Beautiful Afternoon at Stockers

Ever since my brother Rick and Dennis Fairburn went to the Hunterdon streams Monday, I've wanted to go. Not for the outrageous numbers of trout they caught: 120 for Rick, 96 Dennis. No, Dennis posted a couple of photos and I felt drawn to these streams, some of my very favorite, despite the fact that they're spring fed little and trout don't reproduce. 

Saturday came very quickly, and I didn't feel prepared to go. I waffled around during the morning, going to the bank and seeing dozens of cars at the North Branch, working on an essay I've worked on for more than a month and can't seem to finish. I sure wasn't headed over to the North Branch and hoped that in the afternoon, the Hunterdon streams wouldn't be crowded. 

I deeply considered just canceling on my plan and going to Round Valley to walk with my wife and dog. Shooting a few photos, yes, but not a photo shoot proper. I very much enjoy outings with her. She kept telling me to go fishing, as if she knew that would be best. I told her I should give up fishing and for now on, she and I will go on outings together. She just laughed. "Go fishing." And she was out the door before I left with Sadie the Black Lab to walk Natirar.

Life can be like that. She has better judgment than I do. I get lost in my sensitivity easily. She certainly knew better than to get sucked into some nonsense about me not fishing anymore. Like that's really going to happen. I drove away from Bedminster wistfully remembering when she was about 25 and me 32.

And things got bad. I was driving U.S. 202 towards Pennsylvania, and I don't believe I have driven it in that direction for about five years. We used to all of the time, to visit family in New Hope. 

All sorts of landmarks seemed ragged and torn, ripped through by the struggle for nickels and dimes they represented, and to cap it all off, I saw the Stewart's Root Beer we stopped at a couple of times, out of business and coming undone. I had gone deep south by the time I arrived at Alexauken Creek, imagining the residents along the border as malevolent and to be avoided. I stopped at one spot, then decided the stocking crew probably didn't carry trout a hundred yards, despite the Fish & Wildlife sign. 

I drove on.

I scouted Wikicheoche Creek, and decided it, too, wasn't to fish. I knew I was headed for the Lockatong, but driving along the Wik raised my mood quite a lot. Where I put boots down at the Lockatong, I caught a trout on my first cast, the crowds gone. I persisted there awhile, catching seven more and coming back to myself. I sometimes wonder if other people go south and turn around, quit before they make the journey in full. Never compromise on your happiness. Do whatever it requires, even if getting there feels like it might do you in. 

I was at Kingwood. On a plateau. Farmland. As you can see in the photo above, the creek has a pastoral quality. I followed roads down into my favorite gorge. It gets no respect as the Ken Lockwood does, but it's beautiful. I came completely out of the struggle by the time I reached Strimple's Mill, fully happy to be there. Trout were there, and I caught three more, but I wasn't out for excessive numbers; I was meeting my favorite place--Planet Earth--on its own terms, rather than as a resource to scrape together loose change.

 

 

Hunterdon Streams

Trout Seem Spread Out

On Monday, I got ready to over here to the North Branch, and found my wife had thrown out all of my salmon eggs. I told her I had $40.00 worth in the fridge. She said, "Go to Kings, buy caviar, and use that." 

An order from Dicks should arrive today.

So I went to the North Branch with Trout Magnets this morning. Nobody there, no trout seemed to be, either. I saw none in the dump spot or upstream of it. I fished 10 minutes. Nothing hit. I did feel I might have done a little better with eggs. Mainly, I'm impressed by how they've spread out, unless they haven't been stocked.

If they've spread out, that's good for wading the stream up and down. If they stocked, they must have stocked a heavy load.

I'm off to work in minutes. I must say it feels good to have broken the routine a little.

Mercer Meadows

Had to get a shot of the Iron Bridge over Stony Brook, and I thought of Mercer Meadows nearby as a good place for a walk with my wife and Sadie the black Lab.

It was real good to stand at the edge of Stony Brook. My home stream. 

I grew up in Lawrence where the Meadows stretch around for miles, and I was familiar with them growing up, though most of it was farmland then. Now 1600 acres comprise the park. The Mercer County Park Commission has done a great job making and maintaining trails, preserving farm buildings and equipment, and maintaining the wild spaces for wildlife, especially birds.

 

North Jersey Recreation

 

Worm Time

Back at the pond, despite a temperature reading of only 57, casting one of two large spinners (willow-leaf inline) I made recently, I noticed quite a few small fish busting surface, though nothing happened like dozens of them spooked by my approach last week. And I couldn't really tell if any were bass. They seemed to be sunfish, but for all I know, they could have been baby carp. There are some big ones in the pond. 

Intentionally, I cut a cast in very close to the bank to my left and got snagged on wood. So I put my rod down and walked around to see if I could free it. As I approached the edge--a big wake. Almost certainly from a bass, not a carp, the fish would have weighed at least two pounds and had been sitting among emerging vegetation in about 10 inches of water. The green leaves of that weed were surprisingly large, a good inch of them already. Surely, the water had warmed a little better under the sun there. 

That bass just sounded off the word "worm." Forget the spinners. It was time to dabble a weedless and unweighted worm right on edges of new weed growth like this one. I took my little tackle box from a pocket and...found that, in my infinite stupidity, I had put no worms in it. I did have an inset hook! I'm making sure worms come along next time.    

Further Thought on the Blog

If there's one thing this blog would compete against, it would be time. Perhaps your first thought would be of the Blogger platform. It's finite and probably more so than the web itself, but if it were to be taken down, the content could be transferred to a self-hosted site. 

For many years now, my intention has not only been to continue blogging to my death bed, but beyond the grave. Or let's put that in practical terms. My son will take control. I'm sure he won't post, but he could. The point is to keep the content available. 

Every year, the blog has hosted more than a hundred posts. Will I keep that pace going to the end? I won't promise that. I suppose I might, but if numbers dip under triple digits for the year, it doesn't mean I won't post at all. 

I've seen many blogs start up, flicker, and die. This one has been driven by no less than manic power, and manic power is a spiritual reality I believe we all ultimately reckon with when we trip over the final line and are declared dead. 

Who knows. Maybe the reality on the other side just leaves this world in shadow. 

First of Laurie's Lake Hopatcong Reports This Year

 Laurie Murphy:

Open Water season has begun … We are now open for boat rentals, along with bait & tackle. Trout season is closed now but will open early on April 1st for catch and release only until April 10th. Water temps range from 46 degrees n the main lake to 58 degrees in the shallows. Focus your efforts on sandy bottoms and structure in the backs of the coves where you will find the warmer waters. Aaron Graybill of Lake Hopatcong Guide Service reported great fishing all week for crappie and yellow perch. Fatheads, small shiners, mini mites, rufus junior hair jigs and small Rapala husky jerks will work well. Plenty of chain pickerel are being caught and some of the first largemouth bass were landed this week. Max Hughen of Hopatcong NJ is catching his fair share of nice yellow perch and pickerel. The Knee Deep Club will be stocking their trout in the next week or so and will be holding their Trout & Pickerel Contests on Sunday, April 18th 2021. Have a great week !

Ten years of Litton's Fishing Lines

Today marks 10 years since I began blogging in 2011. Most of you weren't following then, and though the content was often quirky, I did faithfully write about outings as I do now. Within a few months or so, Litton's Fishing Lines will  surpass half a million visitations, although including my other blog, Fishing In New Jersey, we're well past that number.

When I began blogging, I wasn't yet aware of the NJ Fishing.com message board, the NJ Fly Fishing board, or the various sites on Facebook, which I visit fairly regularly, and some of you have seen some of my posts. There are loads of information available on those sites, so I thank you for participating on this one. You can see photos of big fish daily elsewhere, whereas you don't see a big fish here each day. You can always access older posts and see some.. 

I never got into blogging to compete. As I say, I didn't even know "the competition" existed, besides the outdoor magazines and other blogs. I like to think I'm doing the same thing now I did 10 years ago--giving fishing word. Picture, too, but mainly word. Thus, Litton's Fishing Lines. I wasn't thinking of cocaine when I chose the title; I was thinking of sentences.