Saturday, June 20, 2015

Dog Hike to Butternut Falls, India Brook Park, Mendham, NJ





Thought up this family dog hike about eight months ago, but settled on this evening only yesterday. It's a nice little gorge in Mendham, a 20-minute drive from our house in Bedminster.

India Brook Park serves as entryway down and in. This stream is part of the North Branch Raritan River headwaters. Butternut falls are stunning. Not great, big falls like Passaic Falls in Paterson, but for a local woodland, very nice.

Matt started fishing right about the same time others arrived to swim. I urged him to continue, but as soon as he tangled his line, I knew it was no use, especially because we recognized the situation for us had got compromised anyway. I thought this evening would be perfect. About 67 degrees out, cloudy, no one would swim the 60-degree water. They did. I said offhand to Matt we can return in October.

After we got home, I mentioned again the possibility of a return sometime, and Matt suggested we use the fireplace at the head of the falls to cook. His mother had checked out the details and said we have to get permission from the township. So perhaps we'll get permission and do this sometime. 











9 comments:

  1. Hey great post - I really enjoy your blog. I'll be in basking ridge, nj for a few days, is there any spots you would recommend?

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    1. North Branch Raritan is good smallmouth (Burnt Mills Road, Bedminster Lamington River Bridge...downstream confluence), Lake Hopatcong to the north 40 minutes--largemouth around docks, weeds, smallmouths rocky drop-offs, Round Valley Reservoir also if you have a boat (limited to 10hsp), but if you have boater safety certificate, you can rent from Dows Boat Rental, Hopatcong. Hopatcong's OK if you're persistent & you can click on the Hopatcong label in this blog for more info. Most of the smallmouths in N. Branch are small, but a few are 3 pounds plus, rare. If you just want an easy few, Sunrise Lake near Mendham & Morristown on County Road 510 has bass positioned under floating weed mats, if those are there this year. (Cast weightless plastic worms to edges.) It's only 3 acres & most small, 3-pounders rare. Out-of-state boater safety certificate I'm sure would be honored on Hopatcong...Email me if you need more info. Email's on profile.

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    2. Thanks a lot for your reply! I was actually wondering if there were any ponds in the basking ridge/bedminster area that I could hit. I don't think I have enough time to make the trip to Round Valley.

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  2. You realize it's buttermilk falls not butternut right

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    1. Couple of things confused me. 1. I thought I heard it called Butternut Falls, first I learned of the spot. 2. Buttermilk Falls, the famous, is inside Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area. I've seen those falls, also. So here we have two Buttermilk Falls in New Jersey. Possibly this second got named after the more popular in the National Recreation Area, Water Gap region. I felt tempted, once, to change the title of this post to "correct" the issue, but then I thought, well, leave it be. Gives the place a little original flavor.

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  3. FYI...there are no bass left in Sunrise Lake in Mendham.

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    1. Sad to hear. I found that pond in 1995 and it fished pretty well. My son & I fished it a lot in 2003 & 2004. I caught a real nice bass there in 2012. I saw Burnham Park Pond suddenly lose its speed. I saw my neighborhood bass pond crash due to thick ice. There were still some bass left--very few--and last year it seemed to be coming back. Sunrise Lake impressed me as vulnerable to people who take fish, which is apparently what happened in Morristown. I couldn't believe how good that pond was--in city limits. How good both ponds. Ponds wax and wane. Now that there are "no" bass, the fishing pressure will relax. A pond always has the potential to house a fish population.

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    2. I'll say style of disclosure and concealment wax and wane, too. I was very forward with this blog at first. Actually, though, by the time I wrote on Burnham, it had already crashed, and I wrote little about Sunrise. If I were to have taken the dog hike today, I wouldn't include shots of a fly rod in use. I might even take the shots out or keep them in for blog history sake. The hole never was full of fish, but would any rise to a fly now? If not, in the future, likely so. Ecology needs to take media into account. Besides, the life of a post is short-lived. Maybe this one will get a dozen visitations this year. Maybe one of the readers will read this comment, and most likely he won't care about fishing anyway.

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