Trolling the Mepp's Aglia

Brian told me Clinton Reservoir's water temp reached 48 on Tuesday. The weather can be considerably cooler up near West Milford than in the Dover area, let alone Bedminster. I wonder how cold it was last night. 

Getting the boat off the trailer, I waded above my knees barefoot. Numbed quickly, it was only painful at first. I still had some feeling on the underside of my feet. I felt the point of a piece of glass--it must have been lodged in-between stone--on the bottom of that right foot. The glass wasn't lengthy enough to penetrate the skin.

We trolled here a couple of years ago, catching smallmouths. It's a mystery to me why we haven't caught more trout. I used a Mepp's Aglia size 6 almost all day today, almost the full four hours, and I doubt a trout would feel it's too big, but maybe that's why. I don't know.

We had trolled up along a shoreline where we've caught a few in the past. After we turned the corner of a point, my antennae twiggled. I don't always anticipate a catch, especially when cold water makes them difficult. But often, I do. I envisaged myself getting my Aglia right down near bottom among rocks, having asked Brian about depth. We had seven or eight feet, and that felt just right. I was on setting two or three of the 55-pound thrust Minn-Kota. (Brian always has me run it, which is OK. I have a boater's certificate.)

I thought I had hooked a trout, the way the fish zigzagged quickly. I soon had a smallmouth about 15 inches long in the boat. 

"I knew what I was doing," I said. I didn't tell Brian I had felt I was about to hookup.

Near an island, we stopped trolling. We cast a rocky flat with water as shallow as a foot or two, most of it five or six feet. Clear water. I made out rocks as deep as eight feet. I figured that with the abundant sunshine, those rocks would warm a little. 

Apparently nothing was there.

We've done better during the early season along the opposite shoreline. Brian trolled crankbaits, and although the shoreline does not drop off nearly as steeply, and he got snagged more than a few times, he was able to fish them. My Aglia produced once more, another 15-incher. I didn't anticipate the fish directly as I had the other, but I saw a stickup above the surface ahead, which did pique my interest. I took note of the bass having hit just yards ahead of it.

Today was a much-needed release from so much nonsense my brain keeps me struggling with. Working at the Supermarket wasn't bad. It's much better to hold a job than to live in a dystopian world after civilization collapses. If anyone can live in such a world. When the electrical grid permanently fails, won't the numerous nuclear power plants in America melt down, killing all life on the continent? And yet the supermarket did cause me stress. Extreme stress for the first four years or so. Such stress can enlarge the amygdala, which means all sorts of overkill continues to stress the brain. 

On the reservoir today, I got relief from all that.

Near the end of our outing, I heard my phone ping repeatedly, thinking that must be my son. He often pings rapidly. About three minutes later, one last ping.

We beached and I checked my phone. No. The fast series of pings had been from Brian sending me photos he took with his phone. But the ping that came three minutes later--from my son! I stood there wrapped in a moment of awe. Did my thinking of Matt prompt him to send me the message? He almost never messages me, though it is true that when he does, he often sends a few in quick succession. 

He's working on nuclear fusion at UCLA. If we can power the grid by (clean) fusion power, we'll have solved the energy problem.

We had noticed a couple of guys in a bass boat. With Brian's boat on the trailer, they passed by the ramp, asking had we caught any. They had caught one smallmouth. I asked if they had a water temp.

"It's 51 up here and 49 in the back!" 

 

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