Stanton to Flemington

As this day approached over the course of the past couple of months, I felt my apprehensions, because I would have to get the Great Canadian canoe at Brian's, and then drive all the way to Flemington to meet my brother Rick. After paddling four or five miles of the South Branch, I would have to take it back. Loading it on alone, taking it off alone. Rick was enthusiastic about using mouse flies he bought from Etsy. We found the tail action is fantastic, but today he would catch no bass on them. There might be another time ahead when he does.

I found fetching the canoe some 40 or 50 vertical feet above Brian's parking space easy and loading it easy, too. All this is better than doable. We all know how "doable" can mean less than zero, as novelist Bret Easton Ellis put it. The drive to Flemington was complicated by a detour, but otherwise, the length of the ride allowed me to sink deep into listening to Jean Luc Ponty and thinking over all sorts of things. Very pleasurable. The ride back would prove to be even better. All told, I drove 135 miles, many of them over twisting and hilly county roads. Rick must have driven about the same mileage, coming from Wall Township at the shore near Brick. Hauling the canoe up those steep 40 or 50 vertical feet alone was easy, too. I huffed and puffed deeply when I stopped pulling, but that felt great. After all the years of smoking cigarettes, I felt very reassured that my lungs are good. After treading clams for 13 years--deep aerobics, you breathe all the way down and hold that breath as you dunk, not to mention the jogger's pace for four or five hours--I have strong lungs. Today, we would often have to get out and haul the canoe through the shallows, which is no comparison to the strenuousness of clamming while wearing three layers of wetsuits in brine near its 29-degree freezing point, the thermometer near zero F, the wind chill falling far lower as 40-knot winds pushed immense swells over my head. It's just to say I seem to have a future on the river.

We had found the river somewhat off color where we met downstream, but that was as I expected. Now as I got in the canoe with Rick, I felt nervous as hell. He's heavier than Matt, though really not by all that much, but for all I knew, the margin might be critical. The canoe is tippy. I had nearly $10,000.00 worth of photography equipment in that canoe. "Maybe you should get a plastic bag," Rick said later. I never will get a water-tight something or other for it though, because that's too much a hassle. I do zip the camera bag every time I put the camera back, but I need to zip it open easily to get the camera quickly.

I imagined how I would grab the camera bag and keep it above the river surface if we went over. I probably would have failed. Later on, I felt I had been unrealistic. It was probably just the trauma of what happened in Florida, when the kayak my wife and I had paddled rolled as she got out, and I lost $3600.00 worth of equipment.

I like the river when it's clear. Usually, it's not until September. Afraid we would get skunked, since we came only with fly rods--Rick brought two of them--I was all the more afraid. I'm not much experienced fishing this way, but it didn't take very long before I hooked one about 10 inches long. It took a subsurface fly six or seven feet deep or more. A Haggerty's Hell Raiser. I lost the fish, but it was the first my St. Croix seven-weight has played. I missed a few knocks and taps that could have been sunfish, then further downstream played an eight-inch bass for a couple of seconds before it got off. That one on a white sculpin fly with a helmet head weight.

Rick meandered on downstream. We had beached the canoe. I got word from him that he had missed a hit on a small popper, and he also told me had seen three bass leap out of the water for damselfies. Before I could turn and go tie one of mine on, he hooked a bass on the popper of nearly 11 inches. "They fight so hard," he said before lipping it.

It seemed as if we had paddled too much water, because the highway was visible and I figured the bridge was right around the bend, so I felt especially good about all the time we invested in the stretch. But after we got back in the canoe, we found no bridge. Even so, it seemed to me we were making good time. Rick caught another on a popper, and then yet another on the popper at another spot where we got out of the canoe.

We finally did pass under the bridge, and further downstream I caught my first bass on the Hell Raiser. Another of mine came over the side minutes later. Rick caught some sunfish on the popper. He enjoys catching them. It makes me think of the times I've gone to the river over here near my family's condo with my two-weight.

The river felt set deep down where real things happen. The highway is situated above. So are railroad tracks. All that high speed activity seems to zoom about in hyperspace. Imagine space travel with no destination. I have no doubt traveling in space would be cool. It can be cool to travel a highway. But with nowhere to go? Nowhere real to go?

I don't find the words tonight to match the quality of our experience. It's just after midnight and I feel beat. As easy as each task proved to be, I did feel some stress near the end of our paddle. We finished about a half hour before sunset. It wasn't that we had to hurry. We had paddled the typical length of my family's Barryville Delaware River floats.

I know how exertion works. When you do it well, it doesn't feel very hard, but I guess especially when you're about 60 years old as I am or older, you feel beat later. But it never stops me. The experience was worth a lot more than being left spent, and obviously I'm not all used up as I write this post now.

Listening to Ponty as I flew back to Brian's house, I became aware that I have a whole decade of floats like this one in front of me yet.

Sculpin 

Rick supplied cigars from his humidor.

What Life Asks of Us

Lake Hopatcong Trail Spur to Liffy Island

The trail to Liffy Island was no disappointment. It's not very long, about a mile-and-a-half to the top of Liffy Island where two hammocks, a fire pit, and seats await anyone who wants to use them. We hiked on down a fairly steep--not very--hill to the lake and sat there while I shot photos for more than an hour.

We came here because I had heard of the trail's recent completion, and I thought it would be a good one for my wife and I to enjoy with Sadie the Black Lab. As that needed bonus, we would go to Cliff's Ice Cream afterwards, which we did. This entire trip was about my wife, but it was good that Matt is still living with us before he goes back to Boston in little over a month and came with us. 

I shot about 350 photos altogether, beginning with the shot of the causeway to the island, featured above. I deleted about 225 of them. I've got to where I can rapidly pick and choose, but maybe 50 percent or more of those I keep can be deleted later. I have to look closer at those as I do post-processing. The load I put on my computer this evening was more than 20GB but I'm left with 10GB. A lot of the shots I deleted from the camera as I sat by the lake. The rest need a closer look, and as I say, I might delete more yet, but it/s painstaking.

The D850 has a 200,000 shutter rating. Knock on wood, but I'll probably never live long enough to reach that number. That's not to say the camera would be no use after the shutter goes. I blew the shutter on my former D60; repair was $170.00, and the camera went on working just fine. I'm at 1500 shots on my D850 since February. 

The trail information states that maximum vertical elevation is 237 feet. I assume that's from the lake surface, because you don't feel it much, and I'm surprised it's that much. The high point on Liffy Island is pretty high up there from the water, though. The descent from the sitting area to the water is swift.

We sat on comfortable stone there. I mostly shot wave runners and boats. The lake was full of them, vibrantly alive with flourishing colors, sounds, and people.  

  

At the causeway before going across.

Took a short break before reaching the Liffy Island high point.

Lake Hopatcong's Fishery

I'm writing The Microlight Quest: Trout, Adventure, Renwal, a memoir I intend to get published. It's not just a book on fishing. It's about an unusual life, and the struggle to make a place in mainstream society.

Jerkbaits for Pike

Matt got to meet Oliver Round this morning. We had got up before the sun, and the three of us got on the river before sun got on it. Sun got on Matt's face when he caught his first pike on his first cast, but I don't recall any on the water.

Oliver was using a suspending jerkbait. True to the same principle on the last outing, I offered no advice, though he saw I used a floater and commented on that. With a floater, I can do more. Let it rise to the surface. Work it on top by twitching it. And the jerking action when working it with the rod tip below the surface wants to go somewhere--upward. It gives you a certain control when imparting that action.

The disadvantage when working a jerkbait with the rod tip is that pike tend to miss hitting the lure when they attack. Pike recoil almost like a snake and then release muscular tension to shoot like a rocket for prey. Once the target is locked in, that's where the pike goes. So the fish has a hard time grabbing a jerkbait retrieved erratically. But they're very attracted to that action, so it's a trade-off. You'll attract pike but some will miss hitting the plug.

Even so, I missed a lot of hits while dimpling the plug on the surface. I haven't got all this figured out. There's more to it I don't know. You'd think a pike would easily target a dimpling jerkbait up top. The single largemouth I caught did so with ease. I used a plug with Mark Sosin's stamped signature on it; I don't know the name. The biggest pike I fought had hit that plug on two different casts. A third go at that plug resulted in the fish hooked and storming off on a very deliberate run underneath a deadfall. That run was not finished when the line went limp. I reeled in the line to find that the damn snap on the wire leader had opened. Cheap leaders, I concluded. I need to buy better, and in the meantime, tie a few myself with wire left over from Florida.

I switched to a floating, silvery Smithwick Rattling Rogue and noticed no increase or decrease in numbers of hits.

One of the three pike I did catch hit when I stopped retrieving and let the plug rise. In full view. A few feet from the bank.

Other pike hit like fireworks, making great splashes and showing their flanks, two of them bigger than those I caught. Matt also caught three, small ones. He also caught a largemouth. Oliver caught two pike no bigger than mine.

The river is a great place to practice casting accuracy, and good form at doing that well makes a difference in numbers of hits.

Matt takes the day's honor for catching one of his pike on his very first cast.

First Cast

 The Mark Sosin plug.

Ice Fishing for Pickerel

Suddenly the River Exploded

Jorge Hildago and I arrived at the river before five a.m. I put my fly rod together beside the Honda, and tied on my favorite yellow popper. When we hit the short trail back to the spot, soft light made things visible in a way suggestive of the day ahead; it would be a long time before sunlight got on the water.

Jorge's casting rod reminds me of someone who commented on one of my posts. He says that's what the river demands: a casting rod and big plugs. He catches smallmouths as big a five-and-a-half pounds. I didn't argue against that. 

I began by popping the seam in front of me. Two years ago with Matt, I caught one that way. Then I tried my favorite current break. Nothing happened. Jorge kept plowing the surface with a Whopper Plopper, a plug that looks like it weighs about half an ounce with a propeller that makes it behave like a buzzbait. True to my usual style, I offered no advice. I'm well aware that people who know it all tend to get shown up. 

I was trying to get more distance from my casts. I have to admit my medium-power St. Croix 7-weight--though break-the-bank expensive--doesn't shoot the line very far. I bought it--I think--because I took the advice that it's a good all-round fly rod for a beginner, but I really don't clearly remember just why I chose it, except that it is 7-weight, so good for steelhead. I had won a $300.00 St. Croix gift certificate for an essay that placed as a finalist for the Brookwood Press Writing Award and wrote a check for the additional $60.00 cost. Or I do clearly remember the $60.00 I had to pay, but don't remember if the prize was $260.00 or $300.00. Any case, a nice win. 

Perhaps I should spend another hundred on a fly line that will cast better.

Maybe not.

Suddenly, the river exploded. I saw a big bass airborne. 

"Don't lose that fish, Jorge!" I hollered helplessly. That was the logical impulse, coming from my experience here. I had already set the fly rod aside and had eased a Senko off that current break down into the mouth of the hole where a bass took it. I waited two seconds, set the hook hard as I always do. Don't give a fish any mercy until you land it. That's fair. A smallmouth bass is a murderous predator that eats little fish, so you hit that bass hard, and only when it comes to your side, be kind and treat it well. I release each as best I can. I felt great resistance on the hook, and then yet another big smallmouth was gone. "Goddamn!" I whipped my rod back, the Senko flying out of the river and far behind me and off the hook. I searched in the water near the gravel bar where we kept our stuff, not finding it, before I let it go and got another from my bag. That's my fifth big bass in this stretch lost in recent years. I know, it could have been a two-pounder, and I have caught a few of those recent years, but I would like to imagine it was yet again the smallmouth over 20 inches I want to catch. 

Jorge's bass thrashing on the hooks, I nervously made for the bank, set down my rod, took my camera, and began shooting as he hauled the bass towards the gravel bar, the fish leaping twice beside him, me rushing out to help stabilize the situation. "Don't hold it up by the line." I reached to grab the bass, if I remember rightly, shivering at the thought of six-pound test, though apparently his mono is a heavier. I never asked.

Nineteen and quarter inches. Jorge's best smallmouth.

Beautiful bass released, I worked halfway down the stretch with the Senko, then turned back for my fly rod and worked all the down to near the tailout. In the search, I got hit by what might have been a sunfish, and then many minutes later, I saw the flank of a smallmouth of maybe 11 inches as it took the popper. After I missed the hit, I wondered if I have a whole new learning curve to climb, but then I remembered catching many on poppers while fly fishing Stony Brook as a boy, so I guess I just wasn't ready for that one.

I came back to the gravel bar, got my camera, and waded well downstream to get some shots of Jorge with the sunlight breaking on him, his presence set against a large river. Then I took my Senko to order again. Jorge was experimenting with a crawfish jig. Lots of deep water for that. My favorite current break was getting lit, so I fished back further, nothing happening, but I felt seduced by the call of a mourning dove. It took me back many years to Stony Brook. My deepest feelings of love for this planet. There I once contemplated the call of a mourning dove for what seems to have been an eternity. As if that could have redeeming value; if so, it was secondary to my own relation to the bird. But we must have a secret pact, because I'm no more important than it was. (It did occur to me that another mourning dove I saw fly across the river is probably younger than the years I've fished this stretch.) The mourning dove perfectly symbolic of all the devastation. But so much more than that. I heard many other bird species involved seemingly in dialogue. The mourning dove the mainstay.

Suddenly, I wanted to go into the water. Swim. There were eight-foot depths in front of me. I took off my wading boots. Took off my shirt. "I'm going in," I told Jorge. And then I dove in directly, the water cool but not at all chilly.

"Don't drink the water," Jorge said.

I didn't stay in long, but after I swam back into the shallows, I plunged back out once more.

George kept fishing in his chest waders. Like I say, I offer no advice. (Who would take it if I suggested swimming?)

I got my St. Croix spinning rod and began the trek back down the stretch. For maybe half an hour I listened to the dialogue of birds, casting--besides two casts--perfectly. I thought once of the immense power in nature available to anyone who dares to submerge himself fully and yet who can hold that power. I thought with some humor in the thought of how far I have gone astray since I worked the bays for clams while submerged in brine for 13 years. Forgiving humor. A man has to earn a living. And a man will find it impossible to live in a state of nature longer than 13 years. At least I couldn't do that any longer.

A big float of phosphate lodged against my leg. I heard the mourning dove. I put my hand in that phosphate and squished the stuff. Disgusting. I could have laughed.

2018

Nice Topwater Bite

I am no longer pushing carts from the supermarket lot. Back at specialty meats, the stress hit like one of the brick walls falling on me. That's temporary. I'll be back in shape at it soon. Though I had lots of time to sit in my car and read and write--I think I read every issue of Outdoor Photographer from a year's subscription cover to cover and I read more besides--the thought of doing that drudgery otherwise for five more years just wasn't happening. Active human relationships involved in the wheeling and dealing inside the store sustain me. As bad as they do get.

So waking up this morning was like suffering schizophrenia. But I got all the gear besides the marine battery in the car. The battery I had Matt take from my study and put in the trunk. Before we left, I opened Father's Day gifts. Matt gave me beer. Trish gave me two T-shirts--one for me, one for Matt--that advertise "Litton's Bait and Tackle." Her sense of humor. We wore the shirts today.

Tough drive up there, I feared this outing would not succeed, and it was a tough four or five hours under burning sun until the evening topwater bite erupted. Matt did catch a pickerel within minutes after we launched by trolling a crankbait that gets down 15 feet. We continued to troll hundreds of yards until we found some shadow, getting no more hits. The first shaded bank and overhang was near an island we found in March. We had intended to seek this out today, but we never got around to putting much effort into it.

The second shadowy bank yielded a 13-inch bass on a Senko for me.

We ended up trolling all the way to the front of the lake where about a dozen people swam. I found the dividing line between their loud voices and birdsong. I figured that on the birdsong side, we might find more bass in shadow, but besides spotting one of about 10 inches, nothing happened.

Actually got this shot on my APS-C camera when the sun got low.

We seemed to spend eternal hours under the sun just working worms in shallows and weedy depths. I crawled through my tackle bag, looking for slip sinkers. Finding none, I just crimped on a quarter-ounce split shot. I had more control lifting and dropping through 30-foot depths. We have hooked bass here that way, but none today. We watched a school of dimpling and leaping herring go by. I wondered. Maybe 20 minutes later, and despite 80-degree water temperature, salmon did crash the school at the surface.  Quickly, we rigged up with Phoebes and trolled thoroughly. Nothing.

We had stopped at Stanhope Bait and Boat for shiners, but we were told cash only, which neither of us had. Would have been interesting to try and mark salmon and then dangle bait, but then again, salmon concentrate in big schools during August.

Matt did lose a bass on a worm where we tried next, but nothing else would happen. That fish did break the enervation that definitely got to me and seemed to get to Matt, although after the day was done, he told me was looking forward to the evening bite, sure it would happen. I did work at and repeatedly shoot a subject in this area where Matt lost the fish. It interested me intensely, although certain other shots I got seem better.

The sun got on the mountaintop. We took position where we've often done well, shadow on the water. I caught a 14-inch largemouth on a worm, and then I switched to a Hedden Torpedo, passing another of the same to Matt. Small pickerel were all over our plugs, hitting them like torpedoes themselves. They were fun, but we caught none of them. Later, just before we headed down lake, Matt almost got a nice one in the boat. I caught another bass of about a pound, and Matt caught the big one. It was a pretty good bite as is typical after a sunny, hot day. The fish had moved into quite shallow water with weedy cover.

When after lunch we first rode to Brian's, I realized I had forgotten the second headlamp and asked Matt if we should turn back for it. He assured me he was OK without it, but I still made a point of going in before it was quite dark. Deep into dusk, yes, but not as dark as last year. Matt hauled a first load and checked on the car, which was OK. He came back and told me the headlamp's batteries had died. It seemed an unusually hard haul in the dark. (When we drove off, it was pitch black and my car's interior lights don't work.) We have to haul a canoe Matt thinks weighs 125 pounds, not 100, up a steep embankment of about 50 vertical feel, maybe more. And the marine battery and all else. But I don't complain besides grunts that come almost involuntarily, because in a way, it feels real good.

Matt did Philmont New Mexico when he was in Scouts. Before we drove off, he told me that in certain ways, the haul is harder than anything on that backpack trip.

 Matt's pickerel shook violently after he unhooked it, going immediately overboard into the water.

Last Year

Round Valley after All

I turned Matt on to my favorite spot at Round Valley this evening, but he got skunked. I told him afterwards I hope that some May after the reservoir fills again, we can fish it. I once caught a five-pound largemouth here & told his Uncle Rick. The next day I got a phone call and invitation to meet him and his friend. They were over there. He drove from Brick. 

More Big Bass at the Lake

We paddled up lake against heavy wind. Among grassy weeds, I anchored and reached for a Senko. "I think I left my bag at the dock," Brian said. It was understood we weren't going back and fighting that wind again. "I hope it doesn't get ripped off."

I passed Brian a Chompers.

The Senko's open hook seemed too vulnerable to getting hung. I switched to a Chompers within a minute or so and continued working pockets and edges under very intense sunlight. The whole lake seemed full of that light and I knew the bass probably took cover in the thickest of the weeds. Maybe a heavy tungsten jig would have got to them.

We paddled further against the wind and got into position to cast those bushy overhangs where Matt caught his big pickerel in April. After half a dozen or more casts, I placed the Chompers along an edge, let it drop, and then the line swiftly peeled off the spool before I closed the bail, tightened, and set the hook into the 18-inch largemouth photographed below.

No more action thereafter.

Around the back of the island and into the main body of the lake, the thought of worming seemed absurd in the wind and all that light, so I switched to s spinnerbait. I would have felt better casting it if the water was five degrees cooler. It was a summery 79 degrees, but wind chopped the surface and the sunlight reflected off the blade. Soon I hooked and boated a 23-inch pickerel that apparently rose off the bottom four or five feet down to take chase and slam that lure riding about two feet under the surface. To get the spinnerbait near bottom was pointless with all the weeds. As you can see in the next photo, that savage fish bent the spinnerbait's arm.

I thought maybe I was onto something and we would enjoy more action, but we cast and cast--nothing hit but one little fish for Brian. We drifted and anchored, drifted and anchored. And paddled. Brian preferred throwing plugs, and his fish didn't stay long on the line.

We would get off the lake before sundown. Our time out neared its finish. I happened to notice a lure bag behind my seat. "Brian, I was sitting by your lure bag this whole time!" I felt like an idiot. What do you do when your boat partner tells you he thinks he forgot his lure bag? You have a look at the stuff around you. Later on, I told him I'm negligent. Being old with memory loss is a better description. There was no willful negligence about it, but I really should have looked in the first place. It didn't occur to me to do that. That's what I mean.

Brian rigged up with a Senko. We had come upon thick weeds with lots of pockets. I had a Senko on, also. I said, "The bass are probably in the thickest of this stuff." And I mentioned heavy jigs, which I did not have. Regardless, I put my Senko in pockets and really did not have trouble with that open hook. It got hung momentarily here and there, but it was easy to pull free without collecting weeds. Soon I felt a tap and tightened the line. The fish moved in my direction. I set the hook and boated the 17-, maybe 17 1/2-inch bass of the final photo, hooked near the nose on the upper jaw, right where you would expect of a fish moving in your direction.

Minutes later Brain said, "It's six pounds!" I looked aside and saw great commotion at the surface, certain this one was no 18-incher. When I netted it, Brian said, "No, five." He was pretty close to right on the money about that. I passed him my tape measure, but he had difficulty measuring it, said it was 19 inches. I told myself no way was this bass going on the record as that small and insisted on measuring it myself.

Twenty and three-quarters of an inch long.

The difference between weedy pockets at the end of the day, and those at the beginning, was an entire world. As I said, we didn't stay to sunset. But with sun rays angling low, I imagine at least some bass came out of the thick and were vulnerable to Senkos. No clouds blocked sun, but the late light had an entirely different quality compared with what we faced going in. It even felt inviting...to venison tacos, perhaps, such as those Brian's wife Carolyn had fixed for us when we got to the house.

Brian told me what lures he has in his bag. I guess the best way to make sense of his spending a couple of hours with the uncertainty, affecting how he fished, is that the threat of loss might make him better appreciate having the bag. I know I need my reminders. And I'm forever grateful to Brian for housing my canoes and fishing with me.