Round Valley Reservoir Trout End of the Year

Matt and I first tried fishing shoreline trout at Round Valley in November 2005, catching a couple rainbows, 15 and 16 inches long, in January the next year. I then had no idea where this simple fishing would lead, if it would go anywhere but for me to take my son once and awhile during the cold season. I was working for New Jersey's largest credit union as a courier, driving daily a 150-mile route through North Jersey. The job got especially interesting in 2009, when I started driving the Southern Route as well, alternating daily between the two routes, each about the same mileage. I became aware of opportunities to fish especially on this route new to me on a regular basis, though it didn't take me any further down state than exit 109 on the Garden State Parkway. One of these spots was Round Valley Reservoir, and by 2011, I fished here almost every other day on my lunch hour during the cold season, for trout. The experience became something beautiful beyond description in a blog post. I've written a book that devotes nearly a hundred pages to what I encountered, 300 pages in total, which I don't plan to publish, but revise as a book that will be different, though most of the words about Round Valley will remain intact. As it is, it's a worthy testament between my son and me. I sent it to him by email just before he left for Boston University this recent September, and he placed it in his document files to read. Sometimes I feel as if I live on such a thin tether that it might break, and if something were to happen to me, my son has this book. I don't tell him the likes, In case you never see me alive again; it's just the way I feel. Beyond this admittance, I don't make it anyone else's business to feel this way about me. It's the sort of inner malaise a lot of writers have to contend with, because by seeking what amounts to originality in so many other words, they've lost some connection to the sorts of everyday assurances that comfort most.

Today Matt, Fred, and myself, we hung out in bitter wind-driven cold, and the feeling of ordinary familiarity was a matter of course. Like us, I suppose, Fred had packed quickly and made the short jaunt from home easily, expecting us to either be there or be there shortly. We were 20 minutes late, but that seemed to make no difference as conversation kicked in and never stopped. We pretty much came to catch up on one another's lives. But when, a little unexpectedly--trout fishing in the cold is usually very slow at best--one of Fred's three rod tips dipped seconds after his Power Bait reached bottom in about 20 feet of water, I soon felt a touch of the past excitement in the middle of finding myself checking bait and casting it back out. Some of that passion I knew each time I came here on lunch touched me.

Fred fished the orange Power Bait and marshmallow and mealworm combinations. Matt and I fished shiners, since we're especially interested in any lake trout that might be moving in close with the bitter cold. I had told Fred we would stop at The Sporting Life for shiners and that he was welcome to dip his hand in the bucket. I did that repeatedly, and once took refuge in my car with the heater on full, hands shocked and reddened. Matt and I didn't think to bring gloves, since the fishing here is all too convenient with cars parked nearby.

If any lakers loom along these near-shore inclines, none let us know today. Anyone who wants to try for them should take advantage of this week's cold. With temperatures near zero in the mornings, I bet lakers will be there for anyone who wants to use a bucket ladle instead of bare hands. The park kicks you out at 4 pm, and as we packed it in today, Fred discovered that rainbow trout photographed on one of his marshmallow and mealworm lines.

Real Season

Serious, sustained cold--even single digits--forecast after Christmas Eve, it looks like real ice fishing and soon.

My son's on the train from Boston. I'm also hoping I can round up a few friends.

Real ice fishing defined--I like it when the ice gets thick and we have a season.

Zebra Midge

Wearing only a wool shirt to cover my upper body, vest over that, I distinctly felt a shift from the treadmill-like day in and day out of working, to slowing way down and minding my zebra midge. I try not to mean this as any complaint, since the pay is even better than my former credit union job, given some 50-hour weeks, time-and-a-half overtime and Sundays. And these days are going really fast, which is how I seem to like it, since I look forward to retirement in, say, nine years. I'm supporting my son at Boston University, and my wife says that maybe four years from now we can consider an alternative, but I'm very sure any alternative will depend on my earning some serious money from writing, which is unlikely, though despite working six days a week, I manage to get a lot done, and most importantly, hew a close line with regards to my plans. I know what it's like to lose the feel for them, and I don't like it.

This is Peapack Brook where I fished with my two-weight TFO, starting out by trying a strike indicator for the first time, that flying off to whereabouts unknown on my first cast. So I had a hard look at the instructions and managed to get three casts before the indicator hit the rod on a bad cast and flew off. That one lost also. For the next half dozen casts, I lost attention on my line, since I kept looking around for that float. A package of four cost $5.50 plus tax at Shannon's Fly Shop in Califon a week ago.

Then I settled in. Forgot about the indicators, and kept a keen eye on my floating line.

As you can see by the photograph above, that's a likely-looking hole for some wild browns. As a matter of fact, Jorge Hildago caught one nine inches long on a salmon egg intended for a stocker in April here. I took him out for his first trout success, when he performed extraordinarily well at catching many stockers....and that brown. I can only imagine there are a few in those five or six feet of water, but I must have cast five dozen times for nothing, just getting into the feel of simplifying experience for a nice change.

I also wonder about stockers. The stream supports browns year round, so why not holdovers, also? Back in the year 2000, I caught stockers in this brook in July and August. I haven't tried any summer fishing here since then.

The water's cold. I noticed some ice along edges at the second hole I fished, deep, maybe six feet deep under the bridge. Back at the dam, I had thought of Oliver Round's catching some half dozen trout, browns and a tiger, I think he said, on a cold January day on the South Branch, using egg patterns. I figured I should have picked some up at Shannon's, tied one on, and then tied tippet to the hook's bend to drop a zebra midge behind the color. If my son and I go fly fishing next month, I think we're making a pit stop. For strike indictor's too, and I hope I can get them to stay put. Trout will take a tiny fly so lightly this time of year. You never notice a twitch.

They're Out

Yeah. On two inches of ice, a 32-inch northern pike, and a 24-inch pickerel, from Budd Lake.

And I got word from my prime source, referencing interest on Ice Shanty. I got my news from NJ Fishing.com. http://www.njfishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101077

Pond and Cove Ice Maybe

There may be some ice fishing on ponds, North Jersey, this weekend. Some well-experienced guys might try some lake coves, though I don't want to be one to encourage that, and I think the sort who may do it don't need any. It will be interesting if I get any word about the likes. I always like to hear.

Noticed a pond mostly frozen over while driving home from work late this afternoon. Thin ice, but on the way to that three-inch mark, perhaps, before it will melt back, if the long-range forecast is correct.

Last late fall was like this. I got out ice fishing with Mike Maxwell on Budd Lake, five inches thick, on December 21st. After that, we never got out, and there was very little ice for anyone else. Whatever this winter brings, I plan on getting out a little. Ice or not.

New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs is Central

New Jersey Federated Sportsmen's Clubs News Managing Editor, Oliver Shapiro, catches a Boston mackerel aboard the Last Lady II this past summer.

New Jersey Federated Sportsmen's Clubs News recently published, in November, an article of mine featuring popular New Jersey bass angler, Steve Vullo, who runs the Fishing with Attitude Facebook site. I had interviewed him and completed the story with point-by-point quotations, writing "It's Never too Late for Bass," not to be confused with a Litton's Lines post a couple of years ago or so with a similar title. I urge any of you who aren't New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs members to join, if the $25.00 yearly fee isn't too much to invest. The News is published monthly, loaded with first rate 1200-word articles, a few shorter pieces, and regular columns. Every time I get my issue, read and view it, I feel transported, not so much to wild places in our state, but to a time and place embodied by the sportsman's dedication that spans many years past and future, embarked upon today. The News really transforms New Jersey, and yet this quality is not only really there for more people than me alone, it recalls the same spirit of participation I felt as a teenager, when I didn't know about the Fed. Back then I was fueled by Field and Stream and Outdoor Life magazines, and I assure you that if you read these classic publications, still going strong with no sign of stopping, you won't feel disappointed in the News. One of the regular columnists, Rick Methot, was an associate editor at Outdoor Life, and Milt Rosko, who seems to get published in every issue, has been published in Field and Stream. Here's the link: http://www.njsfsc.org/

I mustn't fail to also mention Vullo and I performed yet another interview. Expect to find "Steve Vullo on Big Prespawn Largemouths" in the February newsstand issue of The Fisherman. For such an "overbuilt" little state, New Jersey really is central as far as word gets out on fishing. The Fisherman, with its corporate office in Shirley, New York, began some 50 years ago as The New Jersey Fisherman, and then expanded to encompass the Mid-Atlantic.

My teens could have been described as a quiet rebellion, since I took fishing much more seriously than school or anything else, but I never thought of myself as that. I recognized the centrality of the outdoors to America. It was more like school rebelled against me.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2017/08/last-lady-ii-charter-beautiful-day.html

Fishing December

Now is that time after fall fishing action, when I wait with anticipation for some ice fishing. As far as I know, Dow's Boat Rentals have shut down rentals until March or April, but I've little doubt some guys still get out in their own boats to jig walleye. Now might be an interesting time for Atlantic salmon recently stocked--with plenty holdovers--in lakes Wawayanda, Aeroflex, and Tilcon. Of course, streams and rivers hosting wild, native, and fall-stocked trout get some attention this month, and if you want to catch any other New Jersey species--it is possible. I shouldn't fail to mention Round Valley Reservoir and the ongoing shorebound trout fishing, nor the Delaware and Raritan Canal as an option for pickerel fairly active in cold water. I used to catch pickerel in the canal at Lawrence Township through the winter on crappie jigs.

It's also the time to have mailed my camera in for repairs, since I just don't have much fishing on my radar until ice sets in, though, as I noted in the last post, I might fly fish. If I were willing to put up the effort, I could round up Mike Maxwell, the two of us loading my squareback onto my Honda Civic, and riding over to the Delaware River once again after last year's late November to try for walleye there. Action was so dead, I don't even want to think earnestly of asking Mike to join me on another attempt, but it is true: walleye will hit in the winter river. My brother Rick and I caught plenty during the seventies, floating my 12-foot StarCraft with an Evinrude 10-horse from the fifties. December.

Smallmouth bass will too. I've caught them wading the Delaware in December.

I actually like fishing this time of year. I just don't have the balls this particular year. Maybe fly fishing.