A Little Fly Casting

 

My family hiked two-and-a-half miles along the river with a friend this morning. Sadie came along and so did Michael's dog, Quincy, who is 13-years-old if I remember rightly. Sadie is almost 11. Both took their time but were quicker than I expected.

Afterwards, Matt and I fly fished a nearby stretch for smallmouths. The river is in beautiful shape. The water is clear and cool. Not at all bath-water warm. So clear that with sunlight on it, bass had made themselves scarce.

We fished subsurface for a half hour at most, caught nothing, but the experience made me look ahead to late September or October. Hope to be back when the light is low, the temperature not too cold, and--I hope--the river is clear.

Leech/Worm Fly We Used

Hunterdon County NJ Trout Fishing

 Nishisakawick Creek near Frenchtown

The article originally found its place in The Federated Sportsmen's News. 

Hunterdon Hills Trout Streams

By Bruce Edward Litton

 

 

          Stocked streams in New Jersey offer a wide array of qualities. They range from urban settings like that of the Rahway River in Essex County, to obscure rural and mountain streams in Warren and Sussex counties like Jacksonburg Creek and Franklin Pond Creek, as well as scenic rivers like the Musconetcong, Pequest, and Paulinskill. The very high quality water of Dunnfield Creek in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area was stocked at least as late as the 1980’s, but the trend in more recent years is to protect wild and native trout streams against stocked intruders. Many of New Jersey’s highest quality waters no longer receive as much fishing pressure.

         Judging from experience fishing some of these lesser known wild and native trout streams, I can vouch for a series of streams in Hunterdon County differently. Not for water quality sufficient for trout reproduction except for two of them, but for their beauty and productiveness as Trout Maintenance Water. They range south to north from Alexauken Creek near Lambertville, to Hakihokake Creek in the Milford area, all of them flowing into the Delaware River or Delaware and Raritan Canal. Hakihokake Creek is actually a complex system of little tributaries. They host wild brown trout. Well to the south of this watershed a single finger exists near Frenchtown: Warford Creek and its wild trout.

          The other streams named in order from south to north—Alexauken, Wickecheoke, Lockatong, Nishisakawick creeks—flow through farmlands and wooded hills. Below farmland, plenty of the hilly woodland filters out farm contaminants, protects against sun, and improves in general on the relatively low quality of slow water. Healthy stream flow and rocky habitat make the trout fishing interesting. I imagine just enough springs exist for small percentages of the trout to holdover, although the Lockatong (geological) Formation is not known for limestone feeding groundwater through springs into the streams. (The Lockatong Formation includes the streams from the Wickecheoke to the Nishisakawick.) The hilly settings featuring fast rocky riffles and flows, holes, and pools are, in my opinion, especially conducive to the use of salmon eggs, the method depending on drifting eggs in a life-like way through currents. The water looks so good you might forget you’re fishing a stream with no wild trout present.

          Decades ago, I was first introduced to Wickecheoke Creek in February to fish for holdovers. We caught none, but on earlier occasions without me, my friend had caught one or two rainbows on worms fished on bottom in holes once and a while in January and February, while fishing the Lockatong, too. We fished a few holes of the Wickecheoke, and I distinctly remember considerable ice formations surrounding them, temperatures in the teens. I wouldn’t remember this escapade as clearly as I do, unless it were fully worthwhile despite no action from fish.

          That same year, 1975, I began fishing the Hunterdon Hills on Opening Day and on occasion otherwise during the spring season. I’ve also fished them during the ‘80’s, ‘90’s and both decades of the new millennium, drawn to their nourishment as if by homing instinct. On a foray with my son in 2014, water was high and off-color, but we still caught a lot of trout on salmon eggs. The water wasn’t all that muddy.

           Public access is pretty good on all of these streams. Hakihokake Creek gets stocked from County Road 519 downstream to Javes Road and Miller Park Road, pull-offs evident along the way. Warford Creek doesn’t get stocked. The Nishisakawick near it does, and there’s pullover access along CR 519 downstream to Creek Road. The Lockatong Creek is situated considerably further south in Kingwood and is stocked from Union Road on downstream to State Highway 29. Wickecheoke Creek flows near Stockton with pull-off access at CR 519 and along Lower Creek Road. Alexauken Creek offers access along Alexauken Creek Road in the Lambertville area.

           All of the streams are close enough together to car hop from one to another. It all depends on how much you want to do, but the charm of driving at length among the hills to explore new waters is worth at least the thought. The prettiest stretch of stream and roadway is from CR 519 to State Highway 29 by way of Federal Twist Road. It doesn’t actually shoulder the Lockatong, but several side roads—Milltown Road, Strimple’s Mill Road, Raven-Rock Rosemont Road—provide access along a fairly steep way down from CR 519 to the Delaware River. Another spot worth mention is the Frenchtown Cliffs on the Nishisakawick, a short drive upstream on Creek Road from town. Why the state quit stocking this spot about a decade ago, I have little idea, but the view of a 60-foot cliff above a nice hole of clear water is marvelous. Wickecheoke Creek features a covered bridge at Sergeantsville, a spot worth a stop, and on down along Lower Creek Road the views are beautiful and the flow is rocky and pretty quick with pockets and holes holding trout.

          Stocking continues into late April for most of these streams, mid-May for the Lockatong judging by the 2018 information available as I write. Late in May, fly fishing with dry patterns becomes productive as the rainbows acclimate to the streams and begin behaving more like wild fish. Summer shuts the trout fishing down. The few surviving holdovers find scarce springs. None of these streams receive fall stockings.

         For sheer numbers of fish, April is the month to come here, using the lightest ultra-light you own, the reel spool filled with two-pound test. You’ll probably never need a split shot. At least most of the deep flows don’t have current strong enough to warrant the use, but it’s a good idea to buy size 14 snap swivels and clip off the swivels, placing a baby pin through the remaining line loop of each swivel, and then pinning this arrangement to your vest. Use even smaller--size 18 or 20--if you can find any for sale, although snaps smaller than size 14 and measured by weight test are out there.  A couple or a few clipped swivels added to a snap is all the weight you’ll need in some situations. 

          In many others, nothing but a size 14 baitholder hook and a size 14 snap is necessary. The heaviest weight you cast is a single Mike’s salmon egg. You want it to ride the current as life-like as possible, not necessarily dragging bottom but getting down there and making some contact. The streams are fairly small, and they invite you to walk and wade up or downstream of stocking points. You usually don’t have to cast very far, and any stretch you fish will remind you that stocking makes a real difference for quality fishing.

My New Website

Lenny, is it Still the WH?

 Lenny, wondering if it's still called the WH. Hope you don't give away what that stands for. Eric was calling it the WH in 2015. I think one of the higher ups named it. 

New Jersey Trout Fishing

 

Fred Matero with Rainbow from North Branch Raritan (Photo care of Fred Matero.)

I've already written a post on wild trout in New Jersey (you can click the link below), so I will focus mostly on the stocking program but very little at that. I'm keeping this post very short, compared to what might be written. By clicking on such labels on this blog as "trout" and "rivers," you can find numerous articles on trout fishing here. Some of them are pertinent to trout fishing nationwide. 

Prior to the furunculosis disease at the Pequest Hatchery during fall 2013, brown trout and brook trout also got stocked; recently only rainbows got stocked by the state, although private organizations, such as South Branch Outfitters in Califon, Round Valley Trout Association of Lebanon, and the Knee Deep Club of Lake Hopatcong have stocked brown trout and perhaps some tigers and brookies.

The state has also recently been stocking landlocked salmon at Tilcon, Wawayanda, and Aeroflex lakes, as well as Merrill Creek Reservoir. 

Traditionally, the state stocks trout in every New Jersey county. Drawing for a moment on my own experience, I recall catching trout in Ocean County's Metedeconk River, from its small stream headwaters in the pines, while fishing during my teens with my mentor, Joe. As a quick aside, I don't recall if I noted in my article on wild trout that information is available online about native brook trout existing in a remote Pinelands region where cold spring water is released. Many other sources indicate that about 50% of native brook habitat produces this species from Somerset County northward. 

What lies ahead regarding stocking anywhere in the state is a guess, but an educated guess is that the state will return to normal after the COVID pandemic. I have found no information online about fall and winter trout stocking yet to come in New Jersey during 2020, and this past spring was not a normal season. 

From tiny streams to the largest lake in the state--Hopatcong--trout stocking in New Jersey has historically supported a major recreational enterprise paid for at least in part by trout stamps. It has a history as an intricate and excellently executed program involving many dozens of waterways--from streams and ponds where trout don't survive the summer to streams and reservoirs where they reproduce. (Don't forget that lake trout were originally stocked in Round Valley Reservoir; they now reproduce there, the southernmost reproduction of this species besides a lake in Arizona, from what I've heard.) 

Thus far, only 2020 has seen such a major disruption of the state's stocking program. The furunculosis outbreak might not seem to compare, because although the spring stocking schedule of 2014 was shortened to four weeks, none of the feeling of uncertainty ensued like that we felt when trout season was arbitrarily opened in March before Opening Day April 11, 2020. A large number of brown and brook trout infected by the disease had to be destroyed during spring 2014, but there was not quite the disruption of the schedule to stock streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, and reservoirs, as there was during spring 2020 due to COVID-19. (Rainbow trout were not affected by furunculosis, and to avoid any future infection of furunculosis at the hatchery, the state now stocks only rainbows.)

Note 10/1/2020: The good news is that information is online about fall trout stocking in New Jersey 2020. I wish I had checked again sooner.

Rainbow from Round Valley

Nineteen- and some-inch brown trout from Round Valley.

Stocker brown from North Branch Raritan.

Stocker Rainbow from Pequest River

Round Valley Reservoir Brown

Stocker Brook Trout Lockatong Creek

Tiger Trout from South Branch Raritan (Care of Oliver Round)

I'll mention that the brook trout is the state fish under a recent photo of a native. (Care of Oliver Round)

Mike Petrole with Round Valley Lake Trout

My New Website

How's the AC Holding Up, Lenny?

What I really remember were those frigid mornings down around 10 degrees, but the heat worked fine. I also remember a member or someone coming in, asking if I had either heat or AC. Imagine that.

I was over at Round Valley today, shooting photos, but I didn't take that route...you work the morning shift anyway. Been a long time. You're not forgotten, obviously. 

Looks like I retire five years from October 23rd. We both know Fred's done counting. Amazing.

It was four years on July 17th since I worked there.  When no members or other entries were coming in, I was trying to figure out what book to write, but for the time being, I was more into essays for literary magazines. (Looks like finally one of these will be published very soon.) I remember--very distinctly--when once I was preparing to go to the kitchen to get lunch, and the trout book crossed my mind. I actually conceived it in 2006. I just never got to work on it until after March 2017. After four a.m. on March 17, 2017, suffering from insomnia, I dragged out all of the articles I still possess that I got published during my teens, and I read one on fishing salmon eggs. That's when I knew I had to write this book. I got started on it within weeks of that night. I did take some long periods of hiatus, busy on other projects, but in the main, it took three years to write.  

Hope all's well and knowing you, it probably is.  

The Trout Book is Off to Readers

The three years writing my book on trout fishing felt grand. I had an alternative to come home to every night after a day spent at my working-class life. (Thanks to my wife, we do better than that, and I mustn't fail to thank the publishers that pay me, either.) The book is off to various readers. One of them has read it completely and says, "It's very interesting. It's like no other book on trout fishing. I wouldn't change a word." 

My son is into chapter 2 and tells me I need a better title and that I shouldn't describe myself as "conservative with regard to the outdoors and intellectual values" because I'm very forward-thinking about the environment. What else is the outdoors? I don't know what I will do about the sentence as yet. I am also very backward-looking with regard to the outdoors...well aware the practices predate civilization.

The book takes especially microlight method, a way of fishing salmon eggs on three-and-a-half-foot spinning rods, but other methods also--there's even mention of fly fishing here and there--as a portal to go through to the big picture. Microlight method is explained in every detail I can produce for a 156-page book, which will be longer if photos are accepted. I loved writing about how to do it, and yet, as I say, there's more to the fishing than the grab of a hook.

The big picture ultimately amounts to a philosophical view, so I go into mine. It's been no less than thrilling to write about. The book comes to a climax--as if it is a single story with a narrative arc--when I discuss what I believe is the central issue of Western Civilization. I didn't frame it. Aristotle framed it almost 2500 years ago. I merely walked into the picture.  

Better a Bass was on than None

U.S. Highway 206 is in front of our house. Matt and his mother just came in as I begin writing, telling me about the huge convoy of secret service, state police, and Donald Trump that just now drove by. "Did you give him the finger?" I asked my son. "No, Mom wouldn't let me. I didn't want him think we were out there gaga over him!" 

Bedminster is notorious for the golf course. Other than that, I feel it's a really good town. I even had a better opinion of Trump, before he ran for a job he couldn't do. But now that I know of serious criminal evidence against him come to light, I think at least his becoming President might mean a bust and jail time for him afterwards.

We never mentioned a word about him fishing today, though conversation ranged over numerous topics. Andy Beck has spent a lot of time on Long Beach Island, too. I lived there for 13 years, but today I didn't recall the names of bars he reminded me of. And now I remember the name of the big one in Bay Village--The Tide. We both had forgotten. 

His first time fishing, I showed him how to cast, verbalizing each detail, and felt amazed at the distance and accuracy of his first. From then on, he had no trouble fishing a Champers, though he didn't get the worm on any bass.

I caught a little largemouth. 

After not very long, I suggested we move to the right towards some little pads. In past years, weedbeds have existed where apparently the heavy rain thinned them, although water clarity today was good. Experience at casting worms is like the machine artificial intelligence my son is becoming expert at creating and doing. Of course it is, because experience at casting worms, so long as intelligently practiced, is an example of living intelligence. Every cast done by conscious intent is registered in the brain's computer and alters the program, which further suggests why each and every cast counts. The result is what some people call instinct, but I call intuition. For example, the ability to put a worm directly where it needs to go in order to score on the first cast to a new spot. That has some but relatively little to do with external senses. It's about the brain's intelligence producing a best guess. My approach to the pads today is a case in point. My first three casts failed--nothing took the worm. And the fourth cast resulted in a big bass leaving a big surface boil after the worm sailed over the fish closely. The worm needed to touch down a foot in front of where that bass lay. 

I distinctly felt my guesses were off. They were off.

We moved even further to the right and more pads, nothing happening there, when it was about time to go home. I would fish two spots along the steep bank where tree trunks and brush in the water hold bass. I understood Andy would not want to slip down the high, steep dirt and gravel, and I haven't yet checked for ticks. Before I got to water edge, I cast to make sure no bass lay directly in front that would spook. Then I got into position to put a Chompers directly on the edge of a bush in the water. Underneath that edge, water must be at least four feet deep. I let the worm sink and settle. Then I brought it up, over weeds (rigged with an inset hook), and let it drop at the edge of the weeds and sink.

Andy kept talking. I listened closely, interjecting words. A minute or more passed when I was not in focus. That worm was in perfect position for a take, and I did not give the situation the respect it needed. 

Always, always lift the rod tip carefully to feel if a bass is on, and if you feel the resistance and slight tug that indicates a fish is on, set the hook! Hard! Instead, I just lifted on the rod and thought the worm had weeds on it. Until I felt tugging. My rod, already lifted high, could not set the hook. The bass surfaced and I saw how wide its body; it looked like a beautiful 18-incher. And then it came off the hook.

So I struck out twice. Especially the second time. A lack of awareness on my part resulted in loss. And it didn't feel good.

Even so, better a bass was on than none at all. And on the whole, it was an excellent day on the water with a friend who is soon moving to Texas.