South Branch Raritan River Still Running High

Back in May, I imagined doing a lot of South Branch Raritan fishing this late spring and summer. I almost began for smallmouths in late May, don't recall what interrupted. I got killies in mid-June, but the heavy rains had begun and although I got out on the river twice, it was running too high and stained. I still have some of those killies left--not that they're the only way to catch stream bass, far from it. I'm used to using a spinning rod, and the four-piece that I keep in my vehicle lost its two top sections to Lake Hopatcong recently. Still awaiting the new Ugly Stik.

So I tried fly fishing, although I really like doing this for smallmouths when water level is low. Water was only slightly stained today, but volume too powerful, I felt, to manage the Wooly Bugger. Wading was a problem with the high water too. I caught one little bass inadvertently by walking upstream to the next spot while trailing the Bugger behind me.

Northern Water Snake



Solar Electric Facility Would Denigrate Bedminster Township

A 55-acre, 49,000-panel solar electric generating facility for Sanofi-Aventis (pharmaceuticals) in Bridgewater Township is proposed for Bedminster Township where friends and my family live. The panels would cover environmentally sensitive ground in two blocks, including 38 acres of woodland that would be removed.

According to the Highlands Regional Master Plan, which is the result of extremely complex mapping of the overall region, the proposed site is a critical wildlife area with 90% habitat value and 30% and 95% wildlife corridor values, has 50%-65% groundwater recharge values, important farmland soils and is an agricultural resource area (once was a farm), has moderate watershed value, and one of the two blocks proposed to have panels is 75% flood plain. Chambers Brook nearby has flooded progressively worse in the past 15 years and one would hope that floods will not damage what may be cadmium panels. I read the Wikipedia account of those and though they are manufactured in China, they are considered too dangerous to use in China since cadmium is an extreme poison.

We don't want the panels. Just the thought of 49,000 scales on the backs of two creatures come uninvited to wholly serve the interests of a pharmaceutical company with nothing left over, scarring the land with two broad sweeps of blackness, devalues the township we live in. No one thinks solar power in general is a bad idea. It's how it's applied. Put it over parking lots and on roofs. Don't complicate matters by sacrifice. Denigrating environments in the name of environmental benefit makes no sense but a company's saving itself a little money, when surely it could go elsewhere with a project to where it really belongs. On its own property.

Part of the proposed land use area is wetlands, where I believe a roadway is proposed to cut through and the drilling for the power cable. This cable is planned to pass right under Interstate 287 into Bridgewater Township and may further disturb the integrity of this biome. At the least, it needs to be pointed out what they may be compromising, because in these times of environmental degradation, we need to fight for every inch.

Alternatives always exist for what we can do, for the man-made, but our environment is a natural given unlike our choices. Parking lots can use the cover of solar panels. They keep cars' interiors cooler on hot days and protect them from snow building up on them during the winter. Small considerations, but plusses gained rather than negatives imposed.

Besides, China outlaws the use of cadmium panels for a reason. If they were to catch fire or be damaged somehow, cadmium would leach into soil that has 50%-65% groundwater recharge value. That makes me nervous. A friend recently had a new well drilled in that area of the Township and it's not cool to put cadmium over the water source. It would put anyone on edge.

There will be Township hearings and voices will be appreciated.

Lake Hopatcong Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, Bluegills, Pumpkinseeds, White Perch 1950's Style

We arrived at Dow's 4:35 a.m., backing down the drive, unloading all the gear including a 65-pound battery for the electric. We sat, my son sound asleep before I had the gear set aside, and the older gentleman, Jimmy, came around getting things in order in the dark for a 4th of July weekend. Dow's now opens at 5:30, but Jimmy got us going earlier with a 9.9 (as usual) and what bait we needed. When Joe pulled up in a boat from pre-dawn herring forays, Jimmy had already begun to prepare our departure as I moved our copious belongings into the boat.

"Business is a third of what it used to be and it's not coming back. The kids aren't fishing. It's a thing of the past now," I was told. I've been aware for years that kids don't fish like they used to. They don't do anything outdoors like they used to. In my old neighborhood, I visited the Woods about six years ago where I spent much of my childhood. There used to be well defined trails not made by adults. Absolutely all the trails I found grown over and no new paths.

Despite my knowing about the likes of all this already, it wasn't an easy ride in the pre-dawn twilight out to Pickerel Point. Honestly, I felt like a fool part of the way because I invest so much value in a pursuit that seems to have no future. It occurred to me that the animal rights persuasion doesn't need to get any laws passed against fishing. In another 30 years or so, no one will do it anyway.

Really? I bet fishermen will persevere. I had a rough start on the morning.

The clouds overhead passing swiftly without too much wind on Lake Hopatcong meant fishing should be good, but we experienced a slow start. Matt caught some big bluegills and pumpkinseeds on nightcrawlers and I caught the small walleye photographed on a live herring. I cast a Wacky rigged Senko-type worm into the relative shallows and worked it back patiently quite a number of times around Pickerel Point, while letting herring do their thing. I'll always remember when I heard the unmistakable pops of hybrid bass busting bait (herring) at the surface. I quickly looked in that direction and saw the splashes. Then it was over. We were preparing to move our herring out there when a jet ski ploughed right over where I saw the fish.

We went to a new spot and once again set up shop. Just like at Pickerel Point, Matt found large sunfish under the boat in about 16 or 17 feet of water instead of 20. Maybe it was 20, the drop is very sharp. I was getting 14, 15 feet on the graph recorder at the back of the boat towards the rock outcroppings. He caught a 16-inch smallmouth on a free-lined herring. This fish hit in about 15 feet of water. He lost something else on a herring as I did, also. I got my Senko snagged and let it be for awhile and would later lose half of my four piece Ugly Stick, while forcing a line break because the boat swang too close to rocks. When he line broke, the two upper sections disappeared into the lake faster than I could see.

The big excitement of the morning--Matt's 18 1/2 inch smallmouth. This fish made the day an event we'll never forget. He used a chewed-up piece of nightcrawler for the sunfish and white perch when the bass moved in. The fight on his ultra-light thrilled. That bass did not want to come to the net. "Let it go. Take your time," I said. It ran off line at least half-a-dozen times and once jumped.

Scarcity inspires alternatives, and out of nightcrawlers, I had us try cut pieces of dead herring. The white perch seemed especially to like them, but so did the sunfish, and can you believe I caught my smallmouth bass on a piece of cut bait herring?

We could have fished more conventionally by today's rules. Perhaps the way we fished today is more like an outing from of the 1950's, an era of bait fisherman compared to the corporate lure revolution of the early 1970's. One salient difference between then and now, however, is that we released all of our catch besides the walleye (Lobster of the Lake) and a white perch hooked badly. Outings previous years we've stayed on the lake eight or nine hours and fished plastic worms around the docks the way bass pros do. That way, we caught largemouths over three pounds. With the electric, there's no reason we can't do this with a rented 9.9. It's not as convenient as a bow mount, but I get about. We did almost hit the rocks and I lost a rod, but so what.

Today's a holiday weekend and boat traffic became oppressive. It's the first time we've fished the lake, besides in October and November, when lots of people have off from work. I felt happy to leave after six hours and Matt was ready to go too.

Swartswood State Park for Bass, Walleyes, and Pickerel

Swartswood Lake for Bass, Walleyes, and Pickerel

           494-acre glacial Swartswood Lake at Swartswood State Park in Sussex County is a reliable fishery for anyone willing to persist. If fishing conditions favor you—particularly a falling barometer or changing light very early and late in the day—success may come your way with ease. But sometimes nothing will move fishes’ interest to lures or bait; these are the times you should take incentive from difficulty to try again.

          An option for lengthening time to fish Swartswood Lake is to camp on park grounds for the weekend or even longer if you want. Sites are available near the lake—and rental rowboats. You can rent a boat for days running if you wish and be able to go out at dawn as well as fish into dusk. It may be a good idea to buy a 10-pound mushroom anchor and hundred-foot length of 3/8^th-inch nylon rope. I use a portable graph recorder—my underwater eyes—in addition to the topographical map available in either the New Jersey Lakes Survey collection, or Fishing Guide Maps I have mentioned before.

          To go out in a rowboat and fish simply without examining bottom structure carefully is, for some people, a most uplifting and relaxing escape from daily pressures. Swartswood State Park is certainly a beautiful place to do this. My own relationship to the natural world is essentially the same as it was for me at age four. I needed to discover, examine, and identify everything in my reach. Fishing soon became part of this.  

          Always an active pursuit, I’m interested in endless natural features, conditions, and relationships that result in fish caught. And when no actual results come, I have at the very least participated in the natural world and have been reminded of the given level of existence. On this last point, the casual angler who cares only to let pressures go shares with me contemplation of the world free of routine demands.

          Swartswood Lake has been there—where we now can locate it by global positioning— before we had any civilized routines at all. In comparatively recent times, New Jersey Fish and Wildlife has introduced the wonder of walleye, also known as lobster of the lake. Difficult to catch but fairly easy to find (deep, rocky points and drop-offs), it’s special to take one or two home. Dip morsels in butter just like lobster.

          Largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, pickerel—my friends, son, and I release almost everything we catch. Fish catching is not necessarily covetous as may seem. To study history carefully enough is to become aware of fish as a spiritual symbol across all cultures. I like to think committed anglers are men, women, and children who intersect contemplative spirituality with frank connectedness and encounter with the natural world. Sport is essential. But no sport exists that does not have moments of great transcendence brought on by marvels of the game. The source of these exaltations is deeper than rivalry.

          The best opportunity for a grand moment on Swartswood Lake involves waking before dawn and not rushing breakfast, all equipment arranged the night before. You need to be fully alert and expectant on the water before sunrise. Two Swartswood options exist: fishing subsurface with live herring, jigs, or crankbaits for walleye; or fishing topwater lures through the period of changing light for bass and pickerel. Especially when the lake surface is calm, a great bass or pickerel bursting through is something you remember. A few are over five pounds.

         Great strikes are not remembered for any measure of the action you can simply experience. They haunt the depths of the mind because they are encounters with rare living beings. And none are so well recalled as that of a great fish.

           

Swartswood State Park NJ Salamanders

 

The Salamanders of Swartswood

The summer shroud of greens along the shores and deep into landscapes contrasted deep blues of the lake. What a contrast to a memory. More than four years ago I had approached a snow covered altar of locked-in frozen lake surface. Appropriate that the ritual of ice fishing introduced me to Swartswood Lake in Sussex County. Swartswood is well known for the hardwater pursuit. But now in 90-degree heat my ten-year-old son Matt, wandering the woods near our allotted campsite, called out, “I caught a peeper frog!”

“Peeper frog!?”  I called back. “It’s August!”

“Come see! It has the X on its back!”

The thick underbrush grazed my legs with no lush loam of marshland underfoot. What would a peeper frog be doing here? My son opened his hand, and sure enough, a peeper frog about 3/4^ths of an inch long sat in his palm. He let it go, searched under more logs, and found another even smaller. Why they summer back in the dry woods I don’t know. But minimal moisture underneath rotting logs sustained them. I’ve heard millions of peepers in March and April. Throughout New Jersey, anyone can hear them who drives with windows down near any wetland. And as a boy, a number of times I had approached choruses of them, trying to at least catch sight of one. I never did.

My son inspired by his finds, we decided the next day to search the area near the Duck Pond. Matt’s big idea centered on finding snakes, although anything to find he would readily appreciate. Before we crossed East Shore Drive to the pond and the Group Camping Area (empty that weekday), we stopped into Swartswood State Park Main Office and read the wildlife log, a dateline for anybody to record observations. From this we took a clue. Another youngster had recorded his finding of a red backed and a long tailed salamander. Immediately I knew we would turn over logs.

The Duck Pond itself, at least a football field’s length, narrow and very shallow, hosts reeds that poke a full foot-and-a-half above much of its surface. We found indistinct, spongy  edges inhabited by green frogs, leopard frogs, and bullfrogs. Matt adeptly caught a number of them, releasing one and scouting down the next to do the same.

We saw no ducks. Nor in the winter, if the water yet remained open, would I expect to see any of the exotic arctic ducks that visit New Jersey. Arctic ducks are divers. The Duck Pond seemed to be so shallow as to accommodate no fish, although Matt speculated that there may be some sunfish.

We were about to discover a real charm. Our sneakers mucked up and dampened, we edged away into the woods to investigate what lay under such logs and large stones. The woods around the Group Camping Area are rather sparsely forested and the underbrush is not so thick as to make walking among trees difficult.  Soon happy to have found a redback, my son’s excitement remained contained, since his familiarity with this specie dated a few years. But what knocked my socks off was his sudden discovery of a spotted salamander. I had not seen one of these in the wild since I was his age, in Massachusetts, and I had told Matt so before he turned over a stone and gave his cry of surprise at just that.

With added vigor— but being very careful to exactly replace logs and stones as we had found them— we searched. “Do you think we’ll find a tiger salamander?”  Matt said.

“That I doubt,” I said. Tiger salamanders very rare, a few local populations limited to South Jersey, few ever get seen.

Soon we found several long tailed salamanders. Surprised again, we discovered a large number of red efts ranging from the tiny to about three inches. These we had never seen in the wild. It became abundantly clear that the pond served as breeding ground. The way its water melded evenly into ground without a defined bank seemed perfect for the salamanders’ exits and entries. The reedy, weedy shallow waters incubate and protect their eggs. Wave action coming up from depths, such as those of the lake nearby, would destroy them.

We spent perhaps an hour-and-a-half searching out a total of 21 salamanders (including a second spotted salamander), and a very large toad that had embedded itself underneath and inside the rotting humus of a thick, aged log. Every one of these salamanders, and the toad, we carefully returned to the environment, first making sure that replacement of log or stone in as exact position as possible did not harm the creature, which we sometimes placed immediately next to the repositioned cover. We exercised this way long enough to begin to merge into the forest ourselves. Humans are not really strangers to the wild, but after lengthy periods in civilization some reacquainting is needed. Better than detachedly observing while on a walk, it’s productive to be physically active in some way, such as searching for creatures impossible to encounter otherwise.

The salamanders themselves are uniquely compelling, having eyes that appear quite perceptive, and yet their being so small and amphibian separates them distinctly from mammals like us. That gives them the sort of gel-like strangeness that is so fascinating.  The narrower-bodied long tailed salamanders are swift, and can run similarly—but not so fast— as a lizard. Even the red efts we found to be surprisingly agile, although most of the time they remained very laid back. Spotted salamanders appear as classic wide-bodied amphibians that give the impression of being a real substantial animal. When I see a picture of one of these, I am reminded of the prehistoric amphibians from my childhood Golden Guide books that so inspired my imagination of prehistoric times. Neither of them we caught exhibited any agility. They plodded about rather slow, but certainly they catch their fill of insects, if mostly larvae.

For two avid fishermen to have left a Swartswood State Park overnight stay much more excited about salamanders than fish indicates an unusual plot twist. These four-legged creatures returned us to a deeper level of time—which is sustained as an ancient constant in forests and other wild lands even as they evolve—than fishing did, as up to date with techniques and our own tackle as we practice. We went into the woods with nothing but our clothes and a camera. And we left it renewed and eager to come back.

Smallmouth Bass Lures and Techniques: Rivers and Streams Summer

Summer Smorgasbord

River Smallmouth Eat it up

          River summers offer gamefish a plethora of forage to pounce on from many structural angles. It’s impossible to find a single pattern that would really exclude all other fishing possibilities; fish will strike from all sorts of positions, especially smallmouth bass. Lures and approaches can vary, or you can select a single method and do well with that. Smallmouths are willing feeders all day, if the lunkers, especially in low, clear water, are aloof and more aggressive early and late.

          Insects fallen from trees and blown into the river; insect larvae; leeches and worms; crayfish (especially small and molting); and a whole host of baitfish, including shiners, chubs, dace, smaller fallfish and suckers, darters, madtoms, fingerling channel cats and bullheads, panfish, all are forage for smallmouths, so a wide range of lures proves effective. Most anglers use light or medium-power spinning outfits, although quite a few use baitcasting gear, while others flyfish nymphs, wet flies, streamers, poppers, even dry flies. Until September, when shad and herring fry head downriver on my home Delaware River, lure choices are limited only to imagination. Once two-inch fry rich in Omega 3 make themselves available, the bass tend to feed on nothing else, so enjoy summer variety while it lasts.

          Lures imitate forage and get where bass hold, some lures effective for many situations. It’s easily possible, for example, to float trip the Delaware all day using only a four or five-inch Senko style plastic worm rigged Wacky on a plain shank #2 Mustad, or an eighth-ounce jighead dressed with a three-inch Berkeley Gulp! Leech. Either will apply to all sorts of structure, from rapids to holes nearly 20 feet deep drawing strikes all day. Senkos are great for casting distance, sink fast and deep without added weight, can be retrieved when rigged Wacky at a moderate, pulsating clip through fast water, and nine-inch smallmouths will rush them in shallows to make distended efforts at swallowing the total length of the worm. Three-inch Berkeley leeches are a light touch by comparison, but possibly more effective.

          What I like to do—most of the time—is try to beat the odds by using a wide array of lures, interchangeable by small snap, not snap swivel unless I opt for an in-line spinner. And otherwise I tie jigs and hooks for Senkos directly to the line. Something rubs me wrong about throwing a rubbery Senko into rapids. If a minnow imitation plug is not really more effective in fast water, at least I like to think it is, and my confidence in the lure certainly counts for something.

          Just the same, a fast, deep sluice between a set of huge boulders with more boulders on the bottom releasing boils to the surface just begs for a crankbait to course down, ricocheting off the tops of rocks, digging in sand beside those obstructions, pausing to snap a smallmouth to attention, then tearing off on its way provoking the bass rush and engulf it.

          Don’t believe it! It’s not all about food. For us to think the bass just like to eat is awkward because our eating habits get wrongly associated with the life of bass. We eat with manners—bass play their own energies. They don’t rocket to a swimming plug because they desire the taste of meat that much. Forage and predator alike are sporting. They have no concept of sport, but they feel it, and the feeling of life is what it’s all about for them. That's why they like Omega 3 in the fall, gives them energy and health.  

          An eighth-ounce jig may be effective in the same spots plugs work, but you can knock on bass’s doors with a jig—tap it on top of a rock, then let it tumble off the edge to drop by the window, the open space of the crevice where a bass stalks. By such a sensitive approach you will never wield power as you will with a crankbait. When free floating a canoe or raft, or power boat drifting and steering electrically, a crankbait gives you more control as you cover more area. But fishing fast is not the only way. And covering water is relative—which I’ve never encountered anyone else think or write about. A crankbait obviously seems to “cover” more water, but not if bass are hiding in the rocks. Bass under rocks will never see a crankbait plough through. A bass will feel it slam into the rock it is underneath, but that will be all. The bass is in recess and will not rush out and take chase. What is "covering water" if the place where the bass lie is not respected? Quite literally—a light jig that subtly falls in full view, illuminated by sunlight right at the crevice opening, and then waits for the bass with Leech moved by current, is covering water that a crankbait cannot.

          Nothing beats getting out on the river just before a cool dawn, with steam devils whirling off the surface funneling 90 feet up and informing you that the water temperature is down a little closer to what is optimal for smallmouth bass. Now’s the time to be quiet. You can hear a bass take a baitfish from the surface 200 yards or more away. Until the sun gets over the ridge, smallmouths move into shallow flat areas with loads of baitfish, especially among aquatic vegetation common to these areas. On very rare occasions—pickerel are probably at least as rare as muskies on the Delaware—teeth will threaten your surface lure. More likely a largemouth will engulf it, but not as likely as will a smallmouth, because they're not nearly as common, and during this magic hour topwater plugs prove especially vulnerable to big ones.

          Don’t be afraid to put some muscle into your approach. A quarter-ounce plug isn’t too loud. Consider lunker smallmouths’ needs. While the average one-pounder picks and pecks all day,
even at trout-size edibles, a big smallmouth over two pounds, possibly four, needs to consume more each day (and night) than do bass half or a quarter their size. A four-pound bass does not
likely maintain its mass solely by eating stonefly nymphs. Toss a Heddon Plunker, Heddon Baby Torpedo, Rebel Pop-R, or any popper or bladed topwater to coax out strikes. Never fish routinely.

          Nature is spontaneous, erratic, and ultimately unpredictable. We think of it as lawful and orderly, but this implies only what we know of it and we will never be close to omniscient. Or you could say that chaos is order too subtle for immediate mental reflection to recognize. A lot more is going on in a river than you recognize, so fine-tuning senses and fishing subtly may bring results. The point of fishing is to beat the odds. So count on original moves to get a fish to strike—break retrieve cadences, especially by feeling your own natural responses.

          With sun rays beaming through treetops, in-line spinners become especially effective.  Blades with prismatic reflective tape do wonders to sun rays, but the old standbys of silver or gold still catch fish. A straight, moderately fast retrieve through faster water broken up by boulders or rocks is best. With spinners, to pause the lure—as is effective with plugs and spinnerbaits next to an ambush point—is to defeat the purpose of what these lures do. They imitate a healthy, if overly determined and outstanding (especially with prismatic tape) baitfish. To pause a spinner is to kill the sustained, mesmerizing effect. It’s mesmerizing for us, and bass at least don’t mind. On the other hand, pausing a spinnerbait may be the best way to draw a strike since the blades, swivel mounted, just shift into upward position and turn and flutter as the jig body carries the lure down. A twister grub instead of a skirt is obviously effective this way. An eighth-ounce spinnerbait with smaller-size Colorado blades may be fished a lot like a jig in boulder strewn channels, also allowing for effective blade vibrations and steady retrieves.

          And speaking of jigs, tubes are an old standby, but forever deadly. Effective in winter with water temperatures in the 30’s by allowing the plastic tentacles to pulsate in slow current as the jig remains motionless on bottom, summer certainly allows you increased tempo—tube jigs especially draw strikes on the drop, or possibly soon after they hit bottom (and pulsate). So with an eighth or possibly quarter-ounce jighead, you can drop it on and next to likely lairs, work it off the bottom a few times, reel it in and try another target.  

          All other plastics—swim baits, twister grubs, Shad Rap type realistic imitations, etc., are effective choices that can make the day interesting and possibly turn a catch to your favor. But never rely on a lure itself ahead of how you use it. Reading water and timing (not staying too long or short in a spot or area) always prove more important than lure choice. If you can read water, you can judge at least fairly accurately what lure to use and have an idea of how to place it, though lure choice will be more a matter of personal preference than you might think. You may think of a better lure while fishing a spot, even try three or four or more, but most important—find fish. To cast a lure where no fish exist is certainly to catch nothing.

          These lures and approaches—besides flies—require only a 5 ½-foot, medium power, fast action rod. A six-foot or even longer will cast further, but accuracy on a river is important. The shorter, not too short, rods have tips closer to your wrist. Stick with six-pound test monofilament and you’ll enjoy all the casting distance you need.

        

  

           

Small Streams for Highlands and Ridge Trout

Small Streams for Highlands and Ridge Trout

          The pool was green toned aqua-marine, deep and inviting. Many years ago, my brother Rick and I fished it thoroughly. Water fell over huge, glacial boulders more than several yards high. We had to walk through half a foot of snow up and around hulking rocks to access the next hole, not really a hole at all, but a fairly shallow stretch with strong current and undercut stone on the opposite side to where we stood. We cast baby nightcrawlers upstream, letting them drift tight against the stone. The results included a wild brown trout for me, and a native brook trout for Rick.

          This situation on Warren County’s Dunnfield Creek demonstrated that the likely spot to fish may yield nothing, but noticing subtle possibility can lead to a catch. Small, spring fed streams like the Dunnfield, Van Campens Brook, and Bear Creek in Warren County, and the Passaic River headwaters and Jackson Creek in Morris County, have wild and native trout, offering a special appeal during the winter when at times it isn’t too cold to fish comfortably. Many such streams--including the Dunnfield Creek, which was stocked many years ago--are state designated Wild Trout Streams for artificial lure use only.  During the summer it's best to leave them alone unless you're certain water temperature is below 68 degrees on a cool morning. Lactic acid kills trout as a result of the fight in water too warm.

          When I was younger, catching fish during winter made a deadened season come to life. We backpacked up Kittatiny Ridge on the Appalachian Trail from the Delaware Watergap and ate fresh trout from the Dunnfield boiled in a pot over warming fire. Those were some of the best trout I’ve ever eaten, boiled whole, just gutted, a little butter added to the steaming water, the white, flaking flesh picked by fingers.

           I developed my stream fishing habits fishing Mercer County’s Stony Brook during my boyhood and teens, tramping as far as a mile or so between bridges, desirous of exploring new water. I came to think that the chief principle is timing, but never measured this in a self-conscious, calculated way. My approach to a stream was and is unsystematic, but my thinking connects with essential ideas that guide what I do. I’ve learned over the years to know when it's time to give up on a pool or range of a stretch, and move on. How much of this is subjective, I can only suppose I don't know, but to fish without second guessing makes the outing whole. The worst thing you can do, if you want to fish enjoyably and catch a few, is allow yourself to be at the mercy of the stream: If you feel nothing’s doing, you can always look elsewhere. Fishing is more than luck. And while catching fish is the objective—otherwise it wouldn’t be fishing—more than pulls on the rod is involved.

          My best advice, if you plan to fish any one of the streams mentioned or another, is to get lost by hiking the stream a long distance. Ply every nook and cranny of stream structure that looks likely. Whether you fish with a two weight fly rod with hare’s ear or small stonefly nymphs, midges, or Wooly Buggers; or use a super-ultralight spinning rod with baby nightcrawlers and minimal weight or Trout Magnet jigs--you can pursue trout for miles or just between bridges.

          Two-pound test monofilament line for spinning and a light tippet for fly rodding are manageable and least visible to the trout. When you decide to make your way back to your vehicle, you can try for any trout that struck and missed. Most of these streams will have a few nice holes six feet deep or better, but most of the trout I have caught were from little nooks like the undercut stone my brother and I fished.

          A native brook trout over 10 inches long is a rarity, but wild brown trout, especially, in these streams may rarely reach 17 inches. All of these fish are worth releasing, but the desire to try a wild or native trout at the table or beside a campfire is something I would recommend anyone try at least once. The curiosity involved in dressing and eating a rare, native trout is just as wild as these fish. The colors you will encounter—startling red spots, deep rainbow patterns, yellow bellies—may astonish you more than the pink flesh from a stream so pure you could probably drink from it without getting sick.