Category Archives: Night Fishing

Night Fishing Report

Night Fishing Rainbow Trout Report

I think it was about 10pm when we launched from the concrete boat launch area last night to go out fishing for Rainbows. While I waited in my boat at the dock for my buddy I introduced myself to two fellas, one of which claimed to have won the last RVTA tournament. Forgot the fella’s name. My work schedule is pretty crazy so it’s nice to meet people I usually only see on paper for tournament results.

Also, thanks to the fella who gave us his leftover live bait. We only caught rock-bass on those medium sized shiners but it was still a nice gesture. Thank you kind sir!

On to the fishing report. The game plan was to fish an are along the southwest shore known as The Pines. First we tried something silly, cause you never know. We headed into ranger cove and fished about 35 minutes catching bass and monster sunfish on live shiners and cooked shrimp then left for The Pines. Here are our exact coordinates where we fished The Pines based on my iPhone Compass+ app 40.605526 -74.823723.

View Round Valley Reservoir Fishing Tour in a larger map

If any of you are regular readers of this blog, you may remember that my Lowrance Sonar is dead. You can see it in the background of these photos sitting there with the cover on it. I may as well have had a picture of a sonar sitting there. By eyeballing distance from shore and known underwater topography I guestimated where I wanted to fish and dropped anchor. My anchor line is marked every ten feet and I was quite happy to hit bottom right at 36′. The night was gorgeous, perhaps 70 degrees at it lowest point but the wind was gusty at times so we pointed the bow into the wind and threw out the second anchor.

Now securely positioned, we turned on my homemade night lights and started chumming with whole kernel corn. We caught our first rainbow about midnight and then when the moon dipped below the “mountain” along the south shore the bite really turned on. A school of rainbows came through around 1am and we picked up some nice fish. a couple two and half pounders and 16incher.

Night Fishing Rainbow Trout 01 July 2012

We wanted to keep fishing without limiting out so we switched over to barbless hooks and managed to lose about a dozen or so more rainbows on the way up or at the surface. Hey, easy catch and release!

We wanted one more Rainbow in the boat for a limit so at about 3:30am we successfully netted a 3pound 19 7/8incher. BBQ will be good today!

All in all it was a great night. Beautiful weather, lots of action and nothing broke that wasn’t already broken! If you plan on going out for night rainbows remember a few things.

Be prepared to get filthy. It’s like night blue-fishing on a Belmar Head boat. You will not find this technique glorified in an Orvis catalog.
Your terminal tackle consists of number 6 or 8 hook about a foot under a 1/4 ounce egg sinker. Nothing Fancy, it’s dark out, don’t complicate things.
Your bait is a bag of frozen COOKED shrimp from the grocery store. Get whatever is on sale. Why shrimp? It stays on the hook. Cut pieces to the size of the tip of your pinky finger and bury the hook.
Your chum is whole kernel corn. I buy three cans of whatever is on sale. Throw it out there liberally and spread it out. Mind which way the current (yes round valley has currents) is moving the corn too and toss “up stream”. EDIT – I have been told that corn is not necessary for chumming and there have been issues with fishermen using cow corn which will kill the fish. If you want to be safe and still chum, use little bits of Velveta Cheese or shrimp. Thanks Andy S. for the education!
You will need a light or lights to attract baitfish and shrimp to your boat. You can buy lights for a ton of money or make your own easily. Just buy a 55 watt marine or car lamp (like a driving light), mount it to a 3 foot wooden dowel and run enough wire to make it to your battery.
Do not net any trout you plan on releasing. Trout have a high mortality rate which is a fancy way of saying they stress out and die easy.
If you are keeping trout, make sure you have lots of ice in your cooler. Bleed the fish out as soon as it’s in the cooler with slice under the gill fins and the meat will stay fresh and delicious.
To cook these I cut off the head, gut the fish then wrap in aluminum foil with butter and fresh sliced lemon. Put on the grill for about 20 minutes or until the meat flakes off with a fork. You can do this in an oven set to 400 as well.
ummmm it’s really nice out so I’m going to go play with my kids! If you have any questions ask here or on our Facebook page. Thank again to everyone for reading!

PS. we have a new giveaway starting today. When thinking about trout have you ever wondered; Where are they? Why are they there? What are they eating? How do I recognize what is going on? Be sure to get in on the July giveaway for your chance to win this crazy educational DVD on the underwater world of trout.

Record 110 Rainbow Trout Caught Aboard Double Anchor

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The following fishing report has been shared by Ed Harabin, President of the Hunterdon Anglers and captain of the Double Anchor. – RI

Last night, Saturday, June 23, 2012 Dennis Haggerty, Richard Willey and Ed Harabin fished for night time rainbows at Round Valley Reservoir. Conditions were perfect. No moon, slight breeze, comfortable temperature. Surface temperature 76 degrees. Doubled anchored over 47ft. of water on the South shoreline. Started fishing at 9:30pm. Last rainbow in at 4:50am.

Rainbow Trout

Chumed with corn. Baited with cooked Shrimp. 1st. fish in at 9:50pm. Found them at 30ft. over 47ft. Action was fast & furious! At 10:45pm Dennis caught a 21in. 4lb. rainbow at 40ft.

night rainbow trout

Most of the largest rainbows were caught close to or on the bottom. All the fast action was at 30ft. The choice was yours. Ed & Richard stayed mostly at 30ft. Dennis only caught a few, but they indeed were the largest.

Round Valley Reservoir - Rainbow Trout

11:50pm – 21in. 3lb. flat on bottom – Dennis
1:00am – 23in. 5lb. flat on bottom – Dennis (largest of night)
1:15am – 21in. 3lb. flat on bottom – Richard

Other 3 pounders were also caught between 25 & 30ft. down. Everything was caught on cooked shrimp. No other boats at our location. Most at campsite #72. Have no idea how anyone did. We hit a slow period between 3am & 4am. Wanted to break the old record of 101 rainbows in one night with 4 fishermen. We totaled out with 110 with 3 fishermen.

Ed Harabin – 45
Richard Willey – 49
Dennis Haggerty – 16

We could have had a much higher total if Dennis fished at 30ft. Last rainbow caught at 4:50am. We actually ran out of shrimp.

Ed
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If you’d like to start receiving the full color Hunterdon Anglers printed newsletter contact President Ed Harabin double.anchor@yahoo.com or Dennis Haggerty hunterdonangler@aol.com

October 22 Fishing Report

15 Hours at Round Valley

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Last weekend the wife and kids went to visit their aunt and I had the great fortune of remaining in NJ. If you have a wife and especially a wife and kids, you know that their schedule takes precedence over everything else in your life. Sure I can go fishing here and there, but I have to be back by a certain time or the world will stop spinning on its axis.

Like I said, last weekend the wife and kids were gone so I had absolutely no obligations, nothing forcing into a schedule. I was on my own and for a brief moment in time I knew what it was like to be single again… kind of. It’s not like I could have gone down to the Borgata and played 5-10 no limit, I still have a mortgage and NO bankroll.

What I do have is a boat, and friends and a fanatical desire to catch a trout longer than my arm. I decided to spend my freedom on an epic fishing trip – 15 Hours at Round Valley.

I charged up my 2 deep cycle marine batteries overnight, made sure I had a big bag of cooked shrimp and a couple bags of frozen corn. As soon as I got out of work on Friday I stopped at Efinger’s in Bound Brook, the only place in town that was open, and bought 3 dozen shiners, some hooks and sinkers.

My father helped me load up the boat with all the usual gear plus extras for the extended trip.

One cooler filled with sandwiches, snacks and drinks
One cooler filled with ice for the expected catch
Two fully charged batteries
Two 50 watt floodlights
Two anchors
Hooded sweatshirts, caps and winter coats
Nine fishing rods and reels
Two headlamps
Batter charger for cell phone.
3 Gallons of Gas

Here's just what the ass end of the boat looked like.

A couple of RoundValleyFishing readers Anthony and his son AJ were waiting for me at the dock when I finally got to the water and I found Dave and Jenn fishing the docks whom I had met at last week’s meetup. With the sunlight fading fast and having to pick up my brother-in-law Jay at 9pm I had my hands tied as to how to fish with Anthony and AJ. I decided to drift the bottom for Lakers, mostly because I didn’t want to anchor up and then have to pull all my gear again in an hour.

While drifting the north point and dam area, we had two hits on the shiners and that was it. It started getting cold, AJ was getting cold and my buddy called to pick him up at the dock around 9pm so I headed in. I was sorry we didn’t connect with a fish in the short time we were together, but I promise the next time we’ll put in a good day or night of it. Anthony and AJ were both appreciative and I’m sure I’ll be seeing them again soon.

it was in the 40's at night At the last minute Jay decides he’s not ready for an epic 12 hour fishing odyssey so he bails out!!! Now it’s just me and my old man! Now don’t get me wrong, I love the guy but he is NO fisherman. What my dad does love is talking world politics, not exactly relaxing conversation material. So for the next 3 hours I hear about communism, capitalism, dictators, world economies, the growing Chinese consumer base and blah blah blah.

We were double anchored up along the south shore somewhere east of the pavilion in 55 feet of water, water surface temp 73 degrees. At 9pm the wind was coming out of the Southwest then at 10pm it was coming straight out of the west and by midnight it was coming out of the Northwest. Crazy. We fished through the wind and the politics and managed to limit out in no time at all. We were chumming with mixed vegetables (I grabbed the wrong bag, corn still at home!) and fishing with small 1/4 inch sized pieces of cooked shrimp on size 8 snelled hooks. At one point we had Damian from our RoundValleyFishing Facebook page anchored next to us and we were able to yell back and forth our introductions.

areas fished

About 1am my buddy Chris is out of work and ready to do some fishing so we pull up anchor, head over to the docks and exchange my father (who was freezing and tired) for Chris’s company. By now it’s pretty late and cold (upper 40′s?) and we are the only fools left on the lake. The Dunkin Donuts coffee Chris brought was exactly what was needed.

We zip on over to the North shore campsite 72 area, but I can’t really be sure because it’s dark and I have no GPS. Again we double anchor, this time in 59 feet of water. Chris brought corn but we first used up the remainder of the frozen mixed vegetables. We laughed our assess off as the peas simply floated on the water surface every time we through a handful in. Down below I’m sure the fish were loving their vegetable buffet.

Now if you’ve never read any of our night reports or gone night fishing yourself you will come to know that MONSTER sunfish love to eat at night. I do not know why but here we were again in close to 60 feet of water catching HUGE sunfish. After a while the sunfish moved on and the rainbows came. Over the next 5 hours or so we caught and released close to two dozen rainbow trout from 15 to 22 inches. I kept the 22 incher mostly because I felt so bad for it. It’s jaw was mangled from an old fight and worse yet it had a foot of mono hanging out of its ass. I kid you not. This poor fish had somehow swallowed a hook, digested it, turned the line around in its intestines and crapped out the line. The only problem was the hook was still embedded in the guts of the fish.

22 inch Rainbow Trout

When I filleted this fish, the hook was buried in scar tissue and not going anywhere soon. So crazy. Anyway, that fish was the last trout we caught, the sun was coming up so we put the lights away, pulled up anchor and headed over to the place marked bass area number one. We were throwing rubber worms, grubs, salamanders, you name it, we threw it. In the weeds, over the weeds, through the weeds. It made no difference. We were tired and frustrated.

Daybreak- We need more coffee!!!

The winds kicked up and now we had a one foot chop to contend with as the wind blew us around constantly. We shot over to Ranger Cove to get out of the wind, but it made no matter. At 11am we called it a trip.

I had lasted 15 hours. The batteries lasted the entire night as did my cell phone. we still had a couple dozen live shiners which we let go. We had caught somewhere around two dozen Rainbow Trout and we all went home with dinner.

Serve with white rice and asparagus. Yum.

Here are my 16 and 22 inch rainbows I kept. Notice how much bigger the 22 is? I cooked the fish in 3 sticks of butter, 4 sliced lemons and a dash of salt and pepper. Bake at 400 degrees for 40minutes. All in all it was a good trip. Next time though I think i’ll bring more food and coffee!