Secure Site

I'm not technically brilliant, but I get by...at least eventually. And I'm glad I got no word of any user of my site getting into any trouble because it wasn't https secure. I myself only noticed it wasn't tonight. Apparently, everything online used to be http insecure. 

I figured it's best to have changed the setting before anyone has trouble...

Even though no one ever would have trouble. Don't I know that. I don't really, so I'm being sensible.

But there's a catch I've been leading my words to. The Share Bar, those numbers that used to be at the bottom of each post, is apparently locked out. That must have been an old http device. Someone had emailed me in 2013, offering me the code to install. Those were innocent times. Today, I might have suspected him and his code as a phishing attempt. I remember that email. I didn't feel any suspicion at all, and there you go--the Share Bar worked.

Those numbers were a lot of fun. 

I know they're still there, because I tried reverting back to http to see if they remained. Unless there's only a temporary glitch, no one will be able to add more, though.

I'll still see on the dashboard how many visitations each post gets.

Guess I'm going with security. I believe it was Ben Franklin who said that to choose security over freedom is to gain neither, but besides the loss of the numbers game, the only freedom lost is that a cyber criminal might have.

So I'll hit the publish button now... 

Steady Action

We got up before first light. I felt good about the outing ahead. It wasn't as hard an effort as last time two weeks ago, and almost as cold. Brian had an accumulation of ice on his windshield and no scraper, so Oliver and I would meet at Dow's and buy the three dozen large shiners. The temperature was five degrees, but it didn't even feel cold. I was dressed for it. There was none of the sense of going from a comfortable place to an extreme, as last time at one degree. That was when the winter was younger. While Oliver and I went into Dow's, Brian cleared his windshield by using some kind of solvent, I think he told me. We would meet at a BP. 

Dow's was so crowded with guys and one gal buying fishing licenses and bait, that Oliver and I weren't back on our way for 45 or 50 minutes. We began hiking across the ice to the spots when the sun hit trees on the ridge. 

It took awhile before we started catching fish, but once we did, action was steady. I got a real kick out of the difficulties these two guys had setting tip-ups. It's a procedure that's entirely second nature to me, but Brian and Oliver are still new to this, so while my reactions were a little flamboyant, I confess my patience as I write now. We could have caught more fish, if shiners (before I checked on tip-ups and corrected the problem) weren't sitting on bottom, for example, but we really didn't need to catch more. We caught over a dozen as it was. One of Brian's got the hook. About an hour later, I caught the same pickerel, about 20, maybe 21 inches, with the wire leader from Brian hanging out of its mouth. And it got my hook, too, so it was released with a second wire leader hanging out of the mouth, but both hooks were little size 6 bronze hooks that will rust quickly. 

I'm not crowding the post with photos, and we didn't get a shot of every one of them, anyhow. 

It does continue to fascinate me that pickerel seem much more active in cold water. The bass have to eat...so I wonder if they don't have to eat as much. That there's as much difference in the metabolism as proves to be an inverse proportion between the approximate number of ice-caught bass and ice caught pickerel, and summer-caught bass and summer-caught pickerel. One bass today, 10 pickerel or more, and a couple of big yellow perch. During the summer, we sometimes catch about 15 bass and no pickerel. 

We used up all the shiners. Right about when the bucket was empty, it was time to go. We had retired a few tip-ups. but we didn't feel at any loss.

  

 

Last Year

Some Ice Action

Oliver Round and I fished Round Valley Pond this morning, beginning at 14 degrees. In the photo, his pickerel had just broken off at the hole. We missed four other hits. 

When I last ice fished here, four years ago with my son, we caught three pickerel, and he lost one at the hole. He caught one 22 inches and let a college girl, who with a friend had fallen into conversation with him, catch one.

When we got out today, there was another guy fishing in the distance near the beach. We did see him catch something. Another guy came and set most of his tip-ups over water about 45 feet deep, and a party of three went way into the back where there's a shallow flat.

We got most of our hits relatively shallow, about 10 feet down among residual weeds, although another one was from 15 feet or so of water. The great exception was something taking a shiner in about 25 feet of water, which might have been a bass. I see no reason for the bass having not receded into the pond's deepest 45 feet, except that there's surely not enough forage there to keep them fed.

2018

Ice Season Ahead of Last Year's

My friend Oliver's been getting out a lot and catching pickerel. Photo is of nice one he caught at Aeroflex. Just about everywhere it's been eight or nine inches of ice. That doesn't include Round Valley Reservoir. I was there shooting photos on Tuesday and there wasn't even skim ice in the back of Ranger Cove. These past couple of weeks would have been good ones to pursue lake trout from shore. I assume Merrill Creek Reservoir isn't frozen, either. It's deeper than Round Valley, but does have a much smaller surface acreage. Aeroflex is pretty deep, too, at 110 feet, but it's well frozen.

This winter's ice season got underway earlier than last year's. A year ago yesterday, Oliver and I fished on five inches of ice at Lake Hopatcong State Park. The last ice fishing I did was in early March, on a foot of ice remaining over Aeroflex. Wonder how thick it will get this year and how long it will last?

Plan on going ice fishing with Oliver on Sunday morning.

Trufuel

Bought a quart at Jaeger's this morning. Less expensive than the nine-something I paid elsewhere last year. Only $8.09 with tax. My auger does guzzle the stuff, but there's room here for recognition, not complaint, because to think I can go ice fish on any thicker than four inches or so without a power auger would be delusional. Unless Oliver cuts the holes.

I did funnel some of my Trufuel from last year and start the engine to test that shaft. As I said in the previous post, wasn't 100% sure there's a problem. Turns fine. It's been a little slow for a couple of years--I think--but I'll let that go until the clutch really does go. 

Maybe there was ice in the gear box. Whatever. It will work.

Going to buy a spark plug gapper and look for my spark plug wrench. Figure the thing to do is keep all three items including the spark plug with the gear.

Clutch

I'll find out for sure tomorrow or Tuesday, but it seems I need to get a new clutch put in my power auger, which means an ice season gathering momentum quickly put on hold for me and my friends. Will get it done as soon as I can.

Last couple of weeks, have thought on occasion about the auger being 10 years old. Often, I get a physical answer to my questions, but this is just obvious, and I should have thought of it independently of the thing apparently have broken altogether. I didn't even think of replacing the spark plug! I have had a replacement for five years and just sort of vaguely thought I'd replace the old whenever it goes bad. No! You just remove that old spark plug and put the new one in! Which I'll do.

The clutch would have been foreseeable for anyone mechanical. At least I figured it out right away, but even so, I need to be certain yet. I guess my wondering about the auger's 10 years was of enough mechanical sensibility to prepare myself to make a quick diagnosis, though as I say, it's not 100 percent just yet. 

21-Inch Bass a Good One

My wife wakes me, and I hear my cell phone downstairs, tell her, "Who would call me at 6:21 a.m.?" Next moment, I realize my alarm never went off at 5:04. (I had set it for 5:04 p.m.) Couldn't account for why I felt like sleeping more. Had gone to sleep at 8:30. But I figured maybe I wouldn't get tired.

Phoned Brian and told him it's my turn to be late. I'd call back when I hit the road. Finding my wool pants wasn't going to work out, though. My wife was up with me looking for them. I put jeans over a merino wool base layer, as if that would work. 

Beginning at one degree F, at Dow's to buy bait. From there, everything went well getting to the lake. Brian gave me a "bib," really heavy-duty woolens to put over my jeans. Privately, I felt as if I had passed one more of life's tests. The kind you do not want to fail. Just loading the Jet Sled, I felt the cold on my thighs, penetrating straight through that thin layer of wool. 

The lake's ice checked out at six inches. I had loaded the power auger in the sled. We got out there, talking animatedly the whole quarter mile. It seemed all was well, as invariably, ice fishing proves to be a good time. I slammed open a hole with my splitting bar. I began to cut a second, when I felt my right arm begin to get sore. "We'll need the power auger, unless you can cut holes," I said. "I left the nut that connects the auger to the power head in my car."

"Let me try this."

A minute later, "You have to get that nut. This isn't going to happen."

When I was 18, it was easy to cut 15 holes through 18 inches of ice with a splitting bar. I didn't bench press much. 280. But that's a lot more than either of us would bench today.

Now the walk felt a little stressful, since it was just to get something I should have remembered, but I got back to Brian in less than 20 minutes. put the auger on the head. Then I tried to pull start the engine. That took us a lot of pulls, before we got it primed right. First time I've had a problem with it in 10 years of use. It seemed almost hopeless, when Brian just pumped that primer bulb, and gas dripped out onto ice. I pulled--come fire or hell water. 

All told--four yellow perch as large as 13 1/2 inches, two little pickerel, and Brian's 21-inch largemouth. We've wanted a big bass through the ice ever since we began fishing here three years ago. We got that fish today and what a highlight it was!

My memory gets worse and worse, but it's progressive.  It's not happening quickly. Whatever is the Ultimate internal logic to life, it lets me in on changes to how I orient myself as I age, rather than pulling the rug out from under me. I hope I'll get out and ice fish at 75. My Dad has Alzheimer's and it's not too hard on him, but he wouldn't be able to ice fish. He is 87 years old, though. 

As we collected the tip-ups to pack them, we found empty hooks with shiners missing, and two or three of the tip-up flags hadn't flown when fish took line. One of them had just a few yards of line left on the spool. I've never before failed to check on tip ups. I never thought of doing it today. Never remembered. 

"It's a good thing we didn't stay until dark," I said. "I probably never would have remembered to check the tip ups. Would've been wasted time."

Our day wasn't that. 

When I was younger, I'd feel apprehensive at the thought of losing memory. At my age now, I'm more inclined to laugh it off. 

Nice Pickerel