Effective Life Flow and Smallmouth Bass and Other Gamefish

Little time to fish, but I got an average stream smallmouth bass in the South Branch Raritan. Water's running a little high and turbid, no improvement since Tuesday, and since we've had no rain, it's odd to me; perhaps water is being let out of Spruce Run Reservoir upstream. Last Friday I had no rod in the car, but I stopped to check the river out and it was in better shape than now, even after more recent rain.

Thought I would probably draw another zero. A little bass socked a shiner at the surface about a dozen times, finally got it. I tightened up, nothing there--got the shiner. Then finally a bass took a shiner solidly & when I set the hook feeling strong resistance, hope shot up a bit before I knew it was a poppindocker. Let it jump itself off the hook while I held it out of the water. I sure don't mind catching them, but the chief challenge is to set the hook without gut hooking and still manage to catch the fish, so I miss plenty hits, but seldom have to feel the uncertainly about whether the bass will survive--which usually they do even with a hook in the gut. They are tough creatures; it's good to identify with fish because if you are like them, you can survive almost anything. I've caught plenty fish on the scale of years--trout and bass--with hooks partially obstructing food intake and sometimes nearly rusted out.

But I always have big bass in mind. It's not a big celebration when I catch a two-pound-plus smallmouth, but such a fish satisfies. Anglers are like the fish they relate to: strong, fit, powerful in nature. We are civil beings living in civil society, but we seek our deep, inner nature in relation to fish that arouse our willfulness and interest in living, that inspire our contemplative depth, not simple, direct predation as if we are fish, but the effectiveness of the life flow within us. 

Resurrection From the Dead--Do It!

I didn't fish today. Going through North Jersey, I passed over the Passaic, but if I fish below the falls soon, I'm not interested yet. And Burnham Park Ponds remain thickly vegetated, no Hurricane Irene to have blown it out.

Wanted to pick up on a line from yesterday and give this post the outrageous title that might have caught your eye. Alarm, excitement, and awe is banalized, trivialized, and commodified as more and less interchangable one liners today, life reduced to dull and tired expectancies, though the 1960's enjoyed a genuine awakening that had to do with more than the war, not that we would ever go back--that authenticity was a moving forward. People think of the drugs, but those times were futuristic with visions of technogical mastery and joy united. I thought I would plug an ancient idea in cyberspace and if anyone would try to commodify the dead, good luck.

Ever hear someone say, "It's dead," to describe a joyless endeavor or relationship? Nowadays, most people seem to feel this way about life. But suppose that death is no excuse and resurrection necessary, as if a dead life were lived on borrowed time, as if these self-described dead are just fed chips until the dam breaks and they have to run. Suppose that the ordinary man is the dead man, if he calls himself that.

But how do you know you're ordinary? Yesterday, I had no heart to get out on the river and fish, let alone mount the bank and march like a soldier in shorts through dense thickets of briars, breaking past the abrasions so fast they barely scratched, getting to the other side of darkness and down the bank again into water, new water to explore, which returned me to life as I described in the previous post.

If instead of saying, "It's dead"--about anything--you say, "I will," then you are a man, not an ordinance.

The Delusion Everyone Calls Reality--and Fishing the South Branch Raritan River

I found an immense tree today, walnut, I think, photograph's below. Drove to Three Bridges and trudged directly downstream, never stopping for the deep holes at the bridge, mounting the bank and tearing straight through thorns intent on making time, for I had little. And then I found it wasn't really futile, because I had got out and exercised my will, resurrected the angling outdoors spirit when the hiatus had threatened to enclose me in the delusion everyone calls reality, but the stretch just went on and on into the distance another quarter mile, the water little more than ankle deep, and my time running out. And when I turned to slog back through the water--wow, this tree with the six-foot wide trunk! Hello grandfather! Haven't seen you in many years.

I even fished a shiner in a cut where I previously caught two on a Senko, then posted about three weeks ago that I felt September would be real good. My apologies on that count; I really feel them because I may have misled you. It's almost mid-month and I've hardly fished, let alone caught a lot of smallmouth bass in the South Branch Raritan. Innocent hope, but I try to become wiser yet.

Yes, shiners and certainly enough time to have caught a few bass--nothing. The cut yielded only a chase by a very small bass, and as usual, the bridge--which I have passed up in recent times--was dead. I tried it today on return with hopes. I felt refreshment because I fished hard, but caught nothing.

I have managed to get around the river this summer and feel accomplished. So far my largest smallmouth on the South Branch is two pounds, but I've attempted one about three-and-a-half.

Joseph Campbell and the Great Adventure

Perhaps very few of us do what modern mythologist Joseph Campbell describes as a great adventure, his claiming that those who pursue a path through life are following in the footsteps of others and are not on an adventure. That's how society is; obviously we could not have civilized values without pathways, and most of us are happy to earn rights to follow the lead of competent others. but this order includes the very rare as well. Those who go their own way. They either wreck their lives failing return to what Campbell calls the common light of day, and they are marked for that, or they achieve a great "boon" as Campbell names the productivity of eventual exchange among others. 

Sound results recognized by others to have cultural value after the adventurer's going off the beaten path don't begin to become evident on the broad scale until he has returned, although this doesn't so much mean he adjusts and conforms, but to a great degree may transform the old order in need of new life. Even chaos is an extremely subtle order he must confront, survive and move beyond as he makes his way through a return to the future. Lives are threatened by this, that and the other thing every day, and while few of us intentionally place ourselves in harm's way, some us who do so seek to gain the experience, knowledge and wisdom to make good from what could have killed us. The successes are surely much more rare than failures. A schizophrenic may tell you about an adventure, and if any were to tell me so, I would grant the individual's word. But his or her return to normal dealings with people in a world with a difficult market for success, I would doubt this eventuality, though not rule it out as impossible.  

For my Recorder Newspapers syndicated column this week, I wrote that angling may be a difficult way to approach success in life, but what you can learn from offering lures to fish is analogous to making contributions in human society. Fishing is light fare, however, when it comes to cultural contribution. Nevertheless, we anglers participate in nature: this is the primary process; civilized order is secondary to it, and it is always our best pride to add value to our human community. 

Everything manmade is nature rearranged, including what we take from our re-creative experiences, which are personal resources for empowering our responses when we return to ordinary society from an outing. The great boon, as Joseph Campbell wrote, comes first from abandoning the world as we understand it. I think of Izaac Walton's abandonment of the British Civil War and Oliver Cromwell's rule, and there's no doubt he left the ordinary world and bestowed the boon of the most bestselling book besides The Bible and The Book of Common Prayer, but fishing, at least for me, serves as a lesser reminder of adventure I had in youth. It's too much to relate in a blog post. I sought the secret of nature, wanted to know the inner truth of matter and attempted to fully enter the world's natural process in a way much more profound than I do by fishing.

Philosopher Ayn Rand would never have approved of Joseph Campbell's "mysticism," but as a youth I admired her profoundly and followed her philosophy along with so much else I studied. She stated that a man cannot long survive in a state of nature. Rather than avoid a test of this, I did what poet and literary master T.S. Eliot suggests: "Only he who risks going too far can know how far one can go."

I wrecked in the end but never quit the effort to pick up the pieces and move into this world we share. Had I not ruined my life to such deep degree, I never could have experienced my life's source in nature to the degree that made me fortunate rather than dead. Nor could my mind and imagination have opened to what is deep within and high above. I don't regret having walked out to discover what obsessed me so intensely, not even at the cost of having to work wage jobs thereafter, but I hope not until I would retire.

It's not for any but a very few to try the likes, and people are always there to help these few--by discouraging them. The best I did was get far away from people so I could hear the undiluted tone of my own voice. But they were almost right about my ways leading to the impossibility of normal life.

Mohican Outdoor Center, Catfish Pond, Kittatiny Ridge, Delaware Watergap National Recreation Area: Fishing for Return

Mohican Outdoor Center on Kittatiny Ridge is a great place to stay, and camping under the stars last night, the weather fly of the tent not obscuring vision through netting, felt wild and wonderful. Since I forgot fires are prohibited, I left the Coleman stove at home. So we ate in Blairstown on the way to Blue Mountain and Crater lakes, or so we thought. Since Hurricane Irene, the road is still in disrepair. This results from the breakdown of our economy and  Federal Government of course, and I'm not blaming the President. 

These two gorgeous lakes sit high in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. I wonder if the road will ever open again, whether or not from hereon these lakes will be accessible only by long foot hike as our entire civilization crumbles as has this road, leaving us all in the cold, reduced to being savages as was the case after Rome fell not all that many years ago, really. Glacial Crater Lake, after all, is much older than ancient Rome.

We stopped at Watergate Park for lunch and checking about for bass and snakes, found neither. Then we went back into Blairstown for coffee and snacks, and back to Mohican, which features a beautiful, clear water glacier lake, Catfish Pond. I fished, starting out very slow as far as confidence and energy return goes. I tried a Husky Jerk and settled on a Senko for the most part. I did tempt a pickerel to strike, but otherwise failed to find fish, although I finally got energy coming back to me. Don't make fishing--or anything else if you can manage--work. Don't just expend energy, exercise energy with focused intent so that more comes back to you. Play. Why reduce a being--you--here to enjoy and gain through life to a machine-like function of work?

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Burnham Park Morristown Ponds: Winter Oasis

I was amazed to find within the city limits of Morristown a small public park, under the stewardship of the Burnham Park Association, loaded with large pickerel and good sized largemouth bass. For a couple of consecutive winters in recent years, my son and I managed to fish open water on warm January and March days, catching pickerel averaging 20 inches on live shiners. Our largest was just over 23 inches, and I’ve wondered just how big they get. All were released in excellent condition without a word said to anyone, although plenty knew and fished the ponds. We fished here in 2011--before I wrote the following story for my column--and 2012, getting skunked repeatedly. I had hoped people would keep the fish in the ponds, which happen to be state-stocked with trout in the spring. With the very good water quality of both ponds, the fish will certainly make a return if they're allowed to. For now and until who knows, the following just seems to be a good fish story. I don't believe the people who seem to have taken fish were readers of the newspaper with upscale subscription lists, and I have nothing against a fish being taken home on occasion, but I will state my firm opinion that ponds like these should have better protection than general, state-designated limits on catches. Perhaps catch and release only is too stringent, but a limit of five pickerel, five bass can mean the bulk of a fish population vanishes.

          The two ponds are separated by perhaps a hundred feet of lawn, the upper about two acres, the lower three. Most anglers fish them for trout which the state stocks during spring, and may miss any clue to the brawny denizens that stalk aquatic vegetation year round, although during warm water seasons this vegetation presents obstacles to fishing. I’ve been very grateful to fishermen who have discovered the fishing otherwise kind enough to practice catch and release, because these little ponds could lose the life thriving in their clean waters very quickly to series of diminishing limit catches.

          Unless we have a winter like recent ice fishing opportunities, chances are January and February will present open water conditions at some time, and when ice melts in March, warming trends will arouse activity. The key to catching a number of fish in cold water here is to get out on an afternoon that peaks at least into the 60’s. One of those January days four years ago hit 72, and pickerel fed fiercely. I remember catching 22 inch pickerel one after another, releasing them at water level, and letting them bolt off from the cradle of my hands as if from an experience they might want to remember—to avoid next time. As quick as they slayed our shiners—and any forage swimming near them—we turned their wedge shaped heads filled with razor-sharp teeth our way to give them a surprise in turn: a look at bigger guys.

          Too much of a good thing begins to turn pleasure to dismay—unless you are far away on a wilderness lake. What I mean is that to have this sort of wild action within the civil city limits of historic Morristown seems a little odd to me. As I remember, I didn’t feel put off by long moments between assaults of strikes, and settled easily into quiet, methodical search as if relieved.

          The method is simple, although warm enough weather may nuance technique by use of spinners, or especially floater/diver plugs like Rebels or Rapalas. It’s possible to catch more pickerel and bass on lures because a wider range of water may be fished by quicker retrieves, and the trouble taken with a small bait bucket and tending shiners is eliminated. But unless water has warmed enough and the fish are feeding actively, shiners work much better and can easily be the difference between catching fish or not.

          Don’t let anyone tell you live bait is unsportsmanlike, because the subtlety of angling this close to nature puts you in touch with life in the way it’s really lived, basically. Anyone can stand back and observe predation on film, but to actually fish with live bait can put you past months of civilized anxieties in a short afternoon. It’s no mystery why I use less live bait during warm months; too much of close quarter with nature tends to take me under it's influence, which I like to some degree, but I also prefer to use the clever objects we devise, putting various lures at competition against one another and judging results.

          A disadvantage to using shiners at the Burnham Park ponds is that casting distance is limited. Using a sinker would only destroy the needed action. It’s called live lining because the shiner is allowed to swim freely. Make sure to tie a plain shank, size 6 hook to a 15 pound test fluorocarbon leader, 12 to 18 inches between the hook and small barrel swivel. Fluorocarbon is abrasion resistant, but I don’t recommend less than 15 pound test against such teeth. Try to get at least large sized shiners—extra-large if you can—at Lebanon Bait and Sport, Efinger Sporting Goods, Stanhope Bait and Bait, or Dow’s Boat Rentals. The fish we have caught would take a 7 inch shiner with ease, and a baitfish that large would cast well.

         Try right at the spillway of the upper pond in deep water (6 feet). Otherwise, pickerel and bass tend to be at least 10 yards out from shore and almost anywhere, hiding within and around residual vegetation. Cover territory and enjoy this natural oasis in an historic, urban setting. Find it along Washington Street and Mendham Road, which becomes Route 24. It may be what you deserve during drab months that may make you feel otherwise that the only activity outdoors is pedestrian and undesired.

 

Batona Trail, Carranza Memorial, Atsion Lake, Franklin Parker Preserve: New Jersey Pine Barrens Camping

This would be the only post without mention of fishing, but we

drove to Atsion to get our camping permit and stopped to check out Atsion Lake, not fishing actually, but thinking of it. Tea water tends to turn those of us familiar with clarity away, but pickerel love it, and plenty of water in the Pinelands has largemouths.

Having got to the Atsion office at 3:30, we couldn't register for Lower Forge, which would have allowed us a five-mile hike on the Batona, full packs. So we hiked the half mile into Batona Camp after paying our respects at the Carranza Memorial, erected after Carranza, the Mexican Lindberg, crashed here in a thunderstorm in 1931.

This third time I have camped in this immediate area--1972 and 1979 besides--we left the car parked along the road and the pack felt real good on my back, my not having actually backpacked since 1999. But we found two families with SUVs, kids on bicycles and such. So we took a site and I walked back to get the car. Why risk it to rowdies in the night?

Matt had fetched just a little firewood; he had taken other interests with his camera, and as I pitched the tent, he wandered far off and I knew that his independent explorations made it all worthwhile. Later he returned with reports of fence lizards and leopard frogs, a Fowler's toad, and possibly a ribbon snake he didn't get a good look at. He had found--at water's edge--what he told me he had almost taken for quicksand, but determined it was very deceptive muck, the sort someone unaware could walk right onto and sink to his knees. (And from what I've heard elsewhere--perhaps deeper than this.)

The families left before sunset! I guess biting flies were just too much. So much for an idyllic evening by the fire in the wilderness. But we had a nice night ourselves with cool temperatures and whippoorwills. In the morning we fixed lobster bisque and sphagetti and meatballs of all things, took a short hike to this fabulous waterway--I suppose native pickerel have haunted it for millenia--and headed to Franklin Parker Preserve afterwards.

My dive arched over 10 feet of water and the angle took my body deep. It wasn't yet 9:00 a.m. and we were swimming and enjoying the makeshift diving board. We love swimming in the wilderness and this isn't our only spot. It's nothing special really; that's what's so appealing. You feel no lack at all for pleasure and you don't feel any grand evaluations either.

We checked a building foundation for pine snakes; Matt found a small pine snake I photographed after he finished with his SLR. More fence lizards--Matt shot at least 60 or 70 photos of these total. We have found five lined skinks and brown skinks in the past, but fence lizards seemed almost everywhere these last two days.