Salmon River Lost Brown Trout, King and Coho Struggles

We all had great times fishing the Salmon River October 2009-2011, and me, my son Matt, brother Rick, and nephew Kyle enjoyed this most crowded Columbus Day weekend too, but the results aren't happy this time. All of us got skunked.

Fishing is, in an important aspect, a primordial venture of going out and returning, if not with actual fish or meat from them, at least abstracts in the forms of numbers and memories. Those memories serve a lot better than fodder for fantasy confined only to the head, as well. As anglers we all know it's not just about being outside, but satisfying something deep in ourselves that goes back in the history of mankind long before civilization. Making a catch fulfills that.

We all had fish on, so at least we tangled with salmon, and quite a few. I got to play out half a dozen inadvertently foul hooked kings at length, feel their power and turns, and practice at playing these fish in order to be better prepared for the much less frequent mouth-hooked salmon. None of these fish were foul hooked from "lifting" the split shot weighted hook and bead off bottom. (Anyone who tries to snag salmon is breaking the law.) They pretty much hooked themselves. Suddenly a great fish ran fast before I even had time to set the hook. I lost only two of these to jumps, which is the typical way they come off.

Salmon leap as high as six feet, often otherwise lost by turning downstream and gaining through rapids below a pool. Only mouth-hooked salmon may be kept by law, and of course to hook a salmon in the mouth probably means a better chance at landing the fish, since a hook snagged in softer flesh on the belly, back, tail end, etc., is more likely to pull free.

The debate on the river about whether salmon strike beads, flies, egg sacs would be eternal. Many people say it's just the luck of the bead drifting into a salmon's mouth, or even of the line entering the mouth crosswise and the hook being pulled inside. But something provokes a salmon on occasion to take an egg into its mouth. Since they're running to spawn and their biology shuts off the urge to feed, the intent is not to eat the presentation, but something else no one seems to understand. Rick fished the Douglaston Salmon Run Saturday morning and found a pocket where five kings staged before they would move upstream. One of them turned on the bead and took it.

The highlight of the weekend for me was hooking an enormous brown trout at least 12 pounds in the corner of the mouth, fighting the fish long, but losing it when the 12-pound fluorocarbon leader frayed on the rocks it ran against near the bank. It was an outrageously fortunate moment to have hooked it on a red 10mm bead. This happened during the first hour of fishing Saturday at Ellis Cove, so it seemed then as if the weekend was well in our favor, and the rush of excitement mixed with regret for the loss felt intense. We were there for salmon--although Rick prefers steelhead and I certainly do in November--but hooking a brown trout and especially one of enormous size came as a big surprise. Relatively few brown trout run the river compared to king salmon, Coho salmon, and steelhead in that order. During summer, an even lesser number of Atlantic salmon run, and whether or not the abundant smallmouth bass are resident or come up the river from Lake Ontario in June after spawning, I don't really know.

Delaware and Raritan Canal Recreation at Weston

Tried the Delaware and Raritan Canal again, at Weston, attempting pickerel with shiners--nothing happened. But I fished with vital enjoyment, practicing my pitching and casting in and around thickets. I must have made half a dozen really good casts that barely missed getting hung up, one of these angled around a whole row of branches allowing me to reel the shiner underneath them. Twice I got hung up. Duckweed is still present and the tactic was to allow the shiner to swim into the darkness underneath the matts. I was a little surprised nothing was ever there to grab the bait. I walked a good eighth of a mile downstream of the lock, fishing hard as I went and really enjoying the solitude, no one having braved the weather to bike, jog, or walk the towpath.

The canal is a small waterway 66 miles long, but it's no place for an expensive boat. Most of the fishing I do is in small waters, and while I would like to fish larger waters with better fishing more, I stay within my means as I have to--and get out there. I don't limit myself to the big trips I take a number of times each year. If I can have a half hour's fishing and get my head cleared out, the positive gain is more than time easily invested. That's what recreation does--refreshes you for more serious matters.

And a lot can be said--a lot more than I will note right now--for small waters, even small waters that typically provide poor fishing, like the canal has for me during the past 20 plus years, better longer ago. Why do I keep returning to the canal? I could have fished Round Valley instead. I could have tried plastics on top of remaining duckweed at Colonial Park for bass--last I did that, I missed seven explosive hits. It's a funny thing, but while I unambiguously love lakes, rivers, the Atlantic, bays, I won't give up on little places like those I first began fishing. The first place I ever fished was the canal, when I was eight. It no longer has the mystery for me it had at that age, but I know the mystery is there and when I go, I don't want to leave detached and bored. I want to tease out a response that makes me happy, to tell me not everything in this world is good only because it is big and costs a lot.

Fly Casters Attempting Round Valley Trout

Since the weather's cooled off, I tried for trout at Round Valley, two lines out and just lying back, reading a novel by David Mitchell, Black Swan Green. I had a fly rod in the car, but didn't care to work a streamer, although this is the time of year that streamers can be effective here. Two fly fishermen waded in the shallows, stripping streamers.

It's the matter of whether or not rainbows swing in close enough. They usually do for short periods, when they do, then move on along the shoreline. Of course, the advantage of having a mealworm or two floated off bottom by a small marshmallow is that it's there waiting for any trout that might come on the scene.

I usually float mine about four feet above a 3/4-ounce steel egg sinker cast well out there, but I noticed guys using split shot and not casting very far more than a week ago, when I stopped on separate days to see what was happening. They caught rainbows. Sometimes the trout will be right up against the edge in very shallow water this time of year.

Delaware and Raritan Canal Pickerel and Bass Fishing

(Poison ivy changed color)

 

 

Back in the 1970's, the Delaware and Raritan Canal was consistently good for pickerel and largemouth bass. Since its being drained and dredged, I've never caught more than two fish on an outing. A friend and I even canoed several times in the 1990's and didn't do any better than I have in recent years. On my recent outing, a bass about a foot long nosed my dead shiner. I quickly put on a live kicker, but guess the bass was gone.

 

I could smell the creosote on bridge pilings when I was 12 years old, catching bullheads near Route 1 in Lawrence. I guess I'm sort of hooked on the place, even though the fishing is so poor. If anyone does well on the canal, please tell me about it. I'm very curious. I've fished it from Bull's Island to just north of New Brunswick, most recently finding it nice to be outside in near 90 degree weather and fishing hard for nothing but a close call. I wonder if any of the muskies Fish & Wildlife stocked have been caught. I haven't heard of any, but I rarely see anyone fishing the canal anyhow.

 

Earlier plan was to fish Round Valley Reservoir, but I figured I better leave the trout alone. I bet the water temperature has moved back above 70. Same with the South Branch Raritan. I could have put wading shoes on and caught smallmouth bass on plastic worms wearing shorts, summer style. No use fishing for the recently stocked trout in the river, which I would release, with water temperatures over 70. My neighborhood bass pond, which I walk my black Labrador by, has a fresh algae bloom reminiscent of August.





Yellowstone River Cutthroat and Other Trout

Yellowstone River Cutthroat and Other Trout

 

Fred Matero is today's guest blogger and has an excellent story to relate.

The Yellowstone River, at 678 miles, is the longest free-flowing river in the lower 48 states.  Between Lewis and Clark and Yellowstone National Park., the Yellowstone River is rich in history, but I was there for the trout.  Hello, my name is Fred Matero, and I had the great fortune this summer to fish this fine river.

 

At a rate of 500 fish per 1000 feet of river, the Yellowstone’s prime trout water is the section from Yellowstone Park entrance out though Livingston, MT.  This area is well known as Paradise Valley.  The valley was carved eons ago through Gallatin National Forest to the east and the Absaroka Mountains to the west.  The valley itself is mostly privately owned with a huge agricultural presence.  Access to the river is via multiple public points along Route 89, but it does not hurt to have a terrific friend named Pete with access right across the street and the knowledge to put us into some lesser known spots.  The river is fairly swift though the valley as it comes out of the park at 7000 feet and drops to 4500 feet though Livingston.  Cutthroat trout are native to these waters, but browns and rainbows stocked long ago are very prevalent.

 

Put me in control of a spin or bait caster and I am at home, but it was my intention to fly fish the great river.  As I am less than a beginner when it comes to fly fishing, I relied on the knowledge of others to get me by.  Pete did a fabulous job showing me the particulars of casting, knots, and fly choices.  A visit to the professionals at George Anderson’s Yellowstone Angler in Livingston put me into a license, a few flies, and a lot of hope.

 

Fly fishing on the Yellowstone in the summer is an evening game for sure.  Be on the river about 1 hour before sunset and witness the river beginning to explode with surfacing trout; many leaving the water completely. Trout can be taken during the day, especially on streamers imitating the local whitefish, but if you want classic top water action, the best choice is sunset. 

 

Our first evening brought us to the smaller branch of an interesting split in the river.  There was not a lot of fish evident, and casting a stone fly brought us no results.  This was followed by a move to a bend in the river right near a rest area.  Stone fly and a change out to a Wulff produced interest but no solid takers for us though the river was very lively with rising trout.  The next outing put us in a very large eddied area below a class 3 rapid.  That is where disaster struck as the drag control on my reel popped and parts disappeared into the river.  Fortunately, I also had packed a collapsible spin outfit and a small selection of lures.  I clipped on a ¼ oz gold Kastmaster and the second toss put me on a nice 14” rainbow.  This was soon followed by another rainbow of 11 inches.

 

On my last day, I had the afternoon to kill, so decided to try a different approach.  Returning to the eddy with a dozen night crawlers, I could not scare up a bite anywhere in the huge hole below the rapids, even with a switch to various spoons and spinners.  Looking over at the class three rapids, I noticed that close to shore, on the inside bend, there was some relatively slower moving water with several deep holes.  I threaded a half a night crawler on to a #8 hook.  First cast into the top pool produced a hard fighting cutthroat of about 15 inches.  Working methodically along the rapids edge, I ended the afternoon with 3 cutthroats, 2 rainbows, and numerous missed hits; all released to fight another day. 

 

It was not the complete fly fishing experience I hoped for, but still incredible fun.  Kudos to Martin Fly Reels; they offered to fix my reel at no charge.

 

 

Stony Brook, Princeton, South Branch Raritan River, and First Shoreline Trout

Picking up where I left off in the last post about comparing Stony Brook's and the South Branch Raritan's smallmouth populations, I still haven't explored my log for numbers from the 1970's, but I spoke to my brother Rick on the phone an hour ago, and he happened to mention that smallmouths are gone from Stony altogether. He walked the stream from Prettybrook to Province Line Road this summer, a distance of a mile in one direction, and got not a single hit, nor spotted any bass at all.

How this can be, I don't know. "We used to catch 20 apiece on an outing." And my experience is the same, the stream loaded with bass. It never had much fishing pressure, except for trout in the spring. Rick's only clue is that over more recent years, the stream is running at a lower level; he thinks because of continued building development depleting the aquifer. I said maybe it has to do with fertilizer, but there are still plenty of sunfish.

Stony's been a loss for me over the past decade with depleted numbers on more than half a dozen outings, a stream that used to be a thriving ecosystem, and very important to my development as a human being since it was a wild place--no houses or buildings in sight for most of its length by far, just a couple of homes near Carter Road, Rosedale Road, Princeton Pike, 206. and far upstream in Pennington. My defenses dropped and I exercised senses, thought, and emotions free from the going fashions of the day. I spent a lot of time and the bass made it exciting; the clean water made experience at once fresh and timeless as the stream has flowed for many thousands of years. I suppose the bass have been there since not long after James Alexander Henshall delivered smallmouths from the native Midwest to the Northeast by steam locomotives in the 19th century.

I stopped at Round Valley today, and to my surprise, trout are in. Guy let me photograph his 18-incher, told me the water is 69 degrees and 71 yesterday, so apparently, maybe only apparently, I happened to be there on the day of first arrivals.

South Branch Raritan River for End of Season Smallmouths

I fished the South Branch Tuesday and once last week, also Round Valley, and caught nothing but a redbreast sunfish using Senko-type and slower sinking Chompers worms. I didn't have time today to go downstream around that bend to explore, but did catch an average stream bass and another smaller near the edges of fast water to the right.

We may read about a new spot this year. Even with today's time limit, I can relate a new spot upstream that's deep, a bass lost to it. No further action would be a surprise because it looked good. I thought about two favorite rivers--North Branch besides--and the possibility for really taking some time on the North Branch, possibly getting further downstream from the Lamington River confluence than I've gone, leaving my Nikon SLR behind, taking the waterproof GoPro and a waterproof backpack. Not far below the bridge abutments, where wading the edge used to be no serious problem, Sandy downed a couple of trees and holes have been dug out by the current around the bases. These can be waded waste deep, but I would swim a section further downstream. When my son and I penetrated about a half mile down from Cowperthwaite Road and the old iron bridge over the Lamington, we managed to get by through some thick brambles, but it would be easier to get thoroughly wet, possibly necessary further down.

In my teens, I used to catch a lot of smallmouths in Stony Brook, Princeton, NJ. I had a deep passion for that stream. I'm older now and should move on. I want to try bluewater fishing off the Outer Banks, for example, and have tried the reef in the Keys, etc. etc. But a real longing to reawaken more of this passion goes back to when I was eight, and later knew it best as a teen, if I only manage to fulfill it for a matter of hours on a given day. When I fish the South Branch, I'm limited to about an hour. It's also further from home. But even little time makes a big difference. And it calls me back to try and put some more time in, even though I know I can't promise myself I'll do it next year with the demands of writing a novel.

I keep a detailed fishing log. Perhaps this evening, or soon, I'll revisit Stony Brook by the symbols, numbers, and notes marked many years ago and draw some comparisons. The bass were much more abundant, and over the past decade I've fished Stony half a dozen times or more and found the bass depleted. I don't know why. Fishing pressure doesn't seem to explain it. Legal size is 12 inches and no one seems to fish bass in Stony anyhow and never did, besides myself and my younger brother. Few fish bass in the South Branch, and all those who do seem to release them.

At any rate, all sorts of vistas sweep through my mind and grounding them with some facts from the log will help put them in organized perspectives. Rivers are places that mean a lot more than meets than eye, and why be limited to just catching fish? If so, plugging away at the old South Branch, usually catching one or two average stream bass about nine inches long within an hour, would seem futile. I love to wade and photograph the river, even though many of the photos are pretty bland, and I've done some snorkeling with my son on the North Branch, which is very relaxing and interesting. With the GoPro more snorkeling yet is imminently possible. There's something about experiencing small rivers that brings me home, yet a lot of what life is all about is not home, but novelty far afield and breaking free from such roots, establishing yourself by broader, more expensive adventures--and bigger fish! There's always a lot besides fish to experience on an expensive excursion. But I don't want to turn my back altogether on what I started as a boy, because the river seems to inform me that this business just isn't finished yet.

The most compelling question is that I don't really know what this experience is. I do know it is something that cannot be answered by thinking alone. If whatever it is that pulls were only answerable by a question, then I could answer by framing the question in words and, through thinking, arrive upon a sufficient answer. Or could anyone? Many questions of philosophy go unanswered, or do so at least for most of a philosopher's lifetime. Einstein asked what would be the unified field theory, devoted much of his later years to arriving upon the answer, and failed. And in my case, this unexplained X about rivers, if it can be answered through a question, could only be met through a quest, physical and demanding--and only then perhaps the answer might dawn in the form of a thought. Interesting to consider that such a thought would be no more than a shadow of life lived out. Who hasn't been thoroughly active in hot afternoon sun and relaxed in the shade thereafter, feeling as if all the world's his possession?

It goes back before my ambition at age nine to become a zoologist. I told a Boy Scout parent last weekend that I'm just good enough a naturalist to kill myself if I'm stupid, commenting on red berries I think were edible wintergreen. But not even my passion for science and collecting and observing live specimens when this sort of thing was not punishable by law, which never became a career, explains it. I could read scientific accounts of rivers, which I'm not opposed to doing and have read some, which might help inform my quest. But I keep a sparing pace in the departments of naturalism and scientific explanations. My quest is more related to poetry, perhaps, if this is ironic for the physical demand I mentioned and described in a post on the North Branch earlier in the summer. But the idea doesn't move me to write poems so much as to get back out on the river.