Your Predictions on the Future of Fishing in NJ

[Bruce Litton]

Specifically, I'm concerned about the South Branch & North Branch smallmouth population, but since I haven't done nearly as much fishing on either this year, it's possible my observations are isolated flukes. But Stony Brook in Mercer used to be loaded with smallmouths. And I never saw anyone else fish them; normally I caught a dozen bass on an outing, sometimes a lot more. This went on through all my teen years, steady.

And then my son and I visited 10 years ago until about five years ago, faithfully checking up on a stream that was foundational to me in so many respects. Dead? No. But close to it. Again, we saw no one else fishing it. Apparently, the situation hadn't changed: hordes during trout season, abandonment thereafter. My brother Rick used to fish Stony with me, and he got into checking on it with his son during these same recent year. Same observation.

Is it fishing pressure? Apparently not. But there's no way I can be certain. It just doesn't sit with me that that's the cause. So what is it? And can the SB & NB decline similarly?

[Dave B.]

Originally Posted by Bruce Litton

Specifically, I'm concerned about the South Branch & North Branch smallmouth population, but since I haven't done nearly as much fishing on either this year, it's possible my observations are isolated flukes. But Stony Brook in Mercer used to be loaded with smallmouths. And I never saw anyone else fish them; normally I caught a dozen bass on an outing, sometimes a lot more. This went on through all my teen years, steady.

And then my son and I visited 10 years ago until about five years ago, faithfully checking up on a stream that was foundational to me in so many respects. Dead? No. But close to it. Again, we saw no one else fishing it. Apparently, the situation hadn't changed: hordes during trout season, abandonment thereafter. My brother Rick used to fish Stony with me, and he got into checking on it with his son during these same recent year. Same observation.

Is it fishing pressure? Apparently not. But there's no way I can be certain. It just doesn't sit with me that that's the cause. So what is it? And can the SB & NB decline similarly?

Stony Brook has suffered the same fate as Neshanic (Creek)River. Far too much development in the watershed that both draws down the aquifers via individual wells and also prevents aquifer replenishment due to impermeable surfaces, i.e. roads, driveways, sidewalks, roofs, etc.

I used to fish both streams a great deal when I was young. Stony had a good to great smallie pop and Neshanic had a tremendous smallie pop. My first time fishing with my Dad was in the Neshanic in 1963. Spent a LOT of my youth wet wading many miles of that crick. Now it dries up most summers. The last time I fished it was about 10 years ago. I found LMB, bullheads and a few chubs. Not a single smallie despite hitting areas from Amwell Rd to Manners Rd, along Welisewitz and on down to Rainbow Hill and Black Pt/Montgomery. Extemely disappointing to put it quite mildly.

The lower SBR has some degree of protection from such a fate due to its role in the NJWSA system. As long as they need to use Spruce Run and RVR to maintain the mainstem flows the lower SBR will be fairly safe.

Thanks in great depth to the work of folks like Andy and the CJST both branches and the mainstem have a good fighting chance to survive as strong, viable fisheries.

[Bruce Litton]

Originally Posted by Dave B.

Stony Brook has suffered the same fate as Neshanic (Creek)River. Far too much development in the watershed that both draws down the aquifers via individual wells and also prevents aquifer replenishment due to impermeable surfaces, i.e. roads, driveways, sidewalks, roofs, etc.

I used to fish both streams a great deal when I was young. Stony had a good to great smallie pop and Neshanic had a tremendous smallie pop. My first time fishing with my Dad was in the Neshanic in 1963. Spent a LOT of my youth wet wading many miles of that crick. Now it dries up most summers. The last time I fished it was about 10 years ago. I found LMB, bullheads and a few chubs. Not a single smallie despite hitting areas from Amwell Rd to Manners Rd, along Welisewitz and on down to Rainbow Hill and Black Pt/Montgomery. Extemely disappointing to put it quite mildly.

The lower SBR has some degree of protection from such a fate due to its role in the NJWSA system. As long as they need to use Spruce Run and RVR to maintain the mainstem flows the lower SBR will be fairly safe.

Thanks in great depth to the work of folks like Andy and the CJST both branches and the mainstem have a good fighting chance to survive as strong, viable fisheries.

Yeah, my brother Rick remarked that he noticed the times he hit Stony these years ago, the water level was peculiarly low & I recognized it had seemed so. That stuck in mind, but I had no explanation for it, which you've given, clearly. Wow, what a hit the Brook has taken. I fished it two consecutive days in 1977 for a total of 71 smallmouths over nine inches, all released, but I only numbered the legal sized. Other days had high figures, too, and the pressure the very few of us put on the stream never flagged the catches.

I'm hearing some good things about the Raritan system, so maybe my concerns just echo from the death of favored home water. The work Andy does is no short of amazing. We have good watershed associations. There's real concern for the system...

[thyer]

I remember as a kid my father making his comments about the fishermen that leave their garbage and the ones that take everything they catch. Now that I am his age I notice all the same things. Is it because it's happening more or is it that some people just have more of an awareness of their actions and the impact for their fellow fisherman as well as society. Let's face it some people just don't care.
The one thing I find interesting is the lack of updating of our fishing regulations. I found a 1980's ny fishing reg booklet and the limits are the same as they are today. Is it because they found the sweet spot and there's no need to change them? One can't help but think 30+ years of the same regs with triple the population has to have some profound effect.
Trash garbage and debris. Another fact that can not be disputed is the amount of litter in the form of plastics. This could be from the population increase as there will always be douches that litter, more people, more litter. Just look at how many plastic bags line the river and trees, the staggering amount of plastic bottles along river banks, roads and area that see people.
I've been in nj long enough to see a few waters go from productive nice places to fish with family to closed to the public or still open with no fish.
So to answer all your questions I'd say the future of nj is only going to remain the same or improved if action is taken today. If we as a society wait until that ever so famous "oh sh*t" moment it will be too late.

[Bruce Litton]

Originally Posted by thyer

I remember as a kid my father making his comments about the fishermen that leave their garbage and the ones that take everything they catch. Now that I am his age I notice all the same things. Is it because it's happening more or is it that some people just have more of an awareness of their actions and the impact for their fellow fisherman as well as society. Let's face it some people just don't care.
The one thing I find interesting is the lack of updating of our fishing regulations. I found a 1980's ny fishing reg booklet and the limits are the same as they are today. Is it because they found the sweet spot and there's no need to change them? One can't help but think 30+ years of the same regs with triple the population has to have some profound effect.
Trash garbage and debris. Another fact that can not be disputed is the amount of litter in the form of plastics. This could be from the population increase as there will always be douches that litter, more people, more litter. Just look at how many plastic bags line the river and trees, the staggering amount of plastic bottles along river banks, roads and area that see people.
I've been in nj long enough to see a few waters go from productive nice places to fish with family to closed to the public or still open with no fish.
So to answer all your questions I'd say the future of nj is only going to remain the same or improved if action is taken today. If we as a society wait until that ever so famous "oh sh*t" moment it will be too late.

If I could vote, I would for tighter freshwater limits, both by numbers and size. I think a five bass limit is too much, but very few people keep bass. Few keep pickerel, although a single pond can get wiped out quick, as witness Burnham Park, which was fantastic about seven years ago. I think the limit on hybrid stripers--two--is perfect. They are tasty fish, do get taken, and yet they get replenished by the Division each year. Trout, well, what's wrong with a six limit on stocked fish? But wild fish are the other issue, and at least they are more protected, and again, very few people take any.

As for trash. So many people are simply ignorant. They've been in the habit for generations of just tossing trash out the window, rather than dealing with it themselves. People by nature tend to act for their own convenience, it's just that some of us place a value on the world around us as if it's ours, which it is, instead of just feeling our limited space is all there is not to spoil. I accept the situation and really like it when I can get far away from spoils, and yet instead of feeling shat on in most places, where I see some trash here and there, some places a lot more than others, I realize that people will be that way and it's out my control and anyone else's to stop it. But it's in my control to appreciate what is good about the state and not get pissed at what I can't change. Making statement against littering probably does help a little at least. I have told people not to do it...I wish I knew statistics comparing pre-environmental movement to now...

I'm grateful for what the Knee Deep Club, RVTA, and the Division do and have done. And I think this state is amazingly resilient for all the pressure on the wilds by the immense population.

[Eskimo]

Originally Posted by Bruce Litton

If I could vote, I would for tighter freshwater limits, both by numbers and size. I think a five bass limit is too much, but very few people keep bass.... But wild fish are the other issue, and at least they are more protected, and again, very few people take any.

Agreed! A five bass limit with a 12" minimum is absurd. That's the same as catfish! The difference is Fish & Wildlife stocks hundreds of thousand of catfish and few bass.

Not that it matters because the fine for poaching bass is only $40 - so it's all a moot point anyway.

If Largemouth Bass and Smallmouth Bass are vital to New Jersey's recreational sport fishery as Fish & Wildlife says they are - then they need to start acting like it.

As for the number of people taking home the bass...it used to be true that few bass were harvested. When I was younger, catch & release was gospel. The only people who killed bass were old guys who never got the message about catch & release and wide-eyed kids so enthralled with their trophy bass they couldn't bear to release it.

But things are different in New Jersey now. We are being crushed under a relentless tsunami of immigration. These new anglers have no tradition of sport-fishing and the concept of releasing a perfectly edible bass to conserve the American fishery for people they don't even know and children who haven't even been born yet is completely illogical and doesn't benefit them at all.



.

[Bruce Litton]

Originally Posted by Eskimo

Agreed! A five bass limit with a 12" minimum is absurd. That's the same as catfish! The difference is Fish & Wildlife stocks hundreds of thousand of catfish and few bass.

Not that it matters because the fine for poaching bass is only $40 - so it's all a moot point anyway.

If Largemouth Bass and Smallmouth Bass are vital to New Jersey's recreational sport fishery as Fish & Wildlife says they are - then they need to start acting like it.

As for the number of people taking home the bass...it used to be true that few bass were harvested. When I was younger, catch & release was gospel. The only people who killed bass were old guys who never got the message about catch & release and wide-eyed kids so enthralled with their trophy bass they couldn't bear to release it.

But things are different in New Jersey now. We are being crushed under a relentless tsunami of immigration. These new anglers have no tradition of sport-fishing and the concept of releasing a perfectly edible bass to conserve the American fishery for people they don't even know and children who haven't even been born yet is completely illogical and doesn't benefit them at all.



.

Yeah, I'm hearing a lot about immigrants & suspect such may have been the fate of Burnham Park. Possibly those ponds have returned to us since & I hope no one reads this who wants to go slaughter the fish. I haven't seen any immigrants fishing yet, besides the people who speak Polish on Lake Hopatcong. I have heard of problems with crappies and the like there, people taking bucketloads, heeding regulations not at all, but the foreigners I've met and spoken to, capable of broken English, like to take walleye and hybrids, but within the limits of the law.

A $40.00 fine is too low. There should be a range of possible fine, up to the discretion of the officer, given the actual situation, and fines should be enforced. And who wants to take regular limits of bass home? This hasn't happened since, like, the 1950's, so why is it legal to take five over 12 inches home? Fish & Wildlife seems out of touch with the scene. I like the trophy bass lake laws, about as should be everywhere, legal to take home one, say, and most of us won't anyhow. There should be allowance for the wide-eyed, but five bass? And if whoever wants to eat fish, well, carp are quite edible.

Not so many wide-eyed kids on the water these days, but always great when that happens. I was one of them, but got the idea to let them go, quick.

[thyer]

I remember as a kid my father making his comments about the fisherman that leave their garbage and the ones that take everything they catch. Now that I am his age I notice all the same things. Is it because it's happening more or is it that some people just have more of an awareness of their actions and the impact for their fellow fisherman as well as society. Let's face it some people just don't care.
The one thing I find interesting is the lack of updating of our fishing regulations. I found a 1980's ny fishing reg booklet and the limits are the same as they are today. Is it because they found the sweet spot and there's no need to change them? One can't help but think 30+ years of the same regs with triple the population has to have some profound effect.
Trash garbage and debris. Another fact that can not be disputed is the amount of litter in the form of plastics. This could be from the population increase as there will always be douches that litter, more people, more little. Just look at how many plastic bags line the river and trees, the staggering amount of plastic bottles along river banks, roads and area that see people.
I've been in nj long enough to see a few waters go from productive nice places to fish with family to closed to the public or still open with no fish.
So to answer all your questions I'd say the future of nj is only going to remain the same or improved if action is taken today. If we as a society wait until that ever so famous "oh sh*t" moment it will be too late.