Pink Berkley on Mooneye Under Float

Thick-bodied rainbow trout for Wayne Fennes, swiftly released. I don’t understand why the photo made it look a day out of the water.

An Attitude not to Shirk

There are days that start out seemingly as pedestrian as walking to the pharmacy while living in the city, except for one thing: You have the faith deep within to allow valuable experience to emerge. It’s an attitude you never shirk. If fishing a Mooneye jig with a pink Berkley worm attached to it, under an oblong red float would pique my interest, I could not have known. And if the like would ever stand out in my mind’s eye again, only a similar float rig used for steelhead on the Salmon River would qualify. And, of course, a certain modification of that rig for fishing rivers, though personally, I may never betray my salmon eggs and flies (to utter the same words in the same sentence) for a method I nevertheless recognize works. Think of fly casting a size 32 midge. If fly fishing is, in large part, about the mind—about mindfulness—then being open to how technique is done on spinning gear in New Jersey is a virtue for those who do it differently.

Gen Wong had told me about the pink worm under a float. As I say, already being familiar with the like, I thought I knew how it’s fished. And I felt determined to fish my own way today.

I texted to tell Gen I was on my way. He immediately phoned and said he’d be there by 9:30, a half hour later than he’d originally planned. I got to Union County’s Echo Lake. He had texted, saying he’d be late. Then he phoned and explained his situation, telling me to meet him at the Gazebo and waterfall. He wished me Happy Birthday and asked me how I like my coffee.

“Black.”

“Would you like a chocolate chip cookie?”

“Sure.”

I got out and walked the black Lab Loki, finding no Gazebo and only a small dam. There’s an upper and lower lake. So I drove back down to the lower, where I found the gazebo and parked. Half a dozen other fishermen lined the bank, but I found a spot to take position.

Fishermen along the accessible edge of Echo Lake in Mountainside.

Black Marabou Jig

I had imagined Echo Lake would have dingy, off-colored water. The kind of park pond where acres of grass extend outward from the banks, not the woodland that graces its opposite side. And the water is clear. There in Mountainside, Union County. No doubt, there would be bass in the pond. It’s about 12 acres, my guess.

And I immediately felt as if I cast my black marabou jig to my favorite slow water spot on the South Branch, where I can cast a jig for a full hour, sometimes, before a trout slams it. Echo Lake isn’t very wide, and the depth is about the same as that stretch I just mentioned. Standing in one place and casting repeatedly made sense, because trout go on the move and pass through.

Instead of feeling as if I compromised on my river fishing, I felt a vigorous desire to make good on that jig in a different kind of situation.

Pink Berkley on Mooneye Jig Under a Float

Float, the Lip Glue Gen uses, and the pink Berkley worm on a Mooneye jig.

Gen and I cast and talked. About many things, but in particular, he told me about his rig. I noticed right off the bat he didn’t fish the way I expected he would, by letting the wind and the riffles impart action to the Berkley worm under the float. No, he worked that float, jigging it accompanied by what almost amounted to a moderate retrieve.

“You cover a lot of water this way,” he said.

Not only does he, I soon came to understand.

“A lot of guys have learned from me,” he said. “I figured out the technique and have taught others.”

Sure enough, the guy half a football field’s length to my right was fishing with the same kind of float. A half hour later, he walked past us as Gen greeted him by first name, a pink Berkley worm on a jig secured to the man’s hook keeper.

“I once caught 30 trout in two hours fishing this way here,” Gen told me.

I asked about bass. That subject never escapes me. I lived in North Plainfield for a year. When I was 32 and 33 years old. And I felt avid for bass spots. If I knew about Echo Lake, I might have given it a try.

“I caught a six-pounder a few years ago,” Gen said, “But this place gets enormous pressure. People take fish out in buckets.”

Today would not be such a day as the many he’s caught trout in the double figures. His bobber ducked under a few times, but he believed the fish to be crappie. Something knocked my black marabou jig once, the drag giving a little when I tried to set the hook.

“I want to show you the turn,” Gen said. Where he had told me the trout, behaving as if occupying a big hatchery runway, turn to swim back up lake, as if they circle around.

We walked over to the end of the pond near the dam, and it became evident Gen knows all the guys. And one of them had a trout on as we approached. Netted, I saw it had struck a pink Berkley worm on a jig, under the oblong float of Wayne Fennes. He’s a retired police officer. Other men looked about the same age as myself, Gen, and Wayne, but today the big one belonged only to the man photographed with it.