Just a Passing Glimpse among Maddened Dinosaurs on a Highway: Thoughts on the Value of Place

Three versions of the same place, photographed.

As I drive--especially since I drive all day for a living--I get short-lived moods that carry thoughts, these not processes of "getting to thinking" about something, because the business pace is fast and routinized, but connections having a spatial quality help me remember. They happen quick as I move on.

For a couple of minutes I was all over the state about ponds and lakes, and fascinated with how we sometimes have deep desires related to bodies of water we know, or want to know. It also occurred to me it's important to write about these moods because if we never were to read, write, or talk about appreciations that matter deeply, the likes would be forgotten. 

Even the ponds at Colonial Park in Franklin Township beckon to me, despite their sort of homogenized feel with short-cut grass surrounding, although a far shoreline features brush in the water, and trails skirt much of this largest pond with wooded space. I've known about the two ponds for many years. We took my son to play miniature golf at Halloween time from an early age. Just this past February we saw "Putnam County Spelling Bee" performed in Franklin Township, and as we drove past Colonial Park, I mentioned the ponds to my son, that we've never fished them. Then I came upon Catfish on the Lake, Mark Modoski's blog. Nice bass! From one of the Colonial Park ponds.

I probably won't get over there until this summer. Round Valley Reservoir now lures me. By June or so it's all over there. I'll go fish Colonial Park some 95-degree early afternoon.

Places exist all over. This planet truly is a Paradise we're usually exiled from. If we give up on our appreciations for what a lake, reservoir, pond, river, rill (I know one in Morris County about two feet wide I like) means to us personally, just each of us alone, although it is possible to communicate about to some degree, what's the glory of life anymore?

Just a passing glimpse among maddened dinosaurs on a highway. 

Low Rivers Rise: Calm Before the Storm and a Season Start to Remember

South Branch Raritan near Flemington--I once caught a smallmouth under that trunk. The other river is the Lamington taken from the iron bridge over Cowperthwaite Road. In Chester, the head of this second river mentioned flows by the name Black River because the water is tannic, unique among Highlands rivers. When it becomes the Lamington well below the Black River Gorge, the tannic acid is washed out. 

Those guys are enjoying the low water conditions everyone's complaining about before the rivers become mad torrents, when the Nor'easter hits Saturday or Sunday.

With any fortune, levels will calm down enough for excellent salmon egg drifting for us next Wednesday on the North Branch, unless my son has a ball game. Not a complaint! Just have to sway with the turns. 

Crankbait and Jig & Worm for Pre-Spawn Largemouth

Mount Hope Pond is mostly about 15 feet deep, so it doesn't warm as fast as shallower, dingier ponds. For lunch break, I fished almost an hour, saw no bass, nor any sunfish, and the pond is loaded with panfish.

Storm's Hot 'n Tot was a pleasure to try. I've never seen a crankbait float so fast. It's got a quick action this way. I'm looking forward to trying this on Merrill Creek Reservoir. The Chompers weightless worm I did so well on May through July last year seemed too subtle for deep, spread out bass, cruising somewhere down along the edge where 15-foot flat bottom begins to rise to shallows, probably in between, on the ready to spawn as soon as afternoon water temperatures remain in the mid 60's a while.

So I tied on a Shaky Head jig and snagless rigged a twister Culprit worm. I let it sink. Waited. Hopped it a couple feet up, then let it free fall so it would strike bottom and perhaps draw attention.

It didn't work. But it was fun trying.

Gateway National Recreation Area: "Are You Reelin' in the Years?"

It's getting near time to visit Sandy Hook Bay for a family outing and maybe some bluefish. Last year no one got a hit, and I didn't return to try again. The year before, blues were all over. When the blues are willing, metals are the quickest way to hook up. But once I noticed small blues around four pounds being caught on metals when I walked in. So I figured why not place a chunk of bunker on bottom and see what happens? I use a two-ounce bank sinker so it gets down fast, but drifts with incoming tidal current headed into Shrewsbury River. The hits are thrilling. Some think nothing beats teeth crashing into metal, but the feel of a blue taking bunker is firm and intimate. I caught one over seven, then hooked a blue much larger. It ran off 40 pound Power Pro, paused. I had just begun to gain line back when it tore off more, paused, then really bore out, and something popped. It actually broke the snap to my 30 pound test wire leader. I'm certain it was a blue by the power of the fight.

It's funny I find myself in a mood to level out some straightforward fishing information. I thought I might be otherwise tonight. The paragraph above represents a way I like to write, but I'm postive I'd go nuts if I limited myself to it. So Litton's Fishing Lines certainly recognizes that if it weren't for fishing, I wouldn't be a writer. At least I wouldn't be the writer I am; I began by writing for outdoor magazines at age 16. (More than writing, I fished.) 

I don't explain everything. I try not to upset the magic and mystery of language. I have a love for embedded propostions. Some blogger in Manhattan once remarked that he couldn't reference everything directly because of legal implications, but anyone could figure it out by going to other websites and cross referencing information.

 

Still Thinking of DeKorte Park Stripers, Rainbow Trout, but also Smallmouth Bass

Perhaps I'm looking forward to it: it's cool when tide is rushing out at DeKorte Park in the Meadowlands, leaving mud flats in the end. Stripers feed in the outflows from a flat slightly elevated above the lower. I just lost my drive this weekend. The park is a good hour away, and Garden State Parkway, Route 3, and so on is a challenge. I drive about 150 miles a day for my job through all sorts of busy chaos, but this is part of the reason I can sometimes just not want to deal with thousands of explosive gasoline engines roaring like dinosaurs. 

On the other hand, I've driven to the Meadowlands on a weekday after work, and often to the shore and as far down as Seaside evenings after work, too. From Bedminster, Seaside is about a 140-mile round trip. When I do these after work jaunts, they never have affected me as overdrawn.

Tide chart shows me I have to wait until next week. Maybe just as well. Rainbows should be stocked in the North Branch Wednesday, so if water levels rise, I'll probably have some fun with salmon eggs. 

Now that Route 206/202 bridge is not stocked, my favorite spot to drift eggs has few trout. And the crowed at AT&T seems to be larger now that no one stops at 206. Why did they stop stocking at the bridge? Did they just say "What the hell, it's easier not to bother?" Did Verizon complain about parked vehicles? 

To tell you the truth, I may not bother to fish trout this week. I went down to the river today at 206/202 easily within walking distance just to contemplate it, and I thought best of smallmouth bass anyway. Smallmouth bass are wild and uncomplicated by agency decisions or sloth, and never attract such rudeness in a crowd as referenced in a post recently.

Largemouth Bass Slam Spinnerbaits: Thought of Death in an Ambulance

Slow half hour at my neighborhood pond, but three bass hammered the Mini-Kng and black 3/8th-ounce. Throwing that Mini-King around, I finally got over my disinclination and tied on the other. I bombed casts out to the middle, nothing there like last time. All three hit in close; two rolled over wake.

Of course I was set on Merrill Creek Reservoir. I thiink it best that got dashed since I became out of sorts last night and haven't shaped back to normal, not related to the loss of that outing plan. Great day at work Friday, well, I move by turns of fortune that at least in 51 years have always ended well. (The secret to this, by the way, is contained in one word: reason.)

I like a strong mood conducive to physical action. On seldom occasion, this normal drive evaporates and I vascillate uncertainly in a no-man's land of a vaporous, jellyfish-variable breeze. How could Jimi Hendrix stand it? He sure praises it to the ends of the universe in "With the Power," but the guy depended on barbiutates to try to firm up his responses otherwise.

One night the wind wasn't right for him. He suffocated in the ambulance.

Fishing Spots Considered: Diamond Backed Terrapin, Bird Photographs Suggest Wilderness

Since I plan to fish Meadowlands stripers some time this weekend, I thought I would share some images captured there a couple of years ago. I really wonder how common (or not) diamond backed terrapins.

Just have to get the tide schedule and meet the sweep of forage out towards Hackensack River, which draws bass in as the water goes out. My only fear is that with this weather the place will be jammed. Last year we did best in chilly, raw weather.

I was dying to be reborn on Merrill Creek Reservoir Sunday. I had phoned all the bait shops, to find herring at the most reliable--Dow's. Yeah, I would drive the 90-mile round trip just to buy bait. But coming back from walking our Labrador, Sadie, I saw my wife drive in, and went over to greet she and my son.

"We have a problem," She said.

Times like this I still need to tell myself to behave well, even though I'm 51. I just sucked it up and set our hopes on the 29th, although that date is unlikely too because of school demands. Matt's off for an overnight occasion with friends and will do school work most of the day Sunday. Our inflatable boat seems all ready to go. Registering it was easy and inexpensive. The 55-pound thrust MinnKota Endura, etc., does not seem to me to have been very expensive, since we will use the equipment, I hope, through Matt's college years during summers. 

The herring is for trout, crankbaits and tube jigs for bass--largemouths and smallmouths--although I bought a couple of nice Matzua crankbaits at Dicks this week and have trolling them in mind for trout, just ranging water with an eye on the map and the graph--spot a fish, drop a herring down. Matt uses nightcrawlers--not exclusively--for bass. A Worm Blower, a hypodermic needle on a air injecting device like a container of reel lube, adds buoyancy, and I have to say it's simple and effective. In fact, I read in J.B. Kasper's "Freshwater" report in The Fisherman a couple months ago that a six pound brown was caught at Merrill Creek on a nightcrawler floated above split shot from shore by use of a Worm Blower.