Round Valley Reservoir with Fred and Mike for Trout

Third time out to Round Valley this fall, a major curtailment on my habit of

showing up two, three times a week from October through April, and then through May for bass. I can never get enough of this place, so last week I really struggled with my desire to go, finally settling on the work I had to get done instead. Was that a good decision? Definitely. Times exist when, if I don't throw anchor, sort of dive overboard, and get deep into writing especially--lots of chores scattered around it besides--I would otherwise lose my hold on plans and the best I can do with the means I have at staying reasonably happy. But I've experienced at Round Valley life so well fulfilled it's felt enough. Funny thing is, no matter how good you are accepting what you have, time always takes it away. That's the secret of ambition: you can be plenty happy as things are, it's just that life won't let it be. And while plenty of people at least seem stable compared to me, by virtue of my moods as changing as the weather, I am driven all the more to achieve, since every day is new one.

So I got down beyond the Ranger boat dock before Fred arrived, noticing Mike's Volvo as I drove in. He had set up on one of the points, and as I arranged three rods, Fred drove in. Since Fred talked about going around the bend, I agreed, since my favorite spot had a couple of anglers fishing it. Fred had seen a couple of lakers caught where we soon departed to, last winter.

First, I walked off and spoke to Mike for five or 10 minutes as Fred geared up. Part of the reason I was so intent on going last week involved upping the chances of seeing Mike. Well, he hasn't let up a bit. He's caught 30 so far this season, and gets out a lot, as always. He fished shiners today and had missed a hit. (When Fred and I left, he had missed another.)

Fred and I walked some 300 yards to set up where the shore steepens fairly dramatically. He mentioned he once caught a smallmouth here fishing from his boat, sometime back when the water level was more and less normal. Now it's down some 15 feet, revealing some amazing structure as one of the photos shows.

Three rods each, one of mine is the noodle rod I'll never use for steelhead again, since my son and I are into fly fishing for them, but I sure am glad I have it for Round Valley. Casts amaze me. So smooth it's as if the rod's made of butter; that light power, super-slow action catapults a rig forever. And I said to Fred I'll never forget the nine-pound, three-ounce steelhead I caught on a noodle rod, happened to be supplied by guide Eric Geary, and I certainly won't. What an amazing fight, and every bit as authentic as with a fly rod. It's just that when you move on, so you do. We could--logically--move on from 7-weight traditional fly casting to spey casting.

We sat on rocks and stood on gravel and talked about all sorts of things. Two hours went by swiftly. I broke the news that it was time to go, as we agreed on two hours. So much to get done. We may be back late in December. I have an 8 x 10 photo for Mike of him holding a nice laker I meant to bring today, but forgot. But first thing Mike did: he thanked me profusely for featuring him in my recent The Fisherman story.

"My buddy Joe calls and says, 'Mike! You're famous!"

Fred baits at the drop.

Lamington River Restorations Strike Groundwater

My photo files of the Lamington lack, though I have a number of 35mm prints I don't care to scan. This photo shot looking upstream from Cowperthwaite Road's green iron bridge, April 2011. I've also learned from Andy's Facebook site that Urbani Fisheries has surveyed the partially washed out dam in this photo for removal. The far edge of the dam is to the left in this photo.

My coworker, Joe, stopped to have an excited chat with me about the amazing restoration of a mile stretch of the Lamington River. Joe and I have been rangering on golf courses since April, and whenever we appropriately can, we've been talking fly fishing, especially for trout. You can tell by my blog that I don't have much experience at fly fishing, but I sure want a lot more. And though no one can have all he desires, he may achieve some. Once and awhile, I'd see Joe rove in the cart close to the river and take a peek. I spotted a 16-inch smallmouth bass from one of the cart bridges, and lots of enormous carp, but Joe's consistent spiel was despairing, as if he would never again fly fish New Jersey, only Colorado.

"I've never spotted a trout in this river," he said of the flow through two of the courses.

Today, what a reversal. "Do you know about the restoration they're doing back there!?" I've been working off the courses since September, so he wasn't sure I had any knowledge of it. "They dug a hole 10 feet deep and released a groundwater flow!"

"Yeah, I ran into Jim Holland at Shannon's in October. I suggested that they drill for spring water release into the river. Jim said they probably have a well permit and a springhouse might be a good idea, but he also mentioned they'll dig deep enough for possible groundwater releases," I said.

Holland writes the fly fishing column for The Black River Journal, a NJ Highlands publication, and is very well-known on the fly fishing scene hereabouts.

The famous Urbani Fisheries of Bozeman, Montana, along with other organizations, I think, carry out this amazing restoration effort. I read in one of the magazines a year ago or so about sensationally effective stream restorations in Montana, and although I knew a little about restorations of the Musconetcong River, I never dreamed I would be so privileged as to see some happen right here in Bedminster.

The Lamington stretch flows through guarded private property. Only a few can access the coming results directly, and yet this work serves as a fine example of what can be done, given the funds. A couple of years ago, I interviewed Brian Cowden, at the time in a top NJ Trout Unlimited position. We want to take out the 35-foot Warren Glen Dam on the Musconetcong, thus improve river quality greatly, but where will the millions needed come from?

Overall, the Lamington River is quickly improving as this work progresses. Cooler water here is no negative influence on the river below, and some trout may migrate in both directions. Since brown trout are expected to reproduce, some offspring will spread out up and down the river. This seems inevitable, given that a growing population will seek space. I was told by Joe Urbani that the state has already designated this one-mile length of the river Trout Production Water. Formerly, only the water above for some length had TP designation. Further up, the Black River, at least near the Cooper Mill in Chester, is not TP designated. The Black River becomes the Lamington River some distance below Hacklebarney State Park. It's named the Black because of a high degree of tannic acid giving the water the tone of black tea, which the river loses as tributaries feed the flow and tannic acid disperses in sediment and sort of gets filtered out by friction with the bank and river bottom.

The river used to be shallow and fishless for the most part through the courses, and now it looks completely natural with deep pools and riffles leading in where mayflies and the like will flourish, runs with seams and eddies aside of them that just beg for drifting flies. As witness to an amazing transformation, I say never think that because we are technological beings, we necessarily destroy the environment. The folks from Bozeman are living proof that technology can be used to greatly improve and enhance the environment.   

Hackettstown Hatchery Recently Stocked Salmon in New Jersey

Head of Lake Wawayanda at State Park boat rentals.

I was surprised to learn of landlocked salmon stockings recently this fall, since the stockings have been carried out during the spring. Lake Wawayanda got 1545, Lake Aeroflex 615, and Tilcon Lake 240 salmon between 12 and 14 inches, the sort of fish we might hope get allowed to grow larger. This is the result of a trade-off between the Hackettstown Hatchery and a Massachusetts state hatchery--1800 tiger muskellunge to Massachusetts for the salmon in return; not a bad deal, and in case you were wondering, yes, NJ Fish & Wildlife still has the Hackettstown Hatchery mostly for warmwater fish, in addition to the Pequest Hatchery.

Don't be bamboozled by fly fishermen's spiel about stocked fish being abysmally inferior to wild and native, as if stocked fish swim as inappropriate in a natural environment as schizophrenics suffer disorientation. Once these salmon acclimate to one of these three lakes, their behavior is clean, swift, and dramatic. I've seen it happen a number of times. During July and August, salmon will attack herring at the surface, even with eighty degree water temperature, shooting up from 30-foot depths to crash mightily, take their kill and dive quickly back to water cool enough for them to survive. No brown trout will do that, no matter how wild, and I've never heard of rainbows doing it, either.

These salmon are fierce.

  

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area Holiday Events Well Worth Participation

The National Park Service will host "First Weekend" events at Millbrook Village on Mine Road, easily accessed from Interstate 80 after traveling north along the river some six miles or more. A "Victorian Christmas Celebration will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, December 5th, complete with historic homes decorated in the Victorian style accompanied by costumed guides preparing holiday meals on woodstoves and over open hearths, while craftsmen show you how it was done.

I highly recommend it, since my wife and I visited Millbrook Village on Memorial Day last year (source of these photos), and the guides brought the place fully alive. I vaguely felt as we drove in as if, "Oh, no, another boring historical farce," the way that in my teens I did not like Waterloo Village in NJ, not even Williamsburg, VA, very much, but it's nothing fake. It's way better than visiting such places without people in roles who really know what they're about. If you're open to other times, other places--seek them out.

Also, "A Christmas Carol Service" will happen at Millbrook Village from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday, December 6th, light refreshments served. This of course is participatory, and since I sang in an Episcopal Choir for 13 years, I can relate to you that singing really does more than "lift the spirit." It's part of what being a healthy human being is all about. If singing were not natural, that would be another issue, but anyone can sing. And there's a reason for this.

You can find other Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area holiday events elsewhere online.

Happy Thanksgiving and thanks as always for visiting Litton's Fishing Lines!

Jockey Hollow Grand Parade Trail Hike

Angulated fence near Wick House

My wife and I hiked the Grand Parade Trail today in Jockey Hollow, actually part of Morristown National Historical Park. Many books are written on the crucial history lived out here, especially by the troops of George Washington, who suffered record cold during the winter encampment of 1779-1780, some of whom didn't make it. Washington himself was well-protected, I'm sure, though he was no stranger to the situation and profoundly concerned for his men.

I've read none of the books, unfortunately, though I would like to, and the Jockey Hollow Visitor Center has many for sale I have perused in some detail. My first experience hiking Jockey Hollow and Morristown happened back in 1973, when as a Boy Scout with Lawrenceville's Troop 28, we hiked a grueling 18 miles. I remember how tough it was, up and down hills.

Today, we hiked about three miles total, and though the day began for me with very sour feelings, waking at 1:15 in the afternoon after having stayed up to 4:00 a.m., once I got my camera out of the bag and photographed that classic wooden fence, all swiftly rose back in place for me, as the world suddenly made sense again.

For us, a real nice hike, and even though perhaps two tenths of a mile near the end of it made me feel very old, rather than youthful as I usually feel, I accepted the feeling as pretty accurate. After all, in five very short years--as years pass these days at my age--I'll be 60. So I may as well feel it on rare occasion. And then the sun angled upon us after we crested a hill and I felt vital, despite my left leg with nerves that fried from extreme sciatica, the leg feeling weakened as if the nerves simply can no longer support the muscular action fully. It's only after I've hiked a couple of miles that I feel this slight pain and unease. Done hiking, we opened the car trunk and chugged water, and upon arriving home, felt the world from a deeper sense of its peace, despite the association of Morristown with war.

Years ago, I took lunches in Jockey Hollow, while working for New Jersey's largest credit union. Doing this for about three straight years through all four seasons, developed a deep awareness of this land as hallowed ground, although I felt the affinity especially from November through winter. Land that is lush with flourishing summer life relates all too well the success of life in the present, but with the added sense of space late and very early in the year, we may know a deeper presence in the very absence of life. Usually, when we visit a place, we're only conscious of it in the context of the very thin strip of present time. But history is not just "past." Remains are in fact existential, and the present and future cannot, in fact, exist without the past. Past, present, future are what time is.

 Wick House. Here the Wick's lived...not really so long ago.

 Lots of fallen, cut trees on the Grand Parade Trail

 Kids are just as eager to meet new dogs, as dogs are.

 Approaching the Soldier's Huts from above. The four huts, of course, are model renditions. Since enough men camped here in the Hollow to fill a 400 by 300 yard space during the daily Grand Parade--a formality that kept organization intact--I wonder how many dozens of huts existed. 600 acres of forests were cut down entirely to build the huts and make firewood. 

Hut rendition interior.

First Ice for the Best Bite

Typically we get about two months of ice thickening to at least a foot, sometimes twice this amount in northern, high elevations of the New Jersey. In 2008 we had no more than two weeks of marginally safe ice; to get no safe ice over winter’s course is very rare.

For any first timers at ice fishing, paying heed to safety is a life requirement. I never recommend any newcomer go out on ice fewer than five inches thick of clear, hard ice--not refrozen. No one really wants to go out on a deep lake for the first time, poking ahead of himself nervously with a splitting bar, and no adequate knowledge about whether or not the ice he stands on will give way to water that would kill him in 10 minutes. Get a guide to show you how until you feel comfortable and knowledgeable. Joining the Knee Deep Club of Lake Hopatcong may suffice to meet people.

The larger lakes freeze unevenly. Well inside a cove—where pickerel and perch especially get caught—the ice may be quite safe. But walk towards the mouth of that cove, where winds have kept water open until it froze an inch the night before, and into the water you go. Always, no matter how safe the ice, wear a pair of ice spikes available at many sporting goods shops. If you do go through, as unlikely as this is, the points can be jammed into ice so you can pull yourself out, then belly squirm away from the thin area.

In my experience, there’s really no other outdoor pursuit like ice fishing. I have, many times, broken the thin ice of Barnegat Bay as I ploughed in bodily, wearing layered wetsuits for commercial clamming. Once I worked in the bay for five hours beginning at dawn with 10 degrees Fahrenheit and snow, ending at 17 degrees, 45 mph winds, and the wind chill 29 below, that’s the figure I heard on the radio. Clamming was more of an adventure than ice fishing. But ice fishing is serene yet plenty adventuresome. It allows you to get in touch with nature in quiet, leisurely ways, so long as not too many snowmobiles, quads, and power augers are nearby. Plenty of fish species get caught in our region—pickerel, largemouth and smallmouth bass, muskies, northern pike, walleyes, trout species, channel catfish, hybrid stripers, and all manner of panfish including roving yellow perch in some waters.

First ice is best ice. The “black ice” we sometimes have before snow blocks sunlight reaching through clear water depths, often safely covering two to 10-acre ponds that freeze first (and evenly). It’s easy to cut with a splitting bar since it’s not thick as a vault door. Sunlight’s the secret to this fishing. Try to get out on a cloudless day, the kind of day that “isn’t good for fishing.” Fish water 10 feet deep or shallower, clear water among residual weeds preferably, bait tip-ups with live shiners, and try some chrome finished spoons using short jigging rods.

Shiner scales serve the schooling behavior of these fish, since the flashes of reflected light confuse perceptions of predators. But when isolated on a hook beneath a tip-up device (available at many sporting goods stores), these light-reflecting shields do just the opposite, attracting gamefish like a beacon to zero in upon and hit. Silvery, chrome spoons like small Kastmasters do the same.

I go for largemouth and pickerel when I have first ice opportunity, ice which hasn’t been corrupted yet by melting and refreezing. These two species prowl relatively shallow water penetrated by light. With adequate fish holding depths nearby (if any), and fairly thick residual vegetation present if the pond or lake has any (hard cover like fallen trees in combination with weeds can be excellent) fish may be skittish, off the feed, and in the thickest of cover, but will strike by aggressive reaction, just as they do under summer cold fronts. I’ve experienced tip-up flags flying high, bass stripping off five or ten yards of line and dropping shiners, refusing to swallow. After first ice, when a bass takes a shiner under a tip-off, it will strip the spool if you don’t get to it in time.

 

Round Valley Reservoir Rainbows Hitting as Low Pressure Comes

As often is the case, I'm a little reluctant to pack up and go, owing to so much work I can get done. But of course, the work doesn't actually exist unless it goes as planned, and since I'm ahead of plans two days running, once I got out the door, I felt that little rush of excitement that leaves all else behind to hit the road. I got to Round Valley at about 2:30, checking out the main launch area and abandoning it, since no one else was around fishing, and I wanted to hang out. Besides, Lot 2 is my favorite.

There I met Dave, who has a favorite spot elsewhere, but tried today in the vicinity I wanted to fish, setting up just as I got there. I rigged up my 11-foot steelhead noodle rod--never to be used for steelhead again, since we fly fish them now--and lugged a cast that soared out seemingly twice as far as I can reach with my 6-foot Ugly Stick. (After I left, I figured next time I'll add a half-ounce slip sinker to the line in addition to a 3/4 ounce and see how far that goes.)

I got that cast out, and visited Dave before rigging up the other two rods. As we spoke, a trout splashed about three feet in front of us. Shortly after I had my second rig set, I heard the bell on his rod jingle and a moment later he was fast to the rainbow he let me photograph. That south breeze really had power come sort of across into Ranger Cove, and it kicked up mud. Dave got his marshmallow and mealworm in close at mud's edge. Nothing like my long, light power noodle reach. I set other rigs close in also.

But Dave emerged the victor by far. We had to leave Lot 2 at 4:00. (Actually, we drove off at 4:08.) Park closes all too early, and I guess that's a good thing so staff doesn't get over worked. Who wants to tend regulations all day. The main launch area stays open 24 hours. That's where we went after Dave landed his third rainbow, these fish ranging between 14 and 16 inches.

We hung out for another 20, 25 minutes before Dave left and I lingered into dusk, my brother Rick phoning, the two of us talking fishing another 20 minutes, finishing with his invitation for my family to come over Thanksgiving. I won't even know if I have to work my job that day until Tuesday. So perhaps another year passes without us getting over to my brother's in Brick.

I left Round Valley in the dark, and though I hooked nothing, sure had some encounters with trout, and more important, one of the guys who go for them. There's a lot of cold season at the Valley. It really runs from late September until May, and it's fitting that most of the year is the cold season at the reservoir with depths that never warm above 40 degrees or so. We fish the Valley because the place abandons us, and so we have a little freedom.