golden beetle
Active member
I'm an unabashed advocate of guides, and there are many good guides in the area.
Today I fished with Joe D. It is the third trip I've booked with Joe this year, and this time we fished the fabled pike waters of Essex County, New Jersey.
I use the word "fabled" because these fish are one of the top prized game fish in the world, right in our backyard, yet they've rarely seen a fly.
If ever.
Why not?
They've been stocked in our waters for over 30 years, but there is barely any access into the river where you'd like to be fishing for them.
Perhaps we'd prefer to fish for heavily pursued stocked trout in the Flatbrook... But there are 12 pound pike in New Jersey waters that have never seen a fly.
It takes a good guide to recognize a human enigma, and irony, of this scale.
Perhaps Joe has an unique ability to see opportunities for great fishing where others don't, not only within the Delaware, but anywhere one would least expect them.
Essex County, New Jersey.
Good luck wading these waters. Don't try it alone, or you literally may get stuck in mud that may just as well be called quick sand.
Pike are not, to my knowledge, native to these waters. But they grow enormous here, and they're stocked just a bit bigger than fingerlings.
They are no more wild as Salmon River steelhead, but certainly more game than any stocked trout that lasts no more than a season in our waterways.
Joe explained that Northern Pike survive in numbers sufficient to make a fishery here in Jersey, if they're put in at about 8 inches in length.
Which caused me to wonder...
Why can't they survive smaller than that?
The flood plain in New Jersey is so overdeveloped, that the floods rage unnaturally, so badly as to kill off the smaller fish.
So let this be a lesson in sustainable fisheries management.
This is why Rusty Spinner works to make a riparian buffer zone along the Musconetcong; I believe to protect against flooding.
So today was another day in Joe D University for me.
He is perhaps the best guide you could ever hope for.
Today I learned about my local waters, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Conservation's pike experiment.
Does it get any better?
Today I fished with Joe D. It is the third trip I've booked with Joe this year, and this time we fished the fabled pike waters of Essex County, New Jersey.
I use the word "fabled" because these fish are one of the top prized game fish in the world, right in our backyard, yet they've rarely seen a fly.
If ever.
Why not?
They've been stocked in our waters for over 30 years, but there is barely any access into the river where you'd like to be fishing for them.
Perhaps we'd prefer to fish for heavily pursued stocked trout in the Flatbrook... But there are 12 pound pike in New Jersey waters that have never seen a fly.
It takes a good guide to recognize a human enigma, and irony, of this scale.
Perhaps Joe has an unique ability to see opportunities for great fishing where others don't, not only within the Delaware, but anywhere one would least expect them.
Essex County, New Jersey.
Good luck wading these waters. Don't try it alone, or you literally may get stuck in mud that may just as well be called quick sand.
Pike are not, to my knowledge, native to these waters. But they grow enormous here, and they're stocked just a bit bigger than fingerlings.
They are no more wild as Salmon River steelhead, but certainly more game than any stocked trout that lasts no more than a season in our waterways.
Joe explained that Northern Pike survive in numbers sufficient to make a fishery here in Jersey, if they're put in at about 8 inches in length.
Which caused me to wonder...
Why can't they survive smaller than that?
The flood plain in New Jersey is so overdeveloped, that the floods rage unnaturally, so badly as to kill off the smaller fish.
So let this be a lesson in sustainable fisheries management.
This is why Rusty Spinner works to make a riparian buffer zone along the Musconetcong; I believe to protect against flooding.
So today was another day in Joe D University for me.
He is perhaps the best guide you could ever hope for.
Today I learned about my local waters, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Conservation's pike experiment.
Does it get any better?