Fierce Pickerel, Nice Company

I drove to Advanced Power Equipment in Martinsville to pick up my auger with blades I assume were worked on. I paid some $23.00. We got to Round Valley Pond and found no difference whatsoever in the equipment's performance, compared to the recent trip to Lake Hopatcong.

I'm not pissed. Not only did we have an excellent time out, I leaned on the auger, burned at least $4.00 worth of Husquevarna 95-octane fuel, and cut three holes, not pressured under negative 20 wind chill as last week. We were offered a hand drill from a guy who caught a 12-inch perch and an 18-inch pickerel, and I admit I felt of twinge of guilt, wondering about the longevity of his blades, but Matt got holes cut as I did not refuse. Maybe I'll buy a grinder. Maybe I'll go protest in Martinsville, but whatever, I will be examining the blades with Mike Maxwell, who understands things practical a lot better than I do. As Matt cut the third hole, I called over to him, "the existential concrete lived experience!" This I get. But it's not the same as making things work.

I felt fully confidant about catching fish here, although I was a little concerned that the pond is getting pounded. I talked to Tom Tosco at The Sporting Life, and he told me to expect a couple of guys. I quipped that as long as they're not on my spots, (that would be OK), and to tell you the truth, as I walked into view...that's where I was looking to, my spots, as if whoever was out there was just an object. As he turned out, in truth--a real nice guy, and I have to credit myself in spite of evil intent at first. Once I stepped out, I looked to the guy at a distance (and not on my spots), anticipated our meeting glances....and raised hands of greeting. The bonds of relationship are so important. Things matter not at all without the concrete lived existential experience.

Before action flurried in a straight line near the straight-edged shoreline from about 12 to 20 feet deep, two young women approached Matt and me. Jena goes to Raritan Valley. I regret to say I didn't get the graduate's name, but she went to school in Pennsylvania. We hung out and talked for an hour or so before I noticed a high flag. Matt caught a 22-inch pickerel. Afterwards, I went to get the Husqevarna, fearing a stripped transmission, which I soon found out, to my great relief, was OK, while Jena caught a 20-inch pickerel. A gift from Matt.

A minute later, I caught my 18-incher. Later, as we began packing it in, Matt fought a pickerel of at least 22 inches, which broke off at the hole. Cut through 15-pound test fluorocarbon, which does happen on other rare occasions.

Lake Hopatcong Foundation Gets Lots of Money

News from the Lake Hopatcong Foundation. Part of the message---Read Full Update--I clicked on copied, pasted at bottom. I'm just a little nervous about weed removal. That's not to say I'm right to be nervous about it, but that I don't know. I do know that since Lake Musconetcong was treated chemically with weed killer, water clarity so great that you could read a dime on the bottom five feet down, became a turbid mess like diarrhea. Fishing suffered. The best I've been able to estimate, and other people say same, the flourishing population of pickerel is all but gone from the lake.

To the best of my knowledge, chemical treatment of Lake Hopatcong vegetation is not in any of the plans. I interviewed the state and Knee Deep Club about the most recent fisheries survey on the lake, and my understanding is that weed removal here involves a harvesting device. This is not to say, however, that no concerns for fish populations with regard to weed harvesting exist. But the best I could gather is that the concerns are only marginal. If I rightly recall, some fingerling bass might get scooped in the process, but then maybe I'm only imagining this, rather than remembering. Maybe the issue is habitat, but not about serious loss.

I've got notes from those interviews. But God help me find them. The article I wrote for Lake Hopatcong News in final form doesn't go into the issue, I believe, but maybe I will check on this.

Overabundance of aquatic vegetation you can blame on lawn fertilizers, for a big factor. Other factors involve impervious surfaces and what's on them when rain washes over the concreate and asphalt. That's of lesser concern than fertilizer. I wish I could remember the percentage of impervious surface in relation to the total area of the state. It's a very high ratio. More than roadways, parking lots in paradise to paraphrase Joni Mitchel, are rooftops and patios, sidewalks and cartops. Another factor yet in some waterway situations, doubtfully Hopatcong, I believe is phosphate from washing machines...if I imagine correctly that sewage treatment does not alter the PH factor that affects water and plant life in turn. Last, but far from least, the biggest factor we may confront in our concern for waterways is climate change. PH balance, and nutrient balance with regard to fertilizers, depend a great deal on water temperature to possibly get things way out of whack.

I never forget. Late March 2012, standing at Lake Carnegie's aqueduct, and viewing water lilies up. Blooming, no, not yet. But March temperatures, days on end, in the 70's and 80's....what may we become?

Storm water management is unambiguously good to me.

$500,000.00 annual dollars is a whole lot of money. None of it should be loosely wasted, in my opinion.

I wonder what the "more" is.

Lake Hopatcong Foundation shared an update on New Jersey Governor and Legislature: Support Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey's 2016 Budget Check it out and leave a comment: Petition Update Lake Hopatcong Fund: You helped make it happen! We received word this morning that, after passage through the state senate and assembly, Gov. Christie signed legislation that has established a permanent source of funding for Lake Hopatcong! The Lake Hopatcong Fund will bring $500,000 annually to the lake through motorboat license fees, helping to support aquatic weed control, storm water management, water quality reporting, and more. In... Read full update You signed Lake Hopatcong Foundation‘s petition, “New Jersey Governor and Legislature: Support Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey's 2016 Budget”, on Jan 12, 2016 The person (or organization) who started this petition is not affiliated with Change.org. Change.org did not create this petition and is not responsible for the petition content. Click here to stop receiving updates about this petition. Unsubscribe  ·  Manage your email preferences  ·  Privacy policy This email was sent by Change.org to blitton@optimum.net, because you registered as a Change.org user on 7/17/2013. We’d love to hear from you! Send us feedback or contact us through our help center. Change.org  ·  548 Market St #29993, San Francisco, CA 94104-5401, USA FUlLL UPDATE:: Petition update Lake Hopatcong Fund: You helped make it happen! Lake Hopatcong Foundation Jan 15, 2018 — We received word this morning that, after passage through the state senate and assembly, Gov. Christie signed legislation that has established a permanent source of funding for Lake Hopatcong! The Lake Hopatcong Fund will bring $500,000 annually to the lake through motorboat license fees, helping to support aquatic weed control, storm water management, water quality reporting, and more. In addition to thanking our local state legislators, who crafted this legislation and advocated for its passage, we have to thank ALL OF YOU who signed this petition. With 2,241 signatures, you helped generate more than 31,000 (!!!) letters to New Jersey officials asking for the state to financially support the management of Lake Hopatcong. There have been a LOT of behind-the-scenes efforts to make this happen; the Lake Hopatcong Foundation has been advocating for consistent funding for the lake since we were established six years ago, and our representatives in Trenton from the 24th, 25th, and 26th districts (including state senators Oroho, Bucco, and Pennacchio) have been working on such legislation for years. The subject has regularly been a part of the Lake Hopatcong Commission discussion, too. But nothing beats an engaged group of citizens, so THANK YOU for playing your part in helping to protect and improve the Lake Hopatcong environment and experience. Cheers to you, from the LHF team. And cheers to beautiful Lake Hopatcong! Tweet Email Discussion Bruce Litton

Ice Shots

  

My son and I went to Peapack Brook and Hacklebarnery State Park for a photo shoot, my having had the idea for several years now to get some shots of ice associated with falls. When we got to Peapack Brook, some swans on Peapack Pond where a bubbler keeps a little water open caught our interest, and I spent a few minutes shooting them at my feet. Then we walked over the bridge, and when we got down to the brook, I said, "Let me get a couple of shots from in front," and I took two steps when suddenly a large mass of the ice yards away I was about to shoot broke off and into the brook with a hollow thud. We laughed.

I had said last night that the milder weather might mean we could have got better shots, had we gone sooner, but Matt said it would make no difference. Ice wasn't going to melt that fast. Oh, yes it does.

We noticed lower temperatures at higher elevation Hacklebarney, and nothing had broken up. The falls of Trout Brook were pretty much frozen in completely with nothing dramatic to get on pixels, but I did a lot of close-up work on water flowing on ice formations, but having come home, deleted files I don't want, and loaded the rest into Lightroom, I'm not satisfied with what I got. And at Peapack, I decided, results might have been much better had I thought to bring my tripod and somehow set it up in front of the falls at the dam, though I doubt this would have worked with the snow and ice on the concrete. 

It's a long process of trial and error. I'm just hoping we get some more cold winters over the course of the next 10 years. I had wanted to go to Clinton Falls on the South Branch, also, but there wasn't time. It's been three years since I went there a couple of times with heavy ice on the dam, and it seems yesterday. That falls and mill has been shot so many times, it seems almost impossible to get anything original, but I don't recall any published shots of the scene with such ice; it's just that what I got three years ago didn't satisfy me.

We got back to Bedminster at 3:53. I dropped Matt off and drove over to Martinsville with my auger shaft to get those blades sharpened.

Bestowal

Inspired tonight by Ravel's Daphnis and Cloe, an orchestral suite (it's on You Tube of course) that reminds me first of water instead of woodland, I thought about how I've never believed beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as if beauty is merely subjective, and yet to bestow the world with beauty is a human act, though, as I see it, an outrageous folly to think beauty isn't essentially there already to receive whatever I might feel.

In Sunday morning's post, I personified her, after first using the objective case, and find that telling, because beauty begins with things, but it moves in-between me and others, as if a level is reached that transcends the ordinary moment, linking me to other places, other times, other people. It's nothing I experience these days that needs succumb to awe, that enveloping of experience by something far greater I would get absorbed by. An eyelash is enough to remember someone I knew 40 years ago, and someone else left back at home, occupants of the same time and space making diurnal marks like years less relevant than the dimension above the three by which we create a calendar.

I wrote, in that last post, about service to this planet. There are many ways of doing this, all important. As a 10-year-old, I founded the Lawrence Ecology Club, and with about a dozen peers, we cleaned up trash along the Little Shabakunk Creek, and in the 50-acre Green Acres woodland near my home, which I had explored thoroughly and alone. We raised and donated money to a John's Hopkin's University whistling swan research project. Not much money, but some. This and many other ways entail service, but I had something else in mind I didn't make explicit. 

On August 28th, 2016, I wrote about grand affirmation after a Lake Hopatcong outing. I had made many such affirmations for years, and I felt this trip was the last, as I presently am reminded of Jimi Hendrix, "The Wind Cries Mary," and the definitiveness of his voice on that word, last. I no longer find I have the heft of soul to bestow such grand affirmation where I go, but it doesn't matter. Things change, and bestowal by lighter forms is not only all that an older man can do; these forms are matured, saner, safer. Service without power changes nothing, but power without service well-considered is saved by the grace of God at best.

Link to 8/28/16:

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2016/08/on-big-pond-with-my-wife-and-son.html

Ice Fishing Near Zero Degrees

Three degrees with a negative 13 wind chill when Matt checked his mobile device before dawn, the temperature was supposed to dip to one degree by 8:00 a.m.  By then, we had shiners under tip-ups in the water of Lake Hopatcong's River Styx--Michael Vandenberg, Matt, myself. Setting up required some use of bare hands. Wind felt like mercury running over skin. And it was important to keep a scarf over the lower face--felt painful exposed--while the eyes and forehead remained open without any trouble.

It was difficult pumping the premix gas from the tank into the carb, because in the severe cold, the flexible plastic bulb wasn't malleable as it normally is. But I managed to get the engine running after five minutes or so, but then found the blade refused to cut as it should. Last year on Budd Lake with Mike Maxwell, it wasn't up to par, either, but now it was a lot worse, as if the blade had dulled a lot more over the summer exposed to weather, though it is stainless. Whatever is the case, I cut about half of the 10 holes with the power auger, while Matt cut eight inches of ice with the splitting bar, opening the other holes faster than I could. I canceled plans to ice fish on my day off Tuesday, and will take the blade to Warren instead, where a lawnmower shop does this kind of work.

I've owned the power auger since November or December 2011; first used it January 2013, I believe. Very happy with it so far, and hope that the blades now stay sharp awhile. We may get out and ice fish the next Tuesday.

We cut holes fairly near a protected spot by the bridge, perhaps 150 yards distant at most from that spot where we took refuge with a Thermos of coffee and a small propane heater out of the wind, while keeping an eye out for any flags. I had been a little nervous about the extreme cold. I've ice fished at zero twice before with full confidence, though on each of these outings, we fished where we could build a big fire and did so, keeping warm. On this outing at River Styx, Saturday morning January 6th, Matt and I dressed in six or seven layers, a couple of wool layers closest to the skin, and our main torsos never complained. I would like to purchase a full body winter suit, but can't quite afford that, given the little I fish in extreme weather. My legs weren't cold. I had a wool base layer and wool pants over that, but they did feel too exposed. The way you want to feel out there is internally protected. Comfortable. Thoroughly.

Although counterintuitive, since my fish sense told me better water is further out towards the main lake and eight-foot depths, I couldn't deny pickerel might hold in the weeds of six feet we fished. I've caught pickerel through the ice of Lake Hopatcong three feet deep. This wasn't going to be an all-day, deeply involved outing, and even if we did have all day, with the power auger not cutting as it should, we would have been crippled, except for Matt's young vitality with that splitting bar. So we cut fairly close to where we stayed out of that brisk wind.

I had to nap for a couple of hours before going into work at 2:00. Driving home, I felt the need of sleep come on heavily, and then again after 10:00 last night, so I'm composing this blog post the next morning. But the work shift never fell out from under me; the most important factor involved keeping on top of the job. It was a tough one with a lot to do I got done, and a lot of customers seemingly revving up for football, making demands.

Beauty visited us out there. I have to admit I sometimes feel I don't do this planet the service it deserves. I have to place my commitments first in money. Bills to pay. Beauty is the most patient reality. It is shy. It will touch you on the eyelashes just to remind you that whenever you might be ready, she will always, always be there waiting for you.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/05/lake-hopatcongs-enhanced-fishery-is.html

Sunrise Point

Happy New Year. Beginning with a solid ice season, much more is to come. Here's a true tale published in the June 2017 issue of The Fisherman.

Sunrise Point

Every young boy lives in the sunrise of life. A gathering of conscious light growing taller like his body. During Matt’s eighth summer, Lake Hopatcong felt like a limitless mystery, potentially rewarding my son and I with fishing success that would impress us as deeply as the lake seemed to fill an entire world.

          In July, I motored off from Dow’s Boat Rentals before sun-up, our first time in a boat on the lake. We wanted to catch hybrid striped bass. While fishing a drop-off along Air Castle Isles, we caught a couple, but they were little fish not even nine inches long. A stiff breeze from the north blocked by that shoreline made fishing here pleasant compared to Pine Tree Point, where we tried first, though Matt wanted to fish Sunrise Point because the man who rented us the boat said we should. Here to the south and east of Matt’s longed-for destination we live-lined herring with no weight added just as the proprietor had recommended, but heavy surface chop only seemed carry the bait as would a river current. Air Castle Isles awaited right around the corner out of the wind.

          When we returned to Dow’s much later, the proprietor met us again. I offered a detailed report; he listened to every word. And then he said, “If you had gone where I said you should go, you might have caught big hybrid bass. A guy caught two six-pounders there this morning.”

          “We’ll go where you point next time,” I said.

          As I gathered belongings to hike to the car, I considered well this beginning of a long relationship between my son and me as customers, and the proprietor with his finger on the lake’s pulse. There would be a next time. Many.

          In August, we got word from him on where to go while I paid for the boat rental and herring bait at the desk. Sunrise Point. As if the sun rises eternally for any who hope, the spot seemed as ubiquitous as the fact of daybreak always happening somewhere on this planet.

          “That’s where we’re going,” I said. He said nothing, offering a steady look. I gazed back to confirm no breaking of my promise.

          A 9.9-horsepower outboard drives a 14-foot fiberglass boat with all the sufficiency needed on this lake. Our destination less than a mile-and-a-half distant, the journey seemed longer than it really took. Not an impatient passage, but a breaking away from routine. The world is too much with us. We took leave in hopes of catching a dream. Business can’t afford such a bet. The bottom line ties everything down for results, but nature upholds destiny for any who dare conspire with abundance.

          Who doesn’t know dreams may beguile in a deceptive way? Catching just that fish imagined is as rare an event as cornering market demand. Matt talked about hybrid bass as Sunrise Point beckoned in view. Not a dramatic-looking spot. A few boathouses jutting out from land protruding slightly. He spoke of walleye also. He had only seen the nine-inch hybrids we caught in July, except for big ones featured in photographs in Dow’s shop. Two big ones mounted on two of the walls. He had seen me and a friend catch walleye on the Delaware River.

         We anchored over 25 feet of water. This allowed us to put out two lines apiece baited with live herring and to cast broken nightcrawlers weighted by split shots using ultra-lights, tempting panfish from shallower water. Matt had caught plenty of sunfish, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, trout, striped bass, bluefish, pompano, some pickerel from age two until now, but this morning was another day; his responses to taps on his line hadn’t jaded at all.

         I enjoyed bluegills, pumpkinseeds, also. A perch or two. But as I would check on the herring lines, I felt a larger order of possibility. After an hour or so, I heard a loosened drag cricket. One of Matt’s reels.

        “You’ve got one!”

        “Give me the rod!”

        I lifted. At that moment, the fish took line rapidly, entangling between the spool and pickup guide. The spool had continued to spin when the fish slowed. My fingers began working like lightning to right what I knew could be disaster.

         “Hold the rod ready to set,” I said under my breath, getting the mess straight with a split second to spare. With line running free, giving the fish some excess so I could tighten the drag about right was a cinch. The two of us set the hook together, and then Matt enjoyed a dogged fight before I netted the five-pound walleye. He had never before displayed such pride for any catch.       

Round Valley Reservoir Trout End of the Year

Matt and I first tried fishing shoreline trout at Round Valley in November 2005, catching a couple rainbows, 15 and 16 inches long, in January the next year. I then had no idea where this simple fishing would lead, if it would go anywhere but for me to take my son once and awhile during the cold season. I was working for New Jersey's largest credit union as a courier, driving daily a 150-mile route through North Jersey. The job got especially interesting in 2009, when I started driving the Southern Route as well, alternating daily between the two routes, each about the same mileage. I became aware of opportunities to fish especially on this route new to me on a regular basis, though it didn't take me any further down state than exit 109 on the Garden State Parkway. One of these spots was Round Valley Reservoir, and by 2011, I fished here almost every other day on my lunch hour during the cold season, for trout. The experience became something beautiful beyond description in a blog post. I've written a book that devotes nearly a hundred pages to what I encountered, 300 pages in total, which I don't plan to publish, but revise as a book that will be different, though most of the words about Round Valley will remain intact. As it is, it's a worthy testament between my son and me. I sent it to him by email just before he left for Boston University this recent September, and he placed it in his document files to read. Sometimes I feel as if I live on such a thin tether that it might break, and if something were to happen to me, my son has this book. I don't tell him the likes, In case you never see me alive again; it's just the way I feel. Beyond this admittance, I don't make it anyone else's business to feel this way about me. It's the sort of inner malaise a lot of writers have to contend with, because by seeking what amounts to originality in so many other words, they've lost some connection to the sorts of everyday assurances that comfort most.

Today Matt, Fred, and myself, we hung out in bitter wind-driven cold, and the feeling of ordinary familiarity was a matter of course. Like us, I suppose, Fred had packed quickly and made the short jaunt from home easily, expecting us to either be there or be there shortly. We were 20 minutes late, but that seemed to make no difference as conversation kicked in and never stopped. We pretty much came to catch up on one another's lives. But when, a little unexpectedly--trout fishing in the cold is usually very slow at best--one of Fred's three rod tips dipped seconds after his Power Bait reached bottom in about 20 feet of water, I soon felt a touch of the past excitement in the middle of finding myself checking bait and casting it back out. Some of that passion I knew each time I came here on lunch touched me.

Fred fished the orange Power Bait and marshmallow and mealworm combinations. Matt and I fished shiners, since we're especially interested in any lake trout that might be moving in close with the bitter cold. I had told Fred we would stop at The Sporting Life for shiners and that he was welcome to dip his hand in the bucket. I did that repeatedly, and once took refuge in my car with the heater on full, hands shocked and reddened. Matt and I didn't think to bring gloves, since the fishing here is all too convenient with cars parked nearby.

If any lakers loom along these near-shore inclines, none let us know today. Anyone who wants to try for them should take advantage of this week's cold. With temperatures near zero in the mornings, I bet lakers will be there for anyone who wants to use a bucket ladle instead of bare hands. The park kicks you out at 4 pm, and as we packed it in today, Fred discovered that rainbow trout photographed on one of his marshmallow and mealworm lines.