Millington Gorge has the expected strong currents in abundance, though the river does get some relief here and there where it slows a bit. Water isn't especially deep but plenty to hold trout. And while you may think of the Passaic as a mud-bottomed river where carp thrive, don't expect to catch any carp in the Gorge. Rocks are all over the place, and if you're careless while wading, you'll get wet.
In addition to trout, Brenden Kuprel, who showed me the way today, says the Gorge has sunfish and largemouth bass. At the time, I was preoccupied with salmon eggs that seemed too soft to have been salted, very frustrated with them, as trout after trout hit and snitched them, so the thought of smallmouth bass didn't occur to me until later. Brenden had already left.
So I will leave the question of their existence for a later post. I could text message Brenden right now but feel there's more class in leaving the question open.
Smallmouths are abundant in the Passaic near Patterson.
Brenden had invited me last night. We met at 9:30 a.m. in the lot near the railroad tracks. Classic American scene of free-growing and free-flowing wilds. I fear that if we lose such access, we'll lose our nation, too. It will implode like an ancient bag woman who sits against a wall staring at a Time Square screen all day, all night, with a look of infinite appall.
We each got our waders on, and I believe it was when I reached for my vest, that I realized I had left my rod at home. That is the first time I have ever gone fishing and forgotten the rod. Or rods. Any amount of rods forgotten. I'm told my memory loss is normal for my age. Everyone seems to dance around the fact that both of my parents died due to complications from Alzheimer's. Just putting that out there in case you're wondering. I'm not much afraid of it. I already know from apparently normal memory loss that you can know you're at loss and not suffer. The important thing is that you're beginning to enter the final stages of a full and flourishing life.
That life never was perfect, so what's the difference?
Or, it was never perfect for very long, so what's the difference, when imperfection is what calls upon acceptance?
I got my rod and got back to the Millington Gorge, parking my Honda Civic right next to Brenden's Forrester. I left my cell phone in the car, because I didn't want the responsibility. But you can see that Gorge is down there, by looking at the photos. I got down there and didn't see Brenden. I took a few casts in some slower water, missing a hit. Later, I asked Brenden if they actually stock on downstream there at the tracks. He thinks they do but isn't certain. In any event, we found trout everywhere in the Gorge, and plenty of water remained that we didn't fish.
I decided to climb back up and call Brenden. He had made his way upstream and said I could park up there. I drove up Pond Hill Road and took a spot from very little space left. A couple of good 'ole boy types, full of foul language, told me they had caught one trout. I later said to Brenden that can mean one of two things: either few trout are there, or they left plenty behind. (Simple minds all round.)
Anyway, plenty of trout were there. I took some home. As I had been saying, I missed hits from fish after fish. Finally, I caught one after I did the obvious thing and tried a different jar of eggs. Then another after Brenden left. (He had caught some on a fake worm under a float, though I don't know how many.) I walked just a little further upstream where Brenden had caught one, and began picking off one after another from that run and yet another run even further up. I ran up a total of 15 trout caught.
The second fish I hooked on further upstream from where I caught the first two, was a real river horse, a trout of at least 16 inches, hooked in powerful current and hugging bottom...so I felt I had control, because slack water is at bottom. You don't work a fish too hard on a microlight rod and two-pound test, but you can put pressure on it, which is what I did, knowing I had to tire it out, however long it would take, and it was taking a while. Instead, the hook pulled free. Oh, well.
"Good fight," I felt.
Having climbed almost to the top.
