Recently I saw my buddy who reminded me, "There's snakeheads below the wing dam". I didn't think much of it but after the low light mouse throwing grind as of late and the water temps
in the 80's I decided to take the ride and give it a go. One thing about snakeheads, so I've learned, it's a bright and sunny kind of fishing, no nights and no all nighters for these things, unless you're targeting them with rod and bow. There sight fishy, which is a type of fishing I love.
Like the rest of the system the river around Lambertville is dry. With a gage height of below a foot it's way down, but there's still enough going water to churn up some oxygen which draws various fishes in the summer heat.
When someone tells me "There's fish..." I wrongfully expect to go there and see "fish" swimming around just waiting to hit on anything that gets thrown at them. Well, I saw, zilch, nada, nothing. That's okay, it was good to get out and have a change of venue.
I fished along the wing dam waiting for a two footer to jump out of the shadows but that never happened. I watched a guy across the state line fishing the dam over there and connect with a few snakeheads. He was walking and sight casting, well dropping rubber something or others, down to them.
As I walked back I stopped at the Delaware and Raritan Canal which runs through Lambertville. At the lock water was blowing through creating an oxygenated environment for anything that
swims below the turbulence. The D & R Canal has an interesting history. It is similar to other canal and lock systems such as the Morris Canal which ran from the Delaware River in
Phillipsburg, through Newark, ending in Jersey City, until the beginning of the 20th century (That's the early 1900's).
The Morris Canal used to run a block behind where I once lived at Warren and Colden Streets near downtown Newark. The bed of the old canal is now Raymond Boulevard. Essex County College now sits where the buildings above once stood, with NJIT across the other side.
I lived at 156 Warren Street in the late 1980's. It was my first apartment away from Red Bank and it was there where I awaited the call to be hired by the Newark Fire Dept. I started out on the second floor and then moved to the first floor. The first floor was once Charlie's Luncheonette but was converted into an apartment decades ago. The owners and landlords,
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| 156 Warren Street, 2nd floor, circa 1987. 38 years ago. |
Theresa and Carl Benecase, were murdered on the third floor when a guy came down through the roof and beat them to death with a hammer. She was known as "The Broom Lady of Warren Street" as every morning she swept the sidewalks and curbs. The murderer, who lived on Prince Street, was caught and sentenced to life in prison. We stayed there for two years after their deaths, sending the $125 rent check to her sister who lived in Union.
The neighborhood, and it was a neighborhood way back in the day, was filled with shops, like Testa's Butcher Shop, and social clubs and life and activity, way before my time there. Well it is
all gone now replaced with modern buildings with no more Mom and Pop shops. Wait, do they actually exist anywhere anymore? Now, where my house once stood now sits a Smash Burger. Who wouldda' thought? When I was there the neighborhood was run down and dangerous.
Sorry. I must have AHAD. How do I go from snakeheads to my first apartment in Newark?
The D & R Canal is really made up of two parts. The main canal runs from New Brunswick down to Bordentown. A feeder canal, which follows the contour of the Delaware River and
Route 29, aka River Road, from Bulls Island down to Trenton. The change of gradient from the start down to Lambertville is 12 feet, and the lock system there was used to raise and lower barges and boats to continue on their path delivering goods.
Now the locks are used for flood control. The canal gets a healthy put and take trout stocking in the spring and though out the summer anglers try for bass, bluegills, and the occasional muskie. It's also a great place to kayak and at one time I had purchased two of them to do the trek from in front of our house up to Lambertville or Stockton. Of course, those were sold off in a yard sale from non-use.
I stopped by Firemen's Eddy on the way back home and gave it a few casts. While walking in the woods I saw a recent memorial placed there following the drowning death of a local 24-year old man who was swimming there on June 25th. A day later they recovered his body down river in Yardley.
Like I've always said, this river, as with all waters, can be dangerous and unforgiving. I can't think of the number of drownings I have seen or read about related to the river and or flooding since we moved out here in 2018. Locally, it has to be over 20, with five people killed in one weather event in July 2023.
That has led to a real rift between the locals, the people who enjoy the river, and people who enjoy the river but put themselves in a bad way. Recently there has been an uptick in the amount of swimming and bank partying along the Delaware River and at the boat ramps. With people comes noise, garbage left, bad swimmers, and near misses or drownings.
For the last few weeks the Scudder's Falls access area has been shut down. Cerrada means closed for those that don't know Spanish, like me. If you haven't been to that area, which is a spot fly rodders like for early season shad, the river rips around a series of braids, which is also a favorite place for swift river kayakers. Several times a year rescue squads practice swift water rescue techniques at this spot. It's no match for people who can't swim. But is it fair to shut it down for everyone?
What it seems to me is unlawful. They, the NJ State Park Police, put out a notice that due to "excessive use" the area is closed Friday's through Sunday's. I took the above picture yesterday, a Monday, and it was shut down. If a State Park, let's say Allaire state Park, reaches capacity
then they shut it down. But no. What they are saying that on any given weekend, even during the worst of weather weekends, it's shut down regardless for three days due to "overcapacity". Don't believe they hype Willis. This is targeted to a specific group, yes, an ethnicity, of people, who use, and abuse, the resource. Not all of course, but a few bad apples can spoil the bunch.
And then in the afternoon and into the wee hours of the night the rains cams and washed the spiders, and cars, and trucks, and the buildings, out. Flooding occurred from North Jersey down through the Jersey Shore. Crazy images of what has become normal weather extremes, especially rains, which causes almost instant flooding. Is it all the rainfall? Or is it us, as humans, overdeveloping every square inch of this state that leaves waters no where to filter through the aquifers to a place "Where a River Runs Through It"?
The above picture was from Route 22 yesterday. You can see how quick floodwaters can trap people and it's easy to understand how the tragedy that occurred in Texas, where over a hundred people perished in flash flooding, can occur. Mother Nature is a beautiful lady, but she can be very angry as well.
