Good Day Ice Fishing Pickerel

2.82 Pounds

Brian and I got to the lake's edge, me having hauled our gear on his Jet Sled through deep snow, and stood on the ice. Since ice skaters had cleared a space nearby, I almost felt emboldened to simply proceed. After all, it's been down to 12 degrees multiple nights since Oliver & I got on State Park ice a long time ago now.

But inevitably, I wielded my splitting bar, because I'm cautious. That's not to say I haven't taken a plunge into 40-degree water. I did once, in chest waders. I cut through with ease and got a hand and fingers into the hole to figure out what was holding me. There was six or seven inches of snow ice, a two-inch layer of slush underneath, and a half inch of hard, clear ice. 

Brian picked up on my nervousness and called Sam. Right before they proceeded directly out from a point less than a quarter mile distant, I said, "I've never seen anything quite like it." I know snow ice and water underneath, but had never encountered hard ice that thin under it. I felt certain it had been thicker when two feet of snow fell on it and had thinned underneath the slush layer.  

They didn't go though, so out we went, and after trudging long through the five inches of snow on top, we found a better layer of hard ice out there. Maybe three inches. Any case, it held us. We often huddled close together. No threat of breakage. 

As Brian and I foresaw, the fishing would be really good. Five of us began setting a total of 15 tip-ups, and cutting holes for three or four jigging rods. My power auger didn't start, but Sam and his friends had a couple of hand augers. I whacked a couple of  holes with the splitting bar. 

We would have caught even more fish, had I brought along another 10 or 15 tip-ups. I didn't anticipate that the gathering would grow to seven of us. Honestly, that didn't matter. And it should only matter now to motivate me to more effort when I might guess it's called on. We caught 11 pickerel, two perch, and a largemouth. The second-largest pickerel weighed 2.72 pounds. Nothing giant today, but the two biggest were nice fish. A couple of others, including my pickerel, were around two pounds, and the perch were 12 or 13 inches.

I lay in Brian's Jet Sled, my coat, which I never wore, serving as a blanket, the sun hot on my face and burning it red. I told Brian, who sipped on a Miller Light beside me while sitting in a foldout chair and jigging, "I haven't felt this relaxed in years."

And I've done a lot of open water fishing this recent years.  

2.72 Pounds

State Park

 

New Jersey Nongame & Endangered Species Program

Fish & Wildlife  The state send me information because the 2020 Beach Nester/Raptor reports are posted, but  they also included the NJNESP program.

Raptors

Beach Nesters

Screwy Ice Season

This has got to be the screwiest ice season I've seen. Have been following someone who's been out on a private lake since about two weeks ago, but he dropped off the radar Monday. The State Park is frozen. I saw a photo of what must have been Budd with a frozen sheet. My supervisor at work tells me the lake is open, though. Gale force winds. 

Five degrees later on tonight. It's been down close to that for how many days now, but the word Brian got is that the lake we would fish tomorrow morning is not safe! Shallow lake at that!

We could go to Budd, but my disappointment, why not admit it, is making me want to cancel for a couple of weeks. That's how much I looked forward to a lot of fish.

P.S. It's an hour later and I had forgotten about Aeroflex. I also hear Cranbury Lake is safe, and I'm sure plenty of other places to the north. Steenykill has interested me for years. It's just the stress of things in my life right now. Don't feel like rising to the occasion and trying Aeroflex, but I want to go out on my next Sunday off.

Probably Brian's lake will be safe in the morning, too. lol

Lake Hopatcong State Park Ice Fishing

Oliver and I met at Dow's, 1:00 p.m., bought large shiners, and drove off for Lake Musconetcong. We got the same news about the State Park at the shop that we read on Ice Shanty. Slow. From the vantage of the shop, most of the lake was open water and heavy with swells from the wind.

My son and I used to do OK when ice fishing Lake Musconetcong before it got chemically treated for weeds. I haven't ice fished it since 2008 or 2009, but I know fish have been getting caught there since the first treatment in 2010, so I figured we might do better there than at the State Park. But we found no way to get on the ice, water on top of the ice near the shore having thinned it, if it ever had thickened enough there. We tried my favorite walk on near the island, from the lot near the dam, the boat launch, and places accessible in the back, driving on to the State Park. Besides, a large percentage of the lake was open water. 

Matt and I also tried the State Park once. I don't recall how many years ago. Ten. Maybe 12. A short stint on a frigid late afternoon at 21 degrees, the wind heavy, when we fished into early dusk and got no flags. It gave me a bad feeling about the spot. That day, no one else was out, but today there were at least half a dozen other parties besides us.

When a couple of older men near to us caught a second pickerel, Oliver said, "What are we doing wrong?' I didn't answer, but when they left a couple of hours later, carrying a garbage bag full of sunfish and four pickerel, telling us they were out since 8:30 (it was about 4:00), they told us half of our tip-ups were set over sandy bottom. 

"So we were doing something wrong," I finally conceded.

I hadn't ice fished for two years, and as I prepared for the trip last night, felt I had slipped out of the habit. Same when I packed the car today, but I had told Brian Cronk that I would probably feel relieved on the outing itself. So when we got out there, I was looking for whatever it was that makes the difference. I have loved ice fishing over the course of the past couple of decades and more, and I cautiously felt that if there's still something out there waiting for me that makes it worthwhile, OK, then I'm open to receiving it. After all, I have felt committed for these more than two decades to doing some ice fishing in retirement. 

The cry of gulls brought me back to earth. I don't think it's healthy to limit activity to a computer screen. Or the specialty counter on the job. Awful music destroying the soul, which the supermarket plays to make people stupid and more gullible to purchases. I heard two swans whistle by overhead. Oliver pointed out a bald eagle to me.

-

2019

 

Tried the Plug

Took a walk with my wife this afternoon. Though Sadie the black Lab is very slow now, we covered the distance between the lower lot of the KLG to the bridge and back. I brought my camera, tripod...and ultra-light after crimping down the hooks of my Countdown's single treble.

I had little time to fish. Loyal Sadie will not take a step forward without me, so I managed to walk out ahead and then cast, but felt a preference for walking with my wife most of the time. The water level is just right. Many very nice dark-bottomed runs. I wondered how catch & release balances against the pressure the KLG gets. I did see six or seven others fishing. It's an amazing stretch of river, and it is catch & release, but I feel a preference for fishing elsewhere.

 

Back for Another RV Shoot

Went to Round Valley for a repeat photo shoot, but didn't have time to find the same angle from which I shot the tower last time. The image below is the last of a focus-stacked series of five, all the rest deleted. As you can tell if you open on the image, the tower is not in focus. That's why I shot another series after I increased aperture two notches and shot instead a series of eight. That one's last image has the tower sharp, but I need to work at the immediate foreground as yet. I'm keeping the image from the public eye anyhow; besides, it's 300 DPI, so the weight is too heavy. I save space and upload time by posting at 72 DPI. All the resolution you'll get online anyhow, by what I've read and see.

Sadie there was a quick single shot.

 

Lenny, How's It Going?

Lenny, I guess at least the WH over there is OK, but I got no comments from you. Well, that's what happened after Nixon. Certainly can't blame the voters for disowning the act. The WH down in Dixieway is no place to be associated with until January 20th.

Hope you're still reading the blog & imagine you are. That WH we shared "made history," as Eric always put it to me. I fought the waves coming from the club across the street the whole time, until I managed to leave for my new job the very day before the Republican Convention. I felt like I had escaped ancient Rome in freefall just in time, and now it's as if we as a nation might escape the fate as well.