2/6

The weather forecasts going into this past weekend were looking promising, Sunday showed highs well above freezing accompanied by a light and variable wind, so I ended up scooping Kenny and his boat on Sunday morning and driving north to the Valley. Round Valley Reservoir is an awesome lake in central NJ, Deep Clear water and a healthy population of both naturally reproducing and state stocked trophy trout. I had always wanted to try fishing here but the 55$ fishing license and the drive alone kept me from ever actually going there, until last winter, when we had one of the most wicked ice seasons we've ever seen on this side of the appalacians. We had upwards of a foot of ice last year in during the first week of March, and it was after many Marsh Creek Musky skunkings that I asked Kenny if he wanted to go up and give it a shot. I asked Romo too, for the record, but he said "no way, too futile", a common response from him when I shoot him a bat shit crazy idea like Ice Fishing a new lake for a new species. Anyways, we did really well through the ice up there last year, one of the rare winter seasons where the Valley was locked up with a foot of ice.

There won't be any Ice on the Valley this winter, at least I hope not. It would have to get very cold and stay very cold, and I really don't want that... I would much rather see above average temps and openwater fishing to turn on. So 7am Sunday morning we launched Kenny's boat into a very favorable looking situation, no wind and mild, we thought we were going to roll out to the marks we had made from last winter and start catching Lake Trout again. Well that would turn out to be a very ambitious dream as we found out pretty quick that the fish were either not there or not on the feed. Long story short I caught 1 Lake Trout... Kenny caught no Lake Trout. It was tough like that. We did mark some fish and miss/lose a few, but bites came very inconsistently and it was nothing like our past experience at the Valley.

Weather was awesome, the water was awesome, anticipating the next bite was awesome, but it didn't happen. I hope for better action on a trip like that but this is fishing.