Annual Trout Outing at the Reservoir

By mistake, I set my alarm for P.M., so when I woke at 7:48, I knew I was 34 minutes late, and the possibility of us setting up on the point was threatened.

First, Matt and I went to The Sporting Life in Whitehouse more than half an hour after they had opened. Two dozen shiners, fishing licenses, and maribou jigs. Nice ones for less than I'd have spent online. Those are for the rivers.

We soon got to Round Valley, and Matt hauled stuff towards the point and returned, as I packed more stuff, to tell me there were fishermen on it. 

I figured they wouldn't be there all day.

In the meantime, we did our best to get all the distance we could out of each cast. It doesn't drop steeply there in front. I knew we could pack out and fish further along the shoreline towards the main ramp, where the water does drop off faster, but I wanted us to take the point when it would become available.

In the meantime, Fred had arrived, and conversation flowed. 

A fish jumped right out in front of us almost exactly where either myself or Matt had put a shiner down. About 10 minutes later, line peeled off the spool of my son's Cadence reel. Laker? Brown? No, rainbow. And five or 10 minutes later, Fred caught a smaller one--about 15 inches--on Power Bait. 

A pod of rainbows had come and was gone as fast. Nothing else happened all day but the yellow perch I caught. I didn't expect lakers. The weather was too mild--in the 40's. Yes, I bought shiners, as if to be sure lakers wouldn't hit any, but although the rainbows surprised me, I did come confident in us making catches.

We weren't the only who did. A guy in a kayak came along, telling me about two smallmouths of about two pounds apiece on jerkbaits. I was impressed. He said, "I lost something too big to be a bass. Maybe a laker." Who knows. Maybe it was a monster pickerel. My friend Brenden told me about one over nine pounds hooked back in Ranger Cove. 

Apparently, the guys on the point got skunked. They did leave and give us more than three hours of fishing right there, where water drops off better, but only the yellow perch happened. 

 

Last Year

 

4.23-Pound Rainbow Jigged

Great day on the river with Fred Matero. I had planned on a few hours, but Fred didn't need to be back at my house until four. He had arrived at 10 a.m. Once we had driven to a second lot, it didn't take long for me to fully agree with spending that time. Not because I had caught the big one. That didn't happen until we were on our way out to soon drive off for the third lot. It was because I got into the fishing and let all else go.

We began by parking in a South Branch Wildlife Management Area lot. Another friend, Noel Sell, knows about that, and I fished confidently because of two things. For one, it was evident the stretch out in front there was stocked. No matter how hard hit--and maybe it hadn't been hard hit--many of the trout wouldn't have been caught. But the water was very shallow. So secondly, once I found waist-deep water, I understood I was in a good spot.

Fall stockers spread out. For example, you hear about big trout caught at Duke Island dam. It's not stocked. You also see photos of trout at Island Farm Weir at the confluence of the Millstone River and the Raritan.

Not all of the trout spread out. And they don't necessarily situate themselves in deep water, but if you can find some water maybe a foot or two deeper than the rest, you're in a good spot. 

We had fished water new to both of us. Actually, I never asked if Fred is familiar with the second area we fished. We fished a spot where I've caught trout before. Fred got in the river before I did, and as I was going into the water, he pointed out a rise on the surface. Since he didn't immediately move in that direction to position a cast, I said, "I'm going to catch that trout."

Nothing happened.

But I edged upstream not by much, where I felt a tug just out in front of me, pulled back, and thankfully, my eyes keyed in on whatever was happening there...to see my line moving rapidly downstream not by a snag but a fish. It still didn't feel as if I had been hit, but my mind knew that had to be it. I cast again. Wham! Again, right out in front of me. Missed the hit, but that it definitely was. I could tell by the way it pulled in the opposite direction rather than stayed in place as a snag does. 

We kept trying before we got out and hit the trail to go further downstream. Once again, we found a situation like the previous--deeper water amidst shallows. This time, though, it might have been more than a foot or two deeper. Maybe three feet deeper. But in any event, while from where we began the stretch on downstream looked good, it proved to be too shallow. We were in the right place immediately up above...where, again, I thought I had hooked something inanimate, like a stick, but I looked sharp and saw the trout turn near the surface as it came off the hook. 

As we headed back, we came upon the first spot we had tried, and I said, "Do you want to try for that trout again?"

"Sure."

(I'm sure more than one trout existed there, but one thing at a time.)

I said to Fred, "Why don't you get out in front of me? I feel guilty for stealing your fish."

"That wasn't my fish. Do you really think the one that hit you was the same?"

"I don't know. I'm sure there's more than one fish here."

I cast straight out in front of me and after a few turns of the reel--fish on. "Fred," I said.

"That's like a three-pounder!"

"Feels like it." 

Soon, he said, "Look at the size of that fish. That's a five-pounder," as he tried unsuccessfully to net it. 

After a long while, I did get the trout in the net. To have attempted to pull it up on pebbles using four-pound test and an ultralight might have meant a lost fish. I didn't have to unhook the jig. The connection was that tenuous. 

Big Brown

 

Hole is Bigger than I Recall

The hole at Higginsville is bigger than I remembered. It made me realize all of my fall and winter trout have come from shallows. Years ago, a friend and I canoed here from Three Bridges. Underneath the bridge I photographed, the water is about 10 feet deep. 

This is a great hole for late fall/winter/early spring smallmouth bass. If you don't mind exchanging a day's pay for all the jigs you would lose to jagged rocks on the bottom. Actually, the way to go would be drop-shotting live shiners. Maybe small shiners, because you won't be hauling out one four-pounder after another. Good luck getting a single nine-incher, really, but smallmouths do head for the holes as it gets cold. Also, if you would try for them, make sure the line attaching the sinker to a small swivel is much lighter than the mainline and line to the hook. (Buy sinkers at discount price.)

I would have done better with at least 1/8 ounce, 3/16 even better. Not that I would have caught anything, but it would have been a better possibility, swimming the jig right over those rocks at bottom.

I wondered if the spot even got stocked. There is a Fish & Wildlife trout stocking poster, but it didn't seem quite as fresh and up-to-date as the one I saw at the North Branch a little later this afternoon when I was about to begin fishing in the rain. Higginsville is a lot of water volume per the amount of trout that get stocked in the fall, compared to shallow areas. 

Trout Story Nearly 13 Years Old

 

Persistence Pays Off with a Trout

I began fishing at Three Bridges, where I wondered if I'd have time to try Stanton. I fished a black maribou jig and didn't get a hit. Packing my trunk, I realized I had to make a decision. It was 2:15. Round Valley Recreation Area through the main gate would close at 4:00. Either I would drive straight there for a little over an hour of photography, or I could fish Stanton. I decided on Stanton. I had enjoyed myself trying to catch some of the fall stockers, and the last photography session at Round Valley hadn't been very productive...I knew it was a foregone conclusion it wouldn't be today, either. 

That's when I realized I could go to the main launch area and do photography there after 4:00. I hadn't done that in a long while.

So on to Stanton. When I got down by the water, I realized I had conflated Stanton with the deep water at Higginsville. Here at Stanton the water was very shallow under the bridge, upstream a hundred yards, and downstream of it. So after doing the casting to figure all that out, I got on the trail and headed downstream a couple hundred yards or more. 

I realized in the middle of things how fortunate I am to make successful efforts. On the way here, I had passed a gas station advertising $3.09/gallon. The next business down was a station offering $3.19/gallon, which I refused to do. This was Highway 31 in Flemington where traffic was heavy making it impossible to make a U'ey. So I took a right turn off the highway just past the second gas station, winging it, wondering where the road led. I was able to turn right, behind that second station, and emerge back at 31, where I just turned left despite yellow marks in the middle...quickly replaced by left-turn arrows. I made a left into the gas station where I wanted to go. 

Figure it out as you go. Don't tell yourself you won't. Don't find a convenient way out.

I was already feeling the day well done before I hooked the trout. The water there was no more than waist deep. Maybe thigh deep. I netted the fish, photographed it, turned my attention to more. After two or three casts, I hooked up, the trout coming off as it surfaced. A solid hit on the next cast prompted more, and though nothing else happened besides my spotting a trout headed past me at a high rate of speed, I felt fired up and willing to fish hard.

It's a matter of acquiring the stuff of the earth. By exercising the trout quest. Experience processes being, and done well, benevolence enters the world where it was lacking before you released it.

An amazing thing: I got to the Round Valley ramp area when light was on the point I had in mind. On that point just so. Just enough to cover it like the area of a RAW image in Lightroom masked perfectly from the edges and illumined. Minutes later, after I got a photo with light on that point, it was shadowing over.   

Round Valley with the point in the upper right third shadowing over. 

Three Bridges Bass Attempt

 

Black Jig Over White

Never underestimate a black jig. Trout followed it my first two casts, and since the sun was out, I decided to switch out to a white/flashabou jig before I threw another. I took maybe a dozen casts and aroused no interest in that jig whatsoever that I saw. I tied the black jig back on. I did work my way upstream along the stretch, testing new waders for leaks, before I returned to where I began and soon caught the 16-inch rainbow I photographed. Soon thereafter, I cast short to a trout that had followed and taken station in view, lifting the jig off bottom and letting it drop back, catching the first trout I've hooked that way. All of the others have hit as I retrieve the jig at a moderate to quick rate.

I tried another spot in the area, where I caught one last November, and got no interest from any fish I could detect. Then I returned to my car and drove to another area that gets stocked where I've never fished. After finding stretches that seemed too shallow, though I tried them, I walked maybe three football field lengths downstream, where I found at least three feet of fairly swift water. 

I fished the jig carefully and repeatedly, finally hooking another trout of about 14 inches, and when I unhooked it, I understood I had hooked the fish well. I had the two previous, also. A barb doesn't seem to help as often as it might. 

On the Black Jig

New Jersey Trout Fishing

 

Could Have Put the Fish Off

According to the U.S. Geological Survey gauge, the Passaic River level rose only a foot or so where we were going, and when we got there, Oliver Round and I found the current was heavy and the water stained but not muddy. Oliver tried topwater and I fished a jerkbait, before Oliver switched out to a Senko and then buzzbait, and I took the jerkbait off and snapped on a white spinnerbait. 

We hiked way back there, seeing some frogs along the way, listening to insects, probably footing a total of three miles or so round trip. I put casts where I wanted them to go. Very persistently, I fished along the bank where usually there was several feet of water or so, right into and next to any wood I could see in the water, behind other current breaks, shallows created by the river's high level, and even mid-river I found there's a lot of stuff on the bottom that can serve as cover. Oliver hit his targets, too, but neither of us got hit once. 

"You don't think it's because it's fished out?" Oliver asked.

"No. The fish are there."

I had no answer at the time as to why they weren't hitting. Earlier on, I'd pointed out that the water can't be colder than the 50's. We just got through a heat wave with temps in the 80's, and since then, it's still been in the upper 50's afternoons and low 50's at night. But from the perspective of having lain back to take a mental snapshot of that whole situation, it was easy to see the water temp--especially with the heavy rain overnight being on the chilly side--must have taken a sudden dip. It could have put the fish off.

Round Valley Reservoir Eels  

Back at the Jigging

Back at the jigging, I found the river lower and clearer than last week. Seemed to be just as many trout, but not as interested in the jig. A lot of skittish behavior and trout still swimming in aimless directions. I imagine that sort of confusion will end by wintertime. I once saw an 18-inch rainbow holding over from the fall stocking around April 1st, a day or two before the stocking prior to Opening Day, and it held position in the current like any wild or native trout would.

Also, I used a black jig. That's the only trout that struck, pictured above. Like yesterday, sunny today. I had ordered a white VMC maribou jig with flashibou last night, but it hadn't been delivered. If anyone knows of jigs with flashibou tied in for less than $7.50 apiece--which seems very expensive to me (including shipping)--please comment to let me know.