Elizabeth River Microfishing

[ALK11]

Back from 2010-2014 I was a student at Kean University. The Elizabeth River runs through a portion of the campus and I used to always stop and look down trying to find some fish. I remember seeing schools of what looked like killifish and then once in a while something a little bit bigger. Back then I was almost exclusively a saltwater guy so I never fished the river.

Fast-forward to 2020. I haven't lived in New Jersey since I moved out in 2014, but I still spend probably about a month each year visiting. During this trip back I finally decided to head to my old campus and fish the Elizabeth River.

I really had no idea what it was going to be like and from my online research it seemed like no one really fished it. I used some tiny hooks and pieces of nightcrawlers knowing that would give me the best chance of getting something. I instantly found a lot of micros swarming my bait, but couldn't hook up. Eventually my first fish came up, a tiny little pumpkinseed. What followed was about 4 hours of wading the river and coming up with mummichug after mummichug. I wasn't planning on microfishing all day, but sometimes you just have to take what the water gives you.

I was surprised at the lack of biodiversity in the river, but from more research I think I found out why the river is like that. Seems that it has higher than normal levels of pollution and mummichugs are an extremly tolerant fish. Combine both of those things together and you get a small river overrun by mummichugs. Video link to the day is below. Hope you like it.

https://youtu.be/lx18lbi0q_8

[Gerry Zagorski]

Nice work on the video and editing. Welcome to the site Alk!

[Billfish715]

That video takes me back to a time in my life when I perfected my fishing skills by trying to catch whatever tiny fish I could fool into biting a piece of worm on a hook. Of course we had no ultra light anything back then which made catching a tiny shiner, or catfish fry, or fathead, or carp or sunny or anything else that was swimming in one of the local brooks.

That stretch of the Elizabeth River was once groomed as part of a flood control project. If you think the stretch you were fishing was polluted, at that point it hadn't even flowed through Elizabeth. My uncles grew up in Hillside and would often talk about skinny dipping in the Elizabeth River, way back when. They even fished and trapped muskrats along its banks.

The Kean Estate was prime hunting ground during the Depression and of course, things back then were much different. The river flows through, around and under some very congested retail and industrial locations. The amount of litter and silt and petro chemicals that wash into the water from just one highway (Route 22) is staggering. I can't imagine the water temperature along the way.

Yep, killies seem to survive where others fail to make it especially since the stretch you fished is so close to its confluence with the saltwater of the Arthur Kill. One thing is for sure, that stretch will have very few mosquitoes or mosquito larvae because mummichugs (AKA killies) eat them like candy. The state often has requests to stock them in stagnant bodies of water to control those little bloodsuckers.

I am impressed with the fact you caught killies on a hook and line. You have lots of patience and some "mad skills".

[ALK11]

Originally Posted by Billfish715

That video takes me back to a time in my life when I perfected my fishing skills by trying to catch whatever tiny fish I could fool into biting a piece of worm on a hook. Of course we had no ultra light anything back then which made catching a tiny shiner, or catfish fry, or fathead, or carp or sunny or anything else that was swimming in one of the local brooks.

That stretch of the Elizabeth River was once groomed as part of a flood control project. If you think the stretch you were fishing was polluted, at that point it hadn't even flowed through Elizabeth. My uncles grew up in Hillside and would often talk about skinny dipping in the Elizabeth River, way back when. They even fished and trapped muskrats along its banks.

The Kean Estate was prime hunting ground during the Depression and of course, things back then were much different. The river flows through, around and under some very congested retail and industrial locations. The amount of litter and silt and petro chemicals that wash into the water from just one highway (Route 22) is staggering. I can't imagine the water temperature along the way.

Yep, killies seem to survive where others fail to make it especially since the stretch you fished is so close to its confluence with the saltwater of the Arthur Kill. One thing is for sure, that stretch will have very few mosquitoes or mosquito larvae because mummichugs (AKA killies) eat them like candy. The state often has requests to stock them in stagnant bodies of water to control those little bloodsuckers.

I am impressed with the fact you caught killies on a hook and line. You have lots of patience and some "mad skills".

Thanks for all the information. I love learning stuff like that. The history of the area is very interesting to me. I'm a bit of a history nerd with a specific fascination of the early American period from 1776ish to right before the war of 1812. This area with the Kean Estate and whatnot is fascinating with respect to that time period.

You mentioned trying to catch any fish you could. Do you by any chance lifelist? That's something I've also gotten into within the last couple years.

[Fishguy1]

I fished for killies (Mummichogs) when I was a kid out of a brackish creek that had carp in it. The carp had escaped a small private pond nearby during a storm flood. I eventually caught a pretty big one there too. My mom sent it to the Daily Register fishing report (long since defunct). It made the report along with news from Sea Pigeon deckhand Danny Seich that they were catching flounders. (yeah, I'm kinda old)
The killies are tough as nails and can handle pure fresh water as well as pollution. I always wished I could time travel and see these built up areas in pre-colonial times. Had to be paradise. I guess that's why so many people came here and ruined it.