Round Valley Reservoir Trout Abundance: An Answer I Never Came for

Feeling it awesome I caught this rainbow four years ago on December 5th. In the post of mine from which I stole the photo below featuring Albert Camus, if not some of the words of this philosopher-hero of the working man, certainly significant allusion signifies my association with him as meaningful to where I've come from that time, and where we've come, because whatever Donald Trump is--I once joked that he's an occasion like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the movie Ghostbusters--working men seem to have largely comprised the equation of his election. Somehow or other--it strikes me as mysterious--I found Camus's Notebooks: 1942-1951 at JFK Airport, 2012. I don't remember if enroute to the Florida Keys or Europe. Other books for sale didn't carry the intellectual importance. I read the book that fall and winter fishing Round Valley Reservoir from shore while I worked in a job I had come to love, just as Camus wrote of the way beyond despair, my taking conscientious stock of his words some six or seven years before I came to appreciate this job so deeply--thanks to Albert.

I'm feeling deeply disappointed for not making it to these same shores this fall--just down further where water used to be, as the reservoir is at record low level. I came once with Oliver for fly fishing about a month ago on an extremely windy morning, the reservoir lonesome besides the two of us. Going on two weeks, I've felt the guilt for not being there as I used to come two or three times a week, though three or four visits since late September might have satisfied this year. You can ask Mike Maxwell the Trout Assassin; he's heard my gripes masked by enthusiasm. He told me Horhey here in our neighborhood swung in with two big rainbows in his trunk recently. Fish of about 22 inches fairly typical this year. Nevertheless, the numbers and size of trout, though I don't deny the excitement and that this is what I feel disappointed about along with my not seeing friends I made there, the numbers and size could never replace the exquisite experiences of appreciation I've experienced for many more lonesome years at the reservoir and write about in a section of nearly a hundred pages in my coming memoir.

Just back from Round Valley Trout Association's meeting, I got some more details on the news a lot of people seem aware of this year. Mike Roman said, "We've never had numbers of 21, 22-inch rainbows like this before." Zach Merchant, the most famous shore angler of the host, said, "It's dropped off a little bit. Guys are still catching fish, but it's not as good as two, three weeks ago."

Behr's Bait and Tackle is closed twice weekly all winter. Word from Behr's quarter speaks of low customer turnout. News I offer in this post comes late, but that's just as well by me, since I don't care to seem responsible for high turnout for the trout. It's just that I do like to see individual men and women who get outside and develop personal appreciations which effectively embrace this world, thus hallowing this worldly presence infinitely more complex than any mind can grasp, and yet vulnerable because we are vulnerable. Let me further plug in this very important point. The natural world is quite indifferent to us. When it seems benevolent, when it answers us, it does so as an echo of our own affirmation. Not necessarily a weakened echo, but a return instead of perhaps more potency than we offered. And it does work both ways. Positive or negative. Energy is subtle, and ultimately where it matters most is human consciousness, not just the gas tank. We matter. If we destroy ourselves, that's all we do, besides taking whatever species to demise and death with us. The natural world as such will simply go on in whatever affected form we leave it. And where we go in spirit--who's to say? No one. Believe what you will. We do know energy is almost infinitely subtle. We do know that we don't know all the possibilities. And I do not want to leave this world in a bad way.

RVTA plans on stocking another 200 undersize brown trout this year. Last year's batch may easily be legal size now, but if you catch a brown trout you can legally keep, I only ask that you please put it back. The state hasn't stocked any of 15, 16 inches you might catch, and the intent of the club is observe these browns growing to trophy size.

Breaking the Bank on a Fishing Rod is no Ticket in

A few afternoon hours can fill out a day, making time off from the job a reconnection with solid assurances at the ground level, instead of presumably urgent matters running away with energies that need replenishment. I felt just a couple of moments when I wondered if I bored my son with such simple pleasures as walking the river, posing him for the photo featured above with Sadie, and fly casting. Shortly before we packed in, I had spoken of us at least encountering some trout, and added that it's important to get out and cast.

"Oh, yeah?" He said, a little too wise, as if my words fell somewhat on the empty side of events.

"If you value fly fishing."

He saw the smile on my face, confident as all the years behind me at this endeavor, since I was 10, and his doubt fled as reassurance came.

Simple pleasures like these I've noted always gratify in me much more than any denigrating caricature of them can deny worth, because the planet is an important value indeed. No one who is sane doubts this fact. The complexity is beyond enormous, but the best part about outdoor recreation is the substantial solidity it grants anyone's character who really participates. With respect to the notion of this gain, simplicity is a unification of many things, not a cop-out in relation to more sophisticated endeavors.

We hiked a half mile upstream from the lower entry of Ken Lockwood Gorge, South Branch Raritan River, in search of a pool to fish, water low, feeling November perfectly present with light breezes carrying temperatures in the 50's, and finally found a small eddying depth with lots of leaves to avoid, catching nothing as expected, and yet I thought of a large stretch easily accessible from the upper entry near Hoffman's Crossing Road, and with enough time to walk back to the Honda and drive over, we did. There I drove on down the roadway with no room for passing and parked very near this stretch I had in mind, where we encountered six other anglers and those trout I've mentioned, which, as expected, wouldn't hit, although a 14-incher did seem to take interest in my pheasant-tail nymph, not actually striking. The rhythm of casting and easy fulfillments of accuracy felt pleasurable, and I often looked askance at my son, who I hoped felt some of the same, though he is so caught up in university applications and his two high-level online math courses--if mostly caught up with his friends--that I think if there's real hope for his taking command of outdoor values I've taught him, it will take hold as he grows older. I'm unusually committed, not so much because I have time to do much of it now--many have more time and money than I do--but because my youth involved an almost daily involvement at the opportunity cost of schooling that would have been more sensible, though schooling never could have imparted nearly as much wisdom. My high school grades suffered, my SAT scores weren't great, but despite my refusal to take AP English--because I wanted to continue fishing more than take the work load--I took the AP English exam and scored a 5, the highest mark. I never forget the girls who laughed at me--me smiling and laughing in turn--when I walked into the exam room, me the only one taking the test who hadn't taken the course. Not all who took that exam scored a 5.

Besides, I read plenty. I didn't need a state-mandated high school to tell me what to read.

As we fished, I overheard conversation among four remaining anglers besides Matt and I, who knew each other. One of these guys had bought a G. Loomis, and I thought of online critiques which, at least regarding seven-weight fly rods, account better for less expensive St. Croix. Eventually, the eldest--early 40's--addressed me. I had already decided he didn't much appeal. First, he tried to tell me all the trout in the pool we fished are big. I pointed out the little 10-incher I had been watching, and spoke of this pool loaded with trout this size last October, holdovers from spring. He never acknowledged the fact, but finally a young lad of about 22 came over and had a look. In the meantime, this elder savvy fly fisherman had confronted me with imperious advice on fishing hopper nymphs, as if, perhaps, my pheasant-tail nymph just wouldn't do. I felt as if our coming President had taken hold of his soul, until I remembered that when I met and worked with Donald Trump--not flinching a flicker while meeting his eyes very directly and shaking his hand--while participating with the Bedminster environmental council concerning issues at his golf course in the township, a session that lasted at least a half hour, no such arrogance as this fly fisher-in-the-know had exhibited came from the President-to-be. But anyway, I gave this younger elder man a pass, thinking after the bristling encounter had finished that he might have been a little enthused, rather than his harboring any lasting need to be top dog.

Five or ten minutes later, another young man of about 22 began speaking, and our conversation ranged over fly fishing salt and fresh, Cape Cod to Pulaski, New York, and Charleston, South Carolina, very pleasant. Matt and I had to go. I have editing work to do tonight, and first my wife and I went out to see a movie in Bernardsville, Dr. Strange, an overdone simplification of the meeting ground between physics and spirituality dramatized pretty badly. The young man expressed hopes that he would see us again, and once again I felt fishing proves to redeem sociability, rather than get lost on "superior" knowledge and G. Loomis as if breaking the bank on a fishing rod might be the ticket in.

Moody Shots

Another summer-like day as late fall comes on, or at least a day like late May, into the 70's here in New Jersey, somewhere in the 60's as darkness came on and I advanced casts with my two-weight fly rod after setting up my tripod in the river. When I walked to the edge of the North Branch here at AT&T entry and exit, I spotted a nice trout darting upstream.

Water remains low, of course, but it's good to know there's a few stockers. Maybe I'll try again in December and give the fishing more time. I meant to get out with the sun yet over horizon, but my wife and I had to talk finances. As things went, I was happy to get my waders wet at all, hobbling over rocks with my father on my cell phone before I slipped them on, finished talking, and got in with the tripod extended. Wasn't sure I was going to fish, not at first, but as that conversation proceeded, came to realization I could get the shots I've wanted since September, put the camera and tripod aside, and cast as dusk deepened. Exactly what I did, casting two spots, but I know I need to come back here another time and work further on these low-light possibilities with the Nikon.

Strong Lamington River Flow and the Broken Dam about to Go

First encounters will deeply impress memory, if genuine. Early in the year 2000, one of my brothers, Rick, phoned to tell me he fished trout in the Lamington River. At the time, he worked as a banker somewhere within reasonable distance of getting here at the edge of Bedminster, my home town since July 1999. I had fished Hunterdon streams on a warm Opening Day, as I remember, and came home a back way to stop and check this river out. I caught nothing, but Rick's call a week or so later got me back to try again, and for about two weeks, I caught many rainbows drifting salmon eggs along the seam of current that presses around the broken wing dam--broken then, too--to then cut along a deep hole.

Summer that year, I bought the 5 1/2-foot St. Croix I especially use for bass, first casts here in the Lamington above this wing dam, my catching a smallmouth. Since then, my son and I have parked at Cowperthwaite Road's iron bridge to hike and wade on down to fish the North Branch Raritan for bass, confluence with that river a fairly short distance away, but a little trying to ford.

This awkward wing dam. It's always felt a little interesting to see. It won't be here forever. There's talk about its removal for many months now. This is what got me interested in the past week to come and photograph it, before I can't. My 35mm Pentax served interesting shots of my young son exploring it many years ago, but I needed a few for my digital files, arriving here at about 3:30, light getting pretty low, although not creating the sorts of quickly passing opportunities last light often makes very valuable. I'm looking out my window on twilight now, and the sky has cleared after I did notice some interesting light for a moment.

I had taken the opportunity of some breaks in cloud cover. It would be worth trying again around sunset, given time.

North Branch Raritan is stocked with relative few trout this month, water very low. The irony is that Lamington River not stocked is flowing strong, surely due to releases from Round Valley Reservoir into one of Rockaway Creek's branches. I wanted to also get out with my two-weight fly rod for whatever trout may be in the North Branch nearer to home, after the shoot here, planning also to shoot there around sunset, tripod with me this time, but the pressure is on and it's just too much for now with my son's university application process and my demanding job.

In relation to these rivers, I won't let myself down. The drive to achieve can trip over too many lines, those lines that novelist Franz Kafka wrote in his journal are meant to be crossed, but anyone with a salt speck of sanity knows it can be lost. A planted garden needs enough watering, but to pump a reservoir into it would leave no trace. 

A Few Moments of Deeper Duration

When I arrived, I felt as if all of life's troubles are worth just coming up here a few times a year and writing first responses in a notebook I keep in my car. A practice that's made occasions of doing this since summer 2014 seem a long time. Arrivals can open up perspective widely and put you directly in touch with life's lastingness. Otherwise, who would disagree that 2014 was a short time ago? A day on the job may seem to last too long, but the weeks and months track by pretty quickly, a state of affairs I don't disagree with, so long as I am able to get away and experience the value of deeper durations.

I finished a couple of pages, set the notebook aside, and confidently jaunted to water's edge, wearing the hiking boots I much prefer for gravel and rocks, to cast a Chartreuse spinnerbait. Air temperature at least 80 degrees, sunlight abundant, water clear as a bell, clearest I've seen here. Not hits came on the first few casts, and I felt convinced by the general ambiance that this wasn't going to be fast fishing.

With that clear water and cloudless sky, I suspect most of the bass moved deep, although sunfish and yellow perch schooled abundantly in some shallow spots. I fished everywhere I could, and caught nothing, although a young man showed up and caught two on a white spinnerbait--about two pounds each--by casting out into deep water, which I did too, though not only that.

I sighted a largemouth of at least four pounds in close, which refused the spinnerbait. I switched to a plastic worm. By the time I pitched, the fish had vanished. At sunset after a few hours, I had pitched and cast that watermelon-colored worm a lot, last of that this year. I also switched to a red tandem willowleaf spinnerbait, which made no difference.

It was a tough one, but I didn't give up. I thought I was on my way out, parking near the exit to cast one last shoreline, when I decided to go back and slowly fish the area where I sighted the big bass with the worm. I caught a little peace. An outing that began so well became one of the most unpleasant I've fished in many years. I can't remember the last I felt my nerves as confused while fishing as today.
 

Rite of Passage Leaves Open Possibility of Return: Nine Years on Lake Hopatcong

The plan was to fish Lake Hopatcong on Saturday, the 22nd, since that third October weekend, in our experience, is the best of the fall fishing. My job won't allow it, and work comes first, of course. So I struggled with what we had to do--go fishing mid-week on this religious holiday when my son would be out of school, and even this got iffy, since job scheduling remained in question for a day. Whether or not Matt and I will ever fish Hopatcong again in the fall is yet to be seen, since he goes to university next year. We've done this--almost always that third weekend--since 2007. Almost always, either he catches a walleye or I do. Rarely have we caught more than one, but we've caught many more hybrid striped bass.

The five-pound, 13-ounce walleye, 25 3/4 inches, photographed above, is our catch. Strictly speaking, I caught it, but first I said, "There's a fish on that line. You want it?"

"You take it. I caught the catfish."

I guess I should have just given him the rod after I spoke of the life on the line. And as the sure death of the live herring used for bait ensued. After we got home, I told Matt once more I should have let him have that walleye. He insisted no again. So I said, "Well now we have to get back out there in the fall sometime, because the only fitting way for you to end these outings would have been your catching that walleye."

"We'll get back out there in the fall."

We made the catch at about 2:00 p.m. near the end of the outing.

Always, we've arrived at Dow's Boat Rentals about 15 minutes before the shop opens, unloaded our stuff, and with portable running lights--at least since about 2012--got on the water well before sun-up. We used to hang out until enough twilight made boating without running lights quasi-legal. At least once, we had to walk the docks very carefully, the wood coated with thin ice. This morning, temperatures in the 40's felt pleasant by comparison to cold and stiff wind past times. Never seemed to really warm as expected, though.

I wrote a post I named "Forget Chicken Livers, Hybrids Hit Herring," expressing my personal sentiment for the lively fish for bait over slimy innards, but I recently read an article by Lou Martinez about the secret that's kept this lake buzzing with catches for at least several years now, and underwent conversion. So I bought 25 cans of liver cat food and two containers of chicken livers. The cat food for chum, the livers to put on hooks. Along with us, a Tupperware container came to mix water with cat food by use of a spoon to create a soupy mix of embarrassing goo. Why does anyone lower his standards? I guess always it's for more stuff, rather than quality, but I remain convinced this method may have some merit, because I won't argue with that stuff--amounting to phenomenal numbers of hybrid striped bass caught by fishermen who go this way. Years ago--Matt told me this morning he remembers--we fished for channel catfish in the Delaware River with chicken livers, and though we caught no catfish, we did catch little 13-inch striped bass. As I remember that outing, drifting chicken livers in current had a certain delicacy about it, so maybe I just need to catch on, I don't know, but this morning not only did we draw a total blank on hybrids, we watched another boat doing as we did--flinging cat food with a spoon--and I had to laugh, mostly at myself. I then felt very tired and curled very comfortably on the bottom of the boat for a power nap, lines out and waiting, sort of expecting the men in that boat nearby to start hooking up. It never happened. And after an hour or two of waiting on this "best" spot on the lake, we motored off to try others.

We caught fish. Catfish, sunfish, perch, a rock bass earlier on. All on herring and nightcrawlers, besides one bluegill that pecked away on a piece of chicken liver I tried shallow. Later, back at Dow's, I was told very few hybrids, and small, had been caught.

We began the morning on our favorite spot. Not only did none of our herring lines register, very few panfish telegraphed any interest in our nightcrawlers fished on the shallow end. No largemouth or smallmouth bass as we typically catch the third October week. We've caught bass on both nightcrawlers and plastic worms. They'll hit other lures. I just like using live worms on Hopatcong in October. That's how I began with my son years ago and it's stuck. Like this spot we always go to first in October with only one exception I remember.

We returned there about noon, and soon I inferred that oxygen is not re-established in the depths. Water temperature 60-62 degrees, it's too warm. Herring died in the depths, asphyxiated, and I realized that when I had the boat positioned close to shallows for the panfish, our casts didn't get the bait all the way to the bottom line of the drop-off at about 35 feet down. Not until I moved the boat further out, and then herring came up dead. Experience has taught me main lake depths oxygenate sooner than more protected areas, so we motored out to a drop-off a couple of hundred yards from shore. That's where the big walleye struck, in about 28 feet of water, though herring remained alive about 37 feet down.

Lots of fog as we motored across Lake Hopatcong before dawn, just a trace of blue.

Matt's rock bass hit a live herring weighted on bottom about 25 feet down.

Lunker bullhead pulled from 37 feet of water on live herring.

Typical yellow perch.

Fly Fished Round Valley Reservoir for Rainbow Trout

Oliver Round and I fly fished for rainbow trout, the reservoir the lowest we've seen, this my first attempt with streamers and nymphs. Oliver's tried before when he aroused some interest from a palomino in clear view, if I remember rightly his telling me a couple of years ago. Steady wind made casting a little difficult, and after taking the blow sidewise after parking in the main launch area, we bagged it and drove over to Lot 2, finding a point out of the wind, but getting no hits.

Another of my outings before going in to work, I managed to get what I thought would be enough sleep, but I'm used to staying up until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. and waking late to go in, so it's not simple. I'll do it again. I'd like to fish for the stockers in the North Branch Raritan Friday, but I'll probably wait until next week, after my son and I fish Lake Hopatcong on Wednesday, since he has school off.

Until we got to Lot 2 and stayed put, talking and casting, I felt that sense of being out to sea without a paddle all of us anglers know and feel a little embarrassed about when it happens. We like it when we're on top of our game, and when things make us feel our efforts more futile than promising, it reflects badly on our prowess. I think this feeling goes all the way back to when our species were cave dwellers and getting meals had every bit as much pride involved in sport as it did necessity. I bet it was no more of a big deal to them as it to us.

Parked in lot 2, casting to possible trout began to make sense, because the spot we fished has proven productive multiple times, and for all we knew a pod of rainbows could have cruised along at any time.

I said, "Why wouldn't a trout hit that nymph with a red ass? They love orange Power Bait." I kept winging it out there and letting it drift to bottom. A lot like I fish a plastic worm for bass.

We talked about the possibility of fishing Delaware River striped bass at night next summer. We could get to one of my spots at about 9:30 p.m.--after I drive to PA and back in the morning a day prior buy live eels...it's all about getting sleep right...and fish until 1:30 a.m. I'll be asleep by 3:30 and fresh for work later in the morning. This would be a weekend night, since Oliver has to work early. My son Matt might come along.

I do think about it. What it would be like not to complicate life by taking risks outdoors...with sleep and other things. I now have a sensitive tooth, because I cut 15-pound test fluorocarbon between my teeth a few weeks ago. At first I thought I broke the tooth. I did, a little. And I dread my next dentist appointment...anticipating the one thereafter. It's so easy to forget prior self-recommendations like: Use the clippers, and if you can't find them, as is likely, dig the pliers with the cutting edge out of the bag.

All I know: I respect people who stay within established routines. So long as they respect my right to step outside. The reasons I do are so deep and so many I would probably bore you to death if I attempted any list of them.

Even when soaking bait with three rods, the typical shore-bound Round Valley trout outing, at least in my experience, results in nothing caught. Plenty do get caught, but it takes time. I've watched some other fly anglers try it. I've seen no results, but of course--it's possible.