Tried for Natirar Smallmouth Bass

Arrived at Natrirar before sunrise and fly fished the North Branch Raritan, bringing no spinning rod this time. All the killies I brought home from the recent Sunday at Island Beach died. They require careful tending, and I got distracted.

This is a bassy looking stretch, about four feet deep, and though none rose for my popper or hit my Haggerty's Hell Raiser, a few sunfish did peck at the popper. It would be a marvel to catch a smallmouth here as big or bigger than the one I got at 202/206 the other day. Most people I know of familiar with the river don't expect big ones as far upstream, but I never forget the story I heard about a 17-incher caught in Princeton's little Beden's Brook. The stream is smaller than the river here at Natirar. 

Haggerty's Hell Raiser

Finally, Smallmouth Bass

Got to the South Branch Raritan well before dawn and made my way along a trail in relative darkness, noticing a few big carp making a ruckus in shallows when I got by the water, not able as yet to see that water was off color, though I was able to judge it was high and guess that it wouldn't look good, either.

I came with my St. Croix Avid seven weight. My prize for placing as a finalist for the Brookwood Press Writing Award. I've had the rod a couple of years, sitting in its tube, awaiting whenever I might get back to the Salmon River and fish steelheads. I got the idea last year to buy fly line, leaders, and flies to use for the smallmouths. I spent well over a hundred dollars on this summer quest, and though it would seem as if it didn't begin well this morning, I got a taste of efficient casting, and being there on the river was worth the effort.

How efficient, I can't judge by much experience, but it does feel as if the Scientific Anglers Air Cel fast forward line I bought is somehow too light. I don't feel it quite loads as it should. I didn't spend a whole lot of money on it. I should speak to Oliver Round about this, and Jim Holland at Shannon's Fly Shop, and possibly find myself obliged to spend a lot more. If I'm headed back to the Salmon River, I don't want to be without, and besides, after all this anticipation for the South Branch, I don't want to let that be a cheap shot, either.

Nothing rose for my popper. No surprise. I did see a few fish come up here and there, so I thought just maybe a hit was possible, but every time I find the river like this--high but not very high, off color but not outright muddy--I fail to score. The only exception might have been a little bass on a Johnson Beetle Spin once.

I did bring killies. Since I have a bucket full after fluke fishing the other day, I made sure to bring my spinning rod as well. Nothing hit a couple of big lively ones.

I left the South Branch and parked at the North Branch, right over here near home, where U.S. 202/206 passes over. I knew water would be low and plenty clear. No room to fly cast--I wasn't into the idea of roll casting here--I got killies underneath that bridge, having lost a small bass to a jump on the first cast. I told myself you would think there's a nice big smallmouth hanging out back in that darkness, the water at least fairly deep, and I cast as far back underneath as I could--pretty far--and then let current take the bait even further.

Finally, the line moved off and when I tightened it, I felt the weight of a sizeable fish pulling. I set and felt solid resistance. The fight involved a couple of drag screeching runs on six-pound mono. I knew the bass wouldn't quite weigh two pounds, but for steam smallmouths, it qualified as a pretty big one.

I measured it at 15 inches.

I never could get the killie all the way back. I guess a number of attempts finally coincided with the bass having happened to swim up as far back as the bait reached. That bass is still there, released. I've never kept a North Branch bass.

Living is More than Work

It didn't happen right away.

I had to go back to the car for a second armful. As soon as we had our belongings on the beach, Trish left on a long walk with Sadie, while I immediately began tying rigs for my two surf rods. An eight-foot rod I created a simple bank sinker fluke rig for, and for an 11 foot rod I tied a circle hook to 30-pound leader material by snell and rigged fish-finder style. Killies for fluke. Fresh live surf clam for any black drum.

I got deeply absorbed in sitting back and watching the two rod tips closely set apart, the dimensions of shapely clouds overhead against deep blue sky of striking and unexpected interest to me. I'm certain this experience helped me get where I was going.

Some of the time I got up and tried casting for fluke, having cut off the three-ounce bank sinker and going with a couple of large split shot, but the only hit came after I got a killie way out there by that heavier weight and let it sit. I felt surprised, because it took awhile, and I figured peeler crabs would have got the bait.

I had wanted to sit and watch, rather than reel the rig in at the probable moment. I could have done more heaving of killies, but it wasn't too long before the wind shifted suddenly, blowing in from the northeast, temperature dropping drastically all at once, biting flies disappearing in an instant, and surf getting rough, but not very. I figured any fish might move in close. I wanted to be involved with working the bait, rather than letting it sit, though I could have cast the bank sinker and retrieved it by lifting it and letting it drop, though that would have felt heavy. Much of the time I cast a double-split shot weighted killie and let that sit. The split shots held bottom.

The sun getting low but not yet close to setting, this is when I reeled in the baits and took a walk, finding myself very focused in a relaxed way on what was right in front of me. After a hundred yards or more of this, I looked up and around me, and that's when it happened. All the garbage taken in day after day at work evaporated like magic. I was nothing but everything I saw and felt around me, feeling as free as I might ever want to feel. It's not that I was thinking of work at any time earlier during the outing. I hadn't thought of the place since the day before, when I was there. But I did think of my job at the supermarket soon after my defenses had fallen, and felt dismay that a shield came back up, though I went on thinking, realizing that--no doubt--when I'm finally done with stupid jobs, I will heal.

It might take only a day at that.

Stupid jobs, that is. I realized, as I often have, while heading back to our station on the beach from this walk, that writing is work. It's a job, too. I thought of something Ayn Rand wrote (The Ayn Rand Column) and detested her words. That people with "real" careers, or however she put it, don't like to go on vacations. All they really want is their work. She's some example, because she suffered her elder years depressed. I've inferred this from My Years with Ayn Rand, a memoir by Nathanial Branden, and I've also found Jeff Walker claims this explicitly in The Ayn Rand Cult. To do nothing but work is to miss the point of life. Because no work, including writing, is a sufficient end-in-itself. It should be obvious that work is a means to living. Living is more than work.

And I caught a fish today. They always look like a joke when they come into the wash. Skates. But I feel respect for any catch. Mine took a big bloody chunk of bunker I had cut with my Spanish War Knife. I had put it out near the end of our stay hoping for a bluefish, and though I would have much preferred a keeper fluke, or a bluefish like the one a friend caught on Island Beach the other day, or even better yet, a black drum, the only disappointment I felt about the state park was the 8:00 p.m. closing, though I came to quick terms with that.

As we packed to go, a tern dive-bombed for something right in front of us. We saw it come out of the water with a baitfish wriggling between its beak.

"That's a good sign," I said.

Trish said, "They're not leaving." A number of other people on the beach were clearly going to stay later. "You want to stay?"

"No. Let's stay within the law. We'll come back in September."

No restrictions then on staying into dusk


https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2018/08/some-fish-in-surf.html 

"Living Shoreline" at Sedge Island

Sedge Island Research Center in Barnegat Bay behind Island Beach always recalls fond memories in me, because my son spent a couple of weeks there with New Jersey Audubon, when he was a boy. They went ocean-bound in kayaks, paddling from the bay out through Barnegat Inlet, this most impressive, but they also treaded clams. Ever since he was three or four, he wanted to go clamming. He had watched me as a two-year-old, while I treaded, his earliest memory. He still remembers leaning over the gunwale of the boat and imploring me to get back in.

We never clammed together, but he did it successfully with Audubon.

The link below is the latest from NJ Fish & Wildlife. They're building up the shoreline around Sedge Island.


https://www.njfishandwildlife.com/news/2019/sedge_shoreline.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Heavy Thunderstorm Changes Plans

A low thud woke me, and I quickly realized my alarm hadn't gone off. I was out the door three minutes later, rain beginning to break on dry pavement, lightning close. A minute later, I saw roadwork at the entry to I-287 in a downpour, so I made my way through Bernardsville to exit/entry 30.

I caught up with Brian at 5:06, six minutes late, and we had a look at the radar in light rain. The storm hadn't got there yet. I felt willing to sit it out, which according to the forecast would mean waiting until after 7, but Brian had only a couple of hours.

We would have fished in the rain, but the lightning close, casting with graphite rods would have made us fools, even if we didn't get struck.

I'm going to have a look at the North Branch Raritan on the way to work later. The ground is sodden from so much recent rain, so I'm sure these heavy downpours this morning are filling the rivers fast. The plan was to fish again early tomorrow morning for South Branch smallmouths.

Father's Day Bass Outing (A Pickerel, too)

Yet another Father's Day off from the job. I felt surprised about this last year, and now Matt came down from Boston and his internship to spend the weekend with us. I felt a little guilty taking him away from his mother yesterday, but he had the day with her on Saturday, when I had to work. 

We fetched the canoe at Brian's house, where Matt got to meet Brian's wife. He had met Brian once before, almost a year ago, though it seems as if it can't be that long. The four of us hung out awhile, getting photos of the two black Labs together--Sadie and Juno--and talking about things under the sun. I wore a flannel shirt and thought I had dressed too heavily. Finally, Matt and I loaded the heavy canoe and soon made our way thought Dover, onto I-287, and over to Tilcon Lake.

That's our favorite spot, ever since I bought the flatback in 2016. It's difficult getting all 110 pounds into the lake, plus the battery, and etc. We've destroyed two carts taking it in through the front, so as of last year, we haul everything down a very steep and lengthy embankment, and then haul it up long after sunset. It winds us both. We don't complain, because the fishing's good and usually solitary. Yesterday was a Sunday, and Father's Day, no less. Only one other guy fished from a one-man pontoon during all the six hours we fished.

A stiff breeze in our faces, conditions seemed just right for what I'd planned. We trolled very deep-running crankbaits (18-25 feet) up along the side, hoping for smallmouths or salmon, and then cut across to the flat, where I raised the electric so it wouldn't collect too much weed. We snapped on buzzbaits. After 10 minutes and not a hit, I said, "There's no bite."

A moment later, a pickerel rushed Matt's offering, and he got the 20-incher boatside. As pickerel typically come here, a good one. Most are about 17 inches. Bass average two pounds or better. We cast for another five minutes, not getting hit, and switched to spinnerbaits we fished along a slope. I hooked and lost a nice bass about 10 feet deep, when I let the lure pause, but couldn't get another to take. We trolled shallower running crankbaits to a small cove, where I tried a weightless plastic worm, and where Matt hooked a very nice bass on a spinnerbait. He saw the fish rise from weeds and engulf the lure. It's photographed above, where it doesn't look as big as it looked to us, 18 inches. Matt measured it. 

The day felt very long and very relaxed. We fished a lot of spots with a variety of lures thoroughly, and I even hooked a largemouth on a crankbait trolled about 15 feet down. The bass leapt high, throwing the plug, a fish clearly at least 17 inches long. 

I felt the absence of sonar. The unit is going to Alabama on Wednesday, if trouble-shooting over the phone doesn't work. All day, we never experienced a distinct bite, not even as sun got low and set, but despite the lack of telling exactly how much water was under the boat, we caught bass here and there. We knew depth and spots plenty well to be set for a bite anyhow. I caught four bass, and Matt two, in addition to the pickerel. We lost a number of others, including some big ones. My biggest, photographed below, measured 19 inches. I also caught a 17 1/4, and another that might have been 15 1/2, plus a little one.

Turned out the flannel shirt wasn't too much, after all. The sun mostly obscured by clouds as it set, the lake felt chilly. I had brought a thermometer, which we determined registers about five degrees too warm, since Matt's mobile device had juice when we began, and we compared an 80-degree reading on the thermometer to the temperature in Stanhope, 75. The Stanhope report felt right. The thermometer gauges water or air temperature, so I subtracted five degrees to guess that the water was 70, the same guess I made before getting there. Besides, the weather has been so cool recently, I can't imagine that deep lake was 75 at the surface. But I forgot to check the temperature when we decided to head in and pack out. I think it was about 65. We loaded the car with headlamps on, in nighttime darkness. Brian met us when we returned the canoe, expressing concern that something happened. No, we fished late, and I had left my cell phone home. When we got to Bedminster at 11:07, we learned that Brian had called that phone, and my wife had almost phoned Brian. Good thing that didn't escalate. (Matt's device had lost power.) Temperature down here at lower elevation was about 75 at midnight when I walked Sadie. 

Great Day on Way-Way--Wawayanda Lake

My wife got a kick out of this photo.

Brian and I have been jinxed for a couple of years, breaking the cycle of not getting out as we try to plan and ice fishing in January, today finally getting out on Wawayanda Lake. I didn't quite realize beforehand how long the drive, about 20 minutes further distant after passing Greenwood Lake, near the New York state border. My son and I fished here in July or August 2011, the boat rental shop opening at 8:00 a.m., and I think I paid, without any reservation, $120.00. We got skunked. (Matt did loose something big that took a herring he let down deep.) It was a sweet day. Bittersweet. That feeling wasn't going to tinge this day. 

The way I feel now is the way I expected to feel. The afterglow of a successful day. It started out OK, us launching around 7:00 a.m., after I had got to Brian's house before 5:00. My Minn-Kota hustled that squareback towards the far end, where my sonar unit showed plenty of depth to scout for herring schools and salmon on them. The screen froze. I tried disconnecting the battery a number of times and restarting. Nothing showed on the screen at all. Just the water temperature. 69.

"That's alright," Brian said, "We can rely on Joe's unit." His friend had arrived here at 4:30 a.m. from Rancocas south of Trenton. He pointed to Joe's one-man pontoon in the distance, got out his mobile device, and asked him if he was marking any. Very few.

"Bruce is bent out of shape," he said.

I knew the day was no loss without another screen to look at, but the need of repair after just two or three years of use, especially when just yesterday I got a check in the mail for an article published and felt that bonus feeling of money going to the savings account, stuck me. We tried and tried to catch a salmon, Jim never finding a real school of herring and salmon on them, us getting a couple of really good drifts under a light breeze, but Brian got the only hit, until later, after the two of us turned to pickerel and bass, Jim lost a couple of salmon that hit his spinner. Meanwhile, I came out of my silly withdrawal. I knew in my head it's not worth quibbling over, but I fight for every cent; paid an hourly wage by a supermarket, very little of that going towards outings like today's, most of it supporting my son's Boston University education, so paying for the likes--although I thank Brian for his generosity in buying the bait today, a big Frabill bait unit, and driving us up there--and for paying the cost of all of my equipment by getting paid for writing, this didn't mean I was set back so much as in need of keeping up, as I have for more than a decade. Besides, had I remembered then how much it cost to fish this lake with my son, how willing I was to take the opportunity, I could have told myself all the more that equipment failure is not worth the trouble of misgiving.

You tell yourself it's not, but if you're in the habit of getting ahead on little, it takes awhile to bounce back. Maybe not long. Soon out of the mood, I never missed the graph.

Brian learned a neat method from his Uncle for catching pickerel and bass. Former Frank's Bait and Tackle, on the way here, and from what I understand from Brian most anglers still call the shop, now named Tackle and Field, used to sell redfin shiners imported from Arkansas, big ones about five inches long. "They were for lunkers. We didn't get many hits on them, but the bass were big."'

They became unavailable, and Brian and his uncle tried the herring they used for salmon on the bass and pickerel, getting results. Instead of anchoring, or floating out the wind, and waiting on the bobbers to go under, Brian had me set the electric motor on low speed, trolling them, bait set about five feet underneath, through weedy water 10 to 15 feet deep. It works. We caught three pickerel apiece and I also caught the biggest black crappie I've ever caught, about 13 inches. Maybe the only black crappie I've caught. I once caught a 15-inch white crappie at Spruce Run Reservoir, and that's the only specie of the two I remember catching. Plenty of those and plenty this big, but I like the dark shade a lot better. Brian also lost three pickerel and a bass. I lost a few, too.

We had forgotten the wire leaders bought at Frank's. I feel responsible on two counts. They were stashed on the passenger side, and I told Brian out on the lake that 20-pound test fluorocarbon leader should suffice. He later said all three of his lost pickerel bit through. One of those three was bigger than any we caught. Maybe I'm sold on wire leaders now. When we ice fished in January, pickerel bit through fluorocarbon then, too.

We went through four dozen herring. Some of them died, but the Frabill unit--big as a cooler--kept them alive a long while.

I suggest weightless plastic worms. Out of the wind--I had forgotten my anchor--Brian hooked a nice bass that came half way out of the water, displaying the wide-opened mouth of a three pounder. He also hooked a small bass that leapt off. I missed one hit from a bass. Panfish seem attracted to the impregnated scent. They pull on the worms a lot.

We were out for hours. Slowing down. Slowing down better than you can read this entire post. Rain came and we headed towards the ramp, coming upon another cove out of the wind as rain subsided. There we caught three bass and a pickerel. Brian was the first to break with targeting the edge of thick weeds as he began reeling his worm over the stuff, getting hit on the first cast. "Just like the Princeton Day School Ponds," he said.

I had fished bass there the same way. Eventually, I tied on a Scum Frog, a soft weedless topwater froggy thing that took three or four missed hits. One of those hits, Brian pointed out, might have been successful, had I waited a second before I tried to set. I know that in principle, but it's still hard to know that in habit, the way it counts.

On the lake eight hours, by the time I got home in Bedminster, more than 14 hours had passed since I had awakened after about four hours of sleep. Brian had bought two Monster energy drinks before we got on I-287 South; I settled on a mix of nuts, filling and plenty good for energy, and I drove the 45 minutes home from Brian's house without feeling exhausted. I cleaned the crappie for dinner and two rainbow trout given me by someone at the ramp who decided he didn't want them--a 12-incher and 16-incher--and got an hour of sleep before I unloaded equipment from my car. My canoe stays at Brian's, thanks to him, and thanks to restrictive condo association measures, but the battery is back on the charger upstairs, and the electric motor in its place. Brian can use my canoes any time he pleases.

The important thing about outings like this is the enjoyment of the day, but plenty of thought goes into them afterwards, more than I ever disclose in a post. If I gave up this mad fishing, this hard work at preparing equipment and carrying a heavy battery and carrying a canoe that weighs 110 pounds up a fairly steep slope to where its kept and, in general, utterly breaking with the comfort of routine, I wouldn't sin against the social system involving work hours that tends to reign us in to habits of obedience; I would sin against life. Brian and I have a way out of getting told what to do. Better. We find life the way anyone knows it as his or her best, and speaking for myself, I'm not only willing to suffer for that, I find the suffering is a lot less than I would think it is, if I didn't get out and have a day with a friend like today.

At the ramp, Brian got out and asked me to look for the keys to his truck in the bottom of the canoe. Not there. "Maybe I left them in the truck."

He came back, "They have to be in the canoe."

They weren't.

"Brian, how could you lose your keys?!" I said, feeling they couldn't really be lost. And in that moment my hand went for my pocket. "They're in my pocket!"

He had me go get something last minute in the morning. Both of us had forgotten.  

Joe and his one-man pontoon.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2011/09/wawayanda-lake-is-sweet-spot.html