Green Brook Trout and Excel Gas

Haven't been here since spring 1994, when I often caught trout to take home to my wife-to-be in North Plainfield, New Jersey, the two of us living on the second floor of a Victorian manor. The Green Brook is just above Scotch Plains and Route 22 here where I came to photograph it. As I walked in after parking, I thought of how long ago it was, and with hiking boots on the ground, the time seemed pretty distant. I found the place OK, but with some uncertainty as to quite how to get there. Now that I'm comfortably at home, oh, yeah, doesn't seem very long ago at all when I fished there and photographed it with my Pentax 35mm. That's why it's important to get outside and walk with ground under boots. How else clue into reality, basically?

The Green Brook hasn't enough springs feeding it to nourish wild trout, although it does roll down from the 300-foot hills named Watchung Mountains--enormous volcanoes millions of years ago. I stood on a ridge of basalt to get two of these photos, and could have used a wide angle of say 7mm, if any exist, since I could not get back any further with my 11-16mm zoom wide angle. That rock is ancient and persists in existence with a sort of bold indifference to our development. The region along busy Route 22 below is loaded with businesses of every description, but the brook has pretty good water quality at least where I stood. And below 22, in North Plainfield, I sighted largemouth bass. The Green Brook flows on to empty into the Raritan River.

I got on 22 West, heading home, dusk falling, and an old gas station sign caught my eye. Excel, a small-time outfit. I remembered always noticing it, but I could not quite place the station as being in operation nearly 22 years ago, or not. I thought maybe. Now the little building has a caved-in roof, is boarded up on the sides with wood that makes it look aged like a corpse, and the pavement is shattered. I felt it deeply, as I self-identified with the situation. I've always tried to excel in life, and in some things actually have. It's just my temperament. I refuse to feel entitled just because I have energy. I must make something of this, or get destroyed by my own excess.

Driving on, my 2007 Honda with 126,000 miles still smooth as a dream, I thought that could have been me. What the Excel station symbolizes. How ironic, if someone who desired to excel...ended up like that gas station in ruins.

North Plainfield was pivotal for my life. Patricia and I moved there in September 1993. I had just given up my commercial clamming business to begin the long, hard effort at readjusting to the broader society I had escaped, mostly to study and write, although the work in brine to harvest clams paid pretty well. We've since made it by the skin of our teeth. And that spring of 1994, I began fishing again, more than I had since my teens when I fished almost every day, sometimes in the morning before school. When we lived in North Plainfield, I knew there had to be a way if I was going to become anything but a miserable wreck. If we would succeed.

I've made persistent efforts at many things all these years. And I've fished all the years since I was eight, but after my teens, I could never quite get the spirit again of fishing, besides shellfishing. I renewed my fishing log in 1992, yet still wasn't quite there.

And then my son, Matt, four years old, persistently asked me to take him fishing, three, four times a week, and I obliged. Observing his complete value for fishing, his sudden mastery of the plastic worm....that's what made all the difference.

My New Website

Trout: Water was not so Low; Water was Colder, too

No word of lakers today, besides John's mentioning desire to catch them, and my reply about nothing but lakers last January.

"If I knew that, I would have been out here more often."

Haven't seen John in three years or so, but he's been out here every year since we last spoke.

Just had enough time to check up on things by taking a long way around to work. Mike had fished for an hour, earlier, John told me. But besides the two of us there, one other guy we don't know fished the opposite point. John's rainbows came on Power Bait weighted with split shot, fished in close. And they say only recently stocked trout hit power bait. Even a few naturally reproduced lakers get caught on the stuff.

I think the water has yet to cool off before it gets anywhere near freezing. Remember that last year, the reservoir didn't freeze until February. It sustained brutal January temperatures as we caught lakers in weather as cold as 15 degrees in the early afternoon.

Don't think we caught too many. John's is a good catch. More often than not, we get skunked, unless it's October or late April, perhaps. Dave has proven an exception to that rule this season, and if he had been around during the years I fished here often, I either would have learned to fish closer in--or the fishing would have been better than it was, to equal the catches I've recently heard about.

Water was not so low. Water was colder, too.

Lake Trout Shore Catches Appearing

Thinking I was already sort of awake, weird dreams making me think about the meaning as I slept, for 10 or 15 minutes after I really did wake up, I felt drained of all motive, even as I began preparations by exerting painful will. My idea involved Matt, me and our dog Sadie at the reservoir by noon, and I had yet to phone Fred, but the clock had already turned past 10:30.

We managed to push out the front door at about 12:25. Fred told me not to expect to see him. Down I-78, but before exit 26, I said, "Matt, we need to get licenses. Do you have any cash?"

No. So I exited and turned back. Time wasting, we got to Behr's, and as expected, he doesn't sell licenses, but told us to buy on Matt's mobile. We got a dozen shiners and headed for the reservoir...where Matt still processed his license and we lost signal, of course. Something else I didn't think of, so we headed up to Route 22, where he completed his purchase and began to process mine. We got some notice that customer information can't be found. More time lost, we headed to Sportsman's Rendevous in Flemington. Almost there, it occurred to me they might be closed. Sure enough.

"This is proof of God's existence," I said. "We're so stupid, there must be greater intelligence in the universe." Neither of us had thought to check hours on the mobile. Now what? Efinger, many miles away? I thought of Wal-Mart. Matt phoned. Not the ideal place to do business, but relatively nearby. On the way, Fred phoned.

With about an hour to fish, we finally arrived at the reservoir, when we would have had four hours. No, we never gave up. Grating on the stomach and nerves, sure. But I never let it get to me outwardly, except I had a few more words of complaint than usual to share with Fred.

Spoke to a young man with a light rod and a fairly heavy Kastmaster, who had nailed a rainbow. Other than this, no fish. But the good news is that before Dave and his crew arrived--before Fred, and before my son and I--two lakers got caught on shiners.

I really didn't expect them this year, but just like last, maybe they're a comin' in with January. The weather has changed much for the better, with that sickening mildness and warmth fit for soft bellies finally driven south where it belongs. I can still feel chill on my face and it's entirely welcome. We northerners are industrious hard asses compared to the southern world, because we freeze.

Anyhow, we used the right bait. And as all of these outings turn out in the end--a good time for all. I drove home feeling great, and Matt was in fit shape too, hitting the buttons on his mobile as he prepares for a possible internship in the plasma physics lab at Princeton. I wish him all the best in his high endeavor, but he recognizes that the outdoors will challenge anyone, and if you persist, you'll always finish well. People think there's nothing to it. Until they try, which most don't do.

Round Valley Reservoir December Trout Shore Report

Went to check out the Round Valley scene and get away from it by hiking a ways before work today. Mild weather on a Sunday had a lot of people out. Lot 2 was loaded mostly with hikers, but plenty fished, although the only trout I heard about caught, Dave landed, a 16-inch rainbow. He's been catching plenty since I last saw him in November, but as expected, no lakers.

I think if that's going to happen, it's got to get real cold, and just won't this year. I've been fishing trout here a lot since 2011, and last year alone saw the odd phenomena of nothing but lakers caught in January until the freeze in early February. Most years, lakers from shore are scarce.

Lakers or not, I'm sure I'll fish a couple of times in January. I really wanted to connect my son to one of these fish, but a rainbow or brown--or just hanging out--will do.

I got some word on Round Valley Reservoir pumps in Mexico for repairs, and no pumping of South Branch Raritan water to raise the level until 2017. Whether or not this is any official plan, I don't know. The rumor apparently comes from an authoritative source. I went online to try to find the information, and for all I know, a more thorough search might yield the documented facts. What I heard sounds completely believable to me, but since I can't verify the truth, I can't know if it is, or let you know much better in this format.

Institute for Advanced Study Bulldozes part of Princeton Battlefield

The Institute for Advanced Study has begun to bulldoze six acres they own of the approximately 21-acre tract including Princeton Battlefield State Park. The Institute intends to build housing on hallowed ground where men fought and died for the founding of the American nation. I've followed this development for a few years; not closely, because I gave up on the news mentality at age 18, at least that mainline sensation of urgent importance I used to vitally feel. My brother-in-law used to be extremely involved in historic preservation in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and he fought the Institute hard and dearly to keep the integrity of this land intact. Since he was up against one of the most famous architects in the country on the other side, Hillyer I believe is the name, he knew they have a lot of power for the nonce.

In the broader view of events, the Institute I felt proud of living near while growing up seems to value six acres of housing an awful lot, as if any question about its image locally, nationally and globally is less important. Albert Einstein had an office at the Institute, as great minds do today, but whatever the outcome--with bulldozers already at work--we all know that if the Revolutionary War hadn't happened, including the decisive victory here, the unleashing of human productivity as never before in history, which has been America, wouldn't have either.

Einstein hoped for international government, an idea foreign to most of us, and I wonder how he appreciated the Battlefield. Great minds come from many countries to Princeton, Orville and Wilbur Wright having made the convenience of their travels possible at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

I know Einstein loved Stony Brook nearby, because I came upon a written passage of his own that expressed the amazement he felt just walking about it's edges to turn over stones or what have you and encounter whatever he found. Especially the awakening of ideas that nature stimulates. 

My brother-in-law used to be involved in Revolutionary War reenactments. Shot's blurry, just like the thundering cannon at Princeton Battlefield seemed to shake the air. He and my sister-in-law cleared out of the area for Maine, leaving behind the Corporate World they came to find no longer tenable.

Like October in December on Lake Hopatcong

Dow's Boat Rentals boats remain available, and Laurie, Joe and Jimmy plan on continuing to rent them out so long as the weather holds. Of course we're hoping for ice, and it's a very rare winter when none makes this lake something else. But for now, it's a most unusually extended fall, with temperatures in the 50's, 60's and 70's, lots of walleye, hybrid stripers, perch and some muskies getting caught of recent.

 

It's all about the vertical jigging now; Laurie's recent report only mentions fatheads for perch in the bait department, not that herring wouldn't work. An eight-pound, four-ounce walleye got weighed in, along with a number of others up to six pounds. A 47-inch musky got caught on a little Rapala Ice Jig fished vertically as well.

 

It sounds like October in December, and I wanted dearly to get out on the lake two weeks ago, but not by myself in one of the rentals. My friend Mike never bought a fishing license this year, and since the season's about over, he wants to wait and fish the lake with me sometime next year.  

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.