Holding Fast to Deep Natural Connection

I checked on favorite South Branch Raritan spots going back 15 years. It was hard breaking past a barrier of feeling put off, even though I'm enjoying a series of PTO days off from work, and I felt great about the Raritan River two days ago.

I decided that instead of giving in to a "bad day" and quitting on it early, I would persist, and I made sure I fished a number of stretches thoroughly. At one point, I looked at myself standing in the water, not having had a hit yet on my live killies, and the thought of giving up without a single bass while using live bait felt like a death sentence placed on the river I have loved very deeply. I just let that pass and kept fishing!

I think it's hard to holdfast to deep natural connection while otherwise living in a culture that doesn't value it. I spent many years shamelessly inspired by such connections of many kinds, outings consistently coming to their finales, which I called Grand Affirmations, amounting to engagements with the world inclusive of the naturally given and the humanmade. Some of them were greatly powerful, a sense of radiant energy moving the world from relative staleness to renewed life. An act of redemption involving more life than I can individually contain. John Lennon used to call the like a turn on.

Some would wonder how a man can care about fishing when spirituality runs high, but on the contrary, not only every fish mattered--as the blog attests to--so did almost every cast. Grand Affirmations complete successful participation. More than being a spectator's detachment, fishing involves me with the natural world in a way that elevates my life as a whole. You don't have to be a dumb jock to cast effectively and catch fish, but I'll be the first to admit there are guys out there better at catching fish than I am. I have a need to catch fish like any other fisherman, and I like to do well at the game. But I'm interested in putting words to it in a way uniquely my own, not in catching more and bigger fish than others I will never surpass.

It's the quality of natural connection that contributes to the quality of Affirmation at the end of an outing. The blog turned to relating the process of fish getting caught, but as I remember, I was pretty good at describing such natural relations during the early years of the blog. 

I did catch a few today. Water level was a little high, and carrying a lot of green algae that got on the hook, annoying. I cast unweighted killies, working a stretch downstream, when I decided to try weighting one with an eighth ounce drop-shot weight shaped like a banana to ride over bottom. After a few casts, I had a bass on I lost. I baited up again, cast to the same spot, and came up with the average stream bass photographed below.

I fished the eight-foot depths thoroughly, no more hits. Then I removed the weight and decided to work my way further downstream. On the way, I caught a smallmouth a little larger, and had to return to the bucket for another killie. I did get all the way to the bottom of the stretch, but no more hits. I had spent a full two hours working the long stretch.

I also fished a couple of stretches in-between the bridges and above them. I caught the nice one photographed above. On the way home, I stopped and fished a large pool of the Lamington River. No hits there.  

Algae on the hook with the killie.

Lehigh River

Maneuvering the Ned Rig for River Bronzebacks

Fourteen-Inch Bronzeback

It's nice having a big river close to home, where I can go out an hour after noontime, get involved enough in the fishing to feel as if a full day was invested, and be home at 4:00 p.m. Catching some smallmouths. Soaking in the sun and the heat while wading nearly up to my waste, my mobile device on the bank with my other stuff. Never engaging with that thing. Only having it along in case of any emergency. Using my DSLR camera.  

I told Brenden Kuprel I'd really like him to show me how he fishes the Ned rig, and I followed his lead to various spots, watching how he does it, and figuring it out as I went. As I thought after trying the lure in the Delaware River a week or so ago, there is some maneuvering of it involved. It's not all letting the current take the rig as it ticks rocks and bottom. But I was much less certain on how to work the lure after fishing the Delaware, than I am now after fishing with Brenden. The jigging of it involves some wherewithal in trying to keep it from getting hung up, as well as keeping line straight enough to ensure a secure hookset, though not overdoing that, allowing for some bend because that's going to be inevitable. You will feel the Ned rig tick rocks and bottom, and sometimes you'll feel a knock as it wedges in-between stone from which you can't get it free. But it seems to be the case that when fishing a Senko-type worm rigged Wacky, more drifting with the current happens than when casting a Ned rig.

The jury's out as yet on whether the Ned rig is more effective than a Senko-type plastic rigged Wacky and unweighted. Or when one is better than the other.

Certainly, the Ned rig drops almost straight down to bottom, even with the 1/16-ounce jighead I used today. It takes a Senko-type worm a little while to touch down. Most fishermen seem to throw a 1/10- or 1/8-ounce Ned rig. As you can see in the photo, the plastic worm you use on such a standup jighead is short and stubby. About two or two-and-a-half inches long. Together with a mere 1/16-ounce jighead, it casts very far on six-pound-test mono and a medium power, five-and-a-half-foot rod. 

The only problem with long casts is the bow in the line, which the powerful river current develops. I lost a few bass because of it. By not getting a direct hookset. One of those bass was a really good one, though I believe it was more like 14 inches, rather than 16 or 18, though I'm not certain.

I did catch one 14 inches. From a lengthy cut of narrowed flow where I caught a nine-incher on a live goldfish 29 years ago. I have no idea why I didn't just fish plastics, as was my habit fishing smallmouths during my teens, but I wanted to use live shiners, though I couldn't find any for sale near North Plainfield. I'm sure Efinger in Bound Brook had some, but maybe not, although it seems more likely I just didn't think of them as having any, not being in the loop yet. So I bought some live goldfish from the pet shop on Highway 22 in North Plainfield. 

I caught three other smallmouths: 10 inches, eight inches, and about seven inches. Another one I had on besides the nice one I mentioned might have been a foot. 

"Slow day," Brenden said. He often catches a lot of smallmouths, and one occasion, caught 50 of them. His sole bass today wasn't a big one, though he's caught three-pounders on past occasions.  

I lost two Ned rigs today. I had lost a few of them when fishing the Delaware. Most of the time, I worked the rig free by wading in the opposite direction to which it got snagged. Obviously, that doesn't always work, and I believe fishing the Ned rig is more expensive than fishing Senko-type worms (unweighted), which I believe don't get lost to the river bottom as often.

I think the Ned rig is a valuable approach, but let's see how it pans out over the years.  

 

Brenden fishing from an old bridge stanchion.



Senko Bronzebacks

 

Bushwhacked Thick Underbrush to Get Beyond Where Others Go

We hiked back in October last year, and I don't remember observing the old trails grown over as they are now. Then we did diverge away from the river where a tributary ditch meets it, though. Getting across easy today, beyond the undergrowth is thick. We bushwhacked. When today's outing was done around 10:30 in the morning, my arms and legs were bloodied. I just want no poison ivy. 

Oliver felt like trying a number of spots along the way, before we got far enough back--which in total amounts to more than a couple of miles between bridges--to where I felt others haven't been coming. Much of the undergrowth we broke before us had grown to head level, soaked in morning dew. Forging ahead alongside the river, I hoped any snapping turtle out of the water would somehow let itself be known before I stepped on it. Oliver found bear scat.

No evidence of others fishing back there made itself visible. No trail broken. No marks in the mud. It made obvious sense that most people would not want to break the effort.

We did want a few pike. Back in 2020, I hooked one that immediately took tight drag from a reel mounted on a medium-heavy Lew's Speed stick, that reel loaded with 20-pound braid, the pike running underneath a log jam before the snap of the wire leader gave, having opened somehow. Three of us caught a lot of fish that day, mostly pike. In more recent times, two years ago in September, I caught a lot of small pike while fishing with Fred Matero. That day, we got as far as the tributary ditch and just beyond it, as only I crossed. 

Oliver got hit at the surface. We used floating jerkbaits. Further on, he caught the largemouth photographed below, and I missed the hit I'm sure came from a small pike. The bass photographed above is the largest any of us have caught in the Passaic yet, Oliver's second this morning. I lost another fish, but I finally caught a little bass after Oliver had caught two more the size photographed below. He caught yet another, and a redbreast sunfish. 

Most of them he caught from a hole particularly deep though not large in surface area. Since most of the river is very shallow, you can imagine why, although one of the fish I had on came from a few sticks in visibly shallow water.   

 

Seems to be the foundation of a former bridge

Jerkbaits for Pike

Honoring Largemouths Near Five Pounds and Better

I've liked catching 20-inch bass ever since catching my first one in 1976. I believed that one weighed five pounds, because that's what my Deliar told me, minus the quarter pound it registered when not weighing anything. It was a rounder fish than the one I caught this morning, so it wasn't far from five pounds. Plenty of the ones I've caught like this one today seem to have barely touched on four pounds, if that, but others have been close to the higher mark. I'm sure the 21 1/2-incher I caught in 2021 beat it, and the 23 1/4-incher from Merrill Creek Reservoir I caught in 2018 was way over. 

Like today, I had got up while still dark out the morning I caught my first 20-incher, only instead of driving to Cronk's house to meet and then ride in his truck with my canoe in the back to the lake, I pedaled my Schwinn 10-speed about a mile, catching the bass on a Gudebrod Blabberouth, an eighth-ounce topwater plug, when daylight brightened fresh and overcast like this morning. Later that morning, as a family we left for a vacation on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and I trembled in awe of my catch for half the ride down there. As I remember it, that vacation marked the first I fished largemouths in North Carolina. My fishing log can prove whether or not that memory suffices, but I'm certain it does, because there was a girl my age, 15, on the beach, and I remember walking through the dunes to one of the Currituck Sound canals with a fishing rod, thinking of her. 

Last year, I caught no bass 20 inches or better, and I've felt all year so far that I didn't want that happening again. The year previous, I caught six or seven of them, maybe 8, as large as 21 inches and maybe an ounce or two over five pounds. Not many big ones as a few New Jersey bass anglers rack 'em up, but a real pleasure for me. I have so much to thank Brian Cronk for, because all of them I caught on his watch. On the private lake and on Clinton Reservoir where we launched his boat. All of these more recent years, he's caught plenty of them 20 inches and better, fishing the lake with greater frequency than I have. He caught one through the ice that might have been a few ounces over five pounds, measured at 21 inches.

I caught a few bass 20 inches and a half inch better in my teens, the bigger from that same pond, another from Rosedale Lake in Lawrence, and the creatures fill space like mythical gods in a way, because the concrete reality they did and do occupy would impress anyone. After all, to think such fish exist is to posit an object of contemplation that knows no end when it comes to the question of how it is possible. Most of us haven't the time, nor do I, to live close to the miracle of it, but it doesn't hurt to touch base a little. Some say that's what church is for, but I say bass will do, as messy as an outing gets. 

Since my teens, it took me decades before I caught my next 20-incher, from Round Valley Reservoir in 2014. I hadn't begun fishing seriously again until 2004, and I owned nothing like a boat until 2011, when my son and I fished from an inflatable raft on occasion. (We did rent boats a lot, and I had my Boater's Safety Certificate.) By the best I could stretch a measuring tape, the one from Round Valley was a hair--like 1/128th of an inch--under, but I called it 20. I began catching 20-inch and better bass each year since 2018, fishing the lake with Brian often since 2019. 

And 16-, 17-,18-inch bass are frequent. Brian's today was probably 16 1/2. My other two 17 and 18. Brian got a pickerel he called a Cuban cigar. Everything on Chatterbaits today, when otherwise we lost so many bass and pickerel that, had we caught half of them, we would have finished the three hours on the water with a fair number.

I do like the weedy upper portion of the lake, where I lost a bass and a pickerel on a Baby Torpedo topwater plug, missing hits besides. Brian missed a big hit on his Booyah frog. But as Brian showed me, the lower area of the lake mostly free of weeds where the water is a foot or two deeper holds both bass pickerel. We lost a number of pickerel that hit boat side. I caught my 20-inch largemouth, lost another bass about 16 inches, and Brian and I both missed hits.

An interesting interlude to the work drama. I came home, fell asleep for three hours, and when I awoke thought of the job, realizing I hadn't thought of it at all out there.  

18-Inch Largemouth

17-Inch Largemouth

Currituck

 

The Outdoors is Good for Your Health

There's never a time I don't escape the lethal routine when I go fishing, despite the influence of the former mention on my initial attitude--the resistance to going I always exert better will over to get out there. I say lethal routine, because making a living will only kill you, if you don't counter-act the stress by life-affirming activities like fishing. And anything outdoors is good for your health. A proven medical fact. 

What stress? I question it, too, Much of my typical work day is free of it. So I can imagine people out there who experience little or no work stress. Besides, most of my "work stress" is really post traumatic stress. That's not normal stress. I'm like a rescue dog. But when I get out and fish, I get over any of that altogether. 

I drove west on Interstate 78 when Brian Peterson from work messaged me. He and his daughter Kinsey needed to be reminded of the meeting point, so I exited at West Portal/Pattenburg, pulling into a convenience store lot, taking note of the sign posted to a telephone pole--Live Bait. (Well we didn't need any more than Brian bought, I figured. Two dozen nightcrawlers, I had suggested.)

I told him we'd meet at the green space between the Free Bridge and U.S. Highway 22 (Phillipsburg). For me, just to think "green space" feels refreshing. Even though Phillipsburg is a city, the bank along the river is wild. I got there some five minutes before they did, not surprised that people's access to open space here has restrictions now. Some 17 years ago, I fished with my son here on multiple occasions. I believe even in the middle of the night with live eels for stripers. I know others fished the stretch at night. I remember even more clearly at present that we did. I'm all but certain Matt and I fished there after midnight. Free parking. No time restrictions. As you can see in the second photo below by clicking on it to expand it, the 30-minute free parking is suggested for activities other than accessing the river. It's like politicians do not want you to be healthy. 

There's no money in being healthy.

Well, as we were finishing up our preparations at our cars parked in 30-minute slots, cops drove by. By the time the police unit faced us on its way back out, we walked towards the river entry, carrying rods. Since they did not stop to tell us we were improperly parked, as the sign might be interpreted, I figure they were OK with it, anyhow. 

We fished 25 minutes. We lost a few Yum Dingers. Nice depth and the bass have cover down there for sure. Brian caught one, a smallmouth. 

He knew of a spot on the Pennsy side. Since our licenses were good on either side of the river, (Brian lives in PA), I looked forward to exploring.

Brian's spot is good water for sure. A long seam between rapids and slow water, a huge eddy, good depth. I had one bass on a Yum Dinger that got off, and I missed two whacks to a Ned Rig. I felt befuddled, because, clearly, bass would stage among those rocks beneath that eddying current. I'm sure they were there, and I told Brian as much. 

I began this post talking about the outdoors and health. You're reading Litton's Fishing Lines, so you probably get out to fish. Catching a few may only better that health. As I told Brian, there's an encompassing approach to the river's bass: 

These bass see dozens of lures, but it's good to start with one you can fish fast, covering water, 

and though for me, that was a Yum Dinger when it could have been a jerkbait perhaps with better results, smallmouths will swim at least a few yards to grab a Dinger dropping by, and besides, you can retrieve it pretty quickly. My first bass hit it as I reeled fast to cast it again. Yes, I had a Rapala on my mind from the very start when I threw that Yum Dinger. Oh, well.

It's a good idea to switch out search baits, though it's a losing game.

Because the bass will see what you're throwing and only become less interested in that offering. Something else might jog a reaction, but then it, too, will get ignored, and so on... 

Then you need to slow down, fish subtly to tempt fish that would be turned off by the noise of search baits.

Fishing a Yum Dinger by twitching it lightly in the depths, for example, though that wasn't working. 

Ultimately a nightcrawler might out-fish anything else.

The bass were certainly there in this second area we fished, but since they've seen just about every kind of lure we could offer, drifting a live nightcrawler through the currents might have worked. 

Brian had got his fishing license at Dick's, which had no live bait. I said, "Check your phone for nightcrawlers along Route 611."

Minutes later, we headed for a convenience store 3.7 miles away. 

"I know a boat launch across the street from a cement factory," Brian said. 

We cast Yum Dingers and let the swift current carry them well downstream, but nothing hit in the visibly shallow water of three or four feet. I believed if any bass staged in that current, they'd grab a Dinger. We soon left. 

The next spot was a park where Brian told me the Belvidere Free Bridge was right around the corner. We didn't see an easy way in, so we crossed that bridge in hopes that the green space my son and I enjoyed there about 17 years ago is still open.

It is. We parked--freely--as I excitedly expressed the fact that I had caught a bass and a little striper. Privately, I thought, "A bass. I would hope for at least a few." When Matt and I fished down below in Phillipsburg years ago, I think we caught seven of them. 

We fished nightcrawlers. Something did pull most of one of mine from my hook, but other than that, go figure. Obviously, fishing pressure. Brian had a few bites from something. Kinsey reported nothing.

And...my channel catfish. Nice fish. Twenty-two inches long. Good fight. 

We had relaxed and we settled in. You know you've reached that point of letting all the stress go, when you no longer feel anxious to try what's next; when you openly accept all you're doing from now and until you go home. That's a real pleasure, fish or not. After all, you look at the quality of the spot and you know fish could be around. You see that carp or whatever makes a mess of the surface. Kinsey felt awed at seeing, I think, two big fish make a ruckus.  

The weather was perfect. A setting sun. Temperature warm. 

You feel healthy--directly--and have no doubt it's good for you in the long term.

A boat launch existed nearby. As we walked out, I spoke to someone I had seen launch. 

"I didn't catch a single smallmouth bass," he said. 

I told him about my catfish. 

"There was a guy here mid-day," he said, "Caught a 10-pounder." 

I don't target channel catfish, but I might. I'd enjoy catching a 10-pounder on a light rod.  

  

The Second Spot

Belvidere

Belvidere

More of a Complicated Practice

 

Paulinskill River Confluence with Delaware River at Columbia

Mark Licht catching a Paulinskill smallie.

OK. So I heard about the project coming, but I neither knew Brian Cowden would not be involved, nor the approximate time it would be underway. While I thought the Paulinskill's water a weird muddy quality, I did think a lot of rain came down up here. (We found the Pequest clear.) No, a dam is being removed not all that far upstream of here where we fished. 

I began with a Ned rig anyhow, wondering if any bass would knock that from sensing it by its lateral line, but I quickly switched to a MiniKing spinnerbait by Storm, and I did get a knock by retrieving it right down the middle of the white water in the photo below. Mark threw an inline spinner, but he must've appealed to the bass's sense of smell by a nightcrawler. 

"They're my go-to. Just in case," Mark told me later at the Pequest. Lures will often out-produce bait because they're efficient, but not always. Still at the Paulinskill, he offered me live worms, but I stuck to the MiniKing. 

He caught one smallmouth on a nightcrawler there below the spillway on the far side.

I began thinking of a possible alternative before we got to a spot that's produced greatly for my son and I in the past. (All we caught there was a chub for Mark.) We could drive west and try to fish the confluence where the Paulinskill empties into the Delaware River at Columbia. I figured if the big river was clear, where a muddy river enters it might offer interesting fishing. 

Besides, there would be other possibilities if this one didn't pan out. Neither of us knew if we could find access to the confluence.

We didn't. Houses beside it, private land, and a lot of roadway construction. The Delaware Watergap was a possible option. I know about access there. I knew about possible access along Highway 46 further south, where my son and I caught smallmouths years ago, and besides that, I suggested the confluence of the Pequest with the Delaware.

We rode south. "No Stopping or Standing," all along where, some 17 years ago, my family parked and had a good time. Fully in keeping with the general move in America to deny citizens access to natural space. (I've written a little about that but haven't had time to do serious research.) 

Belvidere. "New Jersey's Best Kept Secret." Kind of like my blog. 

After all, what is more spiritually symbolic than a couple of fishes? "Don't believe the church and state," says Mike and the Mechanics, but Christ might say the same. 

Before we even got to the Delaware, which we never did, we found the hole beneath the dam appealing. Surely, townies had hit the spot hard, but I felt sure it held bass. Catch and release is universal, after all. It's like reincarnation. God catches you at the moment of death and then puts you back. 

Mark had got in the water and just caught a big chub, hollering over to me about a huge smallmouth that tried to eat it before he got it in, when I hooked up on the Ned rig, using blue plastic. My bass, about a foot long, jumped off right in front of me.

I got in the water and waded among round stones the size of soccer balls, 

getting into various positions but raising no interest in my Ned Rig. Mark wasn't doing much, either. A bluegill or two. I figured it was the classic case of freshened fish hitting a lure at the outset, then very quickly getting spooked. After all, the bass below the dam there see hundreds of lures. They forget. Then they remember once they see one a few times. 

So I tried drifting an unweighted nightcrawler, felt a jiggle on that first drift, let the fish take line a bit, tightened up, set, and felt surprised it was a bass. Mark and I caught various bluegills, chubs. I saw Mark got a fallfish, and he caught a rainbow trout. I caught a second bass after I noticed the bluegills had begun taking the nightcrawlers only by the tail, so when I set, I lost bait to them. They're not smart like us but watch a fish check out and reject a lure in clear water. You'll have no doubt their perceptual abilities are tack sharp. It didn't take long for sunnies to stay clear of our hooks. 

We didn't have all night so we never got to the Delaware, but Mark had come through by bringing the nightcrawlers. That transformed a frustrated outing into a fun time and successful day, lots of good conversation during the drive back to Blairstown and my car parked at Dale's grocery.

Just don't make a big habit of parking there. That might piss them off. 

Besides, just click on a label, scroll, and you'll find hundreds of possibilities on my blog.  

Found this memorandum thumbnailed to a tree along the Paulinskill.

River bass.

Mark Licht carefully unhooks rainbow trout.

The fun had begun.

Little Bit on Access We Need More

 

Brian Cronk Reaches 47 Birthday Celebration on Rippin' Lips

Brian Cronk's 47th birthday celebration on Eddie Mackin's Rippin' Lips pontoon--a fun time for all! I realized, as I left the parking lot where I live...to get there just on time, that my whole anticipation of Sunday involved worrying about the weather. Completely unconsciously, but I had.

Look at that blue sky in the photo. That's Gen Wong in the foreground, Ken from the region of Manasquan Reservoir behind him on the left, Max Wilson in the back, Brian Cronk on the right in the back, and Mark Licht with the great smile. Eddie Mackin was at the wheel, Joe Santiago behind me, Brenden from Ridgewood behind me. 

Brian had told me a few of the guys "on" Mayhem would be there, so should I take it that means they're staff members? I said so in a Facebook post, carefully framing my words with "from what I understand," and was trenchantly questioned, to which I replied, having pointed out how I framed my words with "from what I understand," that I don't take it Mayhem is a drug.

Mayhem is short for NJ Multispecies Mayhem Fishing on Facebook, and the New Jersey Multispecies Podcast. Joe Santiago is the Mastermind. Gen Wong and Max Wilson are onboard with him, in whatever capacity that is, be it staff or something else.

As for myself, when I was on the board of Round Valley Trout Association, I wasn't staff, so being "on" Mayhem may signify membership in some special way that's simply recognized and need be no more formal than that. So I say more here on the blog than I did on Facebook, though I don't care to go into edit function and revise my remarks on Facebook. 

Feel special if you've read these words. Everyone in America should fact check by reading Litton's Lines.

I don't know what capacity on Mayhem!

Except that it's some sort or other among more than the two who appear on the Podcast by what I understand! I may be mistaken.

Even at our first stop--Pickerel Point--a fish got caught. Smallmouth bass of maybe a pound and 3/4ths for Mark Licht, who let his live herring swim freely. Naturally, we hoped for a hybrid or plural of them. I've been in the same boat before, when I live-lined herring with my son during summer, and instead of catching hybrids (or possibly walleye), we caught a number of smallmouth bass. 

Second stop--a smallish smallmouth for Brenden. I lost what I believe was a crappie.

Byram Bay--as dusk began to gather, the catfish came alive. Just as Eddie had said they do, back when we fished Pickerel Point under intense sun and heat. Must have been four or five catfish caught, including a black bullhead of about 14 inches for me. I'm not entirely certain, but that might have been my biggest ever. I have caught yellow and/or brown bullheads of 16 inches. Apropos to Brian's birthday celebration, I caught those big bullheads in one of the Princeton Day School ponds. I fished those ponds through my teens more than I fished anywhere else. Brian was born in 1977, shortly before I abandoned them for the most part, going on to college and Long Beach Island commercial clamming. He fished those ponds obsessively during the 1990's. (I did then a little, too--we almost crossed paths.) Virtually no one else fished them. The syncronicity is spooky.

 

And...little white perch got caught. Little crappie. 

Summer is really here, my friends. When the Lake Hopatcong boat traffic resembles the traffic on the Manhattan grid, go with the flow and it feels fine! Made me want to buy a boat for the lake. Not just to fish and shoot photos from, but show my wife the sights! Can always bring a friend and his wife along, too.  

Eddie Mackin at the Wheel

Mark Licht & smallmouth.

Brenden from Ridgewood and smallmouth.

Tarnoski's King's Ransom