Califon Dam Removals and River Restoration

 

Sluiceway down below the dam in the town of Califon. This spot is now posted. According to Dumont, it "always holds fish." My son and I failed to catch any on that March day I photographed Matt trying. We tried and tried. Interestingly, sunlight singled him out when I shot the photo, so he was overexposed. He alone, which is kind of cool, even though it destroyed the photograph for any large print use. You can tell because his face and hands are grey. I compensated by reducing highlights in Lightroom, but the overexposure was too much.

I'm writing an article for The Fisherman about the South Branch Raritan River. Should be published in June. I interviewed one of the many guides working for South Branch Outfitters, Gerry Dumont, gathering information about the river. I always collect a lot more than I can use, which got me thinking this time: I can use some of it for my blog. Information I can't use for the magazine. I felt inspired by what I will relate to you as too important not to divulge. 

According to Dumont, "We're gonna have a little bit more trout water--what I consider trout water--by, not this trout season, but the following one. We're expecting in June, at least the dam above the shop, I'm pretty sure that's coming out this summer. And we're hoping that the other dam below the shop--the big dam in town--that's planned to be coming out, too, and they're going to restore, it's got to be close to two miles of river. That will lower the water temperature in the (Ken Lockwood) Gorge three or four degrees in the summertime." 

So that's breaking news from a primary source. Stuff online about dam removal in Califon is very little and requires--besides what I screenshot, below--passing a paywall.

As I began to say in the caption to the photo above, we've lost some water between the town and Hoffman's Crossing Road just above the beginning of Ken Lockwood Gorge. As Dumont put it, "Some areas are now not able to be fished. With COVID, there was a lot of problems. Some places got posted." And he added, "Things happen, things get closed," but with the dam removals and the restoration, water worth respecting will become available. We don't expect another mass exodus into the outdoors as COVID inspired, so we can probably keep the newly flush riverscape.

With lower water temperatures and improved habitat brought about by river restoration, it's easy to imagine that the numbers of benthic organisms and their insect hatches will improve, and that, naturally, so will the wild and native trout population.    

(newjerseyhills.com)

Califon

Sedge Island for Youngsters--Excellent Adventure

NJ Fish & Wildlife 

NJ Fish & Wildlife (Two links to separate dates)

Every year, I post about the Sedge Island experience for youngsters grades 7 through 12. On an island in Barnegat Bay behind Island Beach, they stay in rooms in a research facility. Click on the links to get an idea of the deep educational value New Jersey Fish & Wildlife offers students. 

When my son did Sedge Island two consecutive years, the program began with kids who had finished 6th grade. I guess that's what they mean by 7th grade. (After 8th grade, Matt went on a Boy Scout sailing adventure in the Florida Keys.) For Matt and the others with him from throughout the state who did Sedge Island, it wasn't all science and research. They fished blues, and I believe fluke and some other species. They ocean kayaked. They treaded clams, and judging from what he told me, the clamming was pretty good. 

Currently, youngsters from grade 7 to 9 get to explore, in addition to the biological life of the bay, Barnegat Bay history, and that's interesting to me. I read The Bayman by Merce Ridgeway, which goes into Barnegat Bay history in depth. Ridgeway was a clam raker, coming from a family long in the tradition. Treaders are the new wave--or were. I haven't heard of anyone treading NJ bays commercially since 1993, but I have heard that the clams are coming back.

I think of the hard clam as the bellwether for the decline of the ecological health of a bay. Someone on Facebook pointed out to me recently, however, that the clams were never lost altogether in Great Bay, because the volume of transfer between inshore and marine brine flowing through Great Egg Inlet is so much the greater than in the bays behind Long Beach Island. Behind the island, most or all of the eel grass was lost to excess nitrogen and phosphorus leached into the water. Clams depend on eel grass, because once they hatch from eggs, they swim freely before attaching themselves to that grass until they mature enough to fall off and take hold on bay bottom. 

Let's hope the best for the bays, and for the youngsters who get to experience Barnegat Bay firsthand. It's truly an excellent adventure for them.

When We Shelled It Out 

Roscoe New York Trout Town USA

roscoeny.com Outdoor writer Jim Stabile sent me information on the Two-Headed Trout Dinner event at Roscoe, New York, in April. "Trout Town USA." That immediately made me think of my wife, because I had--fairly recently--spoken to her about the possibility of a future trip up there. I knew nothing of the dinner that celebrates the opening of fly fishing season. I had thought of the other attractions the town offers--little shops and restaurants--that might appeal to her. The dinner incorporates businesses in town, so there's more to it than trout fishing. Even so, in the final analysis, it's almost pointless for me to pitch the dinner as an event to attend, although she might like the town as a Bed & Breakfast destination.  

More than a decade ago, my son and I visited Roscoe, staying at a campground at town's edge. We actually camped beside the Beaverkill. That's where our allotted space happened to be located. It was August, and our main plan was to fish Pepacton Reservoir for smallmouths. The owner of the campground persuaded us to try for big brown trout, too, lending us a couple of rods rigged with color-coded weighted line and silver trolling spoons. We also rented the rowboat from him.

We caught no trout, but my son did catch a little smallmouth, and I caught a channel cat that looked like a trout. We jigged both of the fish, and many rock bass, besides. The water is so clear that the catfish was almost white, except for black spots. 

We had time to fly fish the Delaware River East Branch after lunch, catching nothing. We also checked out the confluence of the Beaverkill and Willowemoc, noticing some persistent rises, but the water felt about 70 degrees to me. Too warm to catch and release trout, so we didn't fish there. The West Branch was cold. 

What I remember best of all is getting up before first light the first morning, feeling how fresh the 48-degree air felt in August, building a fire, boiling water, making coffee and getting started on it, all before my son awoke. That might have been the best coffee I've ever had.

Roscoe Trip