What Life Asks of Us

Matt's last fish of the outing. This 27 1/2-inch carp got too close to his Senko. Earlier in the afternoon, a carp showed curiosity, trailing Matt's Senko. 

The theme of an outing always seems to arise unexpectedly, and yet it emerges in a way undeniably distinct; not as something limited to my head or my guest's, but shared between us, participated in by both of us, and finally completed as a fulfilled affirmation we might call happiness, but always happiness in a certain way, as compared to other times we might remember. But every outing includes something of the happiness of the other outings before, rarely so much at the beginning of them, but always as they finish.

You've got to make that finish. If you don't feel happy by the end, you quit before you got there.

Today we drove a total of at least two-and-a-half hours "out of our way" to fetch the Great Canadian canoe. and later bring it back from North Branch Raritan River. On the way up, Matt and I were not very conversant. We spoke, but I don't remember what about, and it was little. Ah, I do remember pointing out how bright the sky. Not a cloud to be seen. "This would be a tough day on Tilcon," I said.

As things seemed for the first couple of hours on the river, it was going to be a tough day here, too. Temperature at 92, I really didn't feel any bothersome heat, even without sunblock, but the light on water a little too off-color for my preference seemed to have the bass hunkered down. We floated nearly a mile, having fished three favorite stretches hard for not one hit, before I saw a great splash at the tail end of a very shallow stretch that got me wondering. Canoe easing into casting range, I swished my Senko into the zone, felt a strong take, took up slack and set the hook into a good fish that got my drag screeching before the hook pulled. Matt had cast short by comparison, and within a second, we saw his line racing upstream as he began to take up slack. And then the big smallmouth was on. By a miracle of sheer aggression, this fish I had hooked simply snatched Matt's offering hardly a moment after it got off. In about a foot of water. We nearly had to walk the canoe here. 

The 17-incher contorting in plain view, I said, "Loosen your drag." 

"It's alright."

No it wasn't. Three seconds later, Matt's line broke.

We began catching bass in very shallow stretches. I never noticed when some clouds moved in overhead, but by the end of the outing, the sun was partly obscured. The change in conditions high above might have helped. On one occasion, Matt simply pitched the Senko about five yards so it touched down right at the edge of a very shallow weedline. Another big smallmouth darted out, took the worm, and then Matt was onto a rare second chance with a 17-incher. The line never broke, but the hook pulled free.

We had begun noticing wildlife. A yearling deer with tail up, darting along the edge between water and rocks. A groundhog on a tree branch. Small beaver swimming against a bank. The baby watersnake I photographed in Matt's hand. (I held the canoe as waded to catch it.) I saw a bald eagle, and nearing the end of the three-mile water trek, we both felt awed by a great blue heron rookery, about two dozen of the pterodactyl-like birds suddenly in flight. That's when I knew for certain this trip had a lot to do with other species than the fish we sought. To get back into wilds as we did, away from homes and businesses, on river stretches virtually inaccessible by foot, and despite this distance from things ordinary, to yet not see any of the creatures inhabiting the ecosystem might be to miss out on an invitation, and in any case, today a small number of the animals living back there made themselves available to us, even though, of course, none cared to come our way but went the opposite. Irrelevant, though. Life reciprocates life. And especially the herons connected us to a larger world of seemingly effortless flight. 

I know water was relatively clear last summer when we paddled these miles, catching 17 bass, but I think the river level was higher, too. I don't remember walking the canoe nearly as much as we did today; a fairly arduous process or in any such event, to complain once would be like throwing a wrench into a machine needed to get us to where we would feel good about the whole day, and we managed not to feel like mere cogs as we worked our way to finish. If I recall rightly, and maybe Jorge can correct me, last September on the South Branch we floated a mile-and-a-half in about two hours--using an anchor frequently--without having to get out of the canoe once. We were on this other connecting river at least five-and-a-half hours today, and we passed up some pretty good water towards the end so as not to get off the river all that late, sun nearly setting as time had the event settling anyway.

We caught 11 bass. Six of those were Matt's, including three largemouths. I caught five smallmouths, and the 15 or 16-incher I lost just felt real good on the line, taking some of that as I played it awhile, drag ratcheting. We started by using the regular five-inch Senkos, but I got a bad feeling about this state of affairs and switched to slender six-inch Chompers, one of the worms I used shorter than that with the head cut off. Matt experimented a lot, as he had recently on Tilcon.

That was Matt's first carp. We had encountered some in two previous stretches, and he wished there was some way to access the second spot by foot with his friends to fish just this species. He hooked the big fish near a tree in the water, and I feared it was going to get lost in branches, yet he steered the hard fighter out on six-pound test--that drag seemed perfectly set--as I backed the canoe onto shore and we got out to complete the contest. How many pounds, I don't know, but over seven. 

Even had he caught one of those 17-inch smallmouths, or both, they wouldn't be the proud catch this carp remains.

Back to Mine Hill with the canoe, 40 minutes or so away, we conversed freely on philosophical topics. I had started the lengthy and spirited discussion with the confession of an extremely vital vision, last summer, of Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin streaking down from heaven fast as lightning to join me, the three of us sharing in some of the most divine laughter I've ever known. Matt said that such visions generate religion, and I said, "Yes! Poetry and religion come from that madness."

Matt said quietly, "It's not really madness."

Matt and Boston University is a contest and we have yet to know results, but I feel especially proud of his eagerness to measure well when it comes to discussing ideas that might have less to do with a job's demands, than with what life asks of us.

  

One of my bass, caught below Bedminster Airport fairly close to one of the stretches, the Trump ban on airspace now lifted here.

Matt moved his carp away from submerged branches.

Overview of North Branch Raritan Fishing

Snags Growing Out Below Full Reservoir Level

Reservoir water level fell below the 1982 record low on November 4, 2016. Level had been dropping since 2014, falling sharply during the severe 2016 drought. Level is still pretty low, and trees grow where water covered. Wood thickens quickly. Some of the trunks are about three inches wide

Went over to crowded Round Valley with my family this evening, carefully augmenting my collection of photos and doing a little bass fishing, though I caught none. Matt's fishing license got mangled and he failed to get a duplicate printed, since he seems to be shut out of opportunity to do that by whatever algorithm. He has to figure out how to get a replacement tomorrow, or else he doesn't fish freshwater in New Jersey for the rest of the year.

The simple and rational thing to do is print a few copies in the first place, put the extras where you know they are, and then forget about them. If you need one later, take it.

Like so much else, I told him so. Some people spend their entire lives forming sensible habits. (But at least they eventually do.)

Polar Cub planned, when we came upon the place on U.S. 22, we felt astonished to see cars awaiting to enter backed up on the highway, though we weren't deterred. Had another hot fudge Sunday. Also had one of those at Home Plate near Merrill Creek on Father's Day.

Let a Rod Bend, not Me

Hooked about 25 feet deep during the heat of the day. What was it, a hundred out there? Quarter-ounce, think it was, bullet sinker. Teeth got the worm.

The important thing to remember is that an outing always ends well, so long as you're earnest. Before I set my alarm to get up the next morning and pack out with my son, I had spent some three hours or more in preparation, including my attempt at fixing the tip of my new Lew's Speed Stick, off center. I blew it, as I feared I might. The aluminum oxide ring broke, but I borrowed a rod I gave Matt long ago, seven feet and huskier than my St. Croix for wrestling bass from weeds. The rod now in need of repair wasn't close to a quarter of the cause of the black mood, and I won't bore you with further details, but after I was up in the morning and arranging stuff out the door, I knew the ill feeling wasn't going away easily.

The ride up to Tilcon was very rough. Not the road, except that last unpaved road with foot-deep potholes. The cauldron of turmoil. A sensible man might have given up, but time and again I find myself disclaiming sensibility in my writing...except I knew full and well that given a couple of hours on the water, I would at least begin to be OK. And before outing's end, I would be fully well. If I were to have given up knowing this, the sin would have been blacker than anything I had yet felt.

Regarding other people who give up, they're entitled to the compromises they choose. I refuse to bend.

So I showed Matt what we had to do. He doubted we could do it. He's nineteen. Played football for years. I'm supposed to be an older man now, but every time I see myself photographed, I'm astonished, because I am much younger than that within. And this inner youthfulness manifests itself as some pretty strong physical capability, but I don't want to boast too much. Last visit at this lake really was treacherous with my three herniated disks. A popular phrase reads: Be careful what you wish for.

The path goes downhill fairly steep at first, cuts a hard right, evens out more and less, and then plummets down a vertical elevation of, I think, 30 feet at least, to lakeside. I told Matt we would take the canoe down first, and I refused to offer any more empathy for how he felt than to clearly acknowledge his feeling, and in turn, I encouraged our effort. I can't say it was very difficult to do, but Matt was afraid getting it back up might be...what? Too hard? I offered some words to the effect of an answer to his question, which he answered in turn, "We'll have to," and I gave him a wry smile. I knew it wouldn't be too hard.

The canoe only weighs a hundred pounds or so, and we've both backpacked. And so much for dollies after our last time here.

We were drenched with perspiration as we paddled beyond weeds before I lowered the electric motor. Air felt very heavy. Very. It felt big. My graph unit's thermometer was reading 92 degrees, after it came down from 98, though I don't know if it can read the air temp correctly. It stayed at 92, and I tested the water, which didn't feel that hot. When we left that quiet corner and got out in the breeze, the temp read 87 and stayed there. 

So we fished deep and thoroughly, sunlight intense. An hour or so into the trip, I caught a n 18 or 19-inch pickerel from about 25 feet down. When I noticed Matt had retied to fish his worm weightless, I had been thinking the same and retied my line, catching a pound-and-a-half bass on the first cast of my next arrangement. That pickerel was going to be the deepest catch of the day.

It was back at the flats where we left off last time that things began to get interesting, in terms of catches. The electric hadn't gotten much power to push us there. At first the battery gave full power (after I had charged it), so I know it's not a problem with the motor. I need a new battery. I caught a few bass in 10 and 12 feet of water, sun behind clouds for the most part, thunderstorms skirting us over the course of hours: east, west, north and south. Matt missed a couple of good hits back in the mess of weeds crowding the lake's surface, on a weedless frog. He began to fish with dogged persistence, switching his presentations out with fascination for each lure he tried.

I had just caught my fourth bass when I heard what sounded like the horn of my Honda. I'm always a little nervous far back in my mind on these outings, because vandalism and robbery can happen. "Just when the bite begins," I said, as we motored off our promising flats. I told Matt we wouldn't return, not with the lack of power from the battery. 

Nothing was amiss with my car, and a couple had just begun building a fire nearby by the water, waving to us in a friendly manner, me waving back.

We fished some of the back of the lake as sun was now very low, as it set, and as dusk got very deep. I caught a two-pounder, then I caught one about two-and-a-half pounds, both largemouths, the larger after Matt caught one two pounds or so on a topwater plug. A 3//8th-ounce Rebel Pop-R. "I wish for once you would catch one larger!" I said. Mine wasn't quite playing its resistance as another bass three pounds or better as we expect here, but as a pretty nice bass.

And there he was. Fishing like he would fish all night. I almost felt like staying on the water into complete darkness, which it was as we loaded the canoe on top of the Honda. That son of mine who had asked me if we could leave early, so he could go to some random field with friends and set off fireworks bought near Easton. The hell. 

"That wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be," he said after we hauled the canoe up the slopes. To me, it never felt but the slightest fraction as difficult as the black mood plaguing me as we arrived.

 I may look like an old man, but I can climb my way out of Tilcon quarry.

Matt seems to have fallen out of the canoe. Pardon him, Stephen's State Park.

Matt finally caught a bass, pretty nice, at sundown. Only bass on a topwater plug for us yet at Tilcon.

Very Nice River Getaway

Being there was better than being here now. It's 9:31 a.m., and since returning home, we've unloaded, and I've edited my images.  Have to be at work at 1:00 p.m. and the routine feels sort of stupid after breaking it. I got up just after 3:45, and I'm not tired. Matt was up 15 minutes later, and he's napping now, having got to sleep later than I did. None of this morning was difficult, besides the first three or four minutes of getting up.

We drove out to Neshanic in the dark, getting on the river not very long after first light. No canoe this time, we waded my favorite stretch, beginning with topwater plugs, each of us catching an average stream bass pretty quickly. I hooked a better fish and had it on for a couple of seconds, then got hit when I pitched the plug back where the smallmouth had turned, missing this smaller bass. We cast some wide slow eddies before I got a feeling about the head of the hole where current plays with the surface. It was very calm out there, maybe 68 degrees, and the water felt about the same temperature. We wore wading boots and shorts. I forced a cast to make my little eighth-ounce plug touch down neaer the top of the roils and a bass almost immediately sliced into the offering. I was on.

"Nice one!" I announced. The drag ratcheted as the bass curved away and down into the deep hole, maybe eight feet deep. For maybe several seconds I watched the line rise and felt the fish coming up as I made sure I had a tight line for the leap. Glorious. The smallmouth appeared to be just about three pounds as it contorted wildly, throwing the hooks.

We switched to Senkos. Meanwhile, the river had risen five or six inches as water must be getting pumped out of Spruce Run Reservoir. We noticed how badly off color that water was and resolved to leave just as the sun came up. I never do well on this river when fishing dingy water, but the topwater plugs worked before too much light got on the water.

We drove to the North Branch. A spot where Matt sighted a 20-inch smallmouth that followed his worm the other day while he fished with a friend. Here the water was a little too off-color for the way I like it, but we fished very persistently. Matt hooked and lost a smallmouth he estimated as 16 inches. Later he crossed the river and fished a very slow pool, catching three small largemouths. I had missed a few hits that must have been small bass when I saw a rise and put my worm right on it, got hit, missed that, then pitched back to the same place, got hit and played the 13-inch largemouth photographed below.
 

No?

"I'm not a bassman at all," I claimed in the Providence post. Huh. It talks about reservoirs and big bass and how I could catch one. Days later, I catch a seven-and-a-half-pounder at Merrill Creek Reservoir, and feel stunned and sort of wondering why I feel that way. For more reason than the preceding post, but it is true that this blog is a process that involves the real world.

Shortly after I caught that lunker, I felt converted, even though I had forgotten all about the Providence post written shortly previous. No bassman at all? I caught some kind of answer to the contrary of what I had asserted.

You can see the quizzical look of an unconscious poker face on the Merrill Creek post where I'm holding the fish. None of the photos my son got of me show me breaking out in much of a smile, at least not loose and relaxed, I was so dumb-founded. The poker face wasn't intended as such, but later I thought I look as if I'm answering back to the bass community who might have doubts about my prowess stuck on little three-and-a-half pounders, but better than that. It reflects back on me. My body language is saying, "I didn't mean to fool you about my denial, but I went ahead and did anyway."


http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2018/05/providence-thats-another-big-idea-to.html

North Jersey Outdoor Recreation

As a boy, Matt found 10 of New Jersey's 16 snake species in the wild, a couple of lizard species, a number of turtle species including the rare bog turtle, and numerous salamander, frog, and toad species. Not to mention out-of-state reptile and amphibian finds. I awakened a deep desire to reconnect him with this passion, and today, about a month after I thought of going, we gave it a try, but he couldn't quite remember where the Delaware Watergap National Recreation Area spot for salamanders exists that New Jersey Audubon led him to about six years ago. Lots of salamanders. He photographed many. One of the species he found we're uncertain about as to its identity, so I particularly wanted to encounter some of these. His best guess about where: Van Campens Glen. So I suggested we bring fly rods, too. We found a spot he thought might have been the place, but the ground was too dry and we found nothing, so I doubt this is where, but maybe the spot has changed.

Meanwhile, we fished a large deep pool beneath a waterfall. Very thoroughly using various beadhead nymphs. With and without small split shot. Another fly angler showed up, who told us he regularly catches 8- to 10-inch wild  browns there, his biggest 13 inches, some wild rainbows too. I invited him to fish with us, but he wanted to go on upstream to a larger waterfall. I kind of wanted to see him in action, but I fish a waterfall pool on the upper North Branch that never fails to at least yield a hit from a wild brown. We got no hits today. And we later figured these two pools of Van Campen's Brook get a lot of pressure. Today a weekday, in the middle of the afternoon someone else showed up to fly fish. You can just imagine how many times the trout in these pools get caught and how reluctant to hit flies they become.

We stopped at my favorite Delaware River spot on the way out. Poxono Island. We basked in the sunny heat a few minutes and that felt good. We didn't fish at I-80 bridge, either, where we've caught a lot of smallmouths wading in the past. Maybe it was hunger that drove us on. We took 94 "into town," finding farm fields instead, but curving through Hainesburg with no deli or stores along that short tour of a hamlet I was seeing for the first time, passing a bridge over the Paulinskill where the river looks very inviting...we drove on. Dales Market in Blairstown served us an Italian hoagie, trail mix nuts, M&M's to add to the nuts and raisins, and a coke and green tea.

When we pulled up to our favorite smallmouth spot--big ones here--and finished eating, I walked down, glanced at the water, and it informed me we were probably there to give our respects. Not because anything specific was amiss about the river's condition. It was just an impression I got. A glance like that always seems to tell me everything. We fished about 20 minutes and Matt caught a little nine-inch smallmouth.

On the way to Saffin Pond--the plan was to fish sundown there--we talked about a possible part of the day's plan we had let go. My idea was to hike up the ridge and check the copperhead den. Get photographs. We haven't been there for five years or so, and I would like to get back, but we began to realize the full area deserves more time and exploration. Neither of us could remember searching the wetlands for salamanders, years ago. There were so many varieties of frogs. We observed these instead that day a year or two before I began blogging in 2011. So maybe next summer we'll spend an entire afternoon up there.

We got to Saffin Pond as light was climbing towards the tops of trees to the east. Matt caught a largemouth a foot long. I caught four largemouths, lost another. I measured my largest: 18 3/8ths inches. All on weightless worms. Three of the bass hugged tight to wood in the water near the bank where depth gathers pretty quick. I spotted a pocket in sparse shallow weeds to catch the biggest. Another pocket yielded a small one of about a pound. All released of course.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2011/09/appalachian-trail-white-lake-and-tilcon.html

23 1/4-Inch Merrill Creek Reservoir Largemouth Bass From Shore

Most magazines take first-use rights, so well after a better photograph, in which the bass looks bigger, clears the legalities, I'll post that photo here.

My wife had never visited Merrill Creek Reservoir, so I offered her the opportunity, along with our son after he got off work today. We left Bedminster around 6:30 p.m.. It was too late for a hike, but we sat down on a nice "beach," as a passerby called it. I sized up the situation. To our right, sparse flooded timber, apparently open water in front of us. I reasoned that bass will frequent virtually any shoreline, and this stretch in front of us really wasn't bad with that wood in the water nearby. I cast my weightless Chompers far as I could and imagined it sinking through 20-foot depth, sunlit up top, nice and dark below, and then I propped my rod and reel on my camera bag, bail opened, lay back on the gravelly sand, closed my eyes and enjoyed sun on my skin.

Pretty soon, prompted by how it felt odd to be under gravity's power, I had a sort of weird vision about how mass and gravitation might "really" work. I started mumbling to my son, who had decided to lay back next to me, my son who knows everything physics, of course, as a physics major, this a Golden Opportunity for him to condescend to his dad. He didn't convince me about energy as the fundamental reality. "But energy has being," I said. I had seen gravitation in my mind's eye--a force--as merely following form. Stuff did not just glom together here to form this planet, on which I so perfectly lay back to take in the sun. The form preceded the existence. I was thinking that form sort of drew the stuff here. That would be gravitation, but only in the literal sense. I was really thinking of space itself as somehow formal. But "space" makes no sense without things, which to my mind begs a question about what space might be, not in terms of things like this planet, which has not existed here forever, but instead in terms of information that somehow precedes what comes about and gets established as reality. To put it simply doesn't explain anything, but of course, this planet never could have come into being, unless it possibly could come into being, before it actually did....

I didn't get further into it with Matt. After about 10 minutes of feeling really good about sandy gravel on the back of my head as implying gravity and certainly more than that somehow or other, I lazily sat up, reached to check my line, and for a moment was a little confused, because it seemed tight. Yeah, I had sized up the situation as possibly yielding a bass, but we came here to show Matt's mother the place, not actually get a fish on, and to have just walked up to the first spot we came upon at a 660-acre reservoir, 210 feet deep, that just isn't likely to yield fish.

I stood and found a fish was on for certain, made sure that hook was set, and felt that whatever this fish was, are there carp in Merrill Creek Reservoir? carp do hit plastic worms, it was pretty big, and now it was rising to leap, and when a largemouth came completely out, "eight pounds" flashed in my mind. I loosened the Penn's drag a little, because this bass was going to run, and it eventually did, once it saw the shore. Before it got near, it leapt once more, seeming almost as fat as long, and I was astonished a fish as overweight as it looked could clear the surface.

Hook secure, though, I subdued it, and Matt grasped the lower jaw not by thumb and forefinger, but with all four fingers and thumb curled underneath. She measured 23 1/4 inches with a fat belly, so correct me if I might be off a little about the weight, but I judged seven-and-a-half pounds. That secured hook actually caught on the upper lip, so I'm very sure this bass took the worm off bottom in the dark, after that worm sat there on bottom for about 10 minutes. And it must have hit about the moment I decided to get up and check my rod.

Sun ducked under the trees and we soon left. The gate closes at sunset.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2014/05/lunker-lunch-5-pound-round-valley.html