Tilcon Lake Buzzbait and Worm Action

My old habit involved preparing the night before for the day's fishing but things don't necessarily go south for entirely bad reasons. I got up this morning, though, and just couldn't find energy to really want to fish today, but I consigned myself to loading each item, along with the help of Matt, and even as I turned the ignition key shortly after 12:30 p.m., I generally rued the loss of my GoPro as we packed out from a recent Hopatcong outing. Two years ago I got footage of a largemouth, and though the still shots didn't come out well, clear water Tilcon Lake really makes the malformed images striking. Naturally, I wanted to try again. Suppose I will, once I buy another.

Once everything was in motion, headed up U.S. 206, my nasty state lifted and I felt all this would be worthwhile. About 40 minutes later, we got to my friend's house where I'm hiding my stash from the condo association and loaded that stuff on top of the Honda for the world to regard. We got to Tilcon, and I found that one of the cart tires I had just inflated back in Bedminster was about 30 % deflated. So, what will happen when we would load 250 pounds or more of canoe and accessories?

If you've ever heard a tire rupture clean and the air hiss, you would think no cobra can do it better.

The good tire.

The bad tire had simply coughed out. In the middle of discussing the apparent need of loading back up and trying the back of the lake, where the walk in is fewer yards but very, very steep, I asked Matt if he could just carry the 70-pound marine battery the two football fields' distance. I would carry a load, and then we would try the deflated wheels for the canoe with light stuff in it.

The wheels got us there. We had positioned the cart near the rear, so Matt had a lot of weight in front to carry. He had gum surgery yesterday. Warned about heavy lifting causing blood pressure to rise.

No matter. I'm his father after all, so my advice is pretty good.

I pushed us away from the bank with a paddle, clicked on the electric, and found the battery was low. It's not just my stressful job, I was explaining to my son, it's an entire shift of my habits. I told him I can't wait until I'm deep into writing the trout book. I had worked for about six months on a 24-page essay I hope to get published in one of the world's top literary journals, and although I toggled between that and many other writing projects, that big essay was always there to get involved in by forgetting everything else. The feeling of compensation for a gutsy hard day working in the supermarket was exquisite, and the same sort of feeling accompanies writing about trout.

You don't consciously intend to overlook well-established habits, such as charging the battery two days ahead of schedule; they just get forgotten along a way that's become less deliberate.

I ruled out pressing back to the rear of the lake. "With this headwind, we might never paddle home," I said. Trolling speed for elusive Atlantic salmon was too slow, as we approached a spot only some 900 yards distant from base, but I caught the bluegill photographed above out over water 32 feet deep distant from relative shallows, on a Phoebe.

Force of habit: We fished one of our two favorite spots hard, me using worms. I tried a 12-inch Mann's Jelly Worm, having taken advice from an article in On the Water magazine, and after 20 minutes of focused fishing, I switched to Chompers eight inch. I had said, "I can't quite feel I'm fully in earnest." How could I be after seven years of nothing but Chompers and Senko-type worms?

I had given the big worm a shot. The habitual choice was no hit with anything, either.

"Looks like rain," I said. It kept on looking like rain, and after we moved around a tight corner and over the 10-foot depths of a weedy flat, I finally got the day's first good idea, thanks to my son. Water temperature was 71. Almost perfectly optimal for largemouth bass. Low bunchy clouds overhead looked as if they passed over us at silent movie speed. I voiced the situation, "Wind is really blowing."

Matt was throwing a spinnerbait. You could tell the wind was blowing by how far he could cast in a certain direction, if not by any other means. "Might be good...for a buzzbait…" The way he said this tentatively emphasized value in the possibility. As if a buzzbait might cause some special change in the way things really are.

"How many buzzbaits did you bring?" I had forgotten my topwater case. Nothing was more stupid than that omission.

"Two."

"Pass one on."

Big and black. On the fifth cast, I had a pickerel on that came off.

It's not just a chemical reaction. Brain science is way too immature to really know what it talks about, if it says serotonin, or whatever other neurotransmitter, functions only in an individual brain, unrelated to objective possibilities in the environment that brain inhabits. There's a whole ecology between a good human brain and natural environment. But I always make this distinction: I didn't know we were on to something. But I did know that hundreds of other times I've felt like I felt after I lost that pickerel...those hundreds of other times led to gain. Some people just don't have brain chemical spikes like I enjoy. "Some are born to sweet delight/Some are born to the endless night." And that's a legal quote. Jim Morrison stole it from William Blake. I take it from Blake. My fish sense lit up. Here we go.

"Maybe back in those shallows," Matt said. He put on a yellow buzzbait just a little smaller. We moved 10 yards inward. Soon I caught a chunky 14-inch largemouth. Minutes later, Matt wailed a cast--you don't actually hear the line peel, you imagine that part--to a weedline, and something huge exploded on that buzzbait. I heard the POW! without seeing it just then, but even when I looked, water flew wildly about as if a hippopotamus got stocked along with those half-real salmon. Missed that one, but he soon caught a pickerel. And then something pretty big slurped his lure, not getting hooked, and one second later, another slurp. I was onto a good fish. The bass would have taped out at nearly 19 inches, but I didn't have Matt photograph it by use of my wide-angle lens, so maybe that's about how big it looks in the picture below, instead of five inches longer. Looks about 18 to me, but it was longer than that.

Matt was talking about all the acreage around us, but my fish sense was already sagging. If that's manic-depressive, it sure is prophetic, because we fished those buzzbaits all over about five acres, or so it seemed, before the sun came out 20 minutes after all the action had faded. That's something else I notice time and time again. Fish seem to sense what's coming and behave accordingly. Seems to us absurd for them to fear the sun, but not to them.

And then we lost a couple of hours or more, just not getting it right, trying another favorite spot completely barren, trying a shoreline downwind of that. We went back to the edge of that five-acre flat, anchored, and I felt like slowing way down. I remembered Lake Hopatcong years ago and how rewarding fishing live bait. I was fishing a Chompers. A bass took after fifteen minutes or so. The flat is so full of thick vegetation, and the bass like to get in so thick you might not get them out. I set the hook and felt powerful muscular pulsation, then I felt so much weed mass I couldn't budge the bunch. Finally the weight gave, but with no bass on the line. I caught a pickerel while working that worm very slowly through the weeds. Then I caught the weedy bass photographed below. That too I couldn't budge where it had got to; I couldn't budge it before my St. Croix almost broke. Action seemed to slow; I felt possibility in another sort of cove between two weed edges. We eased over to it, and I had a big bass on right away, line catching on weeds, and during the disturbance of that connection made suddenly and jarringly irregular, that bass got off.

Matt almost caught a pickerel on a Jitterbug. Neither of us have ever caught a fish on that lure.

We got off the lake about 45 minutes after the sun went behind hills, well into dusk, and the cart with the flat tires kept working its way to the square back of the canoe and past the edge of the canoe's total length. We had to haul the thing out. Matt kept remembering football practice, he told me later. My participation involved compressing very bad discs in my lower back, a certifiably insane exercise, and I wondered, without any solemn emotion, if financially the best bet was to leave the canoe there and say the hell with it. I won't be due for back surgery.

The clock is swinging its way towards 3:00 a.m. now, and my back feels as if it's OK, so, as I felt when I committed myself, I think that haul was no mad exercise. We went to my friend's house, pulled the bear steeply uphill into dark woods, my headlamp essential, the intense light provoking no one to fling open a window a fire a pump-action shotgun at its source, and after all was done, we got home at 11:00 p.m. sharp.

http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2016/07/new-jersey-salmon-lost-and-largemouths_89.html

Native and Wild Trout of New Jersey

New Jersey’s Little Secret: Wild and Native Trout

Wild Rainbow Passaic River Headwaters

Native and Wild Trout of New Jersey

          How I learned about native brook trout in Dunnfield Creek is permanently obscured, but memories of catching them in the late 1970’s remain clear and colorful like the aquamarine spring-fed water. I made pilgrimages during the 1980’s with a brother of mine and also a girlfriend, catching both native brook trout and wild browns. In 1993, I hiked with my wife-to-be, Patricia, on a 90-degree July afternoon. Into the deepest pool I dove, clad in shorts. That’s when I learned just how cold the Creek stays.

          Charts and statistics online indicate approximately 50% of original native brook trout range remains in New Jersey, some of the lines of genetic inheritance going back about 12,000 years to the Wisconsin Glacier recession. From Somerset County northward, the New Jersey State Fish, designated by former Governor James Florio, is a multi-colored, fleshed-out jewel not all that rare. I’ve found them in a Somerset County rill, a shallow run not listed among 175 New Jersey Wild Trout Streams, which the Division of Fish & Wildlife designates. My son and I hiked the one-mile length, finding a single hole five feet deep with half a dozen brookies as large as seven inches finning at bottom. To the south of the state, native brook trout inhabited parts of the Pinelands in spring-fed streams and reportedly still do today in Big Timber Creek, tolerating high acidity.  

          Not every high quality stream in the state has brookies. Passaic River headwaters in Sherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary’s vicinity flourish with wild rainbows and browns, absent of any brook trout. Rockaway Creek has wild browns, but no rainbows. Flanders Brook has all three species. Countless other examples have their unique characteristics. On the whole, wild brown trout are most resilient, native brookies not quite as common a survivor of our state’s environmental pressures, and wild rainbows are not rare but least to expect.

          All three species offer you an opportunity to count small fish as valuable, although on occasion, I’ve got news of a true wild brown—not a holdover—more than 20 inches long. I saw a photo of a five-pound brook trout caught somewhere in Warren County. At the time, I couldn't quite believe this fish was native, but what else could it have been, caught far back in remote forests? Some brook trout do holdover from stocking and work their way far upstream to reproduce. Not as natives, but as wild brook trout, their progeny live on, but it seems less likely to me that a giant brook trout from a remote forest stream was a  wild fish, instead of native.  

           Not every small, spring-fed stream is small its entire length. During seventh grade, a friend and I used to sneak into the woods during lunch recess, hiking to the headwaters of Little Shabakunk Creek in Mercer County where we planned on building a dam as beavers would make. I had the address and contract information of a trout hatchery. We were just kids. Before complications ensued over a brook trout order, my father asked to see the site with wood already piled on. I took him there. He said, “You would need an engineering degree and equipment to build this dam.”

          Beavers do it, though.

          You will find most wild and native trout in free-flowing creeks and river headwaters. Some exceptions include small impoundments of such streams. In the creeks and small rivers, trout don’t always hold in the deepest pools. I’ve caught nine and 10-inch brookies in Dunnfield Creek riffles by casting small shad darts on an ultra-light spinning rod, though in recent years, I stick to my two-weight fly rod. To catch a seven-incher of any of the three species is to gain an opportunity to witness a fine specimen. Nine-inch fish prove less common, and yet among brown trout, 14 to 17-inch fish are not drastically rare in streams small where you might not expect them. They live out their years by very wary behavior.

          Rules posted online by NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife govern designated wild trout streams, limiting anglers to use of artificial lures. Ultra-light spinning is a perfectly thrilling way to go. Trout Magnets and tiny jigs of any variety work best. I never bothered with spinners, because these clear water habitats make the metal seem too flashy for my taste. Besides, treble hooks are a nasty way to treat the trout, so if you do use lures with trebles, it’s a good idea to crimp the barbs to ensure clean release. Use no more than two-pound test low diameter line and you have all the casting range you need.

          Plenty gets written on small stickbaits for wild browns, especially around spawning time in the fall. I own tiny one-inch Rapalas I’ve caught plenty of stocked browns on in the past, and though they would work, longer lengths—yet small—tease out larger fish. Committed now to my six-foot fly rod, I never look back with any regret to the jigs I used, nor to the worms browns chewed in February before artificial lures became the rule on the Dunnfield.

          Bead-head nymphs like pheasant-tails, stonefly imitations, olives, and you-name-it in a variety of smaller hook measures have proven most versatile, although especially smaller streamers like Wooly Buggers and Muddler Minnows have had their moments. So do dry flies. If you’re new to our state’s little secret, consulting local hatch charts is a good idea, although all-around patterns like the Adams, Elk Hair Caddis, and Hendricksons are good to begin with especially for eager brook trout. The plethora of fly patterns available—and of stream entomology—will confuse you plenty, as it still does me. But if you read Art Scheck, former editor of Fly Fisherman magazine and former New Jersey resident, you might find him claim the only pattern he cares to fish for summer brook trout is the floating black ant.

            Light tippets of 6X and 7X may not hold a big trout but prove fitting for the little ones. A diopter can ease the uncertainty of finding the tie loop of a tiny fly. Just wear a vest and you’re good to go, unless the stream demands waders in the cooler and cold months.

          Summer trout fishing is easy compared to this time of year. If water temperatures remain as cold as they do in the Dunnfield Creek, trout will survive their struggle with you. As a rule, I don’t pursue trout in water above 68 degrees. Right now is a special time to seek out new streams and fish them. Cold weather inspires zest in the hardy, but if you feel averse to line freezing in the guides and numb fingers reaching for a hand warmer, a mild afternoon is a pleasant reminder of days to come. And yet if you find the deepest pools and fish them patiently while forgetting summer memories that distract you from the present, you may find persistent winter days are plenty to comfort the need to get out.                   

Wild Brown Peapack Brook Caught by Jorge Hildago

Native Brook Trout Dunnfield Creek

Headwaters North Branch Raritan


Capoolong Creek


Hakihokake Creek


Pohandusing Brook


Little Flatbrook

Rockaway Creek


Lamington River above CR 665


Van Campens Brook
Link to a piece on a stream hosting wild browns in its upper reaches: http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2016/04/trout-entomology-sampling-lamington.html

Ice Fishing Round Valley Pond

 
I drove to Advanced Power Equipment in Martinsville to pick up my auger with blades I assume were worked on. I paid some $23.00. We got to Round Valley Pond and found no difference whatsoever in the equipment's performance, compared to the recent trip to Lake Hopatcong.

I'm not pissed. Not only did we have an excellent time out, I leaned on the auger, burned at least $4.00 worth of Husquevarna 95-octane fuel, and cut three holes, not pressured under negative 20 wind chill as last week. We were offered a hand drill from a guy who caught a 12-inch perch and an 18-inch pickerel, and I admit I felt of twinge of guilt, wondering about the longevity of his blades, but Matt got holes cut as I did not refuse. Maybe I'll buy a grinder. Maybe I'll go protest in Martinsville, but whatever, I will be examining the blades with Mike Maxwell, who understands things practical a lot better than I do. As Matt cut the third hole, I called over to him, "the existential concrete lived experience!" This I get. But it's not the same as making things work.

I felt fully confidant about catching fish here, although I was a little concerned that the pond is getting pounded. I talked to Tom Tosco at The Sporting Life, and he told me to expect a couple of guys. I quipped that as long as they're not on my spots, that's would be OK, and to tell you the truth, as I walked into view...that's where I was looking to, my spots, as if whoever was out there was just an object. As he turned out, in truth--a real nice guy, and I have to credit myself in spite of evil intent at first. Once I stepped out, I looked to the guy at a distance (and not on my spots), anticipated our meeting glances....and raised hands of greeting. The bonds of relationship are so important. Things matter not at all without the concrete lived existential experience.

Before action flurried in a straight line near the straight-edged shoreline from about 12 to 20 feet deep, two young women approached Matt and me. Jena goes to Raritan Valley. I regret to say I didn't get the graduate's name, but she went to school in Pennsylvania. We hung out and talked for an hour or so before I noticed a high flag. Matt caught a 22-inch pickerel. Afterwards, I went to get the Husqevarna, fearing a stripped transmission, which I soon found out, to my great relief, was OK, while Jena caught a 20-inch pickerel. A gift from Matt.

A minute later, I caught my 18-incher. Later, as we began packing it in, Matt fought a pickerel of at least 22 inches, which broke off at the hole. Cut through 15-pound test fluorocarbon, which does happen on other rare occasions.