Round Valley Reservoir Rainbow, Brown, and Lake Trout in Shore Casting Range

Round Valley Reservoir Trout in Shore Casting Range

          Round Valley Reservoir is excellent trout fishing year round—so long as you have a boat. With most of its 2350 acres of gin-clear water deeper than 50 feet—the deepest about 180 feet—trout have huge ranges of cool, oxygenated water through the hottest summer weather. Brown and rainbow trout suspend in 20 to 30-foot mid-reservoir depths, while larger lake trout typically inhabit summer depths of about 90 feet.  All the action is out of range of shore casters, and during summer most of the bass fishing is too.

          Browns and rainbows don't reproduce, but they do behave as if they would. Sometime in September, when the reservoir's surface temperature dips to 70, the first rainbows sweep in so close to the bank they easily get spotted, but not so easily enticed to strike. Better to eyeball and contemplate these fish than get all worked up trying to catch them. Most will be 14 or 15 inches, some 20 inches or even larger, usually in 10 to 30-foot depths rather than at your ankles. On occasion a lake trout surprises an angler, but most of them don't begin to get caught until December.

          Use six-pound test line for maximum casting range, and send half to full-ounce egg sinker rigs as far out as you can get them, although sometimes it's better fish closer to the edge. If you buy a map it will show deeper water in Ranger Cove than to the left of the main ramp, but the key is to get the bait away from where trout may see you—plenty trout get caught in ten feet of water near the boat ramp, and sometimes much shallower by casting diagonally along the edge. A 7 to 9-foot light power rod is better for casting range, but I’ve always managed with 5 ½-foot light and medium power. It’s a good idea to use as many as three rods per man.

          Run the line through the egg sinker, tie on a barrel swivel, tie to it a 24 to 48-inch length of leader, and a size 6 plain shank hook to the leader. Shiners work, but tend to get caught in aquatic vegetation. (On a rare occasion a pickerel strikes and cuts the line with razor-sharp teeth.) The most preferred bait is M&M’s—marshmallow and mealworm combinations. Power bait becomes more popular, but to abandon the more home-spun approach entirely might be a demise. As absurd as this may seem, shore-bound trout eagerly hit these small marshmallows tipped with a mealworm. Some anglers swear by Halloween orange. But the real purpose of the marshmallow is to float the mealworm. Whoever thought of this was very clever. And it works. You certainly will not catch a bonus bass on M&M, though possibly on shiner—I saw a three-pounder caught in December—but most likely you will catch more trout, and even fish well over 20 inches hit this offering.

          It’s an odd way to go about fishing for species renowned for entomological selectivity, the art of imitations to tempt them subtle and refined. But so is dropping herring down from over a boat gunnel and drifting without any need to cast at all. The truth about still fishing, as it’s called, is that anticipation builds when fishing is slow, and when fishing is fast it is exciting. It gives an angler objective to just sit for once in this busy world. Most trout caught are around 15 inches, so expectation extends towards the possibility of a large fish that trumps the usual size.

          I’ve enjoyed sitting on a comfortable boulder or fold-out chair and looking long out over immense water, taking it in deeply. To take in space is to widen and deepen my consciousness. Sometimes I’ve brought along a book to read. That can be an antidote to getting lost.

          As mentioned, most of the action is in the boat launch and Ranger Cove areas, and the shorelines accessible from Lot 2. To get to Ranger Cove, go through the open gate as you approach the dike walkway and cross the dike, go through the far gate, and walk to the left. From the immediate corner and for a long way around the shoreline is productive fishing. You can also make your way down among the huge basalt boulders along the dike and do well—just respect those rocks, since a broken leg would easily result from failure to heed their danger. Lot 2 is accessed through the main Recreation Area gateway, and if you get information on trails leading to the back of the reservoir, trout can be caught far away from where you park.

          This fishing lasts into May. The spawning urge has gone, but trout stay close. The reservoir rarely freezes and serves a number of people through the winter—day or night, since the main launch area remains open.

I'm writing a book, The Microlight Quest: Trout, Adventure, Renewal, which I intend to get published.

Round Valley Pond Ice Fishing

           

         

         

New Jersey WILD Outdoor Expo at Colliers Mills, Jackson Township, Ocean County

I volunteered yesterday for the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife 2012 Wild Expo Outdoor at Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area, Jackson Township, Ocean County.

 

A large event and full of information sources, I had leapt at the opportunity to help with fishing, and loved helping kids--some who had never fished before, some as young as two--catch bullheads, largemouths, pumpkinseeds, and I saw one yellow perch caught. That the action happened in and from a tank made no essential difference: these kids fished and they knew it. And the bites were as stubborn as anywhere else, but fish came over the sides.

 

Chalk one up for the mystery of my "Healing the Children" T-shirt, featured on one of my surf fishing posts this spring available in the blog archive. I may explain this some day.

 

I signed on for Division email information about two years ago and so I got the general call for volunteers this way. Personally, I was just slightly apprehensive before arriving, although once I stepped into action, I knew I was ready as I had thought I was. In my youth, I had committed myself absolutely to the ideal of laizze faire capitalism: it seemed to me that the demise of my creative potential was the fault of statism and all its influence. But I was no cop out and struggled on. And to the contrary of any demise, I produced enormously; the problem was that no one else perceived this, and I blamed the market slack on what intervenes in markets: statism. So in my 20's, I would not have come anywhere near an event sponsored by the state.

 

I've never compromised on principles. I've simply accepted the situation of modern society as it is, and from "the island," as if Long Beach Island were a paradisiacal safe haven for a writer earning his living by commercial shellfishing--and cross out the as if, it was--I have come to "the mainland." We clammers drew this distinction between the formal, welfare statist economy, and the work we took directly from metaphysically given reality, from nature, from resource.

 

I want to politely criticize one Expo venue concerning saving Barnegat Bay. The information I took in at glance was nothing new, and the set up reminded me very directly of The Lawrence Ecology Club, the organization I founded when I was ten years old for neighborhood peers. We cleaned up a Green Acres woods and Shabakunk Creek, discussed issues very intelligently, and raised and donated money to John's Hopkins University whistling (now called tundra) swan research. We were a good group. But we could not have cleaned up Barnegat Bay. I just want to say that hard, direct law needs to be enacted, and with these rational measures, the Bay will return. If the political will did not exist, nothing would happen, but it does exist dormantly.

 

I was interested in Harmonix Rods (and reels). The blue, holographic paint design caught my eye as it should have, and the specs show that these are quality, sturdy, IM6 graphite sticks for freshwater and stripers in the brine. No short changing is involved: the blank goes all the way to the handle butt as a rod should always be constructed. I know, I used to make custom rods in my teens. Thus, the rod is sensitive and strong. And the guides are not placed sparingly as cheap rods skimp on the ribs of the rod's backbone to save pennies. I spoke to the company's founder, Diane Johnson; she operates near Lake Hopatcong. I have to say that for the price, this a good buy for a special, custom outfit, including reel if you want it. At the end of our conversation, I recognized why these rods had seemed familiar, and related the anecdote. About a year ago, Joe Landolfi and I were speaking to Laurie Murphy at Dows Boat Rentals when Joe drew me aside to show me a set of really cool rods produced locally. Yup, Diane concurred that her rods are available.

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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