Fishing Tackle: Breaking Through the Surface of Society

Months ago, I jotted down a note pertaining to early memories about fishing. A friend's father had introduced me to this recreation. But what I remember especially from that early age of eight is the Golden Guide to Fishing. The cover picture, painted no less, is of a spinning reel. The genius of its originality impressed me as direct and fresh as life itself, and I knew I wanted one.

The painting suggested the essence of ingenuity. At the time I used a Zebco 202 pushbutton spincast.

I owned a spinning reel and rod by age 10, bought it myself. A Capitol Sporting Goods store existed a mile and a half away, across Route 1, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, next door to the State Capitol in Trenton. I used to ride my bike and buy tackle.

Sometimes the hard shell of ordinary affairs breaks and bares the sheer magic of tackle, by so simple a process as unwinding line from the fixed spool of my Penn 430SSg, as snazzy to no apparent purpose as that numerical name designation makes me think the caprice of random numbers and lettering goes a long way in America.

After all, I live just yards off U.S. Highway 202, though highways really do have an order-by-number, if random numbering for things otherwise tends to fall into place with intentional patterns. Perhaps mathematician and game theorist John Nash would have positive words for the numbers of the reels we use. Besides, any random series chosen implies that some sort of intention lurked behind the result, which makes you wonder about license plates...

No one can really quite point out the reality underlying the hardcoat surface of society that keeps everything slick and running all too routinely. Don't we all know the disfunction that routine really is. You have to fall into it, taking everything you've heard and learned with you. And then, if you emerge again sane, you might be able to decipher a thing or two better not spoken about too often, and yet it helps guide your own life better than any GPS.

Bass Remain on Beds

I used to think that when water temperatures dipped significantly, bass abandoned beds. Although I couldn't make any beds out through the rather stained water, water I am sure took a sharp temperature drop with today's rain in the mid and upper 40s, the bass I caught seemed to be on guarded defense. One of the five I caught struck my favorite 1/8th ounce chartreuse spinnerbait twice before it whalloped the lure a third time and got hooked. I missed three hits from another in exactly the same place. I saw bass guarding nests in Mount Hope Pond in Rockaway yesterday, so surely that's what they're doing in my shallow little local pond. And ditto this the last time I fished it--I caught what looked like the same two pounder from the same spot, only now it's a lot scrawnier and less than two pounds. Three of the other four were about a pound and a half, the other a pound. I just haven't managed to hook a real good bass.

I fished much the same as I had a month ago, when I caught five on the same lure. I judged from the gut. This evening was not a time to try my #9 Rapala floater. Experience gets stored in the stomach. I read somewhere that the stomach has a slight number of neuron-like cells, which may account for the accuracy of gut feelings. Whatever the case, I certainly believe experience stores its responses down there, close to the body's center of gravity. Not to trust it is to ultimately go against reason, although we learn new approaches by going out on a limb, by extending our judgment clearly straight out from the neocortex. This is why, when an approach fails--like the time that would-be fourth bass at the Bedminster Pond followed like a pickerel, but did not hit--I am very quick to try something else. The gut cannot sustain for very long--it needs to be fed. And if it has any neuronal cells, certainly they are far fewer and less developed than those in the brain!

This coming Saturday my son and I plan to try for lunkers at Manasquan Reservoir, one of the best places in the state to give that quest a shot--if that's all it is, an attempt. I'm hoping that with the chilly weather the spawn has been put off, but I would be surprised, even with such a late spring, if by May 7th the females haven't lost weight. Manasquan is a tough place to fish. The fishing pressure is perhaps the tightest in the state, too. The bass see a lot of lures and become conditioned to ignoring them, especially through that clear water. High hopes! But I try to ease myself, and my son, into reality rather than come crashing down.

No Fishing at Merril Creek Reservoir

I forgot to crop close to the sign in the photo before I had uploaded the images, and formatted the card, but it reads "Environmental Refuge No Fishing." --Where, two years ago, among the bass I caught in two visits shore fishing included one over four pounds. Immediately obvious to me was that they had segregated out shore fishermen from the spot of choice, to the right of the launch and through the woods less than a hundred yards, a long, perhaps 200 yard stretch of flooded timber, including fairly shallow flats perfect for this time of year, and good in the summer, too. Anyone can walk along these shores. Just can't fish. (The slight timber to the left, and steep drop-offs, photographed without the sun above trees, is where I had to fish, sure I'd be skunked, and was.) Anyone with a boat can fish the area in question, too. What does that say? It may be evidence of an oligarchic tendency in our government--so long as you pay the taxes implied by a boat purchase, go right ahead. Where is the default switch in a political decision like this to ban shore anglers? No one would consciously think "Well, boaters pay more in taxes, so we'll let them fish here, and punish those with less money." But it's obvious they did not think well of shore anglers, at least they did poorly enough to have denied us. Additionally, many fishermen, me included, are environmentalist. But some environmentalists are anti-fishing. And they really mean it. If they had their way, fishing would be outlawed altogether. (What would this do to Isaak Walton's literary reputation? Would his book be banned or kept on the secret shelf of a benevolent dictator like the character in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World?) No, I don't neccessarily believe radical environmentalists will get the American government to pass a law outlawing all fishing. Not any more than I believe that the American government will pass a law making Veganism mandatory for everyone. I think officials behind the scenes of Merrill Creek Reservoir negotiated--certain environmentalists wanted this and that, and got this. Fishermen were designated to the left side of the ramp (and probably still have other shoreline to fish; I wasn't there long to find out). But negotiation means we do have to be aware, get in, and keep in the political process. 

So what happened to Manasquan Reservoir as promised!? My son fell sick with allergies. It's the time and the season. We hope to go next weekend. Certainly, I observed no evidence of spawning at Merrill Creek, and I hope the water remains cool enough at Manasquan so that the big females aren't ready by the time we try to catch a few. A few boats came in here at Merrill Creek. I spoke to one boater who had caught four five-pound trout, surely not from the recent stockings. Two other shore anglers had two small trout. At 210 feet deep and with much more fertility than Round Valley Reservoir, Merrill Creek is perhaps the best trout lake in the state. The bass grow huge here, too.

Wildlife at Merrill Creek, and the entirety of Warren County, flourishes. I had a wonderful drive, observed a lot of deer and light green flora while listening to jazz and news radio. A sandpiper that I have come upon reference to in reading--it dips its rear end up and down--but don't remember the name, came and poked about the stones and pebbles near me. Snow geese, like the one I photographed, are not common on lakes and reservoirs, although I have seen one on Lake Musconetcong. Mostly, look for snow geese at Brigantine, Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, during the fall. You may observe thousands there.

Streams Coming Down: First Smallmouth Bass of the Year, Plenty Trout Caught

Though aerated, my minnow bucket took direct sun rays today (as did my face, burned). We enjoyed my son's Little League celebration all day while all of my leftover shiners died, but one. So I took this single sacrifice and cast it with a split shot into the hole up against the bridge abutment in the photo, at the Verizon building, the Route 202/206 spot. Result: the smallmouth bass in the photo. A fat fish. My first smallmouth of the year, but not the lunker trout I hoped would hit the big shiner.

I fished salmon eggs for perhaps 10 minutes and moved on to AT&T, the entrance roadway goes over the bridge photographed (below). I fished fairly hard, especially after I finally took a couple of hits. But having one on, which stripped some drag and put up a tussle, stands for all of the action I got besides more hits, out just long enough to feel I really tried.

Water level continues to fall. No stain taints the North Branch, although the water is not very clear. Plenty of trout got caught today, as evidenced by men carrying off stringers of rainbows across the ball fields upstream of AT&T. where we enjoyed the Little League party.

Tommorow is the big Manasquan Reservoir trip. My expectations aren't great, but that's just the way I feel, although with as much sun as this afternoon, it may be tough indeed. I just won't get up at 5:00 a.m. to make it for the 7:00 a.m. rental opening. Usually I truly awake eagerly--as early as 3:30 a.m.--for a fishing trip (and never for my job). But I am really beat today.

Largemouth Beginning to Spawn

--Which means I tend to let them be. But all of the bass I caught this evening, but one, were fat and seemingly full of spawn. At lunchtime, I had stopped at a pond in Denville where I happened to see a guy getting photographed with a bass he'd just caught. I walked the edge. Males guarded nests. This is a tannic acid pond--how in Denville I don't know--and not stained by the rains, just as Pinelands waterways are protected by flat terrain and sand, almost entirely spring fed from the acquifier. However, my neighborhood pond was stained. So I couldn't see nests if any exist. But the bass all struck in shallow water, from right in close to the bank to a few yards out (this is a shallow pond anyhow, but the issue is relative).

I caught 10. A two-pounder, seven that all weighed at least a pound and a half, and two a couple or a few ounces over a pound. My favorite #9 Rapala floater had them roaring at the top after my twitches. I began with a "Midnight Special" Strike King spinnerbait, all 7/16th ounces of it, and knew right away this was a mistake. I could barely keep it off the bottom. So after my fifth cast, I shook it hard with the rod to clear vegetation--and snapped the six pound test. Loop, loop, loop... plop, it fell beneath the surface some 10 feet out, the bottom too muddy to try and go in and get it. I walked back home, knowing that what the situation really called for was my #9. Got it, and returned to fish the semi-stained water--it isn't muddy.

That corner with the cattails had thousands of white flower petals clogging it, most of the shoreline between it and the culvert corner did, too. So I fished the longer shorelines, open and fomenting with fish. I had fun. But I must confess that although all of these fish were very well over a pound, and such size is rare for a New Jersey pond, although it happens all the time in this one, I had a big bass in mind the whole time, and it never became present. My son has caught three here over four pounds, including a five pounder. I once caught a 3 3/4-pounder. But compared to the numbers of fish between a pound and two pounds that we catch, it's evident that very few large bass exist. Contrasting this, I fished a couple smaller ponds in my teens, one that had many three and a half pounders, and another that seemed to have almost as many four to five-pounders as smaller bass--not loads of fish, but when we caught one, it was about 50/50 that it would weigh over four pounds. The in's and out's of this and so much more that's out there would seemingly keep teams of biologists active for many years to figure out. This is why we call fishing a contemplative recreation.



Get the Kids Out

Flashback--two months ago this past weekend. I find the photo important because it shows a whole group of kids, not of one family, involved in fishing, and ice fishing at that! They eagerly await the moment that followed, when a pickerel came throught the hole.

Now more than ever kids need to get outdoors, because it used to always be taken for granted, and now it's a problem that they don't get enough natural exposure. All sorts of articles and books imply this issue, but a popular and deeply researched account is The Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv. I stumbled upon it in a bookstore on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, in 2006. Reading it, I knew the book was a wonder, but I seriously doubted it would become popular. Now it's a bestseller. Louv appeared on Good Morning America and in countless other public forums. I had taken my son, aged two, swimming in the North Branch Raritan River. Much of what Louv has to say I was no stranger to, but the book would be deeply informing for anyone who hasn't read it.

On the local scene, I'm reminded of a fly fishing course led by New Jersey outdoors educator and writer, Chris Lido, that was scheduled to take place this past fall on a weekly basis for Bedminster School middle school aged kids. Before I knew about it, my wife had my son signed on.

"It's led by Chris Lido," she told me.

"Lido! He writes for the Fisherman..." She wasn't surprised.

I went into action and strongly encouraged my son to get friends signed on. For awhile I think we were short two kids--the program would not go without the quota. But then we had the quota full--I thought--until the deadline hit, and we were short one boy, just one. I knew one of our recruits had bailed.

But the point is, good intentions are out there. Bedminster just happens not to be much of a town for anglers anyhow, despite the river running through it--the North Branch. Manny Luftglass would have held a presentation at Clarence Dillon Public Library this coming May 3rd--if people signed up besides myself and my son.

However, this is not a losing battle. The losing battle would be if every kid stayed indoors. How would we function in reality if we became that out of touch with it? We wouldn't. Society would implode.

 

Refreshed After Work But Big Bass Skit Rather than Play even as Dread Algae Develops

Minutes before sunset, I jaunted down to the northeast corner of Bedminster Pond, enlivened with each step after a tough day at work. Birds filled the trees with fluid levity. On my way to Clarence Dillon Public Library again, my worries about the clarity of the water felt relieved since the stain from recent rain only clouded what I saw. The amount of algae on the surface surprised me, some of this visible in the photograph. Because of it, this will be my last visit to this pond until possibly in the fall. During the summer the vegetation is thick and chokes the life from all but uncomfortable efforts to coax response, such as weedless surface presentations worked endlessly for scattered bass that perhaps inevitably don't hit. 

The bass population isn't very good here anyhow. I wonder how they spawn with such thick muck in the shallows with carp present. For all I know, the stories about these big, ugly, cumbersome fish sucking down bass eggs are true. But I imagine a few bass here may manage to grow big. I've heard stories, but don't quite believe the sizes, five and six pounds. Maximum depths range only about six feet, and if as muddy as the shallows, that's not so good.

Once again I set down my tackle tote, and cast my black and chartreuse spinnerbait. This time a wake shot away from nearby the lure, leaving a big boil behind it. That, I knew, was not a good sign. I resigned myself to probably getting skunked, and worked my way down the east side. The third time a wake went in the opposite direction, I quickly tied on a twister tailed plastic worm from the under compartment of the tote. That only drew sunfish to yank. I reached for my tote and opened it for a surface lure. Oh. I brought the wrong compartment, full of minnow plugs and crankbaits, and smoky clear plastic to see through at that. So I tied the spinnerbait back on, and the first cast drew a strike from a bass of about a pound, right on the surface as I buzzed the lure making a wake. Missed it.

One always wonders why on one 70-degree evening the bass hit at every opportunity, and then after a 75-degree afternoon and plenty of sun, they avoid. The temperature had suddenly dropped 10 degrees from what it was when I got home at 5:00. Clouds moved in. But I never leap to conclusions about the whys and whereofs. I notice what I can, and try not to make things up about what I observe. However, I don't suppose the darker water had to do with it, since that big Colorado blade certainly makes the lure's presence known. I could be dead wrong.