Wampum is Money Symbol Better Than Nothing

Wonder and a hole not wide enough to fall into. Or dive, as some would. Brine freezes at 29, and the taste of salt and other admixtures is curiously a reminder of warmth, as if the proverbial salt of sanity assures by its actual substance on the mouth. A wetsuit used to be the actual protection for clammers, but we were always at sea in the winter, consumed except for the point of focus behind our foreheads. Comparing ice fishing to that is like comparing a picnic to survival hunting, but when the adventures were done for the day, we hauled onion sacks of what once served as wampum, money, into the wholesale market, and hot showers never, ever felt better than afterwards. 

It's like an object lesson. Where does money really come from? Banks? No. It's made. And all that is made begins with real stuff taken from nature.

These kids didn't fish any money through the hole. But they caught some pickerel. Not one of them would harbor any misgiving against money, either, so long as it's real and not fabricated. Not that wampum serves any purpose today other than symbolic, but that symbol is better than nothing at all, and debt is less than zero. 

I'd rather work a bay in sub-freezing temperatures and earn money than pretend.   

Clouds Carried Obediently Like Mass Transit Shifts City Status Quo

Forty two-degree breeze, clouds carried obediently like mass transit shifts the city status quo. Sometimes Round Valley Reservoir is burdened from above. Nothing is looking down as something moves by, and nothing lingers to hang along mountain edges like spirit imbibing substance. My boots found enough crunch in the gravel to ground senses to water within range I cast to, which promised trout somewhat, but the clouds didn't seem to swing low enough and as suspected, no hits. 

One of the men I met fishing two days ago had been out since 8:30 a.m. and caught two 18-inch trout.

I've caught plenty when the sky is a blue dome. But when the weather seems angry, when clouds bear down low and spit rain like they mean it, that's fishing weather.

Back to Improve on Development with Reacquired Means

As if things wild, given, undeveloped become the height of civilized achievement. Before cave walls were etched and painted by the first artists, man was a perceptual being without spiritual response, wasn't yet man. Perhaps bones were the first tools, as if knowledge of death began to awaken at the same time.

Most are born within walls and stay within walls. The cold of winter shakes them to the bone, frightens. 

A very few of us find our way outside. Even fewer make it back to improve on development, having re-acquired means where they begin.

Mountain Edges Diffuse in Thin Haze

Soft as a baby's skin, mountain edges diffuse in thin haze suggested mounds of ice cream. They relieved tension as suddenly and objectively as touch and taste. Released at Round Valley Reservoir, I could have been walking on clouds at 38,000 feet for a few moments of realization about how the past decade of my life fishing has ensured my novel writing. I don't choose the word assure to describe this, because actual security in physical conditions makes the difference. If I were pent up behind walls all day and did not get out into the wide open world, I couldn't think with the freedom I enjoy. It's not that the novel is all about fishing--it is in part--but that creativity is generated naturally. 

Caught Another Rainbow Trout: First Day of the Year Fishing and First Fish

Thought intense sunlight wouldn't mean a hit, but caught a 17-inch rainbow. Round Valley seemed a sort of basin of things rolling over the land and into the depths today, as if everything tends to find water and get swallowed. Lakes, reservoirs, bays, and oceans are sort of like stomachs as water generates all the life on the planet, with a lot of help from the sun. But dried grasses and browned branches and underbrush nearly match the iron-influenced gravel along the reservoir's edge and made the place feel like a desert with big water in the middle of it.

I sat up the hill in the car for half an hour reading before I went down to check my rod. The trout had almost spooled the reel, bail left open. It just took the marshmallow and mealworm and headed on out into very deep water, taking the bait for at least a hundred yards or more.

Round Valley Reservoir Personality Variations

Now it feels and looks like winter. But the arctic air mass will fade away by the weekend. I guess it's possible a couple of inches of ice will lure a few ice anglers out by then, certainly not here on Round Valley Reservoir. Don't even try elsewhere, I suppose, unless you're one of the experienced willing to crawl, spreading out their weight.

Round Valley's a different place every time I visit, or the same place but the personality has so many variations that each of 365 days is a new facet, ongoing, so that December 31st of any given year is unlike any December 31st past or to come. But what lacks is development. It's just shape shifting, not goal-directed actualization as is possible to a human being. Nevertheless, I could almost play Annie Dillard in the way she experienced Tinker Creek and get into all sorts of subtleties. I pass on the invitation because I'd rather walk on the gravel, breathe the air, put out a line, take some photographs, and read my book for the bulk of the time or write in a notebook on other ideas. But the wonder of the place certainly lights up my brain.

Caught a rainbow over 15 inches today. 

Ice Fishing with Tip-Ups and Jigging; First Ice, Best Ice: Reaction Strikes in Bright Light

 

Here's a piece on ice fishing published in The Fisherman last season. Lakes mentioned are in New Jersey.

 

 

 

 

 

First Ice, Best Ice

Reaction Strikes for Tip-Ups and Jigging

 

 

First ice, best ice—this is what so many descriptions of early ice fishing amount to for mysterious reasons that no one knows for certain, me included, although have an idea. It’s not a theory separated from practical success on “black ice,” ice newly formed, free of any snow or milky-white false layer. It’s an idea that works.

 

Very many years ago—I was 16—an older mentor and I had December ice in Princeton Township. We got out two or three times on a 4 acre pond for phenomenal largemouth fishing before snow covered clear ice—and the number of flags decreased by a ratio of 10:1. Curious the first day, but one or two more days of that contrast got us thinking hard.

 

We reviewed the conditions: the first days had been cloudless, the ice clear, water clear, and most interestingly, a number of bass had taken shiners, run off about five yards of line, and dropped them. We were sure these were not sunfish hitting large shiners, and we never had this happen on snow covered ice. Largemouths normally take a shiner under ice because they mean it, and they will strip a tip-up spool if you let them.

 

Why Cold Front Conditions are Best

 

I don’t remember which one of us had the illumination, but the idea seemed certain since the bass had been hitting shiners with highly reflective scales in brilliant sunlight through clear ice in very clear, fairly shallow (8 to 10 feet) water. Reaction strikes. Just like a bass slamming a high speed crankbait on a tough day in the summer. I wanted to believe this is true, but it’s a good supposition. You can count on it to frame your approach in December. By whatever cause, or combination of causes, bass and other gamefish tend to hit better just as the season starts. It may seem counterintuitive to pick a cloudless day and clear water shallows to go after largemouths, but these conditions tend to be best for black ice. It’s a good idea to pick a shallow lake like Musconetcong, Budd Lake, a pond with clear water, or otherwise a shallow, weedy flat like Hopatcong’s State Park area, and take along jigging rods with silvery spoons as well. Standing directly over fish on clear ice jigging might spook them, so if water in the five foot range is very clear, rely especially on tip-ups.

 

Fascination & Reaction

 

I don’t believe the classic cold front condition does the opposite of summer and turns bass on during winter. It’s clear to me that if a bass takes a shiner and drops it, the interest wasn’t to feed. Bass obviously feed less in winter; being cold blooded, they metabolically require less. And with high pressure and intense light, my guess is that in shallow habitat, like State Park, they tend to go into what weeds remain. In our relatively shallow Princeton Township pond, we fished the deepest water, over which we could begin to make out the bottom we set shiners a foot above. But bass travel about a pond even during winter. That’s plain to see as a tip-up spool spins. And a shiner flashing before them as they approach, reflecting abundant light, fascinates and incites them to strike.

 

It isn’t that under snow covered ice, bass, pickerel, or other gamefish have no way of sensing a shiner. It’s very dark under thick, snow covered ice, especially with an opaque false layer. But fishes’ lateral lines are extremely sensitive and allow them to directly target prey in darkness. So I ask how much sight has to do with arousing a strike even when fish are not actively feeding. It’s as if they are mesmerized by the sight of that baitfish emitting light from those scales—which normally serve as protection for schooling shiners, serving to confuse predators by so many random flashes of light. But here’s a single shiner sending a beacon that now serves the opposite of nature’s intention. The bass hits.

 

Large Shiners, Small Hooks

 

Use large, or even extra-large shiners if you can get them, for the obvious reason. The bigger the bait, the more it will swim and turn in the light, and the more light its scales will reflect. I’ve seen ice fishermen impale shiners on what looked to me like 2/0 hooks---those shiners pretty much stayed in place, straitjacketed by thickness and weight of metal. It’s not impossible to catch a fish that way. (Northern pike will hit dead bait in winter.) But it’s much less likely without active flashes. Size six straight shank, or circle hooks, are all you need. Go with “light wire” and play out a big fish. If you are targeting muskies, you will need to refer to other techniques, but for bass, pickerel, and northern pike—go light and let shiners work for you. Step light, too. Don’t come stomping to a tip-up. Especially under these conditions when fish are skittish, bait gets dropped.

 

Safety

 

Unless you are well seasoned ice fishing, 5 inches of clear, hard ice is a wise rule. Why? Ice thickness is not uniform on New Jersey lakes. We all have access to plenty information that will tell us a 250 pound man can stand safely on 3 inches of ice, but 3 inch thickness along shore does not mean it exists further out, perhaps an inch or two does.  Who wants to be a total greenhorn at this, poking about a frozen lake with a split bar to test hardwater that may kill him in a moment or two? If ice is relatively thin, you are an enthusiastic beginner, and snow is coming tomorrow—take a little advice. Don’t take this so seriously. Find a guide or wait until later in the season when ice is very thick and safe, get used to ice fishing, and at some other, safe opportunity try for reaction strikes. Someone I knew in high school died an awful death as a result of ice fishing—to fall through is serious.

 

Every year people across the northern tier of the nation die falling through, and I wonder what percentage could have lived if they simply wore a pair of ice spikes around their necks. By whatever cause, if you go though, fasten your fists around the grips, dig the spikes into ice, pull yourself out, and crawl away to thick ice. Otherwise, unless you can at least use your car keys to similar purpose (not as sure), try climbing out of ice water onto ice with wet hands. It may not be impossible, but certainly is unlikely. A throw rope that your fishing partner could toss to you would reduce your amount of crawling effort in such an extreme situation.

 

Ice fishing comprises some of the most rewarding outings I have all year. I love it when dawn greets zero degrees, and welcome colder to see even more steam rise from holes. Get out, brave a new world! And don’t doubt it—be safe.

 

 

 

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