Caught Largemouths and Pike

Fred Matero wanted to catch smallmouth bass today, and so did I. We did succeed in making our way downstream along the Raritan to the railroad bridges. First, though, Fred showed me the Millstone River boat launch. It's functional. Fred told me he witnessed a 17-foot boat getting put in there. We cast for 10 minutes or so. I caught the longear photographed above on a #9 Rapala floater. 

From there, we found a park Fred knew about, hoping to access a trail back to the bridges. This would be a lot easier than walking down from the Manville Bridge. We found the park, but where we would park Fred's SUV and take the trail, it was posted No Trespassing. 

We parked at the bridge. I waded upstream to try a hole I knew about from 2006. My son found it by falling in. He was wading, sauntering along, and suddenly was in over his head. Like that day, also, I caught nothing. 

And on down below, we were able to fish at the first two bridges. (We didn't go down to the third.) Both had deep water we plumbed with jigs and Senkos. I cast a Rapala, too, but all that happened for me were sunfish taps on the Senkos. Fred caught a couple of sunfish, and that was it.

So I forwarded to him the idea of fishing the Passaic for pike. I guess after the two fairly recent trips there, I had bass in mind, too. I didn't express my feeling, but I felt firmly confident that we would catch fish. We just had to get there, do it, and see if my feeling would pay off.

We got swiped by a couple of little pike not far from the bridge. On further down, where Oliver and I have done well, nothing happened besides a 10 1/2-inch largemouth for me on a five-inch Rapala Minnow. It wasn't until we got further down yet that the fishing broke lose, and my feeling that the river must be overfished lifted. On a Senko, Fred hooked a pike of at least 24 inches, I got a good look at the fish. It came off and went for the Senko a second time, Fred missing that hit as well. I caught a little 12-inch pike, and then for 10 minutes or so, I caught fish left and right, ending at a total of four bass and three pike. None of the bass were better than 10 1/2 inches, and the two other pike were 15 and 16 inches. Fred caught one of the  bass of about 10 1/2 inches. 

We had to go, after fishing maybe two hours. 

 

Big Largemouth and More Action

It might have been the last Brian and I fish together for a while, not just because he hunts during the fall. Both of us, though, felt confident things will work out, but for the time being, he's getting Thursdays off, while I get Tuesdays and Fridays. I've lost my every other Sunday. Took paid time off today, and I'm just very glad we got up before dawn, met before sunrise, and rode over to Clinton Reservoir. We fished it some this past late spring and summer, and have got a large portion of it mapped out in our heads. 

It made a difference today. We still have that far shoreline in the photograph to explore, as well as the waters near the dam, but today, my hooking a smallmouth bass where that occurrence made sense, made all the difference. The bass leapt off the hook, but I soon understood that by trolling the deep end of the slow-sloping flat (in about 10 or 12 feet of water), we could probably find more fish. It wouldn't matter if the Storm Hot 'n Tot was always on target. The idea was to troll extensively and persistently. There were acres out there to cover. 

It worked pretty quickly. The largemouth I caught was 21 inches. I tried to weigh it, but I don't think I was able to do that correctly. The crankbait's hooks had done no visible damage, so there was nowhere to hang the bass on the scale hook from the mouth. No way was I going to damage the fish to do that, so I tried hanging it on the gill flap where the scale hook would do no harm. I got only four pounds, 11 ounces on my 15-dollar Berkley, and I doubt that was accurate. As you can see, the fish is chunky. And all the length-to-weight conversion charts put a 21-inch largemouth at over five pounds. 

Brian trolled up a little pickerel on the Hot 'n Tot I lent him. I lost three other fish on the troll and missed a hit. One of the fish I lost impressed me as bigger than the bass I caught. I was sort of playing with the braid with my left hand as I held the rod. Whatever I hooked immediately took off on a run like a hybrid striper's--the line burned my hand. 

Brian and I have had 30-inch pickerel on the brain this whole time. That's what I think it was--a really big pickerel taking off on a power surge that unfortunately ended with the hooks pulled free. 

I guess we did pretty well today, especially considering the fish on and lost, when there was not a cloud in the sky. I noticed no more than a few very thin strands of cirrus. For the most part, absolutely blue from all four corners of the horizon. Later on in the day, my wife and I hung out at Round Valley, enjoying a meal from Meditarranean Seafood, she reading a book and me shooting photos, while the sky overhead had no trace at all of clouds. 

So a classic cold front day. As I drove to Brian's house with blue just beginning to gather in the east, temperatures were as low as 56. When we got to the reservoir it was 64. When we left around 10:00 a.m., it was 74. It got warm later today, but bass and pickerel react to so much sun  And yet every fish we hooked was out in sunlit water.

Fishing means making effort. Getting up when the alarm goes off at 4:45. Or some other time much earlier than that. It means passing between the unpleasant certainties of the work routine, to a freedom that always promises a better life. And there in-between, before you get to where the fish make sense for you--and even in a way you feel gratitude in direct relation to them when you release them--you run up against doubts that threaten the fishing you go ahead and do. Because it's not about the resentments that become doubts. Not about others you think are that resentment's object before that resentment seems to disguise itself and turn on you. Only, all along it was about your own life, and before the water accepts you back, you feel you're only wasting your time. But it's always the water that wins. 

Mountain Lake
 

Mixed Jetty Catches

Fred offered three options: the jetty, his boat, or Raritan River smallmouths. I had to think it over. Then I told him I have yet to catch a keeper-sized blackfish in season. 

Actually, I'm happy I've caught a keeper-sized blackfish at all. I tried for them with green crabs way back in 1982, during September or October when I lived in Surf City and frequented the Barnegat Light Jetty. I never caught one until Fred turned me on to them last year, but I paid only $200.00 a month for the house I lived in that fall.

We mostly caught fluke and black seabass yesterday. In fact, that's all I caught, but Fred also caught little blackfish and two cocktail bluefish on an Ava. I had decided to take a break. I guess only at my age the standing on the jetty rocks for hours at a time wears on you. I sat down in the middle of one of the basalt boulders, because the last thing I wanted to happen--my car keys tumbling out of my pocket and down in-between a couple of those boulders. No, it never happened. Fred had been watching the action at the end of the jetty. Some dude had begun tossing back bluefish every minute. Fred got on them, but by the time I had tied on an Ava and began casting, a couple of boats rudely cut in close and put the blues down. 

When they came back up, they were way out of casting range.

No problem, really. Methinks we make all of our problems up. I stood on a big hunk of basalt and enjoyed the last of my killies. Unlike during the two previous jetty trips with Fred, I fished them on the inlet side, too. (Fred had actually caught a fluke on the inlet side on a Gulp! synthetic.) I found the black seabass liked them, and one of mine was 12 1/2 inches long--a half inch under keeper size and in season. 

One of my fluke was about a half inch under keeper size, too. But Fred kept the two bluefish, which served as a full meal for my wife and I last night. They were delicious. 

When we had hiked out and began loading Fred's SUV, I commented on the dry scales, asking if we could put some water on them. Fred had a much better idea, and I told him, after I had filleted both blues, that his observance of local advantages is spot on. He knows where you can just pull up, get out, and use a cutting board at a bulkhead where you just drop a bucket on a tether and collect bay water. Took care of the scaling problem completely. 

 

Two Fluke Island Beach

I fished for about an hour. My wife and I go to Island Beach State Park with our black Lab, Sadie, twice a year. It's pretty much a lay-out-on-a-towel beach day, but I bring a rod along. Sunday, the surf was too rough to interest me, until it calmed down as you can see in the photo. 

Sometimes there's fluke out there. Sometimes not. Once I caught 12. On Sunday, I caught two. One of them was an eighth of an inch under keeper size; the other a half inch under. I also hooked something really big that I could not stop from running. It finally did stop, though, but when it started pulling again, broke off. Probably a cow-nosed ray. 

There were some others fishing who caught nothing. Bait is important. Fluke love killies. And you have to rig that bait so a bank sinker of manageable weight sits below a short leader leading to, say, a size 2 hook. Beyond that it's wherewithal. Knowing how to catch them isn't an equation in the head. It's a matter of being. We say it's experience, but more than experience, it's a matter of encountering the water in the present, which certainly entails past experience, but is itself freedom.

I know plenty of fluke get caught on Gulp! synthetics, but Sunday there was so much eelgrass in the water, I don't believe trying to jiggle that stuff would have worked. Even the killies got into a mess much of the time, but I was able to keep them swimming freely for the most part. 

More About North Branch

Just got back from a half-hour stint at the Passaic, not a hit. I was hoping that with the weather shift, pike might be interested. Has been in the 90's day after day, although mornings have been cool, and late this afternoon I had 79 on the car thermometer, mostly cloudy skies overhead, and word of rain on the way. 

I threw a 3/8th ounce white Chatterbait. Casts great. 

Spoke to two guys in a canoe, and they hadn't got a hit. either. 

My post about the AT&T stretch beat around the bush. The only way I could express mixed feelings, although I could have spent hours and days perfecting it. What you read is what you get. I probably didn't even have half an hour to work on that post, but I had a strong idea of what it was about. That said, the way I think about the situation now is simple. Why put cone markers up, inconvenience anyone who wants to fish there, when all that has to be done is for the police to do their job? Enforce the law. Cops know suspicious characters. Stake them out a little. Wait until they're leaving--and if they leave trash, issue a ticket. Whatever needs to be done to enforce the regulations posted at the pullover, which I photographed for that previous blog post. If they're swimming--issue a ticket. Etc.

Doesn't a lot of drama with dozens of cone markers making a roadside eyesore seem ridiculous?

It is. 

What? It's too much work for cops to actively watch what goes on there awhile? (Until very soon it's no problem.) 

If so, they should work at the supermarket.

North Branch Raritan River at Bedminster

Some years ago, my wife walked our black Labrador, Sadie, along the Hike & Bike Trail. They made their regular stop at the stretch between the AT&T entry and exit. She was trying to be careful to not let Sadie take to swimming, to just let her get a drink or sit at the edge a bit, because two trout fishermen were nearby, knee deep or so in waders. A well-dressed woman in her 40's, as my wife described her, approached and said about Sadie, "She deserves to be in the water more than they do." "They" happened to be Hispanic. 

Just this evening, as we returned from the Beatle Mania Again concert in Basking Ridge, we saw pro-Trump protestors in the dark, alongside Highway 202/206, on Clarence Dillon Public Library property. We've always assumed they come from out-of-town, and though we could be mistaken on that assumption, chances are pretty good that our intuition, developed over the course of 23 years of Bedminster residency, is correct. This is the very first time I've heard my wife utter what could be construed as a desire to have them removed. They have often come in throngs. Horn honking, yelling, all but naked chest beating, you might say. My wife took issue tonight. "Why are they allowed to occupy our public library grounds, when the Hispanics are driven from public property at the river?"

My wife is a coalminer's granddaughter with a keen sympathy for the oppressed, so when she calls it racism, I listen. But I'm not altogether sure it is that, or is that altogether, in the particular case I will outline. I can only vouch for my wife's vastly superior intelligence compared to mine in political matters.

I managed to get the photograph (above) just a day or so before cone markers forbade convenient parking along Highway 202/206 to access the same stretch. The sign comes from either Bedminster's Parks & Facilities or Recreation Department. The regulations stated on it are a new development, too, although surely a more permanent one than forbidden parking. Markers also forbid easy access to stretches upstream and Bedminster Pond. The constitutional legality of the town's move is a question I don't have the answer to, my not being a lawyer; I'm just pointing out I don't know. Whether the law commands open and easy access to public land--one would think it must.

Yesterday, I spoke to a friend in the neighborhood. He brought up the cones. 

"They're still there?" I said.

What he divulged led me to mention it to my wife, when she told me the story of the two Hispanic trout anglers.

My friend told me in some detail about word he got of abuses. They were building fires and/or using barbeque grills, swimming in the river--Mexicans, as he put it, from North Plainfield--but the thing that disgusted me was word of the diapers left behind along with assorted other trash. If indeed this is the case. I believe he said he saw the property when it was a mess. As for the swimming, I've got GoPro footage, if anyone wants to ogle, of me and my son snorkeling the stretch. Perhaps, as would seem likely at my age now, such halcyon days are gone for the Litton's. What about opportunity for others? 

No, we never barbequed there, but it seems a neat thing to do. If you keep it clean. As for the new sunrise to sunset access provision on the board I photographed--many times I've been back there in the dark. Doing night photography and waiting on the initiation of Opening Day for trout. Fishing browns, too.

I checked out the stretch today, having accessed it legally by another means than the Highway. No fire marks, though it's quite possible some barbeque cooking went on. The bottom of the river is clean and looks untouched, unspoiled, despite alleged swimming going on. No trash. I guess it was cleaned up, because if I heard my friend's word right, he saw it, and I believe him in that case. It seems to me the "Mexicans" crossed the line. (I work with people from the Dominican Republic who could be confused with Mexicans.) It's fully understandable that Bedminster residents using the Hike and Bike Trail, as well as innocent anglers who leave no trace, should not be left feeling disgusted at trash visibly left behind. There's a trash container there. If more is consumed than the trash container can take, then one wonders if things are being overdone. Now parties in excess of five must obtain a permit. It's on the board. That rule seems like a good idea to me; though it's an inconvenience to large families, there should be an element of pride in being legitimized. 

Swimming--or snorkeling--was always done when it would probably offend no one. To invite lolling about in the river contradicts what that stretch is mostly used for--fishing. Lolling around in the water gets to be offensive pretty fast. On the other hand, to see a crazy dad and his son, the son who was well-known in the circles of Bernards High School, among classmates and parents alike, for being brilliant at math; or in other words, because the motive of doing more than indulging the body was evident due to a GoPro mounted on the head, a certain relief likely occurred to some witnessing us, not that anything is wrong with indulging the body except that we're referring to public property, and besides that, to an element of belonging...we knew some of the people who saw us in the river. Such a feeling of belonging eases the social nature of the situation--snorkeling that river was surely amusing to walkers and joggers, but offensive? Why should it have been? 

It's just that if towns begin to bar outsiders, we lose rather than gain unity. Sometimes anxiety about others you don't know helps heighten your awareness. Awareness functions by struggling to be inclusive--it wants to gain, but in some situations it settles on drawing the line or beating back what it feels is threatening. Snorkeling itself is a way to encounter unfamiliarity and become acquainted.  Largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, bluegills, green sunnies, redbreast sunfish, bullheads, suckers and rainbow trout--we've seen all of these species. We've viewed them not only in the interest of fishing. More so in the interest of naturalism. I'm not even naming the minnows viewed through diving masks there in the summer, here in Bedminster. 

What I had believed was surely a temporary measure--the elimination of parking along U.S. Highway 202/206 to access the river--became permanent. I'm linking to the "Letter to the Editor" I wrote about it for Recorder Newspapers. Note that we do the extra walking to access the AT&T stretches, and the state continues to stock there and surely will continue to. I was wrong in the Letter to assume they wouldn't. Even so, the access from River Road Park is compromised for us on Saturday mornings, I believe it is, due to the Farmer's Market, though we may be able to park even further away from the stretches and walk another couple hundred yards or so (one way). Nothing against a stroll, and perhaps there's more fish for fewer anglers now, but regardless, I push back when access is eliminated; the letter does it well.  Eliminated Easy Access

Bedminster Pond is difficult to access now. Especially if you want to fish near sunup or sundown. Elimination of Parking at Bedminster Pond

North Branch Raritan Fishing Overview

Conesus, Hemlock, Canadice Lakes Largemouth Bass

As a Jersey angler, I've heard stories about the fishing in New York's Finger Lakes for decades. I got the chance a couple of days to fish a little in the three western-most. Staying for three nights at Dog Meadow in Conesus was mostly my wife's vacation. She ventured the idea of going somewhere within four or five hours of Bedminster in the first place. I did suggest the Finger Lakes, because we had never been there. She knew about Air B & B. Superhost Andy's cabin, outdoor kitchen, and service are outstanding. At present, he rents three of the arrangements. Trish and I slept in a loft with the screened window open, even though temps fell to about 50. (Felt good.) As I sit in my living room before the wide screen and type now, I feel my house is stuffy. I will get used to it again, but I welcome the change of perspective, because Andy's set up really does give you a sense of living outdoors in comfort. (Don't miss the photos, below.) Over lunch today, I spoke to my wife about camping in Roscoe, New York, and though she expressed interest in staying in Roscoe--only in  a B & B arrangement of some kind. She will not camp in a tent, but she loved Dog Meadow. 

I had spent some time online looking at Finger Lakes boat rental possibilities, and everything I found was overpriced. Andy had put some brochures in the cabin, and I did seriously consider an hourly rate canoe rental on Canadice Lake, but the wind came out of the east at about 25 mph. Even if I had brought my anchor along, managing in wind that heavy would have been a problem I didn't care to deal with. 

The day before--Thursday the 11th--we tried a NY State Fishing Access point at Vitale Park, located at the northern end of Conesus Lake. Naturally, I was skeptical, having witnessed all these decades of my life how the state behaves. To be fair, I recognized that maybe--likely not--some bass would move over the shallow flats in rainy conditions. I cast knee deep--thigh deep at most--water. Fifteen minutes of fishing was mostly spent carefully scoping out all possibilities. I then chalked up the scene to the absurdity one should expect of a "fishing access" spot, and ate my lunch from the nearby McDonald's takeout as Trish read a novel at the picnic table and minded our black Lab, Sadie. There was little, if any, really, conflict between our interests, because Trish is fascinated in these places and finds them beautiful surroundings for her habit of reading. I had suggested Canandaigua as a town worth exploring, but up and downhill with a 13-year-old arthritic dog we had to wheel out of Vitale Park in a wagon?  

Hemlock Park offered some real possibility not many minutes away, but before I say more, I want to tell you I learned the next day that fishing is off limits in Hemlock Park except south of the boat launch. I had no idea until I saw it mapped out on a board located near the spillway. While I had fished near that spillway, a women had come and fished, an old man told me stories of fishing there, and a father and son came and fished. I lost a smallmouth that took my Chompers worm under a boulder. When I set the hook, the 20-pound fluorocarbon leader frayed on the rock and broke. Felt like a real good bass.

Anyhow, I refused to fish there again, after I learned of the legal limits. I tried another state access of Conesus at its southern end, where as far as I could cast, the water was six inches deep, and otherwise there, a sort of creek entered the lake, offering water two feet deep and weeds. I just didn't even bother. We rode on and I fished Hemlock south of the launch, where a weedbed extended along shore for hundreds of yards. I never saw the end of it. There was an edge in close; maybe the water there was four, maybe five feet deep, and it ran along shore endlessly, sometimes near-shore, sometimes further away. And it was where it was further to reach that interested me most. 

Fishing it persistently, I told myself, a little frustrated in getting no action besides a few sunfish pecks, that if I were in a boat in New Jersey, I'd hit that inside edge, because many times similar spots have produced. But I was clearly aware that with the sun directly overhead, not long after noon, conditions were a challenge. Eventually, I did catch the 14-incher photographed, and a little largemouth less than nine inches long. I got deeply involved in working that edge, but it just wasn't yielding many bass. Well, go over to Round Valley at one in the afternoon during August, fish from shore, and see how you do there. Hemlock Lake's clarity wasn't much dimmer. 

Nor was the clarity of Canadice Lake, just 15 minutes or even fewer from Hemlock. There are some pullovers along Canadice Lake Road, and I stopped at one of them. I caught nothing there, but maybe at sunset I would have succeeded. Who knows? The launch area has some possibility. I lost a little bass of about eight inches, hardly one to mention, nor the nine-incher I did catch where a weedbed similar to those at Hemlock forms a point at a drop-off, but that little bass offered me an overtone signifying larger: It took the eight-inch Chompers I had been using like a real fish. I also fished the drop off with a rocky bottom thoroughly, using a jig and Berkeley Gulp! leech. It fell away to about 12 feet deep within casting range--the deepest water I fished. 

It's possible you've heard stories of 68-bass days on the Finger Lakes like I have. I don't doubt it's happened like that. It does in Maine, too. But if I were to go back up there next weekend, I would probably catch more bass than I did on this trip, just because I learned a few things along the way. Maybe I would arrange with my wife to fish at sundown, too. I know I would sling my tackle tote over my shoulder and fish that weedline much further on down than I did yesterday...and who knows what else I would find. 

Take things with a grain of salt, though. Especially state designated fishing access. The Finger Lakes seem like a far-away paradise to us, but Syracuse is only 25 miles north or so of these three lakes. In other words, they have their regulars; they get pressured similarly as New Jersey lakes do. And the water of the Finger Lakes isn't somehow "pure" compared to water here. 

I had an interesting encounter with a guy in a kayak. He pulled away from the ramp, visibly struggling against that 25 mph headwind, paddling within my casting range. He was trying to catch up to a couple of friends in two other kayaks that got out ahead of him. I had spoken to the guys in those two earlier. They'd caught "a few bass, none bigger than a pound." 

"How's it going? I said it directly in a way that dismissed the obvious pain-in-the-ass of the wind he faced, as if to say instead, "It really doesn't really matter as much as getting what you can," but he paddled on as if he never heard me, though he had. So immediately I took stock of his four rods in fancy holders, his fortress of tackle boxes built on a sort of deck behind his seat, and concluded that this guy thinks he's hot shit. I'm standing there on a rock elevated two feet above the surroundings, and he thinks I'm just a peon. 

A few moments later, he came ashore, also within casting distance. Gets out. He's hooked himself in the crotch. 

He goes after the hook with pliers. I'm minding my fishing, but the next thing I know, he breaks the ice by asking if I have a band aid. I tell him I might in my car, give me five minutes. I hike up the roadway leading to the launch. Three minutes later, I give him two band aids. He thanks me. 

"Fish here often?" I ask. 

"I live in Syracuse. I come once and awhile."

"Ever catch any big smallmouths?"

"I've caught a couple."

"That's good," I assure him. (You know me, I meant it.)

He checks me out a sec. "You catch any today?"

I feel as if all that didn't go between us is now thoroughly redeemed. "I caught three largemouths. The biggest 14 inches from Hemlock."

That 14-incher would have made a couple of nice little fillets for Andy at Dog Meadow, but where was I going to buy ice for the cooler he supplied?  

    

Conesus Lake has houses along most of its shoreline.

Canadice Lake

Outdoor Kitchen

Maine