Round Valley Pond Ice Fishing
Twenty- or 21-inch pickerel.
Spot Burning Isn’t the Intent
Spot burning is a by-product of media. When I put Round Valley Pond in the title of a post on ice fishing, you might think that pond will never again produce. From that assumption, it would follow that once it’s spot burned, fishing pressure sharply drops off, because no one wants to fish a spot they assume everyone’s pounded.
But if you’re sincerely concerned about the health of the fishery, be reassured that not everyone and his brother accesses my posts by searching on their browsers. For one thing, no one’s going to find this post, unless he’s already searching for information on ice fishing at Round Valley, and even more specifically—at Round Valley Pond.
Unless he’s a regular reader of my blog posts. As one of those readers put it, “I like to read stories on fishing that engage my attention.” He intends to have an enjoyable experience by reading my posts, not to make a killing.
I read fishing stories that engage my attention, too. I have a whole library of books about fishing, and I’ve read a lot of them.
You might say, “Why not just hide the spot by making up some obscure title?” I’ve often done that. And when I do it wisely, I tap into searches that don’t have to do with a specific place, though more often than not, when I’ve tried to address searches for other subjects on Litton’s Fishing Lines, I’ve failed. I’m putting in greater effort to reach readers with the new website. The recent “Pressured Fish Through the Ice” post is done that way of producing a URL that doesn’t address the place, though it’s largely about fishing Round Valley Pond. Even though I mention the pond by name a number of times in the text, I never found the post when I keyed-in “Round Valley Pond ice fishing.” It’s possible that some readers interested in pressured fish through the ice will click on the post, but they won’t be many.
I use Google Search Console to see how many people have viewed my website pages. So far, there’s been only one impression recorded for “Pressured Fish Through the Ice” and no clicks on the post, though plenty of my regular readers have enjoyed it. An “impression” is when you see a post in search results but don’t click on it.
Besides, when it comes to protecting a pond against fellow fishermen, nothing seems to work better than the truth. Ice fishing isn’t for just anyone who will enjoy reading about it, and that’s as it should be, just as the people I know who are innocent of ice fishing—including not only guys I fish open water with, and my wife (who will never set foot on ice because she’s afraid of it)—are not abnormal just because they have no such inclination. Besides, I’ll make the point again, people like to read for the sheer enjoyment of it. It’s not only about information. Readers come into contact with people and places otherwise unfamiliar to them. And part of the truth about ice fishing is that while it doesn’t seem very difficult to someone like me who’s done it from age fifteen, to people who don’t do it, it can seem difficult in the extreme.
About reading “for the sheer enjoyment of it,” I realize anyone who keys-in “Round Valley Pond ice fishing,” is probably looking for the kind of information that will confirm his lust for a lot of fish. So I’ll state the truth right here and now: If you’re good at ice fishing, you can usually catch a couple of pickerel and/or largemouths. Not every time out. I’ve been skunked on the Pond more than once. Almost beyond any doubt, you won’t go out there and catch a dozen. Or even half a dozen. The Pond gets a lot of pressure, though everyone I’ve seen puts their fish back. If you love ice fishing, you want to catch a fish or two, but you don’t need to make a killing.
There’s a private lake I fish with Brian Cronk, where Cronk has permission to fish. The granter of that permission prefers I never name the lake in the posts. And I’ve written about the South Branch Raritan, for just one example, dozens of times without naming it. The web is self-regulating. You can’t keep naming a place in your URL’s without harming the search engine optimization of the original posts you used key words for with the same intent.
For what it’s worth, in a culture that denigrates the media, I wouldn’t be in the media if I didn’t believe in it. But for me, writing isn’t all about getting my name out there, and first and foremost, I am a writer. By that, I mean that most of my work is handwritten in notebooks, even though I have media outlets. Many people won’t do any writing not intended for publication, but I write in notebooks daily. It has nothing to do with the media, unless it gets published posthumously, but I write because ideas occur to me that I’m compelled to examine.
And yet, the American media. I understand that to be a proud institution that honors places and people. It’s not all about reporting the dirt. So, when I have a chance to make a place shine, when I have a chance to honor a place like Round Valley Pond, I take that chance. I don’t cover my ass to hide from the criticism of envious bystanders who jeer, “Spot burn!”
As Nick and I walked towards the front of the pond, a flag rose. Chuck Many with the result.
Being There
I told Nick Mattei I would be there. Beyond that, we really didn’t know if getting on the ice was going to be doable with the deep snow, crust on top of it to punch through with each step, perhaps, and possibly water on the ice. By the description I had heard from Nick of the ice’s thickness before the snow fell, it wasn’t very much. That said, the guys who fished the pond a few days before us are the hardcore high-steppers, when it comes to the kind of discomfort I just outlined. Impressions of their footsteps are frozen in place, as the water underneath the snow froze.
As Nick and I pulled our Jet Sleds in the direction of the pond’s front end, I suddenly recognized the guy in the orange jumpsuit. “Chuck!” I said. He looked at me without full comprehension, and I said, “Bruce.”
“Oh, Bruce!”
We’re members of the Mayhem Fishing Club. He had been out just a little while, he said, having avoided coming out earlier at five degrees. The last I had seen the temperature registered on my car thermometer, it was 15. He’d caught a perch and a pickerel, and he had three tip-ups set along the shoreline towards the pond’s front, though he told us not to worry about crowding them.
He stationed his sled near the rear of the pond, and by the looks of the situation he occupied, he attempted to jig panfish and yellow perch. Bluegills are an icon. I remember contemplating the species as a young boy, my perception no less than mystical.
A Tale of Four Augers
I had told Nick I planned on bringing my gas auger, but that I couldn’t promise it will work. He said he would bring his hand auger. He had bought a new electric auger and tried to cut a test hole at the back of the pond, before the snow came. Someone had thrown a rock onto the ice, and naturally the rock had sunk. Ice covered it over, so Nick wasn’t at all aware of it being there. The auger blades struck it, damaged beyond hope.
He hadn’t replaced the blades as yet.
The gas auger started pretty easily. I engaged the gears, but they hardly responded. Sometimes the auger turned faster, sometimes slower. Eventually, I got though the eight inches or so of ice. It took many times longer than should have, and the gears hadn’t enough umph to cut all the way through! Water filled the hole, but ice remained at the bottom of it. Nick finished the cut with his hand auger.
I decided there and then that this summer I’ll look into how to fix gears and/or transmission. That’s no promise I’ll actually do it. Obviously, the sensible thing to do is to just buy an electric auger. But if I can find a way that isn’t absurdly expensive, I’ll fix what I have. Back when the electric motor I use on my squareback canoe broke down, I had researched how to fix it and opened it up. I decided to buy a new one, after I realized there could be a need to dig through the wax at the head of that lower unit, and doing that wasn’t going to work. It was just going to make a mess, and I didn’t want to take the risk and buy expensive parts replacing only those that didn’t involve digging that stuff out. That was two or three years ago, when electric engines were hard to find on the market. When I bought mine, it was the last one in stock.
Nick began the dubious process of cutting 9 more holes with a hand auger through eight inches of ice, when the blades on that one failed! A nut or nuts loose, I never thought of the little adjustable wrench I keep in my tackle tote, in case the nut on the prop of my electric motor ever needs to be loosened. (Or another put on, should I have put the nut back on too loosely at home, after checking for any stuff inside the housing.)
“I wonder if Chuck will lend us his?” Nick said.
“You’re the smooth talker,” I said, and he started walking in Chuck’s direction.
It helps to know people. Without Chuck’s auger, Nick and I would have packed out and gone home, which would have been a first for me. I fished Lake Hopatcong with my two younger brothers when I was 17. Fifteen degrees wasn’t terribly cold, but with the wind it was awful. I believe that wind was gale force, but the Knee Deep Club didn’t back down on having their derby. My brothers and I did back down after we had got our tip-ups set. That’s the only time I abandoned an ice fishing outing, and even then, we did have tip-ups set first. Four years ago, I stood on the private lake with Brian Cronk, trying to get my gas auger started. (Another reason to own an electric, instead.) We pulled the chord dozens of times, taking turns at it.
“We have to get this thing started,” Cronk said, and pulled as hard he could—once, twice….grrrrrr! We caught fish that day.
I checked on a tip-up and found something had taken line without tripping the flag.
Dysfunctional Tip-Ups
Ice fishing slows the pace of life. That allows your perception of the day’s passing to widen and deepen. It’s nice not to have cut ice with a splitting bar (I had forgotten mine and left it home) or a hand auger. Especially when you’re an older man whose back would be thrown out before the first hole was finished. But even with the amenity of gas or electric power, it takes some time to get tip-ups set.
Before I even began setting mine, while I cut holes, Nick said, “Cut in close to the bank where I’ll set mine.” I understood he wanted his tip-ups set as close to shore as where he caught the bass last time we fished here. I created a nice line of holes.
You can see the marks on the snow my crampons made as I sat on the bucket. Thermos full of coffee was almost emptied by the outing’s end.
After we had nine tip-ups out (Nick used a little spinning rod as his fifth line, jigging), we waited. I mentioned my forgetting to bring a fold-out chair, and Nick offered his equipment bucket as a seat.
When I checked on one of my tip-ups, I came up with a pickerel of about 18 inches, the flag never having sprung. Nick asked about that, and I said, “It’s a dysfunctional tip-up. I’ve meant to fix it for a long time. I just don’t do it.”
Later, one of my flags did spring, “Leave it be and I’ll get it once I have my camera!” I called out to Nick, and when I walked by the device towards my Jet Sled, I saw the spool turning. I jaunted from there to the sled and back to the tip-up.
What I didn’t know was that the fish actually moved almost in the same direction I had moved to get the camera—stomping on the ice as I ran. When I had returned to the tip-up, the spool didn’t turn, and when I pulled lightly on the line, it became evident the fish had dropped the bait. I had to retrieve a lot of line—evidently the fish had been a largemouth bass. In some cases, they will take all the line from a spool, if you don’t get to it in time. It happened to me once on Budd Lake. I had set a tip-up over the lake’s deepest 12 feet. That could have been 1997, possibly 1999. The flag had risen hundreds of yards from where I stationed. By the time I got to it, the spool was empty. I hadn’t tied the Dacron line to that spool.
Pickerel, on the other hand, snatch a shiner at its middle, dash off a few yards or more with it, then stay in place and turn that shiner around so it goes head-first into the pickerel’s gullet.
The shiner the presumptive bass had socked quivered, barely alive.
I soon realized my running on the ice had likely spooked the fish. Maybe not. But what bass drops a shiner after taking it some 20 yards? It is possible the angle of the fish’s pulling against the spool resulted in a critical degree of resistance.
When we had begun retrieving tip-ups as the 4:00 p.m. closing time approached, another tip-up had a fish on without the flag having sprung—the 20- or 21-inch pickerel in the photograph above. I told Nick I’m going to use different tip-ups next time, and I mean to do well on that promise.