Cold April Weather for a Catch

Temperatures in the 50's would have felt better; 44 degrees was cold. Our hands couldn't take it for too long. I recall many outings on the rivers fishing for winter trout when my hands didn't get cold, but in that breeze out there beside Oak Ridge Reservoir, they suffered today.

The water's way down. We tried a spot below what would have been a steep, gravelly drop off, and Brian got hit hard. He used what looked like a quarter-ounce jighead, giving it body by use of a three- or four-inch Keitech. 

I was casting a Binsky when Brian hiked up as the water flows. Something like 600 yards. He took position on the end of a smallish point and cast. I switched to a 16th ounce jig and Z-Man Slimswimz paddletail. I fished it as assiduously as I could, shooting a glance over at Brian on occasion. I knew a real possibility of hooking a smallmouth here where Brian had missed one existed. My being sure the water was plenty cold, because a couple of recent nights have dipped into the 20's, didn't exclude that possibility.

I started to think that if Brian were to catch one, I should be there with the camera. Besides, perhaps he and I would catch up a little by way of conversation. I didn't like the feel of the weather. It put a dank feel on my every move, but if we would head in early...not just yet.

The walk felt pleasant with my black Lab, Loki, accompanying me. I kept my eyes on the ground, looking for whatever might turn up. Old beer cans. Coke. Beer bottles. Loki found a fish vertebra about a foot long. Shortly after I arrived, Brian told me he was about ready to leave. I felt relieved. 

"I missed a few hits," he said, adding, "I had to switch out my Keitech because the fish tore it up."

I fished my jig slowly on bottom.

"This might be really nice when it's calm on a summer evening," I said.

"Yeah, topwater." 

I understood it wasn't going to be an afternoon of much said between us. The weather felt too uncomfortable. 

I don't use Keitech, but I've heard it from Brenden Kuprel, also, that they don't last, but I began feeling perhaps I should have used a larger jig and plastic combination. Brian began making his way back in the direction of our vehicles.

"Fish on," he said. A sudden change in the feeling of things. 

I saw his rod bending. A good-sized smallmouth leapt. The struggle seemed a little testy as a good fish often does. Soon, he dragged one that probably would have measured at least 17 inches up onto the mud, making it less than a good subject for photography. I gripped it by the lower jaw and washed it off at the water's edge.

Back home, I found I had driven 94 miles. You never know; it's possible I'll ride all that way, fish topwater through a perfect summer evening and never get hit. 

Clinton Reservoir 

Trout Stocking First Week After Opening Day May be Lightweight

                                                                                     

Relatively opaque water, given how clear it can be, but not stained, ran higher than I had expected after three days since rain. I got into a nice spot right at 5:00 p.m., figuring fish should be there and would hit. I cast tentatively, and as the egg drifted downriver with the help of several snap swivels attached to a snap for weight, I suddenly doubted anything would happen. And nothing did until I got a solid tap about 10 casts later. 

After four more takes of the like, besides once getting slammed and having the trout on for a second, drag screeching, I made my way upstream some 10 yards, working my body through tight spaces between tree trunks and a wooden fence. The trunks have dormant poison ivy vines strung on them. Walking on rocks on a bank sloping at a 45-degree angle, making sure my left knee didn't give out, avoiding the consequence of getting pitched into the river, that, I thought, wouldn't be so bad. It would be the loss my mobile device. That left knee had been operated on some 14 years ago, and it's not getting better. I felt surprised to see the same woman who had hooked the breeder last time. I said hi and made a cast. Then a few more. I missed another hit. She said, "Do you think they restocked?"

"I think they did, just didn't put many fish in."

"I don't think so." 

I'm sure the river was stocked, although the trout, for the most part, weren't committing to the eggs but managing to steal them from my hook. There were others fishing downstream and I hadn't seen a single trout caught. I continued fishing near the exit bridge, the bridge upstream of the former AT&T entry bridge where the trout get stocked, but I got only one more tap.  

I went downstream. There I found the water was a lot slower than I would have expected, given the power of the flow above. I downsized to a single size 14 Eagle Claw snap swivel for weight. Soon I hooked up and fought an average rainbow to the bank. I was standing about six feet high over the edge of the water, and I wasn't interested in climbing down to get the trout, so before I would have pulled it up on rocks, I hoped it would lose the hook and be on it's way, which happened a second later when the trout was about a foot from the dry edge. 

Now. I figured I might have some action. I didn't think ahead of how much I would have to work for it. At my age, it's not as easy; it's rather difficult, but if you're going to suffer for the fish, you'll get some satisfaction in return, even if you go home with some kinks to work out over long hours ahead. 

I paid keen attention to just where my egg was touching down, and I missed more of the same kind of hits right at the end of my rather short and definitely slow drifts. I set the hook on one of them and got repaid with a distinct visual of rainbow colors before the trout quickly disappeared under the cover of that less-than-clear water. Soon, I hooked another, and I played it, drag screeching repeatedly, before I got the trout--average sized--against the bank. And then I lifted it out of the water, which made me wonder if I could lift it all the way up to where I stood. Would my knots to two-pound-test Berkley XL hold? Snap swivel to mainline, hook to leader, overhand loop of leader to slip onto the snap. The knots held as I continued to lift, but the hook pulled free, the trout dropping back into the water and shooting away. 

I missed perhaps a few more hits. I had to repeatedly cast, working for these fish. I was deeply into the flow of the action and enjoying it with focused intent. When hits stopped coming to the right of me, I cast a little further upstream. I found there were trout there too, just not many. Downstream further yet, on the other side of the entry bridge, some eight or nine men fished fast water with just enough depth to hold a fairly large number of trout, although there were not too many there today. I saw one trout get caught. The only one I saw caught by anyone else the entire time out. I had only minutes left, though, having signed on for a Zoom photographer's meetup at 7 p.m. I hooked another, playing it with the same give of the drag, and once again, hoisted a trout towards me, the hook pulling out. Convenient catch and release. I tried just a few more casts, once feeling a cadence of taps...so compelling...before I set the hook on nothing. 

Someone who had been fishing downstream and caught nothing told me it was the same lack of action at the South Branch yesterday. (The South Branch is stocked on Tuesdays.) Possibly that has to do with Opening Day having been only days ago, still a fair number of trout in the streams. 

I headed home to meet up with my friends. 

Fishing Salmon Eggs  

Salmon Egg Jar Fused to Metal Egg Lug

I can't remember how long ago it's been since I fished Opening Day, and although I could riffle through my handwritten log to find out, I'll let that be. I believe it was 2016, when I fished for half an hour with my son in the afternoon, the water high and off-color, though I did catch one. Not really muddy but not clear, either. 

When I got out of my car, gathered my things and began walking, I felt pleasantly refreshed. None of that doubt scraping at my innards, generated from feeling behind at work. I am done jobbing now, but as unambiguously as everyone else seems to think I'm retired, I can't think of it that way without being reminded I have more work to do than I can possibly get done...so I have to choose as wisely as I can. But work, yes, though I don't recall feeling reminded of it as I approached the river. Someone recently called that work my hobbies, but whatever, I do need to catch up, though it might be more important to slow down outdoors. For me, the prospect of building a website feels daunting, and while others say I should simply hire someone, no, I'm not interested in paying anyone to do what I can, at least, try to do.

I walked a rather long, paved walkway. It took me to the river between two bridges. I found the spot I usually do best at unoccupied. Surprised, I quickly made my way down to the river edge, feeling fortunate. The water flowed just a little high, not stained, but not gin clear. I needed to add a couple of snap swivels to my snap for weight. Then I stood there for about 10 minutes until 8 a.m. The first drift amounted to my salmon egg staying right near bottom where I wanted it, without the rig getting stuck on that bottom. Five or six drifts yielded no hits, and I thought maybe no trout made their way upstream from the stocking point a hundred yards below. But that couldn't be. Even on stocking days they're already up there. 

Got hit and played my first trout. Everything felt like cool air to breathe. Not too cool at 53 degrees. 

Near the end of my 50 or 55 minutes fishing, I noticed two breeders in close and upstream a bit. Neither interested in my salmon eggs, I told a woman who had come onto the scene in the interim that one of them followed her spinner for a bit. Five or 10 minutes later, she hooked one of them, but it managed to free itself from the treble hook. 

Fishing was slow compared to other times I've stood there. I caught four rainbows, lost a couple of others during the fight. Missed a few hits. Plenty of other trout got caught downstream from me, though it wasn't mayhem. I had decided not to bother with waders. 

The eggs had fished well; I had salted them just enough so they stayed on the hook. Got to my car and attempted to remove the jar--still almost full--from the metal Egg Lug. It's fused on there, but since I said the same in a couple of FB posts, I'm getting advice on how to remove it. Maybe I can.

The Egg Lug I purchased during the 1970's, when the metal ones were commonly used. I own another one, although it's possible it really belongs to my brother Rick, each of us having long ago forgotten. As the Reading Eagle article I linked to features it, Pautzke's plastic egg lug available online will work. I own one of those, too...and I don't remember buying it, either, although that was much more recent.

Jar of my favorite pale salmon eggs stuck on that ancient Egg Lug.

Comparison Between Eggs and Pink Worm

Baker's Basin and Moving On

First of all, let me say today was a strange day in many ways. It coincides with the fallout of so-called Liberation Day, though I wasn't thinking about that. Since I've got home, I've made sure to watch Fox News, but I remain skeptical about the President's idea about bringing back manufacturing, as if that cultural implication will actually revive the country. And I say that because I believe the future is new forms of advanced digital industry and energy--thus new jobs--not the past forms that are simply obsolete given the mind's advance since then. I fear that we've simply been set way back on the flourishing aspect of a future that is inevitable, while threatening to increase the heat of climate change. 

Not to mention that it would have been nice if the bull market didn't end once the President was inaugurated. Gas prices going up. What next? And the big question--what for? Nothing, right? Isn't that how vengeance always works. The vengeance takes down both the assailant and his victims. 

I rode over to The Sporting Life to buy a dozen shiners. Not because the weather is too cold for lures, but because I had in mind my favorite spot on the canal, where I've usually fished colder water with shiners. Ideally, it's a mild day when I fish it, because a pipe drains a small, very shallow pond into the canal, and that water flowing out can be warmer. 

I quickly caught a bass of about 13 inches by casting from up above so as not to spook anything in close. Got it up on the bank, the circle hook came free, and it plopped back in, so no photo of it. Then I missed a few hits from something that seemed to play with the (large) shiners, more than get serious about eating. I got hit again and reeled in the small crappie. Had a few more hits like that afterwards and caught the bass photographed.

I had bought size 4 and 6 circle hooks from Melton Tackle. It's a good price, but not only will a bass swallow a circle hook as quickly as it will swallow any other, a circle hook will not rust out easily, unless it's bronze like my Eagle Claw J hooks. Have seen only corrosion-resistant finish, which of course means resistant to rusting. So you can end up killing more fish with circle hooks. Not only that. It's quite difficult to hook a shiner through the lips with a circle hook. Had little trouble hooking them through the dorsal area when ice fishing, though. So today I switched back to a J hook and consigned my circle hooks to ice fishing. Maybe for Yum Dingers, too, 1/0. 

I fished my canal spot as if alienated from something I love to do. I said I did not think about what happened yesterday and the fallout today. I did see the Dow was down four percent before I went out, so I knew for certain but put it out of mind. Or so I would have thought. It felt as if I were being drawn into facing some unpleasant truth about myself and the fishing, which for decades has vitalized my energies. It was interesting enough to keep at it there for 45 minutes, but it seemed oddly incongruous to something having to do with the present year compared to long ago.

I mentioned Baker's Basin in a recent post, and today I fully intended on visiting the place. It's in Lawrence Township near the border with Hamilton Township. Why, I wasn't sure. As I rode U.S. Highway 1 from Quaker Bridge Road south, it didn't seem good. I turned right onto Carnegie Road, after turning around at Darrah Lane, and noticed the old Allied Van Lines warehouse is now a storage company. I rode a little further to see that indeed, Baker's Basin no longer has a parking lot. Instead, I parked in a lot adjacent the canal and walked the trail along the canal to the pond. 

The first thing I noticed is that the pipe connecting the basin to the canal--when I first saw the basin in 1971, there was the large opening to the canal where mule barges of the 19th century crossed--is broken. (I think they moved coal.) The front section apparently rusted away and sank into the pond, but there's still a flow between canal and pond. Bass go in and out.

Pads were up. Usually, I'd feel that's kind of nice, but it seemed like something from Jurassic times, the way the leaves protruded above the surface. I cast along an edge and a small bass tried to take the large shiner, too small a bass to hook. I did work my way down to the deep corner, hanging out there awhile. Some people do fish the Basin; litter gave that away. Not the other side, though. It's grown over and possibly holds more bass and pickerel, though I don't think the fishing pressure here is anything like it used to be, when it consistently produced. A fence with No Trespassing signs hugs close to where we always used to park and fish on that other side. Warehouse a little to the left. 

I fished where, 50 years ago, I caught bass in late February on shiners by fishing them very slow in the 12 foot depths, live lined. That inspired my first published article in The New Jersey Fisherman in March, 1977, "Early Largemouth." That magazine became The Fisherman. You might think that would be cause for celebration today, at least a leap of joy, but neither happened. Instead, the world seemed a pretty dead place. 

I have to get a new website up before I return to my book and finish it. 

All writers suffer self-doubt. Chris Pierra of the NJ Multispecies Podcast famously said, "Suffer for the fish," and there's no doubt that artists, writers among them, suffer as well. Sometimes I do in horrifying ways, but by always applying a pinch of salt as if I'm skeptical of the frightening scenarios the mind drags up from hell. I neutralize the moods. I always have plenty of control, and my friends might be relieved to learn it always seems to happen when I'm alone.

Not that I don't like being alone. I'll always fish alone on occasion. Come hell or high water. 

Besides, Loki the black Lab came along today. It's just that voice ought to be given to this weird thing coming down the pike as stocks plummeted. According to some psychologists with advanced degrees, there's such a thing as the collective unconscious. something I've taken for granted since I was 19, and it's as if today I blew around in the winds of the spirit. Not a good thing with such loss all the way across the country and around the globe.

I did catch a pickerel as I headed back towards my Honda Civic. There was an opening between trees and brush, where obviously some fishermen approach the pond. It was a saving grace to have one of my hunches. That's something I love about fishing. The psychic aspect. The ability to have a feeling about a spot, even when all the others have failed me. And for that spot to produce. Small pickerel. But even though I had had that feeling and had followed through, it seemed kind of absurd to have caught it. I even felt today that I should be working a job. What? Now we can't retire, because we have to all lose money for no purpose but some delusion about return to outmoded forms of production?

But I mean, really, I'll get the website up. It's not the end of the world. Takes some work, but I'll do it! I'll get the book done. I'll write the novel next. It's just that 51 years since I began fishing the Basin is a very long time, and I guess the message it relayed is that I damn well better move on.    

More Big Sliders Than in the Past

Pads Up

Beavers weren't here in the past. This is a big tree, and it's as if the beaver knew that, backed off, and is awaiting heavy winds to bring it down.

Delaware and Raritan Canal

 

The Guessing Game: Let the Unconscious Pinpoint Fish

My apprehensions about water temperature quickly dispelled, because I wisely decided to bring along my portable sonar unit again. Last I did that, I learned a lot about the lake's depths, but today that temperature concerned me, and Brian and I found in short order that it was 53. Not bad. 

Of course, with the air temp never getting out of the low 50's--when we drove off at 6:03 p.m. it was 49, and an hour or more before that, I plainly saw my breath--that water was cooling. I've known early season bass to turn on when it's warming. Conditions such as Wednesday's with the high temp just about 70. Brian was out there on the same lake with Mark Licht that day, and they did great, Brian's biggest largemouth about 6 pounds, five of his six bass over four pounds, but in total, they caught 11 fish, compared to our 13 fish in the cold yesterday. 

That might be a photo of the biggest, above. I'm not sure, because I caught two bass well over four pounds--4.87 pounds, and 4.32 pounds. Another one of mine might have been only a quarter pound under four, another about three-and-a-half, a two and something 17-incher, a smallish bass of about two pounds, and another bass of about two-and-a-half. The crappie in the photo below hit a MiniKing spinnerbait and put up a real good fight on a light rod. My pickerel came off the hook when I was lifting it into the boat, falling against the gunwale, then into the water, not into the boat, so you decide if that was really a catch. 

Brian called it a cigar. 

Suffice it to say not every fish is photographed. Brian did catch three nice bass; possibly every one of them was over three pounds. His pickerel was a nice one, too. 

Brian is committed to the Chatterbait. I like to use different lures. I started with a Chatterbait. Who would argue against its success the day before? I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to bring my light rod, but that MiniKing spinnerbait was looking good, and I did not deny it. Nor once we had cast Chatterbaits for three or four minutes to no takers among residual weedbeds. The MiniKing got hit after five or 10 minutes. I repeated the same cast and hooked up. At first I thought pickerel, then it felt like a nice bass, but it turned out to be a crappie only about 13 inches long! Partly, it was that light rod. One I built from a St. Croix blank that cost me $70.00 in 2005. 

The wind was about right but a little catty-cornered. It generally blew us up towards the back of the lake but at about a 45-degree angle. Again & again, we had to paddle away from shore. For a fairly long while--altogether we fished maybe four-and-a-half hours--I cast that spinnerbait, catching the pickerel and the smallest bass. A pickerel that small never would have hit a Chatterbait. Those are big lures for big fish. The bass might have hit it. And might not have. It was only about 16 inches long. Didn't even fight as hard as the crappie. It got me thinking about small lures for small fish. I have nothing against catching smaller ones, and I caught plenty of big ones yesterday. It was nice catching small ones, too. I also caught a 19-inch largemouth on that little spinnerbait. 

I tried the Chatterbait repeatedly but nothing would hit. But I like to think I'm good at guessing where to place a Senko-type worm rigged Wacky. If you're casting to the water, you're not doing it right. Out in front of you is a lot of water. In this lake we fish, for example, it's mostly about six or seven feet deep. There's weeds, but interspersed, and much of the time you can't tell where. All that water will only blind you if you don't create a spatial abstract of it and zero in on where your mind tells you to cast. Otherwise, it's just random and will only wear you down. It's not magic, but by using the mind, you create energy rather than lose it. The argument is simple. If you're interesting yourself at a guessing game, by which you convert the raw mass of water into a grid that tells you where to pinpoint the cast, you might rise to the occasion. You will, if results begin to suggest--as they have for me--that the unconscious mind is capable of putting you on fish. 

I had a rod at the ready. Pre-rigged with a brown Shim-E-Stick, good color for the overcast conditions. I picked it up and began my guessing game, which soon paid off with the 17-incher. Brian had caught one or two on his Chatterbait. Soon we positioned behind an island, and a bass picked up that Shim-E-Stick as I let it rest on bottom. It weighed 4.87 pounds, 20 1/2 inches. I caught another one of about 18 1/2 inches after I put my rod in a rod holder, letting the worm kind of deadstick. (The canoe drifted very slowly in the calm behind that island.) The bass took drag as the rod bent in the holder. As we began heading back to Brian's truck, I caught one about 16 1/2 inches on the brown worm nearly against the bank. Brian had caught his pickerel and his last bass. Before we really began the long paddle back, I gave that Chatterbait one last try. 

I had caught fish on both of my lighter rods. I wanted to even the score. Along that island shoreline, we've caught a lot of fish. I began by casting pretty close and parallel, and intended to progressively work my way out, not getting very far when I got whomped. The bass weighed 4.32 pounds, 20 inches.   

 

I thought this one was about 16 1/2 inches. Maybe it was a little better than that.

Artificial Intelligence and Fishing 

Last Days of Winter Trout Besides TCA Waters

One last try at the river trout as only two days remain before most waters close until Opening Day. Oliver Round and Loki the black Lab came today. Fifteen minutes less than two hours. Besides a couple of fish on for a moment I think were also suckers, I might have got hit twice from trout. Oliver had a sucker or carp on for a second. A big scale on his hook. 

Notice my sucker got hooked on the nose. 

I'm glad I caught trout this time around. October and November felt very discouraging, but December yielded just before extremely cold weather resulted in some ice fishing for some anglers. Pretty much for the months of January and February we ice fished. I saw some Facebook posts that prove not everyone gave up on the rivers, though there was a lot of ice on them. Naturally, fishing pressure got reduced. 

I caught trout in March for a change, though that might partly be owing to the fact of that ice covering spots like the one I've been hitting. Trout Conservation Areas will remain open. Last year I fished two of them, catching trout on the Pequest April 1st.

Doubt I'll do the same this year, as I'm eager to go bass fishing. Brian Cronk is out fishing Indian Lake as I write, trying a new glide bait for the big ones. 

After March 31st, I'm done jobbing. By all accounts I can drum up, I'll be done for life. That doesn't mean I won't return the form to the union that will allow me to return to work and preserve my pension for later, but as awful as the economy has become in recent weeks, I doubt it will become so devastating that I have to hold a job. 

I have important to work to do as a writer and photographer. More than I can possibly get done, so I have no natural interest in holding a job after I quit my present one. Only extreme devastation coming from aberrant leadership might mean I can't do that work as fully as I will be enabled by having time I currently have to commit to a low wage. Instead of that eventuality actually happening--amounting to a dystopian society no one would want: mass death, legal chaos, and so much unemployment I probably wouldn't find a job anyway--I tend to believe that things look worse when reflected by the media. 

Reservoir Level Low Exploring Spruce Run Creek Channel

I was curious about the channel of Spruce Run Creek. What that looks like for future reference, if I ever get a boat up there near Van Syckel's Road. I wasn't just starry eyed about finding pike and bass, though I thought that possible. If the reservoir ever refills, it might be a lot easier. 

It will, but when is anyone's guess. 

Surprised at how much rock, gravel, sand, and edgy drop-offs exist as the creek flows, I felt privileged to explore it and got photos to help me remember where interesting spots lie. Surrounding all that is muddy flat. 

Carp water pretty much.

I think I walked almost a mile to access the mouth of the creek as it becomes reservoir. Loki the black Lab had a field day running around that flat and exploring the creek bed. Where the creek widens and slows, as you can see in the photos below, it gains depths of at least three feet, maybe four, so I cast a jerkbait and worked it slow on the surface as much as I retrieved it. 

Something could have moved into that space, it seems, but if anything at all was there, it wasn't hitting. I'm sure the water temp remained in the 40's, though I don't know that for a fact. I didn't bring along a thermometer. One thing to remember about Spruce Run Creek is that it purportedly hosts wild brown trout. Even if it doesn't hold as many as Mulhockaway Creek on the other side of Spruce Run Reservoir, Spruce Run Creek is spring fed and stays cool, compared to streams that don't have the same kind of groundwater influence. 

The reservoir beyond that deeper creek mouth was super shallow. It's just a slow-sinking mud flat. To have attempted--which I didn't do--gaining the edge of water, would have meant sinking in wet mud. 

 

Front Came Through and Put Fish Off

If you remember from yesterday, I wrote about muddy water from the Delaware River possibly reaching the Island Farm Weir area of the Delaware and Raritan Canal today. 

I rode I-287 to exit 12, seeing as I passed over it on the bridge that the canal was clear. I felt a little surprised at that. And then I began riding north on Weston Road. Within a mile, almost to the area of the weir where I would park, the canal became muddy. Muddy water had indeed reached the area where we fishing yesterday, but I simply turned around and parked at the little park by the South Bound Brook canal lock and fished there. Water was plenty clear. I saw my shiner three feet deep or more. 

I fished hard for two hours. I grew all the more convinced that because the front came through, the fish turned off. Extreme winds gave that away. The temperature really wasn't bad, as high as 52, but it felt cold out there. Gusts came through of perhaps 60 mph. I saw a fat limb fall from a tree into the Raritan River, enormous splash, and I was careful when standing high over the water at any edge, because I could have been blown off my feet.

When I had got there a few small cumulus formations floated in the sky. When I left, I saw only one very small puff up there. All blue otherwise. 

I usually catch at least one fish when I fish the canal. Any time of year. As it went today, I was just glad I gave it a sincere effort. I did see a large turtle. Probably a slider. 

Near the end of the outing, I went into a mild reverie. Often that's when the fish hits, but not today. I began ruminating a little bit about catching up on a few spots I haven't fished in decades. For what they are, they're a long drive away. I routinely drive an hour to access spots to the north. Mostly, they're promising places. I wouldn't say the two I have in mind are bad this time of year, however. Not when temperatures have warmed. 

One of the spots is a very shallow, very weedy pond that warms five to 10 degrees better than the canal when temperatures spike early in the spring. The pond empties through a pipe into the canal, and while lots of fish can be caught in the pond, they're usually small, although I did once catch a 20-inch pickerel. But at the pipe, I've caught some of the biggest fish I ever have in the canal, which come and bask in that warmer water. A 22-inch pickerel and I have a vague memory of encountering a nice bass. My biggest crappie, too, and lots of that species. 

Thirdly, there's Baker's Basin, which I suspect is no longer fished. I might not be able to fish the pond effectively, because overgrown, but in any event, it will be interesting to evaluate. 

Maybe next year when I have more time. 

Millstone Memories 

Bass from the Cold Delaware and Raritan Canal

The bottommost photo is of the flooded Raritan River. I believed the canal might be clear enough to fish. If not, my idea was to fish Round Valley Pond, which Oliver corrected me on. The park closes at 4 p.m. We'd have no time. 

We met at my house, then rode over to the Sporting Life in my car. Me, Oliver, Brian. Bought a dozen large shiners. Dead ones work, too. 

Brian said he wanted to throw paddletails. (At the end of the outing, he was throwing a Chatterbait.) 

Driving over really wasn't bad. We took 22 East, cut over to 28, went through Somerville Circle, connected to 206. Over to Manville. Onto Wilhousky. Soon we saw the canal. 

Normal color.

It takes a while before muddy water from the Delaware gets over here. I love fishing that canal so much, I want to do it again tomorrow, but it's possible muddy water is on the way. If I get there and that's the case, I'll go over to Round Valley Pond, unless the thought of something else crops up. A really interesting option is Baker's Basin Pond, but Lawrence Township is fully an hour away.

Besides, when I last visited there, trails had some pretty heavy overgrowth, so it's possible those trails no longer exist and the pond is just a safe haven for gamefish that is no longer fished. 

We can't "go back to the 70's." If no one's fishing Baker's Basin, it's not the 70's. The place was hit every day back then. 

It produced, too.

Do you believe for a moment a pond that's been abandoned, possibly even the extensive parking lot grown-in, is going to become the place again, fished every day by local residents? If we're going to fish in the future, we need to embrace the technology of the future, not attempt to escape it into the past.  

It was so nice to forget about all that for a while today. 

I've caught a lot of winter pickerel on crappie jigs around brush, wood, stuff in the water. That's fun, because you see the pickerel bolt out of the sticks and hit. Oliver saw the like today, when he fished a paddletail and got the paddletail bit off.

I prefer live-lining shiners. This time of year. During the summers in recent decades, I've fished Yum Dingers. But I love the cold and cooler weather of the canal, because I like the feel of pickerel taking a shiner sidewise and bolting a few yards. Today, the pickerel that hit one of my shiners bolted from a couple feet away from the bank, directly to the bank, underneath some stuff. I got to feel the fish turning the shiner around in its mouth, but I was sure it was a really small fish, like a 10-inch pickerel. (Little ones like that are common in the canal.) I didn't let it take the shiner too long, afraid of gut-hooking it, and when I set the hook, I simply pulled the hook from that shiner in its mouth.

Brian and Oliver didn't quite dress for the weather. Especially with a heavy wind barreling down the big river, it was especially cold out there. Forty-four degrees felt much worse; it was miserable, but especially after I encountered the pickerel, I felt motivated and happy. 

It was time to go. Brian has Raynaud's disease, and even though he never dipped (Oliver and I did barehanded) into the minnow bucket, his numb hands turned purple without gloves. 

I understood the fishing wasn't going to go further. I would cast some more but not much more, and before I could tell myself to stop, I saw green gills flush and my shiner disappear.

I was standing beside Brian and Oliver. "I've got a nice one on," I said. I felt the fish pulling line out into the canal, tightened up on that line, and set the hook, expecting some fun from a pickerel about 18 inches long, a nice one for the canal. 

Turned out to be a little bass of about 10 1/2 inches. It's always a blessing to catch a bass in the cold canal.    

Brian Cronk fishing for walleye

Raritan River

Romp

 

 

Judging Differences Between Berkley Fishing Lines

Naturally, I returned to where I caught the trout over five pounds yesterday. I hooked up on my second cast and caught the rainbow photographed above.

I had walked hundreds of yards to get there, feeling positively expectant. I examined the feeling and judged that it didn't have to do with yesterday's catch. It was fresh and of it's own origin in things. Next, I wondered if that really meant I'd do well. Doubted that. But "of it's own origin in things," it easily could have had to do with the temperature rapidly rising to over 60, and more than that. It could have had to do with the approaching front, which, of course, I understood could mean active fish. The coming rain could have been just as important as the rising water temperature.

Spinning was appropriate again this morning. As it was the other day when all I did was snag a sucker, the wind even heavier. Fly fishing in 40 mph wind--or 25 to 30 mph as was today--is not easy to say the least. But you can spin cast.

I fished the 16th-ounce jig. Casting the Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon line I mentioned in the previous post was not as ergonomic as casting the Berkley XL. I had had my suspicions, when I paid five dollars more for a 250-yard spool of Vanish, than for a 310-yard spool of XL Oh, well. I like to pay attention to every increment in price and come up with the best value on expenditure, and whether or not I did this time? I think I did OK, but really, I don't like how it casts. It seems just as bad as the older fluorocarbon from Berkley I tried yesterday. Sometimes I can hear the stuff rasp as it goes through the guides! Face it, it's fluorocarbon and it will not be nearly as limp as a monofilament that is specially made to be limp. That's what the "L" of "XL" means.

You can buy Berkley XT and good luck with that stuff, although I've read forum threads and it does have a large fan base, so you might like it a lot better than I would. For good reason, too. Always a trade-off. The designation of the "T" in "XT" is for "tough," and tough it is, I'm sure. Good knot strength. Abrasion resistant. 

Also clear, and I don't like the blue, Stren-like, (another line brand), color of the XL. You have to trade off, and I might trade off Vanish for XL yet.

Vanish also had less diameter, and I do like that. Or at least I thought I did, and maybe I still do. It's .17mm. XL is .20. Here's the thing though. I don't seem to get casts out there any further, although it's true that after I switched to the eighth-ounce black marabou jig, expressly in order to cast further, I did get it closer to the far bank than I ever have, though I thought because I got better umph.

I could be mistaken. Does .03mm improve casting distance by a few inches or a foot or two or does that only mean you have to use up more line to fill your spool? Besides, won't a limp line cast a little further? I would think so. And so does this particular blogger.

So what I will probably do is end up scouring the internet for limp monofilament that doesn't have that blue shade I don't like. And if it has to be .20mm, OK. But I'll try to find limp, clear, and low diameter.

I like Berkley products, though. My scale is made by them and I've tested it on a five-pound bag of sugar. Spot on. Besides, Berkley has been in business since 1937.. I was big on them as a teenager, too, and having a long track record probably means you've stayed in business because you make good products. In Berkley's case, I would say so.  

And so I had ended up catching the second trout, photographed below, although that was before I switched to the heavier jig. I did miss a few hits today, and once came up with another sucker scale on the hook, if you've been reading along with my recent posts.

Both of my trout went back into the river. The five-plus-pound trout I caught yesterday is plenty for now. Unfortunately, the area of river where these fish are means they will, in all likelihood, die before summer, unless someone catches and keeps them. 

You'd hope the trout would have enough wherewithal to swim for the Atlantic.  

Odd-looking coloration for a rainbow trout.

Back in the Beginning

 

Rainbow Trout Weighing Over Five Pounds

 Yesterday, I fished a 16th-ounce black marabou, getting hit a couple of times and once having a fish on for a second, but you don't really know if you're snagging suckers, unless you really get struck. One of the hits yesterday did feel like the jibber-jab of a small trout. Curious. 

When I got skunked last time I fished the river, a couple of times my jig had a sucker scale impaled on the hook. I imagine big carp exist in the stretch, too, but the sizeable fish I hooked that same outing left behind a scale I'm sure had belonged to a sucker.

Since I get longer casts from an eighth-ounce jig, I switched to one of those, lost it to a snag, tied on another, lost that one. Meanwhile, I had had trouble with the old Berkley fluorocarbon I had loaded onto my Cetus, after blood knotting to the Berkley XL underneath. The stuff was doubling out on the cast, and twice I lost a lot of line and had to retie. Meanwhile, I'm wondering if the Berkley Vanish I ordered is really going to live up to the claim the company makes of its castability. 

I tied a 16th-ounce marabou onto that four-pound-test XL line, and judged that the stuff does cast marvelously--the XL does, I'll give you a review of the Berkley Vanish in the next post. Very soft, limp line, which does pose problems when it comes to getting snagged--you can't expect quite as good knot strength, and it won't do as well among abrasions like rocks and wood. You trade one thing off for another, but the Vanish is supposed to be good both ways. This other stuff I tried, while the Vanish is coming to me through Amazon Prime, might have been on the spool for 22 years, because I have spools of line collected in a plastic trash bag going back that long ago. I've kept them protected from sunlight, so they are still good, but fluorocarbon generally was not as good as it is now. 

Anyhow, I waded back out to my favorite spot within the stretch and worked that jig, getting pounded. The trout made itself visible almost immediately, so I felt relieved it was no sucker. Big trout. It really didn't fight very hard, and this is the second five-pound-plus trout I've caught that didn't fight hard. I caught a 24-inch rainbow at Round Valley Reservoir that didn't. Other big ones I've caught have fought hard as hell, though the 6.9-pounder just shy of seven pounds, which I also caught at Round Valley, didn't fight all that hard, either. 

Yesterday's was 23 1/4 inches, 5.3 pounds. A thick-bodied rainbow.

 

6.9

How to Jig for River Trout Can be Complicated

When I parked, the temperature was 65, and I felt confident it would remain high as I fished, possibly even provoke some of those rainbows in the spot to hit, along with the stimulus of the approaching front. I wasn't exactly raring to go. I didn't like the long walk through a large farmer's field, but I covered the distance pretty quickly, getting over-warmed in the process. 

I wanted to try one of my new NRC Creek Bugz, but I decided to leave the eighth-ounce Kalin's marabou jig on the hook, since it worked so well last time. Pretty soon, I hooked something heavy that began heading downriver, and then I lost it, feeling I had just lost a tank of a trout, but once I had reeled the jig in, I saw a scale on the hook, so I figured I had snagged an oversize sucker. 

I lost my jig and tied on an NRC (photographed above). Fishing one of them, I think, is a little more complicated than an eighth-ounce or sixteenth-ounce marabou. I mounted it on a 32nd-ounce jig head, and though I felt it cast pretty far, I couldn't get it close to the far bank as I did with the eighth-ounce jig, and with the heavy wind this afternoon, controlling the retrieve wasn't as easy. 

It's a much slower, plodding retrieve. It seems as if you can keep it near bottom without getting snagged nearly as often as you do with an eighth ounce. I retrieved the eighth-ounce jig fairly fast by comparison, and I was still getting hung up a lot. The water is pretty deep in the area of the long stretch I fished, too. Maybe one of the main advantages of fishing an eighth ounce is getting it across the river.

I hooked and lost a pretty nice trout last time I fished the stretch by having got the jig near the opposite bank and having just begun the retrieve. But today, I got hit once on my side of the mid-river. I had lost the NRC to a snag and tied on another eighth-ounce jig. It was a definite strike with a shaken-up series of pulls, and it came on the eighth-ounce jig and its faster retrieve. 

I've been told by a more experienced river trout fisherman not to fish that way. That an eighth ounce is way too heavy for the rivers during winter, but I keep getting hit and I usually catch trout. I think most of my river trout have hit that size, rather than jigs of a sixteenth ounce. Some advice is good, and I think I have yet to see if my friend's enthusiasm for NRC pays off in more catches for me.

But sometimes advice just doesn't work out. You need to follow up with and stick to your own way, as curious as you may be about someone else's. Fishing does have to do with hard fact, but there's enough leeway to allow for confidence in certain presentations to lead the way forward for any given angler. Cold water trout will hit a jig that has to be retrieved at at least a moderate retrieve.

They're that active in the winter. Think of all the smallmouth bass in our rivers and that they don't show up in winter catches. It's not the marabou they don't like. They're off the feed in general, because they don't hit NRC baits retrieved much slower, either. They do have to feed on occasion, but trout remain a lot more active than bass do. When its very cold out trout get hard to catch, though.

The temperature was falling fast. When I did get back to the car, it was 57. In the meantime, I felt disappointed the warmth didn't stay with me. I had switched to a sixteenth-ounce marabou--all of the marabou besides one a friend gave me are black--and hooked something that began fighting hard. In the water I saw brown and believed I had snagged another sucker, not hooked a brown trout.

It wouldn't have been impossible, but unlikely. As you can see in the photo, the sucker got hooked in the tail. It was fun fighting a fish to the bank. I had forgotten my net. I unhooked the fish and released it back into the river. Suckers are an integral part of the river's ecology, rather than really being any nuisance as carp can seem to be. As if, just maybe, carp disrupt the spawning of bass. Not sure.

I would have stayed longer and have tried harder yet to catch a trout today, but for the second time, my line came doubled up off the spool and knotted up. So much was lost, I wouldn't have been able to cast effectively, so I quit. Sometimes, to catch river stockers, you do need to double down. Next time, I'll try again. Trying to remember to use the jigs my friend Oliver gave me. 

Last Time

 

Ice Unsafe to Walk on Having Melted From Underneath

Gray instead of white.

I rode up to Mount Hope Pond with a bucket of shiners and fatheads, hoping for nice trout, pickerel, and bass. With 280 trout stocked into 18 surface acres of water, it's a possibility. Of course I knew I might find the ice unsafe, but I really expected it wouldn't be just yet. Again, I pulled into the large parking lot as I did once earlier in the ice season, and within seconds the pond came into view. It didn't look good. That gray off-color, rather than white, signaled to me that I probably wasn't staying here long. I quickly decided to first approach the pond with just my splitting bar. That no one else fished it, and Fridays might draw more anglers than other weekdays do, was also a definite sign that things weren't good. 

Of course, I had to check it out. And I stepped out on the ice a couple of feet from the beach, my feet getting moist because my waterproof boots aren't living up to that description, and I need to try to repair or replace them. Then I reached forward and whacked my way through the ice with two thrusts of my splitting bar. I did this repeatedly out of curiosity, but there was no hope. Three inches on top was slush, and maybe three or four inches underneath rotted out. 

I'm getting older and forgetful, it's true. How many times I've walked a plank to get onto a lake over the melt at the edge late in the ice season, I don't recall, but if I had had a plank, I might have walked it, and then tested the ice, say, eight feet from the edge of the beach. Then, I might have found hope existed yet. But while I was at Mount Hope, it didn't occur to me to think of the possibility. 

It's interesting to me how, quite apparently, the ice melts from underneath. I noticed what clearly seemed to be the phenomenon at Lake Aeroflex two days ago, when, by all we could judge, the ice had melted about four inches from underneath, having been a foot thick Thursday the week before. I only hedge from certain judgment because I want some peer review to back up what I've seen. Here, too. With three inches of slush and four inches of striated rot underneath, that's a total of seven inches. Oliver Round was up here a week ago when it was 15 inches thick.

That rot is a curiosity. I always refer to the striations, but most people speak of honeycombing. I recall once being out on Lake Hopatcong with my son when things began to get sketchy. This was almost two decades ago. The surface was soft, there was about four inches of striated ice, and three or four inches of hard ice underneath that rot, so I considered the ice safe and we fished. But if it melts from underneath, as it clearly seems to, why wasn't it striated all the way through? And besides, how do warmer temps permeate cold, hard ice to rot it down towards that surface underneath? 

I've paid attention to many ice conditions over the decades, but I've never noticed until two days ago that ice seems to thin out from underneath. I've seen plenty of that striated rot--which proves much of the whole mass is affected by the melt--but I've never had the opportunity to measure such differences as a foot and eight inches, 15 inches and about seven inches, as these recent outings have afforded me.  

My splitting bar head was welded onto the iron shaft, a cut having accommodated that chisel head.

Mount Hope Pond Revisited

 

Father and Son Who Know How to Ice Fish

Naturally Oliver and I hit the ice confidently after last week. Nothing was happening after an hour or two, but I still felt confident. Despite my persistent feeling for the back of the lake, where there's not such pressure on the fish. We took position where we saw salmon caught last time, and also set a few devices where we caught the bass and lost the pickerel. 

Someone who Oliver and I had seen in the distance down lake came in. As he was about to pass by, I asked how he did.

"I set up over the deep water and got no hits from salmon or trout after four hours. So I moved into the weeds and caught a bunch of pickerel. None of them were good-sized, though."

Soon a father and son arrived. They proved to be some of the most knowledgeable ice fishermen I've spoken to. Oliver spoke to them independently of me, and he nailed it when he told me, "Goes to show what ice fishing a lake repeatedly, results in." 

True. But Oliver didn't mean that in any derogatory sense, and even if they only fish here, they're good. When they set three Jaw Jackers in shallow water right near the bank of three or four feet, possibly a little deeper if three or four feet is just the top of the weeds, I thought they didn't know what they were doing. I had set tip-ups near the bank but not that near--in eight and five feet of water closer to the steep drop-off than the bank. Within 15 minutes, they had a fish I thought at first was a pickerel, then bass...but I swore the fish looked like a trout. When the second fish got caught from the same hole, Oliver swore it was a trout. Soon we talked to them, and, yes, the fish were trout. They had set six other devices, pretty much all in very shallow weeds, and the son jigged.

In the middle of all this, Oliver and I still waiting on our fatheads and shiners, a bald eagle showed up. It took position in a tree. I approached with my 70-200mm zoom on my Niko D850, and before I could get a shot to crop, it flew off. The father told me, "It wants the trout. It'll be back."

A few other ice fishermen left the lake, all of them apparently skunked. I assume so because we watched whenever one of them tended his tip-ups. No fish. And I later learned the father and son had given another the two trout. And we never saw him catch any. 

Oliver had to leave at 5:00 and he left fishless. I stayed on into dusk, leaving the lot perhaps a little after 6:00. In the meantime, the eagle returned twice, and the second time, the son had caught another trout--they had three in total, lost some hits, and lost something big that "might have been a pickerel," according to the father. 

The son tossed the trout away from him onto the ice. The eagle swooped low, extended talons forward, and took the gift.   

 

Cronk's First Ice Since Boyhood