Since all the larger rivers in northern New Jersey and eastern PA are blown out from about 15 days of rain I decided to make my annual pilgrimage to the stream
were my father took me for my first opening day 50 years ago when I was 8 years old and were I caught my first trout on a fly. This stream is only about 20
minutes from were I now live but for a variety of reasons I only fish is occasionaly.This stream is a small free stoner about 15 or 18' wide on average,
that runs through a heavely wooded valley. It is paralled by a town road but because it is in a section of the state were very afflunent people militently
guard their privacy there has been almost no development along and around this stream in the 50 years I have been fishing it. Unfortunately this militancy
extends to keeping scruffy old fishermen off their property. When I was a kid we could fish about 4 miles of the stream with no restrictions but today there
is only a small section, about a 1/4 mile long that was bought by the town with Green Acres funds. Even this is obscure because the land owners around this
piece tear down the signs when they are posted. This stream is now a designated Wild Trout stream and has been off the state stocking schedule for about 20
years. It holds a surprising population of self sustaining Brown Trout.
I started fishing about 10:00 am using my Art Weiler Garrison 193 clone, Orvis CFO 123, and a Cortland 3wt sylk line. The water was a little high but clear and I started with a #16 Olive Elk Hair Caddis, 2nd cast a little brown jumped head over tail to grab the fly. Over the next 1.5 hrs I fished about 500 yrds of stream, I might have strayed a little past the green acres water, and managed 10 more between 6 and 11 inches and missed about the same number. All fat and with beautiful color.
I don't fish this stream much because I prefere to remember it as it was when I was young. When my mother would drop us off in the morning and we would fish all day, catch a bunch of fish, get picked up at 4:00 pm and come home tired and happy without a care in the world. I also like to remember my father teaching me to use my first Sears glass fly rod on that stream. You can't really re-live those times, which is why I did not take any pictures but I just like to go back every once and a while to make sure that some piece of it is still there.
I started fishing about 10:00 am using my Art Weiler Garrison 193 clone, Orvis CFO 123, and a Cortland 3wt sylk line. The water was a little high but clear and I started with a #16 Olive Elk Hair Caddis, 2nd cast a little brown jumped head over tail to grab the fly. Over the next 1.5 hrs I fished about 500 yrds of stream, I might have strayed a little past the green acres water, and managed 10 more between 6 and 11 inches and missed about the same number. All fat and with beautiful color.
I don't fish this stream much because I prefere to remember it as it was when I was young. When my mother would drop us off in the morning and we would fish all day, catch a bunch of fish, get picked up at 4:00 pm and come home tired and happy without a care in the world. I also like to remember my father teaching me to use my first Sears glass fly rod on that stream. You can't really re-live those times, which is why I did not take any pictures but I just like to go back every once and a while to make sure that some piece of it is still there.
