Memorial Day

My wife goaded me into going to the town parade, and as I told myself I would enjoy the event, the walking, the lemonade and iced tea, the river, I did. And I experienced a moment of heady gratitude for our armed services, which, after all, is what the holiday is all about.

Last night, we watched a special on TV about a WW II battle between British and Nazi forces. Never before in all my life--it featured real footage of skulls splintered and bodies of former friends dumped in view beside trenches, rotting corpses, trench foot, talk of tanks running over their own who had fallen dead, because they had to get forward position, etc.--never have I experienced battle as realistically as this documentary recreated it. Supposedly, creative art does that, not documentary, but no, this production was so intensely realistic it beat any story. What nations have to do, sometimes, in defense.

On the way to Far Hills, we walked over the North Branch, witnessing a fly caster catch a trout. On the way back, we witnessed a trout caught on a spinning rod.  

Quick Catch at the Zoo

At the AT&T Zoo just before 5:00, getting just a little preoccupied with photography, flippin' an egg into the current under the exit bridge a couple of minutes later, I hooked my first quickly. I spent more than three minutes with my Go Pro mounted on my extension bar and placed underwater and half-in, half-out, taking that long to make sure some footage works as still shots.

Then I got into what turned out to be an onerous process--feels real good now--of missing at least 50 hits. I caught 13 in the hour-and-a-half I fished, losing another almost at my feet, losing a few others during the fight, all of them coming on one-pound test Suffix. A couple of them measured nearly 13 inches, these fish really running long and hard on the microlight.

That current right at the downstream edge of the bridge is especially difficult to drift when water is high and moving as it did today. Color was OK. Not clear, but not dingy, either. But the flow made getting a direct pull impossible, though I picked up the line quickly enough on these 13 fish. I let the trout take eggs a couple of seconds before setting, but obviously this didn't work too well, though it did work better than pulling back immediately.

I emptied a  large jar of Atlas Mike's King. (I think it's possible I bought the last large jars of salmon eggs available in the nation, at Walmart, Morris Plains, in December last year or January. I cleaned them out of large jars.) Then I got started on Shrimp. I was going to stay around until I reached a total of 15, but I inadvertently snapped off my rig, and then I found tying on a new little snap with that thin line so aggravating, that I decided it was wise to bow out before I felt any worse. Doesn't seem I would have felt that way now, but getting home early to get started on other stuff hasn't let me down. My hand-to-eye coordination has gone so far south with age--they told me 15 years ago I need tri-focal lenses, but I use only reading glasses on occasion--that it is the revenge of my brother David. I pitied him while I was growing up. He does use glasses. His frustrations with tying knots. I was reminded of Winston Churchill--"Never, never, never, never give in." Then, I kept trying, but when a wisp of wisdom visited me, whispering that I can let it go and it will be OK, I listened instead to this.

Eating some trout at present. Cooked them well before darkness fell, thinking I could have caught 25 or 30, maybe more, had I stayed. Definitely would have caught more, had I got the hook into them more often.

Have music playing on my laptop. "Haitian Divorce," Steely Dan. Segued into it from a number of old Motown selections: "Family Affair," "Diamond in the Back," Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown" tossed in, "Who's that Lady," and "What's Going On." Makes Chris Hayes on TV interesting.

Donald Fagan just drips with sentimentality. So much for the tearful reunion. I'm going back to Motown.

…Though you may not drive, a great big Cadillac.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2019/04/muskonetcong-river-hakehokake-creek.html

Hell of a Thing

It's a hell of a thing for me to have said, "I believe most of my readers take in a paragraph like the one I just wrote--thanks for reading--and it goes from one end of the brain to the other without arousal suggesting any commitment." This in the post the other day on Hopatcong.

It's probably not true. It's probably my own self-doubt. And I must "believe" that only in a bad mood. I was facing my job the next day. True or false, I read that first paragraph minutes ago, and though it does lose its power in the last sentence, otherwise it's elegant enough to feel pleasing, no matter if anyone would think it's only sentimental or not. What's the point of the big shakedown in the next paragraph?

Alright, up against the wall! Am I just an impractical idealist or what?!

How many more times a job will spoil things after a nice day seems infinite. And the barrelhouse is a state of mind I'd probably be a fool to believe I can escape, as if I'm any exception to "a circuitous habit of small concerns." I just want to be. 

In the Center of Open Spaces

Some days remind you of larger frames, those days when you find yourself in the center of open spaces, passing through majestic sequences of ordinary hours. You're out in the open under clouds and sun, between sloping hills and trees--not behind doors, windows, and walls--so you might feel an inkling of openness to the extraordinary. If inklings of better visit you while on the job, as they do me, they're mental then, while out here reality itself assures you of a worthwhile world.

I believe most of my readers take in a paragraph like that I just wrote--thanks for reading--and it goes from one end of the brain and out the other without arousal suggesting any commitment. The problem with the world, which people have increasingly called crazy over the past decade, is that people don't shed their thick skins. They build walls of defense so the world doesn't hurt them, and then they end up out-of-touch with any world that will do them good, feeling all the worse. Petty concerns rule the hours and little light penetrates a circuitous habit of means to small ends.

I don't mean to insult you. Especially if you're not that reader, and instead you're not only in agreement with me, but manage to get past triviality. But it's a growing frustration of mine that so many affirmations I engage with the world and account for--to some degree--in this weblog, these seem to get past people as if it's sentimentality. If that's all awareness amounts to--an impractical feeling that will never amount to dollars and sense--then I'm with you. The hell with values and literature. If it amounts to nothing, as most people seem to believe, then I'll resolve to reporting nothing but the plain stupid facts.

Today was a better day than that.

Matt's away in Boston for the summer. My wife and I got word from him this afternoon. He plans on visiting in mid-June. A year ago he caught his first hybrid striper over five pounds. Today Michael Vandenberg and I went out hoping for more, and though we encountered none that big, except perhaps for one fish in Lake Hopatcong's Byram Cove that broke my somehow weakened line too quickly for me to tell what kind of fish, we caught five beautiful bass, the biggest 19 inches, the others ranging between 14 and 18 1/2 inches.

My one concern focused on Michael catching a nice one. That 18 1/2-iucher in the photo was a keeper. But as everything well-planned and well-executed goes, once the chief objective is achieved, the day opens up to greater possibilities. It doesn't matter if a finger can't be put on them. Just this day was one to be remembered, not only because we enjoyed trolling hybrids, but because after we caught some, we felt free to include our work worlds within the wider context of what really makes any of it possible.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2018/05/lake-hopatcong-trolled-hybrid-stripers.html

11-Pound, Five-Ounce Lake Hopatcong Walleye

Laurie Murphy:


Knee Deep’s Panfish contest was pretty much a washout due to the heavy rain. Thank You to the few who did brave the elements and fish. First place went to Tommy Crouch, 2nd place went to Fred Nitek and third place went to Pete Rathjens. Next contest up is for Walleye, being held on May 18th &  19th. Some nice fish made their way to the scale this past week, including a 11 pound 5 ounce walleye caught by Don Rolfs, caught casting a bomber long A from shore. Sabrina Mackin had a Hybrid Striped Bass that weighed 8 lb 8 oz and Alex Tuorinsky had 2 white cats weighing 3 pounds and 3 pound 14 oz. Some young fishermen had their share of nice fish also, with Max Hughen with his 1 lb 10 Rainbow trout and a 3 lb 12 oz walleye, along with several nice Bass , and Brandon Wood trolled up some nice trout, with the largest being a Rainbow over 3 pounds and a Hybrid Striper that was 6 lb 6 oz. Have a great week ...

Caught Some Round Valley Bass

I still manage to get over and fish Round Valley in May. Eight years ago, I began fishing there on frequent occasion from shore during this month, catching plenty of bass and some big ones, the largest five pounds, caught in the reservoir. Today my wife came along with our black Lab, Sadie. I brought a fold-out chair; she brought a book to read while sitting in it.

I fished the pond first, not raising a fish. The reservoir yielded seven largemouths, average-size reservoir bass like this one photographed. All came on a light brown Senko. I missed a few hits. I kept at the fish, hoping that one of those infrequent big ones would break the cycle, but the little bass occupied me well for little more than an hour.

We left near 9:00 p.m. I had tried the pond again, another corner and short strip of shoreline, and though no hits came there, I gave it enough attention to break even further past the barrior that the daily grind erects. The peace felt vividly alive as thousands of baitfish broke calm surface over the deepest water. It seems as if thousands of herring inhabit the pond, but maybe it's unlikely that's what they are. Few have existed in the reservoir for decades now, though the pond is fertile and has a depth of about 45 feet. I guess it's the question of whether any got into the pond somehow, years ago, as somehow they got in the reservoir then. If so, why wouldn't they have stayed there with the higher fertility the pond has? No one seems to know how they got in the reservoir. Why not the pond, too? It just so happens no one talks about them in the pond; all the talk I've heard is about their demise in the reservoir due to lowered fertility.

It looks like I won't be done holding jobs for years yet. Possibly more than 11 years, until I'm 70. I never graduated with a four-year degree, because I saw no point in doing professional work I wasn't interested in. I did have an interest in earning a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, or else in earning a PH.D to become a professor of philosophy. My academic advisor at Hampshire College suggested to me the latter option and strongly supported it, going so far as to secure me one-on-one tutoring with the head of the philosophy department at the college, but my parents would not pay for any grad school, and I had no notion of the possibility of earning funding otherwise, clueless about that sort of thing, and no one offered me so much as a clue.

So I've worked low-paid wage jobs from the age of 32, when I gave up commercial clamming, returning to mainstream life. This evening's outing showed me that when I finally am done working stupid jobs, real life will take me back.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2014/05/lunker-lunch-5-pound-round-valley.html

Tried a Senko in the Rain

Slipped a big trash bag over my camera bag and hauled it and my rod over to the neighborhood pond in pouring rain. Found the stream leading in by way of storm pipe pumping mud into water still otherwise clear enough to serve my Senko, this fishing an approach differing from the standard spinnerbait. Just had a hankering to try it after doing well on Senkos last spring.

Especially fished edges between muddy and clearer water, nothing. That pond hasn't been itself in about five years now. It's the first I've fished it since early last year, and like last year, there seem very few bass present, when it used to be easy to catch 10 averaging two pounds in a half hour. A big fish kill due to thick ice hasn't healed. The pond is mostly about two or three feet deep, four at most.

Big snapping turtle stuck its snoot above surface. A hulking beast like that has to eat, so there are fish here...and possibly getting targeted plenty, not that I know how a turtle can grab a living bass. I believe more than one with a shell more than two feet wide exists. I don't bring Sadie here, because I see turtles too often.

I never see cormorants. Only geese and very few pied-billed grebes on the water. Along the edges, I often see a great blue heron.