Peapack Brook Fast Action with Rainbow and Brown Trout

Jorge Hildago hasn't fished trout until this morning, besides trying some Power Bait in ponds. He hooked and fought a rainbow on his first cast. One of those fish you might not know whether to claim as a catch or not. He got the trout in, but as he lifted it with the rod, I stammered that you pull the fish ashore, since two-pound test line risks a knot break, or more likely, a weak hook connection pulls free. The hook pulled and the trout inches from Jorge's temporary possession dropped into inches of water at his feet. An arrangement with my son afforded Jorge's use of a three-and-a-half foot micro-light rod. A very auspicious initiation for him to this esoteric form of fishing trout streams. In fact, of all the people I have introduced to this method, Jorge has impressed me most. And he's the first, besides my son, with no stream trout fishing experience. He caught trout after trout.

In a moment, Jorge had another, and I told him after he caught a couple more rainbows that Peapack Brook hosts wild brown trout. "Maybe there's one in this pool," I said.

Minutes later, that's what he caught. By creek standards, a pretty good-size wild brown trout. On a salmon egg no less. Brown trout haven't been stocked in New Jersey for years now. We felt anxious to make sure this fish got back in the water quickly, so I didn't slow down for close-up photography. You can still see those spots. Nice and prominent.

Very nice early morning, not quite a couple of hours, and at least a dozen trout caught and released. Peapack Brook's water quality is known among other anglers I know to be of very high quality, but I pointed out to Jorge the brown algae growth on rocks while raising issue about the clean rocks of Dunnfield Creek in Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area. That water is so pure it always gives me the impression it's entirely of spring water quality. The Creek descends 1200 feet through mountainous terrain from the top of Kittatiny Ridge. "I drink from that creek," I said. "People tell me not to, I'll get an amoeba, but every time I'm there, from age 17, I drink from it." To tell any fellow New Jersey resident I drink from a creek--in New Jersey--might be a little edgy, but I've told a lot of people. Maybe because I believe in this state's environment despite so much offense to it. So I serve myself, our region, and anyone who hears, because it's true: I've imbibed water from the Dunnfield Creek at least two dozen times, yet here I am, aged 56 without a trace of dysentery.

A great way to begin the day at 6:00 a.m. preparing to meet Jorge at 7:00. And then off to breakfast with my family thereafter as Jorge had left for his son's soccer game. And then to my job. Loved that today. I'm on to making marinades and I really like the creativity.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/03/fishing-salmon-eggs-for-rainbow-trout.html

Califon South Branch Raritan Rainbow Trout Rollick

This afternoon and early evening proved to be totally Mike's idea, since my plan to fish Beaver Brook in Clinton first, failed, and my notion about fishing the North Branch late never became desirable. I know I read about Beaver Brook in Clinton stocked, on the DFW site, and besides, a butcher at Shop Rite speaks well of the little creek, but though I knew where the stream runs in Clinton, we didn't find a place to park, get out, and walk. Better, because Mike showed me the way into town by turning left at Hoffman's Crossing. It's a beautiful drive and beautiful stream, and we found a lot of trout, though not at the first and third spots we tried, and a lot more at the fourth. Mike grew up in Califon. This is his favorite home water, formerly accessed by him on bicycle.

We both played handicap. I forgot to add a pinch of salt to each of my salmon egg jars and tell Mike to do the same. These rainbow trout just pull soft eggs off the hooks. And we lost some eggs casting. We caught about two dozen between the two of us, but could have easily caught double the amount.

For me, the big moment came when my rod tip yielded to an unusually heavy pull, and I leaned into something heavy that looked too fat, deep under the surface, to be a rainbow. Had I snagged a sucker, or had a big Shannon's brown taken my egg? It seemed a very long time before the fish came into view as a rainbow about 18 inches long, and my judgment concluded, very nice fish, and yet, though this is nothing to take away from the fish I had on, something deeper down in me, I realize, is trying to match my brother Rick. We use micro-light rods, or at least Rick used to, now fully acclimated to fly fishing if he would only get out and fish. Three-and-a-half feet and the lightest spinning blank I know. Two-pound test fluorocarbon. He caught a 25-inch rainbow fishing salmon eggs this way. He told me it was fat and weighed eight pounds.

This is a big order to fill. I may do it on a fly rod. My five-pounder last spring was big. But on my micro-light? Surely never, and that was the biggest rainbow--today's--I ever had on this rod. I fought the fish at least three minutes. At best, it streaked for the pool's tail race about 25 yards downstream, leaping clear out of the river as at it plummeted downward, and I was ready to start running with the fish on the rocks. Instead, it turned. I exerted no pressure--not on line like thread--but simply let the drag and the rod's bend from tip to butt do its work. I muttered to Mike, "Get the camera." And in less than half a minute, the situation began to look as if the fish was going to come to the gravel, but I never gave into feeling entitled during this fight, because I know a fish like the one I had on is a little too good to be true, the way things seem to go for me. Except for one thing. I had this fish on. Had fought it long. And before Mike lifted the camera as he reached for the power switch, I told myself in that private language just as good as the words I write, but not thought in words, because common language is too intrusive upon moments like this, that what I had is enough.

"I was just about to switch the camera on."

The trout was gone. 

Mike's First


http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/03/fishing-salmon-eggs-for-rainbow-trout.html

Bedminster Pond Quick Check

Matt said he's seen a lot of cars stopped to fish here recently, and I told him I named Bedminster Pond as one of New Jersey's Top 10 for early largemouth in an article published last year in The Fisherman's big monthly edition. We were going to fish the neighborhood pond, anticipating at least a half dozen nice bass, likely twice as many, maybe one over three pounds, but Bedminster Police were talking to someone at length in clear view from where we would have fished, and we didn't want to be rude.

So I suggested we drive up the road and give Bedminster Pond a quick try. Matt first caught the little bass, then we tried another clearing, where a spinner I made from components during the 1970's quickly resulted in two bass for me. The second, which I didn't photograph, was about a pound. Then, as I snapped a cast forward, it caught on a branch behind me, snapped off, and we didn't find it. I made dozens of those spinners during my teens, though that one might have been the last of them I owned. I couldn't cast it more than 15 yards, but the lightweight body coupled with a size four C.P. Swing-style blade gave it great lift for a smooth, slow retrieve.

Matt missed a nice hit from a bass right at the surface on a Mepp's Aglia he had to retrieve pretty fast to keep it over shallow bottom. Seemed too fast. Pulled it away from that bass.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2015/06/catching-big-north-jersey-bass-with-my.html

Spruce Run Creek Trout Fishing and the Deeper Current

Until February 2016, I hardly knew Spruce Run Creek, besides its grand entry into Spruce Run Reservoir, a spot I knew about for big brown trout during the fall seasons of the 1970's, but never got there until 2005, fishing for northern pike, trout no longer stocked in the reservoir to hold over and grow into trophies or otherwise avoid the intent of anglers. I used to pass the creek on my way north to the Delaware Water Gap from Mercer County during my teens, but have no memory of taking any notice until my young family moved into the region going on two decades ago. That February of 2016, on my way to a kayak shop to view the merchandise, I stopped at the creek at Schoolhouse Road and did a photo shoot.

This spring was going to be a sleeper, my getting out to fish trout infrequently and only with my two-weight fly rod, but instead, at the deep level I have a lot to thank Mike Maxwell for. (The Trout Assassin.) I met Mike very shortly after my family moved to Bedminster from nearby Chester in 1999. He was 20, and I believe that was either fall 1999 or spring 2000, at the U.S. Highway 202 Bridge over the North Branch Raritan. I happened on him fishing trout, as I readied to fish also, and conversation struck up as naturally as the setting inspired it. I was 38 or 39. About the age Mike is now. I learned very soon that he lives just around the corner in my neighborhood. We were the only two fishing that afternoon.

On another occasion at the same spot during the fall, I fished alone and filled a pocket with a limit catch of brook trout hardly a millimeter more than legal size, took them home, boiled them rather than fried them, and the meat was as tasty as lobster but more tender and the broth better than that of Mercenaria mercenaria. The Latin means money, and as you can guess, "clams" as another word for money must go way back. Brook trout got stocked during the fall back then, small ones. This is a whole other can of worms, this story I relate now, yet appropriate to this afternoon. Money has everything to do with my fishing salmon eggs this spring, because without the need of mine to earn a little more, I would have stuck to my fly rod. But you wait and see, I'll outgrow my driven hopes for earnings, as writing is an intrinsic reward. No one would write hundreds of essays and post them on a blog that doesn't even advertise, if he didn't love the writing itself. I could put ads on the blog; I don't because it would disturb your reading experience. Besides, the money I was thinking of was the more of it I need to earn than in my previous job at the country club. My words could have come off differently.

We used those salmon eggs today and did rather well. As I was telling you, last spring, I caught a five-pound rainbow trout on my 6-weight fly rod, and I was headed upstream from thereon where no one can find me, flicking flies. But meanwhile, The Trout Assassin was fishing like he never has before in his life, me happening upon him as he smoked trout on his grill, or sat out on the porch in the sun as I drove into the neighborhood, the two of us catching up on each other's news as I stopped the car with the window down. Salmon eggs. And I remember thinking, "Well, this is what I've wanted to see for the last 20 years." Mike really committing to this purpose, or this folly as most people think, fishing.

Since January 2015, I've changed jobs three times. The previous job involved fly fishing. Had I stayed with it, that's of course what I would have done this spring, but working at a supermarket chef studio, I earn better pay as needed. Mind you, supermarket. The conventional sort. Food. Sales involved that might compare in a very broad way to stocked trout and the most effective, rather than most refined, way to catch them. Mike's Salmon Eggs, the most popular brand, are a long-time convention, though eclipsed in recent decades by crass Power Bait. Power Bait is some sticky mess that floats. All but useless for fishing the subtle nuances of currents. And though salmon eggs themselves are conventional, the method I've used from the age of 14 isn't. On the market today, you won't find an ultra-light spinning rod less than four-feet, four-inches long. Mine is three-and-a-half feet. Much better of a wisp than any you can buy today. I cast a weightless salmon egg a centimeter in diameter on a tiny size 14 hook. And I fished a three-and-a-half foot rod when I was 14, too. Built it from a rod blank and other components.

It's a very effective method and too much to describe in this post, but certainly easier ways to catch trout exist, though you won't catch as many as you can by really going light--and doing it well. If you want the easiest rainbow trout from a creek, go ahead and find a hole with a very slow current where 150 trout have been dumped, weight your line with a big sinker, and let Power Bait float in front of the noses of those trout. Letting a salmon egg drop into view of those trout would be more effective anyway, but on this tackle I describe, fishing is more like the grace of an orchestral conductor and his baton, than like the stage engineer cranking the curtain up.

During those teenage years of mine, I wrote and got published a lot in outdoor magazines, but why--all these years since--I never reread any of these articles editors eagerly took is a deep mystery to me. Part of this mystery is easy to understand, however. I have a thick folder containing about three fourths of the total published, and I never wrote an article, not during those years, that a magazine or newspaper did not publish. This folder never got out of my wherewithal, though how a fourth of my articles got lost, I don't know. In fact, the article most crucial to me now--on this salmon egg method--came back my way contained in the entire magazine issue from an old high school friend about 10 years ago. He sent his copy to me by snail mail. I quit writing the articles at 18, convinced I would become a great novelist and looking down on outdoor writing as beneath lofty artistic ambition. (Self-contempt is unavoidably problematic, but this is a whole other bucket of fish.) I wrote those articles. And all these years since, or since sometime after I had distanced myself from them, I imagined I wrote them badly, compared to the great writer I had become while filling enough handwritten journals to comprise about 500 books.

So I never read a word of them. I thought they must have been badly done. I never read a word all those years. Until very recently, delighted to find they're good. Really good.

And the article my friend mailed me is central to why I am back out casting salmon eggs with Mike. Bait as light as a beadhead nymph.

Mike and I fished the North Branch Raritan Zoo for about an hour after Spruce Run Creek. Not many here today.

Trout on Salmon Eggs

Book I'm Writing on Stockers

Belvidere, New Jersey, Visit

 Martin's Creek Power Plant on the Delaware River

For years, I've meant to take my wife to Belvidere, "beautiful place to see," in Italian. Matt and I fished there in the Delaware River at the mouth of the Pequest seven years or so ago, trying for stripers at night with live eels. I've felt obliquely familiar with the town since my teens, passing near it on the way to the Delaware Water Gap and back, and so naturally, my curiosity grew. Somehow or other I learned of Victorian homes, and I imagined there would be a nice downtown to walk.

The plan included driving from Milford to Reigelsville on CR 627 along the Delaware River, a drive I've never made, but time prohibited. We would have continued north through Philipsburg. We did take I-78 west to Philipsburg, got on CR 621 from U.S. Highway 22, and followed the river to Belvidere, a fairly long ride. I parked in the town's center and said, "It's not what I thought it would be." Patricia had asked me if there's a downtown to walk, and I said there was. Later, as we drove home, she asked had I lied. No. But I told her I should have been critical of my belief and said I didn't know.

As we stood in Belvidere, the Pequest River racing under a bridge, she made fun of the town with her typical dry wit, though I don't remember the words. We saw only about half a dozen Victorian homes. Most are early 20th century. But one of the Victorians, pink and very large, up on a hill, especially fascinated me. We were driving out after ice cream, after I went inside an antiques co-op that didn't offer much, but Early American Life magazine was interesting, though I didn't buy an issue. I turned around and drove down a dead-end street. A trail lead up to the house, but I not only judged it wasn't appropriate to walk on up; parking there in front of a couple homes would be too nosy also.

So we rode out to U.S. 46 and stopped at Hot Dog Johnny's. Patricia expressed confidence that we'll stop here again in May, since the powers-that-be where I work won't want to pay me time-and-a-half back to back, she figured, on Memorial Day weekend. She wants to return to Millbrook Village in Delaware Watergap National Recreation Area. The thought of really hiking up Van Campens Brook with my two-weight fly rod flickered in my mind. Last year, we visited Layton and the Little Flatbrook before arriving at Millbrook Village. I plainly judged that to fish the Little Flatbrook, you have to walk right up the middle of it between a lot of brush. Since I've begun working at Shop Rite nine months ago, one of the butchers and I have a running conversation on fly fishing New Jersey streams. He's talked about that Little Flatbrook a number of times. I knew last year that if I were ever to do this, it's not a trip to take my wife along. The butcher confirms my initial observation: you have walk straight up the middle of the stream, and it's tough casting.

There's so much worth doing, which the American hegemony of economic power concentrated among the super-wealthy won't allow so many of us to do, because we have to serve them just like slaves--paid peanuts as tokens of American freedom--with very little time off to pursue values a lot more worthwhile than Bread and Circuses. I refuse to be their victim. It is better to fight and die while refusing to submit as the voiceless sacrifice they might demand you be, than live as a victim. This doesn't mean I don't work, hard and efficiently. Just the opposite. What else do I go to my job for than to work? There's a lot I don't agree with. But I punch that clock. And within that time I agree to work, I do my best. It's my work. The very little I am limited to.

 Pequest River

Country Gate. A stage presentation of Into the Woods at one of the first venues I noticed as we drove into town, the play piqued interest. Not only do I know the book, the young man who sought adventure and freedom was moved by deep yearnings that must have been similar to what moved me to walk out of society to harvest clams commercially in wild bays, which I did for 13 years as if away on a very prolonged Jewish Kibbutz. I wasn't the only one, and that's the reason I can draw that comparison.



http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/06/historic-speedwell-lake-stephen-vail.html

Trout Opening Day

It was tight. I couldn't find my leader wallet Thursday night, so that ruled out getting up for 8:00 a.m. starting time, since I spent the hour I would tie snell-hook leaders looking for that wallet. Took longer than an hour the next night to tie four leaders anyway. During that interim, I found snelling hooks--which I used to enjoy doing--impossible with my failing eyesight. Actually, I gave up snelling two or three years ago for this reason. Even wearing reading glasses that correct any problem reading--not using any right now--I can't judge leading the line through loops to get the knot. So now I just tie directly to the loop, which doesn't impart as direct a pull upon setting, but at least seems to make no difference.

We got to the Zoo nearly 11:00. That's what Fred's affectionately called the AT&T stretch. Or if he doesn't mean it that way, I do. I helped Matt get set up and let him cast and drift his glo-egg weighted by four snap swivels snapped onto a snap. A BB split shot would have been better for that high water. Had I remembered to bring any. I meandered around shooting photos.

"Hey, the spy from Field & Stream is photographing us!"

I let go a belly laugh and the guy laughed with me. All round, the scene had a good feeling that remained every bit as constant as the river current.

When I rejoined my son, he had missed two hits. I rigged up the same and soon caught a typical rainbow. Cool weather had no nip to it. It really felt very nice as I leaned against a tree trunk, leisurely pitching casts and keeping a tight drift, missing two hits before it began to feel repetitive and we quit.

No time for Peapack Brook and there didn't need to be. We went home to family comfort and reconnaissance; I cleaned the trout, and then drove off to my job.



http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/03/fishing-salmon-eggs-for-rainbow-trout.html

Casting it Off on a Nice Day: Bass Pond Tour

Much needed break from burdensome responsibilities. Fred Matero and I arrived at Sunrise Lake in Washington Township I guess about 4:45, intending to fish it quickly if nothing doing. Fred has fished it before. "It gets hit hard." I began fishing there in 1995, and my son remarked late last summer that it's his favorite place. I took him there to fish when he was two; his very first fishing he doesn't remember, but he does remember much else. Haven't cast this three-acre pond for how many years I don't remember.

It's not in the photos.

I fished my favorite sloping flat hardest, but we left after a half hour, catching nothing, Fred missing a hit from a small bass on a Rapala floater. As yet I was all hyped up on those burdens and a little pissed they didn't get relieved, but maybe Fred didn't notice. He directed me to a neighborhood pond in Mendham I didn't know about. That's in the photo above. We fished there a quick 20 minutes or so, nothing happening at all, besides a kid on that bridge up above catching a sunfish on a fly rod. As we left for the next spot in Chester, a pond Fred had never seen, I said, "Don't bet on it." Some of my tension was gone, but it felt heavy to imagine getting skunked on this beautiful day, temperatures near 70; my only chance to get out and fish bass this early April. Precious time doesn't want the insult of failure, but when Fred said, "That's alright. It's good getting out," for a second I felt the same.

You never know if a really big bass is going to coincide with your lure in such little ponds. I've caught two of about 19 inches in Sunrise "Lake." But it is really easy--at least for me--to be a fool and almost expect the likes.

Almost. And even almost can be asking way too much. That's part of the reason I bring $3800.00 in camera equipment along on every outing. I got shots of Canada geese on Sunrise Lake, centered in colored striations on water--reflections from a boathouse--which, if I were to post any of them online, I really would be foolish. Google isn't going to snatch these. A fish might not come to me. But I see plenty else and capture some of what I see on pixels when I get a moment. This compensates.

This next pond of high tannic content is not high in bass content. Last I fished it, early in September 2015, I caught two 10-inchers. Today confirmed slow fishing. That's acid water, and there's bass in it, but not very many. And apparently not big. (Who knows.) I cast a spinner, let it sink. That way, I found no water deeper than about four feet. That not very promising for big bass, either, and yet our neighborhood pond's three or four acres average about two feet deep. Four feet at deepest. My son has caught three bass there over four pounds. One of them five. I caught one near four. And I've caught two or three dozen close to three pounds.

Fred caught two in Chester--largest about 13 inches--and I caught three, including one not much longer than my #9 Rapala. The other two nine and 10 inches. All of mine hit the Rapala on retrieve and they made me a little happy. Fred's took a Wacky Senko and he was happy to catch his first of the year.

We talked about work riding to Bernardsville. After Fred and I departed, I heard sweet birdsong--windows down--unlike I'd heard all day. That's when the outing finally came together and I knew it was all worthwhile at the deep level, relieved and fully happy at last.

Suddenly, a robin flew near my opened driver's window blasting a warning call. I felt the connection immediately. Like, thanks! Nothing startling to me, just resonance. But then I wondered. Was that bird telling me about something amiss coming?

It really is a strange life in these times of incompetence at the highest social levels. Take a job at the bottom and it's like Collective Soul, the rock band, croons about all that weight falling on a man--it brings me down!

Hell of a lot of megatons. Off ma shoulders--Goddamn! Alabama is no sweet home of mine, but I like that song's ending.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/05/mounthope-pond-offers-chance-at-lunker.html