Our 1st Fish and Game Council meeting 8/13/13:

[AndyS]

Whew !!! I’m glad that’s over !! My 1st time speaking in public and needless to say I was a nervous wreck. Points were well taken even if I spoke way too fast. This may go on for years, but I was asked by the Council Chairman to return as I get more information, so that opens the door for another meeting.
I can’t thank FASTEDDIE enough for being my wing man through the whole thing, he has helped me a lot in many different ways to help achieve our goal of getting the Raritan recognized as a viable source for the fishing community. It was a shame Lisa Barno had left for the day when it was our time to speak, even Lisa made mention of the Raritan is some of her talk to the Council.

REMEMBER these meetings ARE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. I will post the link again so you can follow these meetings at home by reading the monthly minutes. I picked up a few hand outs of what is going on presently in the State, my head is ready to explode with information.

Next stop is Raritan River Collaborative meeting in October and our BIG Meet and Greet at the Hackettstown fish hatchery meeting in December.

"I grew up on the Raritan river and saw it 40 years ago at its worst, now I stand before you and talk about the Raritan river at its best.

I am involved with many fishing organizations and talk to many anglers.
Over the past 3 years I have been working closely with the Raritan River Collaborative and a group of Rutgers students involved in PIT tagging returning American Shad, I am also viewing and documenting fish movement from the Island Farm Weir fish ladder video.

Since 1996 the Raritan river has been monitored for returning American Shad. With the final report JOB I-5 it appears American Shad do return annually, but in fluctuating numbers. I feel at this point in time it would be a good idea to take the Raritan river to the next level. Many other species co exist with returning shad each year.


With the recent dam removal at Roberts Street the upper part of the Raritan has been restored to its natural state. Not only is the area prime for stocking trout in the spring, but at this point in time this stretch of water would be prime for fall trout stocking also. The big swift water offers anglers a great challenge rarely seen in New Jersey.

I often float from Roberts Street to the 2nd 287 crossing in Somerset looking for signs of degradation and dead fish, I see neither. What I do see is some great water that is prime for stocking of Walleye. At this time there are Walleye holding in the river.

In May of this year I helped pull a 300 ft. seine net below the fish ladder in South Bound Brook looking for American Shad to be tagged. Our pull netted a few Gizzard Shad but the most interesting find in the net was 4 YOY (young of the year) Brown Trout. Also in the net was what seemed to be a huge forage base of suckers, creek chubs and golden shiners.

Looking at the fish ladder numbers from recent years, there seem to be a lot of trout in the lower section of the river. If the lower part of the river is clean enough for returning Striped Bass and Shad maybe an attempt at Sea Run Brown Trout would be good idea. A split of surplus trout between the Manasquan and the Raritan river would offer a broader base for returning Sea Run Brown Trout.

So much is going on in the Raritan river. Attempts to mitigate flooding, dam removal, river clean ups and improved water quality are all on the agenda. By taking additional interest in the Raritan those living in Raritan, Somerville, Hillsborough, Bound Brook, South Bound Brook, Manville, Bridgewater, Middlesex, Somerset and New Brunswick would reap the immediate rewards of this three step stocking program"

Let me break it down for you. We can watch Shad numbers go up down on the Raritan for the next 100 years, don’t get me wrong about Shad, I love to see them but there is a moratorium on Shad fishing on the Raritan. The Shad are no longer being monitored by the State, so we are at a cross road now. We can sit here and not do anything or we can speak up and try to slice of the hatchery pie. I say we speak, we got nothing to lose.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/fgcnclmtg.htm