Last night I decided I would drive up to the Dover area, where I keep my squareback, and get last year's registration for it from its safe box. It's perfectly dry & in shape. I compared all the codes with this year's form from the MVC, and they all check out.
So instead of fishing in Hunterdon, I fished the Rockaway River in Morris. The cold was more invigorating than uncomfortable, but my hands felt pained. I must have fished a total of two hours, and I did find interesting holes that would definitely hold trout. Fished on the outskirts of the town of Rockaway and in Denville.
I drove along the river--best I could stay along the river--from Dover into Boonton Township. The exploration got involved; I was enjoying it, and it served as a deep meditation on given wilds and limited access due to private ownership. I don't believe that the Western way of land owning land is inherently corrupt, but a world is a commonality, and human beings should have abundant access to land and water for recreation. Think of how we tend to enclose ourselves, surround ourselves with objects we identify with, rather than to ensure our health and vitality by participation in the larger world. There are better and worse ways to do that, too, and to only seek out opportunities that cost relatively large sums of money begs the question: Are those activities being pursued for their own and your sake, or does money represent a value you produce only by work on others' behalf?
As I fished in Denville, I thought of all the trout that must have been stocked where public access was available. Just a few hundred yards of it. Trout we pay for by trout stamp and license fees. Most of them now probably inhabit inaccessible water.