Califon Dam Removals and River Restoration

 

Sluiceway down below the dam in the town of Califon. This spot is now posted. According to Dumont, it "always holds fish." My son and I failed to catch any on that March day I photographed Matt trying. We tried and tried. Interestingly, sunlight singled him out when I shot the photo, so he was overexposed. He alone, which is kind of cool, even though it destroyed the photograph for any large print use. You can tell because his face and hands are grey. I compensated by reducing highlights in Lightroom, but the overexposure was too much.

I'm writing an article for The Fisherman about the South Branch Raritan River. Should be published in June. I interviewed one of the many guides working for South Branch Outfitters, Gerry Dumont, gathering information about the river. I always collect a lot more than I can use, which got me thinking this time: I can use some of it for my blog. Information I can't use for the magazine. I felt inspired by what I will relate to you as too important not to divulge. 

According to Dumont, "We're gonna have a little bit more trout water--what I consider trout water--by, not this trout season, but the following one. We're expecting in June, at least the dam above the shop, I'm pretty sure that's coming out this summer. And we're hoping that the other dam below the shop--the big dam in town--that's planned to be coming out, too, and they're going to restore, it's got to be close to two miles of river. That will lower the water temperature in the (Ken Lockwood) Gorge three or four degrees in the summertime." 

So that's breaking news from a primary source. Stuff online about dam removal in Califon is very little and requires--besides what I screenshot, below--passing a paywall.

As I began to say in the caption to the photo above, we've lost some water between the town and Hoffman's Crossing Road just above the beginning of Ken Lockwood Gorge. As Dumont put it, "Some areas are now not able to be fished. With COVID, there was a lot of problems. Some places got posted." And he added, "Things happen, things get closed," but with the dam removals and the restoration, water worth respecting will become available. We don't expect another mass exodus into the outdoors as COVID inspired, so we can probably keep the newly flush riverscape.

With lower water temperatures and improved habitat brought about by river restoration, it's easy to imagine that the numbers of benthic organisms and their insect hatches will improve, and that, naturally, so will the wild and native trout population.    

(newjerseyhills.com)

Califon

Roscoe New York Trout Town USA

roscoeny.com Outdoor writer Jim Stabile sent me information on the Two-Headed Trout Dinner event at Roscoe, New York, in April. "Trout Town USA." That immediately made me think of my wife, because I had--fairly recently--spoken to her about the possibility of a future trip up there. I knew nothing of the dinner that celebrates the opening of fly fishing season. I had thought of the other attractions the town offers--little shops and restaurants--that might appeal to her. The dinner incorporates businesses in town, so there's more to it than trout fishing. Even so, in the final analysis, it's almost pointless for me to pitch the dinner as an event to attend, although she might like the town as a Bed & Breakfast destination.  

More than a decade ago, my son and I visited Roscoe, staying at a campground at town's edge. We actually camped beside the Beaverkill. That's where our allotted space happened to be located. It was August, and our main plan was to fish Pepacton Reservoir for smallmouths. The owner of the campground persuaded us to try for big brown trout, too, lending us a couple of rods rigged with color-coded weighted line and silver trolling spoons. We also rented the rowboat from him.

We caught no trout, but my son did catch a little smallmouth, and I caught a channel cat that looked like a trout. We jigged both of the fish, and many rock bass, besides. The water is so clear that the catfish was almost white, except for black spots. 

We had time to fly fish the Delaware River East Branch after lunch, catching nothing. We also checked out the confluence of the Beaverkill and Willowemoc, noticing some persistent rises, but the water felt about 70 degrees to me. Too warm to catch and release trout, so we didn't fish there. The West Branch was cold. 

What I remember best of all is getting up before first light the first morning, feeling how fresh the 48-degree air felt in August, building a fire, boiling water, making coffee and getting started on it, all before my son awoke. That might have been the best coffee I've ever had.

Roscoe Trip

New Jersey Shark Attacks

Dan Radel Asbury Park Press  The news story is about shark attacks on the rise, one of them in New Jersey last year, though not fatal. I wanted to add to the record, though the two incidents happened decades ago in the 1980's. I was attacked by a shark, but of course I never reported it. Nor did an acquaintance of mine, after I witnessed him get attacked. Both incidents were nothing to alarm authorities about.

We were clam treaders. I held a commercial license, my acquaintance recreational. Both incidents happened along a deep channel where large boats travel. I clammed alone minutes from sunset, up to my shoulders in brine where I worked the edge of the drop off lowering down into 15-foot depths. My back was turned towards those depths for a moment, when a tremendous pressure wave knocked me forward. I knew that had to be a brown shark, but a big one. They have teeth but don't use those teeth on people. But they will careen into you with great force. 

That's more like what happened to the other guy. The shark came at him at waist level, and he actually got his forearms underneath it, lifting it out of the water, which I witnessed. Not a very big shark. It appeared to be about four feet long.

Since it happened after the big one had me walking steadily to my boat, I immediately remembered that solitary incident. I had never panicked, but it made me feel uneasy. The size of the shark felt scary. Its pectoral fin must have come very close to clipping me with a lot of force. 

It's funny, but I remember the sun from just after it happened to me. Big and red, but still just a little sky underneath it, summertime. I walked towards the sun as I walked towards my boat. It's as if, on an unconscious level, I took enough of a scare to feel especially drawn to the life force. 

Sunlit Temps Over 40 Stimulate Winter Trout

Any of us sometimes depart for an outing not expecting much more than the quality of the day. It will almost be enough. Last I got out before today, the temperature was 38 degrees and rain fell hard, mixed with some snow. I fished as hard, wading on downstream, knowing that if I happened to put my jig in front of a trout, I might get hit. So I worked at that, and yes, eventually I did get hit. Hard. But I missed it. That happened in a stretch where I caught a 15-inch wild brown in November 2022, so it might have been another one or even the same fish I released. 

Today the air was almost dead calm. The sky cloudless, The temperature about 43. Last night was cold enough that I noticed thick skim ice on one of the ponds in my neighborhood. I wanted to hit the river while the sun was high and the temperature nearly peaking out. I'm not especially experienced at catching the winter stockers, but I hear that they hit especially before the sun begins to get low, when its rays warm the water a little. Temperatures above 40 accompanying that light on the water and on the rocks underneath are especially desirable. Trout get caught on frigid days, but supposedly they prefer such days as today.

Even so, I wasn't especially ready for the fish, even though I caught them at the spot I visited today in January and February of last year. My first cast resulted in a fish on for a few seconds. Shortly thereafter, I hooked up and played a nice rainbow almost to the net before it got off. That's when I felt I'd had all the action I'd get, but I not only netted three rainbows within a half hour, I missed a hit after I caught those fish. Among the three I caught, two were a little over 16 inches, the other 15 inches.

All the fish I caught and lost felt especially eager to strike, as if the sunlight and the relatively mild temperatures had stimulated them. It's possible the two I lost were the first trout I caught. The one I nearly netted looked like the first one I did get in the net. If so, that was an eager trout for being so plump. (The other two I caught were skinny.) The hit I missed shortly before I decided to leave gave me the clue to not all the trout being very willing, however. It was a subtle, noncommittal, pull. Repeatedly, I cast back to the spot, but nothing more happened. 

Cold Rain
 

From Small Florida Species to New Jersey Channel Bass

Tight Lines Al Ristori Going to try and comment on the link posts for now on, because I learned that a website gets penalized for the bad search engine optimization practice of "thin content." That of not saying much! I know you like my newsy links, because I see the numbers of people opening the posts from their phones. How many of you click on them from laptops, I don't know. So going forward, if you just want the article I link to, click the link and ignore the rest, but then again, maybe my words will add to the time out of time, so to speak, a little reading provides.

Ristori was out fishing with Crazy Alberto Knie in the Florida Everglades recently, catching a number of small inshore species, including one they could not identify. Ristori got a photo and figured he'd find the answer among his many books that have information about species from that area. No. 

When my son and I first fished the reef some six miles out to sea from Big Pine Key, I caught a very strange yellow fish. Bright yellow. That was 2007 when neither myself nor my son did digital photography, but I'm making a note to myself, because I have a print from 35mm film, and of course, I can scan that. Maybe I'll post it someday. Who knows, some of you might even know what!

I scrolled down a few posts to read about Ristori's skepticism about climate change. He opens with a compelling quote from Thomas Jefferson, but for me, the most interesting part of his post is about channel bass, exactly what I called redfish, red drum, or simply reds when I was a boy. Ristori makes the point that this southern species was abundant in New Jersey--and called channel bass--a hundred years ago. 

So I looked online. Sure enough, I found corroborating evidence in the Bass Barn, from 2014. The comment thread includes information about abundant oysters and clams inshore having sustained the reds.

Found the photo! Had forgotten the purple on the fish.

 

Tip-Ups Set in a Row Produce

Cronk called me at 5:00 a.m. to cancel, so I ate breakfast, filled the Thermos with coffee, and headed up U.S. Highway 206 towards Cranberry Lake. I had found online that Andover Hunt & Fish doesn't open until 9:00, so I hoped Simon Peter would be open, not having found information about the shop's opening time. Apparently, Simon Peter is out of business. Door looked permanently shuttered. 

I drove to Dow's, where everyone was happy to see me, and I was happy to see everyone. Joe Welsh told me he had driven 14 hours to get bait and that their shop is the only one carrying any. I needed only a dozen large shiners, lingering a bit before I got on my way. 

At Cranberry Lake it was obvious the ice was safe with so many boot prints in the snow on top. I quickly opened a few holes that had recently been fished, including one that had frozen-in nearly four inches. Once I had my stuff on the ice, I used my splitting bar to open some new holes in a line along the shore. I didn't need to bother with the power auger, but the ice was a good five inches thick. 

I had put a tip-up out further, but pretty soon I set it in line. I had got a flag before I had all the stuff out, and before I got my second tip-up set. Missed the hit. I found evidence of weeds when checking on bait, so I knew I had a good strategy, doubting the weeds extended much deeper. I set the five tip-ups--all of them in a single row along the shoreline--in about eight or nine feet of water. 

It was nice out there. Ice fishing seems always to be a way to let go of daily routines and get a lift. There's an atmospheric quality. 

I fished for nearly four hours that went fast. Three pickerel caught, two I had on and lost, three missed hits. The biggest was right about 21 inches, the other two about 17. 

Five Years

 

River Trout Fishing Cold Rain

It's odd that the bias of comfort gives you an illusory expectation about what's out there when it's cold and rainy. You do need adequate clothing and bootfoot waders, but rather then being a bulwark against misery, the experience is pleasure and levity. You have to get past the illusion as you go out the door, and perhaps deal with a little stress towards the outing's end. 

When I began, it rained hard, snow mixed in, 38 degrees. I had put two pairs of socks on, including heavy wool, so my feet stayed warm the whole time. Never took the water's temp, but it's very cold. It was in the 20's last night, and hiking into the river from where I parked my car for the second time, a large puddle frozen over held my weight. Later on, the walk back to the car was even better, because going in, my anticipations for the fishing made me a little impatient. I was at least a half mile below the stocking point, and despite the chilly temperatures, I had made the deliberate choice to go without gloves. Too much of a pain to deal with them in the rain. 

When later I drove off, the temperature had risen to 42, but it had become plenty chilly on wet hands, which did begin to get stiff when I decided to leave after about two hours of fishing altogether.

I had just begun to work my way upriver when my maribou jig got slammed right out in front of me. I had missed the hit, but I didn't fail to fish hard another 15 minutes or so. I had also taken two suspicious taps.  

Gasoline from highway runoff.

A Plug for Trout