. I enjoy using live bait in the winter for bass, but during the warm water season it's just my own preference to get them to hit a lure. It's a game to figure out what they might take, which has something in common with fly fishing. 

Denville Park Pond

The Denville, New Jersey, area is dotted with lakes and ponds; I visited more than half-a-dozen this afternoon, and found only one open to the public. This Denville Park Pond has a couple surface acres with clean, tannic acid water beneath. You can see in the photo that the fat 2 1/2-pound largemouth I caught is truly a black bass. Typically called tea water, deeper tannic water looks like coffee.

This particular pond has no depths greater than perhaps six feet. Already aquatic vegetation is taking up a lot of space. I rigged a 7 1/2-inch Chompers plastic worm on an inset hook to keep it weedless. I used a two-foot length of 15-pound test fluorocarbon tied to a small barrel swivel, because pickerel are rumored to inhabit this pond, just like they do for certain in the Pine Barrens' tannic waters. 

The last photo of the series shows the relatively obscure corner where the bass sucked in the worm. Almost all of the acreage on this other side of the bridge is extremely shallow and pad covered. But the corner is perhaps four feet deep, black, with current moving under the bridge just outside it. 

This little pond doesn't get my vote for being a regular spot to fish, but it was interesting today. Over a week ago I saw bass on beds here, and today I saw those beds--without any bass guarding them. 

Windy Day on Manasquan Reservoir

On the water by 1:30, the rented electric moved so slow I quickly phoned the visitor center and asked for another battery, and brought the 16 foot aluminum dockside. This time we pressed off towards the far stands of timber at a good pace, trolling Rat-L-Traps, a technique that worked on one pound white perch last summer. We did mark a couple big fish on bait shoals, which may have been hybrid stripers, but got no hits on the way to the hump with flooded timber. About a hundred yards from our destination, gray smoke spurted from the power cable. In no time, the entire cable went up in a great puff of smoke, the postive cable near the battery burning through and separating, as you can vaguely see in the photo. Once again I phoned the visitor center. This time we were towed back to the dock, given a new motor and battery, and an extra half hour.

I spoke to the ranger as he took us in, asked if alewives exist here. He wasn't certain. But he did say that hybrid stripers actually reproduce in Manasquan Reservoir. I may do some research on this subject.  Apparently the hybrids do grow large; how they do this without alewives I'd like to know, if that's the case.

Anyhow, this time we didn't even try to reach the hump. A couple stands of timber relatively close to the rental docks and boat launch are obviously extensive enough, with deep water, to hold bass. And they probably get overlooked by anglers headed where the grass is supposedly greener. My son's first cast yielded a nice bass about a pound and a half. He used his "secret weapon"--a nightcrawler on a plain shank size 6 hook with a large split shot, which got it down on the bottom in 12 feet of water, outside the edge of timber. So I knew in all likelihood more bass were nearby. In fact, large fish showed up in our sonar scan right under the boat, and while I fished a Chatterbait, and Rat-L-Trap, very thoroughly, my son put his nightcrawlers straight down. He pulled up another largemouth, under a pound, a yellow perch, and lost two other fish, apparently bass under a pound.

We fished more than a few other ranges, anchoring in the fairly heavy wind. I fished a 7 1/2 inch Chompers plastic worm for the most part, catching a 14 inch largemouth, and another that wasn't more than 5 inches long--on that 7 1/2 inch worm! All of these fish held in eight to 12 feet of water, and while Manasqauan Reservoir is clear water, it is not nearly so clear as Round Valley Reservoir--where largemouths do spawn in 10 feet of water. Matt's largest fish was fat as a ham, apparently ripe with eggs. I was told in the visitor center that bass are on the beds, but who knows--I didn't see any on beds in the shallows. Surface water temperature rose from 62 to 63, below the typical spawning range of about 68.

At 5:20 a great wind came up, whitecaps immediately leapt forward, and we were blown about, unable to position forward. When I tried to make it into a protected cove (probably too shallow), I almost collided with two moored crew team captain boats, unable to steer effectively in the wind. I managed to swing the boat out of the way, and we went in, carried quickly on the rollers. 

Fishing Tackle: Breaking Through the Surface of Society

Months ago, I jotted down a note pertaining to early memories about fishing. A friend's father had introduced me to this recreation. But what I remember especially from that early age of eight is the Golden Guide to Fishing. The cover picture, painted no less, is of a spinning reel. The genius of its originality impressed me as direct and fresh as life itself, and I knew I wanted one.

The painting suggested the essence of ingenuity. At the time I used a Zebco 202 pushbutton spincast.

I owned a spinning reel and rod by age 10, bought it myself. A Capitol Sporting Goods store existed a mile and a half away, across Route 1, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, next door to the State Capitol in Trenton. I used to ride my bike and buy tackle.

Sometimes the hard shell of ordinary affairs breaks and bares the sheer magic of tackle, by so simple a process as unwinding line from the fixed spool of my Penn 430SSg, as snazzy to no apparent purpose as that numerical name designation makes me think the caprice of random numbers and lettering goes a long way in America.

After all, I live just yards off U.S. Highway 202, though highways really do have an order-by-number, if random numbering for things otherwise tends to fall into place with intentional patterns. Perhaps mathematician and game theorist John Nash would have positive words for the numbers of the reels we use. Besides, any random series chosen implies that some sort of intention lurked behind the result, which makes you wonder about license plates...

No one can really quite point out the reality underlying the hardcoat surface of society that keeps everything slick and running all too routinely. Don't we all know the disfunction that routine really is. You have to fall into it, taking everything you've heard and learned with you. And then, if you emerge again sane, you might be able to decipher a thing or two better not spoken about too often, and yet it helps guide your own life better than any GPS.

Bass Remain on Beds

I used to think that when water temperatures dipped significantly, bass abandoned beds. Although I couldn't make any beds out through the rather stained water, water I am sure took a sharp temperature drop with today's rain in the mid and upper 40s, the bass I caught seemed to be on guarded defense. One of the five I caught struck my favorite 1/8th ounce chartreuse spinnerbait twice before it whalloped the lure a third time and got hooked. I missed three hits from another in exactly the same place. I saw bass guarding nests in Mount Hope Pond in Rockaway yesterday, so surely that's what they're doing in my shallow little local pond. And ditto this the last time I fished it--I caught what looked like the same two pounder from the same spot, only now it's a lot scrawnier and less than two pounds. Three of the other four were about a pound and a half, the other a pound. I just haven't managed to hook a real good bass.

I fished much the same as I had a month ago, when I caught five on the same lure. I judged from the gut. This evening was not a time to try my #9 Rapala floater. Experience gets stored in the stomach. I read somewhere that the stomach has a slight number of neuron-like cells, which may account for the accuracy of gut feelings. Whatever the case, I certainly believe experience stores its responses down there, close to the body's center of gravity. Not to trust it is to ultimately go against reason, although we learn new approaches by going out on a limb, by extending our judgment clearly straight out from the neocortex. This is why, when an approach fails--like the time that would-be fourth bass at the Bedminster Pond followed like a pickerel, but did not hit--I am very quick to try something else. The gut cannot sustain for very long--it needs to be fed. And if it has any neuronal cells, certainly they are far fewer and less developed than those in the brain!

This coming Saturday my son and I plan to try for lunkers at Manasquan Reservoir, one of the best places in the state to give that quest a shot--if that's all it is, an attempt. I'm hoping that with the chilly weather the spawn has been put off, but I would be surprised, even with such a late spring, if by May 7th the females haven't lost weight. Manasquan is a tough place to fish. The fishing pressure is perhaps the tightest in the state, too. The bass see a lot of lures and become conditioned to ignoring them, especially through that clear water. High hopes! But I try to ease myself, and my son, into reality rather than come crashing down.

No Fishing at Merril Creek Reservoir

I forgot to crop close to the sign in the photo before I had uploaded the images, and formatted the card, but it reads "Environmental Refuge No Fishing." --Where, two years ago, among the bass I caught in two visits shore fishing included one over four pounds. Immediately obvious to me was that they had segregated out shore fishermen from the spot of choice, to the right of the launch and through the woods less than a hundred yards, a long, perhaps 200 yard stretch of flooded timber, including fairly shallow flats perfect for this time of year, and good in the summer, too. Anyone can walk along these shores. Just can't fish. (The slight timber to the left, and steep drop-offs, photographed without the sun above trees, is where I had to fish, sure I'd be skunked, and was.) Anyone with a boat can fish the area in question, too. What does that say? It may be evidence of an oligarchic tendency in our government--so long as you pay the taxes implied by a boat purchase, go right ahead. Where is the default switch in a political decision like this to ban shore anglers? No one would consciously think "Well, boaters pay more in taxes, so we'll let them fish here, and punish those with less money." But it's obvious they did not think well of shore anglers, at least they did poorly enough to have denied us. Additionally, many fishermen, me included, are environmentalist. But some environmentalists are anti-fishing. And they really mean it. If they had their way, fishing would be outlawed altogether. (What would this do to Isaak Walton's literary reputation? Would his book be banned or kept on the secret shelf of a benevolent dictator like the character in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World?) No, I don't neccessarily believe radical environmentalists will get the American government to pass a law outlawing all fishing. Not any more than I believe that the American government will pass a law making Veganism mandatory for everyone. I think officials behind the scenes of Merrill Creek Reservoir negotiated--certain environmentalists wanted this and that, and got this. Fishermen were designated to the left side of the ramp (and probably still have other shoreline to fish; I wasn't there long to find out). But negotiation means we do have to be aware, get in, and keep in the political process. 

So what happened to Manasquan Reservoir as promised!? My son fell sick with allergies. It's the time and the season. We hope to go next weekend. Certainly, I observed no evidence of spawning at Merrill Creek, and I hope the water remains cool enough at Manasquan so that the big females aren't ready by the time we try to catch a few. A few boats came in here at Merrill Creek. I spoke to one boater who had caught four five-pound trout, surely not from the recent stockings. Two other shore anglers had two small trout. At 210 feet deep and with much more fertility than Round Valley Reservoir, Merrill Creek is perhaps the best trout lake in the state. The bass grow huge here, too.

Wildlife at Merrill Creek, and the entirety of Warren County, flourishes. I had a wonderful drive, observed a lot of deer and light green flora while listening to jazz and news radio. A sandpiper that I have come upon reference to in reading--it dips its rear end up and down--but don't remember the name, came and poked about the stones and pebbles near me. Snow geese, like the one I photographed, are not common on lakes and reservoirs, although I have seen one on Lake Musconetcong. Mostly, look for snow geese at Brigantine, Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, during the fall. You may observe thousands there.