Spinners, Shiners & Some Trout About on Round Valley Reservoir

Had used a shiner the other day and today felt rushed to get out the door, so I reverted to marshmallow & mealworm. But the two guys I spoke to, one of them with a Cabelas reel that lost the finger grip, used spinners, one of them nailing an 18-inch brown that hit hard yesterday on two-pound test line. 

That excited me. A hard hit in water that must not be above 40 degrees. A month ago I met a man who uses Redfin floater divers fully four or five-inches long. He had been nailing browns in 30-degree weather. 

Those are the sort of conditions that force you to shake the ice out of the guides. That didn't pique my interest, but now with temperatures on the incline, I guess I'm in the mood and may cast a spinner soon. But next time out I'm trying another shiner. I have enough--if they survive in the aerated bucket--to try the Delaware and Raritan Canal on a day auspicious to walking, also. Pickerel there, maybe bass. 

The pickerel behave like little devils you meet in the submerged brush right along the bank. They streak out and grab the shiner in full view with water clear enough. Then they turn and dash out of sight all in a blur of quickness. 

Another man came along excited about driving out--to Cabelas. He had made the stop here at Round Valley to get two hours of trout fishing in before driving all the way out there in Pennsylvania to browse. Nothing. But he filled me in on a spot. 

The implication of his story is that I should have fished there all winter. He also said Lake Wawayanda had 10 inches of ice over the weekend, but that it was second hand information and I doubt it, but Wawayanda is way north and elevated so I can't say for certain. All I know is that ice thickness during the season certainly does vary in New Jersey; in the northern counties alone it does. It does on a single lake too. 

Feel Spring's Presence in the Environment Just as a Tiny Change in the Tide Implies the Whole

Have run into John at Lot 2 Round Valley Reservoir for a couple of years now. He told me about the 24-inch, 5 1/2-pound rainbow he caught this January. "It leapt four times, clear out of the water." His fishing buddy had passed away recently and he uses his rod as a memento, the tag from the Round Valley Trout Association he plans to attach to this rod he caught the trout on. The Association was good enough to return the tag to him. He always fishes trout with three rods and his buddy's made the big difference for him this season. The fish looks great in the photo print he showed me. I first met John late in November 2011. He had caught a four-pound largemouth just minutes before I arrived, showed me on the cell phone. Last February almost to the day, he showed me the first lake trout I had seen caught from shore.

Two other groups of anglers arrived and one fly fisherman. The weather conditions were very auspicious: heavy wind blowing into the cove, clouds, and falling barometer. It seemed to get everyone interested, but no one caught anything. John had two hits in four hours. 

I always feel spring stir in late February and I wasn't the only one who felt it today, even though temperatures are in the low 40's. You can sense the change if you are immersed enough in nature on a regular basis. It's an almost imperceptible difference at first, like tide that has just shifted from slack to barely coming in. But you feel the hint of spring large in the environment just as a tiny motion in the water implies the whole.

Boy Scouts Ice Fishing: It's the Sort of Thing They Don't Ever Forget

25 acre Brule Lake in Pennsylvania's Black Mountains or thereabouts must be about on the same lattitude as the Jersey state line shared with New York, but the ice was about 10 inches thick, unlike any here. Supposedly, the elevation is above 2000 feet.

 

We drove 3 1/2 hours Friday night, arriving well before midnight, and left this morning at 9:30. The Scouts built Quinzies to sleep in last night, closet thing to an igloo. And they caught some pickerel, actually quite a number of pickerel 14 to 18 inches.

 

Tom had cut the first dozen or so holes and set tip-ups. A couple of hours later, I figured most of the tip-ups were too deep and away from weeds. There are some largemouth in this pond, but apparently mostly pickerel are expected. So I slung the power auger onto my shoulder and cut a line along the west side, setting tip-ups so the shiners swam just over 7 to 10 foot bottoms. Not only did I finally man my own power auger, doing this made all the difference in numbers of pickerel for the boys. I found it to be an awkward machine, but it sure cuts through 10 inches of ice easier than a split bar.

How Explain Fishing to Someone Who Doesn't Fish?

Think I'll fish the canal soon. Winter felt very long as I tended the rod here in the middle of it. It's been good, every visit, but I think once or twice walking the tow path and pitching for pickerel will mean more involvement and interest. How do you explain that to someone who doesn't fish? 

In everyday life, there's never occasion. Fishing's like music: rhythm, tone, variation (of melody, instrumentation, voice). Fishing involves rhythms of walking, casting, wind, responses from fish. Involves water tone. Temperature has a sort of tonal quality. The sky has tone, and plant life, rocks and soil. All sorts of inner emotional responses to environmental variations can elicit melody. There's nothing like stepping away from distractions (road sounds tend not to be healthy and countering this by radio or c.d.'s can tend to get desperate). You move into a natural environment where ideas emerge without the performance demands of the road. There's a difference between highway thoughts and thoughts when you slow down and absorb a large environment. We all know about road rage. I've never met a fellow angler out here in such a mood, not even in stormy weather. The closest we come to that involves the exuberance of fighting a really big fish, but rage? Nah.

Thoughts on Temperature, Comfort, Civilization, Outdoors. Bluebird Skies and No Trout at Round Valley Reservoir

Bluebird skies and no trout. I did see a dad and very young son on the dock with rod and bobber by the gravel launch to the left. Funny seeing a red and white bobber in use with 28 degrees. Now it's goodbye to cold weather, so enjoy it while it lasts. I just wish I could get out on the ice, and I suppose some were out today to the north in New Jersey. I loved the enveloping pressure of cold on me today aided by breeze, and while I detested cold as a boy, once I tried ice fishing at 15, I began to like it. As a boy I enjoyed a lot of comfort at home and I was very conscious of how good all that felt. Hot weather felt exciting as if comfort at 70 degrees was keyed up in the way that comfort is the prerequisite to energetic good times. I'm just imagining things, but it's interesting to speculate on. Why does any temperature feel good? Just because we can survive without clothes at 70? Perhaps cold is punishment and guys like me who enjoy it have a need to feel the oppression and like it because they honestly desire and yearn for redemption, the cold being a strong dose of penance. How about the old phrase, "Put him on ice"? This seems really crazy, but I went to church every Sunday as a boy and teen (besides at age 14 when I quit choir for a while and fished instead), and I'm only human. Anyone exposed to all that solemnity will have a hard time of it, especially when his father is an employee of that church. At least it was Episcopal. But I usually have no resentment for that. If it made me capable of enjoying cold weather, that's a plus as far as I'm concerned. I certainly appreciate the comforts of home, but I wouldn't want to feel I could only accept life behind walls. I want to feel I belong with the planet out there. I go out on my own terms, but I develop that logic right out there participating in the real world. So sometimes I'm not sure if I'll return home to that sweet sense of security, since the outdoors has no limits and if you go too far, it takes as long to return. But walls and bars, the kind that keep prisoners in jail, have a lot in common. So if enjoying the weather is penatential, if I spelled that rightly, at least it's out in the open without guard towers looking down on you, but I had forgotten about our government's domestic drone project for a moment. Oh, well. It's still a nice try. And you never know, maybe a better genius than Foucault will come along--all could Foucault could do was tell us that our civilization is an incarcerarium. A genius who can actually liberate the prison. I guess he would have to return from a very faraway place.   

A Summer's High in Deep Winter's Discontent: Leap a Writer Captured

 Sometimes you wing it. Second post I've done today. Happened to go into blogging functions and review post-viewing numbers, and opened the post on Whitesides Mountain from August, including this photo of my son looking up at me catch this unexpected photo. We had a number of series of grand times all summer. I remember that after this day's adventures, it felt like I would never come down as if I had permanently escaped the absurdities, strife, and disappointments of everyday life, and I have to work a wage job, mind you. I didn't miss a day of work all summer and fall besides for vacation and bereavement. That's saying a lot for outdoor and writing discipline: that it can elevate a sensibility enough to see through and over what most complain about. It's how we all feel life should be.

And although since November I've been down deep in dark valleys--it seems that every winter on the road is pretty tough--during this time, I've been caught in a vicious circle of doubt about life only once that I remember. Even with feeling as if the death is nearby, a writer can have the power to find the process interesting and not succumb to fear, even with a winter's deep discontent. Interest engenders hope and calm acceptance, because even things that suck gain as a value by thought, and in the case of one's being a writer--get captured.

Zane Grey and Ernest Hemingway on Fishing: Both Pioneered Big Game Saltwater. Dubious Ice Fishing Conditions in North Jersey

Felt like early spring. I pretty much gave up hope for further ice fishing once the temperatures shot into the 60's a few days after we had ice fished Hopatcong. Years of experience gives me a sense of what's likely, but ice anglers have got out on lakes in North Jersey this past week. The Round Valley Pond remains frozen over with unsafe ice and I guess the Knee Deep Derby that is scheduled for Lake Hopatcong Sunday will get by on the skin of the teeth. Fifty degree temperatures likely tomorrow, temperatures are forecast to plummet to the mid teens overnight and rise to only about 30 on Saturday. 

That's enough to firm up what's there perhaps, but with the snow melt it could be dangerous. A layer of water usually gets between the ice and the false snow ice on top of it, which insulates. In that case, nothing is added to the ice thickness; it melts slightly. All that would firm up is the false layer on top.

With the snow melt, the tulip pokes in the yard are shooting up and my sense is that we probably won't get another prolonged deep freeze and temperatures have slightly begun to moderate.

Read most of the introduction to Zane Grey on Fishing in the car with my line out, second time I'm reading this book. I love his writing. Personally, his covey of young women, who he took along on exotic fishing trips to the exclusion of his wife, is questionable to me. He certainly could afford to raise eyebrows.

Between Grey and Hemingway, those were times less than only a century ago, yet of virgin adventures. The sea had hardly been penetrated for marlin, tuna, and many other species that these two men pioneered for sport angling. And both of them wrote like the devil, Grey a lot more than Hemingway. In the end, Grey published 89 books. Many say his best books are on fishing because they're grounded in realism, whereas the Westerns go over the top. But don't fail to credit the man. His novel Riders of the Purple Sage is the seminal work of the Westerns genre.