Spring's Here

Today's temperature of 75 here in New Jersey is the highest in memory this early. I got word of trout rising for tiny midges a week or two ago. We've had mild weather with more to come. Trout were rising on the Musky on a recent morning. Not by my witness. Another informant.

It would be easy to check out Facebook and get more word on the trout, but I'll let this pass. Prefer word in person.

A friend of mine fished the Delaware and Raritan Canal on a mild day last week, three pickerel on a jig tipped by Keitech.

Spring is here.

Here's to Long-Lived Prosperity

 The man demonstrated for Mike his bait casting outfit. He gets a very long cast.

Mike Maxwell seemed especially eager, when I invited him earlier this week, to fish Round Valley Reservoir with me today. On the way, I put on Ambrosia's "I Keep Holding On," Mike not familiar, but comparing the music to Pink Floyd, as it began. An album I haven't heard in years; the rest of it is sappy, sentimental, and gimmicky, and I refused to listen, but at least one band member plays multiple instruments; the violin is real and very well played for the song I selected. Later, Mike asked me had I got the weather report. No. I'm so busy I pay little attention, but I quickly understood why he expressed eagerness earlier. Temperatures rose into the 70's; spring seems here.

Hold on, I do. All these years of Round Valley, I've sort of feared what it could be otherwise: just a place the state upkeeps, ordinary and predictable on the level of concrete intelligence. And when I got there today, I encountered a man I judged right away as the sort to experience this place that way, and I knew my gig was up. So that's how it was for me, too, as I decided to let it be and find what turns out. I even questioned the reality of what I've experienced here for years, but as two hours wore on, my mind performed one of its acts of salvation, me knowing that, no, it's not a question of reality, of course not, but what's chosen. Anyone who thinks they know the limits of reality is a presumptuous fool.

And with that, I knew, contrary to Ambrosia's attitude, all my yesterdays have not gone by after all. Food of the gods, ambrosia; someone or other, I forget which name, once remarked that philosophers live on a diet of ecstasy, citing longevity among them, and I could point out that ecstasy, I think, is better than muscular exercise. No one lives longer by an unreal factor, either.

We sort of crowded the other guy's spot. Best spot to fish, so happens. Upon arrival, I spoke to him, but he was little willing to reply. I engaged another opportunity later, which oiled gears a little, and then, when he later began packing it in, I broke the ice. The three of us stood there together talking for at least 15 minutes, as it became progressively evident this man is deeply experienced, fishing. He fished bass tournaments nationwide during earlier days. When he walked on out of ear shot, I said to Mike, "Add 60 points to the IQ, and he'd be Ernest Hemingway."

We exchanged some information, but mostly, I specified some of the points he made, when once or twice he responded with acutely focused acknowledgement. I told Mike later that I've been fascinated in walleyes at the Delaware and Raritan Canal locks for years, and have tried one of them a couple of times or more, but as the man referred to some who do this, I just can't see myself soaking a live sunfish all night long, "watching my rod with a Glo-Stick attached 20 nights running before I get one tap."

There's life in that sort of endeavor, certainly, but although I slow down fishing trout during winters here at the Valley, sadly, most of this exercise is over for me, since I had hours every week, previously, on my lunch breaks. And it never could have been the same sort of peace an independent man with a tough low-paying job enjoys at a canal lock time after time all night. More like a multi-media event for me than that. Only, it was all a real encounter between what's out there in that sort of semi-wilderness and my consciousness.

So we left at 4:00, having caught nothing, but still talking. I shot many more photos during the last hour or so than I've posted, since I've decided not to publish most nor the best, keeping them fresh for possible book selections in the future. I knew. Those yesterdays remain here, but it's different now. Right when we had arrived, we had to rig up, and I ran into some complications. "It's amazing how quickly you go south when you lose habit," I said to Mike. When I came every other day, my tackle bag was just as messy, but I knew exactly where to put my fingers to get what I needed.  

Mike Maxwell

Rescued Ice Fisherman

Some of you probably read my recent caveats about unsafe ice fishing. And you might have heard from the news about the ice fisherman rescued from Lake Hopatcong a few days after I posted. Police went in with ice rescue suits on and floated the guy until the fire department got him out. I would feel embarrassed to the bone...maybe a little cold, too.

What a way to end a late fall and winter musing on ice fishing that hardly ever was.

Unsafe Ice Fishing

Got word minutes ago: two guys were out ice fishing Lake Hopatcong today, about a half mile south of Bertrand Island. No facts on ice thickness, but my informant was pretty sure it was unsafe.

Guys do it. I once crawled out--a rope around my waist--on two inches of ice over clear water, viewing bottom 10-feet below me, and cut holes with a hatchet. Ice crackled outward from cuts, slightly threatening to weaken under my left hand supporting shoulder-weight.

I set tip-ups. And then watched from shore.

More recently--2008 I think--on Lake Musconetcong with my son, I told him to keep back on the safe three-and-a-half-inch ice, while, curious about a spot, I got on hands and knees, progressing for about seven or eight yards on ice two-and-a-half-inches thick to place a tip-up.

I may not be well-known for this, but I have a streak of hubris. That day, my son and I ice fished for two hours on clear, hard ice before my mood grew until I felt confident that if I fell through the ice over five feet of water, it wouldn't matter. I once suffered a big wetsuit rip in brine of nearly 29 degrees. Treading clams commercially. Air temperature 22, wind 45 mph. I was more than a hundred yards from the boat. The incident resulted in deep second-degree hypothermia, which felt as if I drank at least two six packs, but of course--I'm here to tell you.

Also to tell you, if you do go through extensive thin ice, you likely have less chance of survival than falling through thin ice with thicker nearby. I had ice spikes on Lake Musconetcong that afternoon, but they would have worked by allowing myself to pull my weight up onto ice which at best would support that weight.

Obviously, if I fell through those two inches of ice I dared, I would probably have to keep breaking ice and sort of swimming or floundering, until I reached water shallow enough to stand in. Similar on Lake Musconetcong. I would have had perhaps seven or eight yards of struggle to overcome before my time was up, though I have to say, I was aware the spikes would have helped. Grip that ice and pull! Grip and pull!

Disrespect for my son is implied. Imagine an eight-year-old boy witnessing his Dad in that situation. He would feel, if he did nothing--even if I told him to stay back--compromised.

The hubris I experience, no doubt, does involve heightened perception and heightened tactile coordination. Inevitably, the inner desire of a man of such drive is to try what he sees is possible. But it is dangerous. And it often seems ethically edgy at best.

It can seem to others downright foolish or crazy. But, in fact, the experience--and in my case, I'm ultimately the only one to know the experience at its center--is in essence neither. The hubris is a form of natural force, though of course, to yield to it is to choose to do so. It is dangerous and certainly unconventional, yes. The very essence of daring adventure, and never to be imitated or faked, because without the heightened senses, it is suicidal.

The ethics would require more analysis than I care to offer here. 

Fly Fishing March

Sometime in February each year, I feel March approach, the month always proving the process of spring's unfolding has begun. A few times, I've fly fished trout in March, and though I have fished stream trout successfully in February, I would have to consult my handwritten log to be all but absolutely certain I've never tried streams in January. For many years, this hasn't mattered to me, if during the last few or so, I've begun to think of doing this. Last winter, I thought of it a lot, but I never got out this January on any small river or stream, if perhaps next winter I will, or rather, when I get the time. And perhaps the boot-foot waders.

I think this March I will do it.

Over the years, I've caught a lot of bass in March. Quite a few in February also. This year, if things work out and I get an evening, I've learned the whereabouts of a pond nearby I've never fished, with bass present.

Lake Hopatcong Anchoring Restrictions Scrapped

According to the Daily Record, the plans to limit anchoring further than 200 feet from shore between May 15th and September 15th on Lake Hopatcong have been scrapped. No details offered in the story, I can only assume Knee Deep Club and its President Eddie Mackin have especially spoken effectively on the behalf of all of us who fish the lake to gain this result we need in order to continue fishing freely, although no doubt, everyone who wrote the  Boat Commission Chair has helped. Never assume people with more power will take care of such an issue for you. Everyone's voice is important.

So next time I'm on the lake between that period of time when restrictions could have stopped me from anchoring, when I do anchor, I will remember and feel grateful.

Shaping the Planet to Suit Life at All Levels

I'm finishing an article for New Jersey Federated Sportsmen's News about dam removal in this state, obliquely about dam removal nationwide. Alan Hunt at Musconetcong Watershed Association pointed out to me that free movement of migratory fish species positively affects the entire food chain. Brian Cowden of Trout Scapes River Restoration LLC told me striped bass have actually got caught in the pool below what was the Hugesville Dam, removed last year, and to now expect stripers up in the Musky Gorge. (We need to know how big, since we're anglers...an 18 or 20-inch striper in the Musconetcong River isn't bad at all!)

Four rivers: the Musconetcong, the Raritan, the Millstone, and the Lamington will all involve migratory fish. Now, imagining a striped bass in the shallow Lamington River does seem to border on insanity if believed in, but does it really cross that line? I would put money on this. In the event of a flood, when stripers are moving up river such as during May, if things fall into place in the right ways, I think it could happen that a striped bass gets caught in the Lamington River; that is, if and when the Headgates Dam gets removed. Big ones get caught at the Island Farm Weir during floods. Otherwise, American eels are not all bad anyhow.

And once the two dams on the Millstone River go, stripers might get caught occasionally in Princeton at the Lake Carnegie Dam, not to mention gizzard and Atlantic shad. Homage to the great industrialist!

Where does dam removal lead? The food chain is an important concept. An even more important reality. It symbolizes a whole lot more possible in regards to our enhancing it more as it should be. Trout Scapes River Restoration LLC is the perfect name for Cowden's outfit, in my opinion, and I had already written, in an essay I've submitted to Agni, the Boston University literary journal, that river and stream restoration is really streamscaping, a creative enhancing in alignment with the generally natural course of the flow. I wrote this before I had heard of Trout Scapes, unless I had heard of it through my inner ear, but let's not get back to any temptation of debating insanity. I wrote of streamscaping back in September. It takes six months to get word back from Agni about acceptance or rejection and I'm hoping for the best in any event of placing this essay, but there are larger considerations.

As I see what's happening, dam removal and stream and river restorations involve the beginning of a new age in which we will have grown beyond initial industrialization to shape this planet to suit life on all levels. Honors to Andrew Carnegie, but when striped bass swim up to the end of the lake named after his philanthropy efforts, we will be moving on. As a literary writer who began writing during an amazing year of passion for zoology at age nine, and then first got published as an outdoor writer at 16 with The New Jersey Fisherman, appearing in a number of publications, many articles published until at 18 I took a radial turn for literature and began filling hundreds of handwritten notebooks, I know William Blake at least a little bit. A giant who rose at the industrial revolution's inception, proclaiming "Energy is eternal delight," on deaf ears. They thought him mad. So why did the 20th century begin to listen, until several decades or more ago, his genius is established as among the greatest?

For me these days, the most important idea of Blake's is Organized Innocence. We as adults cannot go back to Original Innocence, and we must pass the tests of Experience before we might reach Organized Innocence, a state of possible affairs I certainly think is synonymous with naturalist E.O. Wilson's hope for future paradise here on earth, despite his purported disdain for (departmental) humanities, this very shaping of the planet to suit life on all levels I've mentioned. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/e-o-wilson-s-thrilling-prophecy-of-paradise-on-earth/ This article does not promulgate Wilson's book specifically as focusing on my notion of shaping the planet, but it does refer to Wilson's "prophecy" (a dubious claim about a scientist) of our "turning" the planet into paradise, so there we are on the same page.

This is objective. We are improving the food chain. This is beyond any doubt a start in this direction of great hope.