Our second wedding took us to the banks of the Mullica River in the small community of Sweetwater, New Jersey. I got up and grabbed the above picture when I saw both photographers standing next to each other as the boys made their way down the aisle. It was a great venue, and wedding, my first officiated by a drag queen. Yes, that's the official title.
The queens stayed for the cocktail hour before we headed upstairs for dinner. The plan was this, 4 o'clock ceremony, 5 o'clock cocktail hour, dinner till 1030, then a bus ride for an after party that I wouldn't doubt is still going on. These boys, and their friends and families, know how to party.
We joined in on the fun and then let the kids, and they all seemed to be kids, have their fun. After dinner and a dance we excited stage left before the fireworks display over the river, which went off at 930. Now we just have our one destination wedding left in Colorado, which we leave for on the 20th.
But all the time I was there I was trying to place where I actually was, and if there are striped bass in this river, this far up. So I went digging early this morning. Looking in the blog archives I
had actually first visited the mouth of the Mullica River at the Great Bay in March 2011. The sod banks there are historically one of the first places in New Jersey where those ice-out bass first start to chew.
The Mullica is 50 miles long and travels through four counties, Camden, Burlington, Ocean, and Atlantic. As far as a striped bass fishery it has been a secret spot for the locals for decades. Yes, it's always mentioned as an early spring spot, but it's allegedly a fall and winter-over spot as well. At its deepest it's 35 feet, plenty of places to hunker down for the winter. It's a great boat river, as the pine barrens access spots are hard to come by, and fly fishing, not the easiest. The Mullica is cut hard through the mix of clay and sandy soil.
The question I have had when I did research on when, and where, striped bass spawn in New Jersey is if the Mullica held a spring spawn. At Sweetwater, where we were last night, the river is freshwater, where striped bass need to spawn. So the question is, are all these places that people claim hold spawning striped bass, like the Mullica, Raritan, and Navesink Rivers- are they their own strain, did they repopulate, or did they become lost, or, is there really no documented spawning going on in those rivers? Either way we know all those rivers hold striped bass, while they're visiting or lingering around.
If you ever want to take a drive to the middle of nowhere and have a nice meal or hang at the bar and catch a game Sweetwater Marina & Riverdeck is a great place.
While there you could hit Basto Village or Historical Smithville. If you're a gambler Atlantic City isn't too far of a ride either.
And today New Jersey is going to get hit with rain and wind for an extended time thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Isiaas. While Saturday was a banner fall day around there Garden State Sunday is going to be a washout, and it's looking very wet through Tuesday.
We were planning on re-roofing our place down here in Cape May, and we will might be able to if time allows. We don't have any leaks but I would say the roof's life has expired.
Due to the pitch of the roof you can't see it from the ground, and when you do see it you know it's time to go, and quick. So in order to reduce the weight of the shingles from the rain we decided to get up there and tarp it until the rain blows over.
My thinking was by tarping it the shingles would remain brittle and would be easier to remove rather than being water logged and heavy. As I stood up there looking around some of my neighbors better borrow my ladder and do a little assessing themselves. It should be a relatively quick job the problem is like most home improvement projects is where do you get rid of the debris? And as far as cost? Incredible. Simple three-tab non-architectural roofing shingles are about $50 a bundle these days, or $150 a square. I think I'll do my Facebook Marketplace searches first before donating to the big box stores. Stay dry and enjoy Sunday around the NFL.