Foremost is the towpath bridge. Behind it, State Highway 29.
My wife and I are staying in Lambertville. The town situates along the Delaware River. Naturally, the possibility of fishing that river again, since Thursday last week at the wing dam, arose as a clear and present urge to act, the forecast thunderstorms not having arrived. Off I went, headed for the Tea Table Rocks upstream, also known as the Fingers, a series of rock formations jutting far out into the river, creating myriad pools where we've caught smallmouth bass. And walleye have been caught there. I once saw one about 22 inches on someone's stringer. I caught a couple of smallmouths while wading among the Fingers in December, too.
I got a momentary view of the river from Highway 29, and it did not look good. So once I got into Stockton, I took a left and parked near the bridge to Solebury, PA. From there I walked out on that bridge and examined the river below. Running high. Deeply stained, but not thickly muddy. Too stained to fish comfortably, let alone probably too high to wade among the rocks effectively. I did catch a smallmouth from the deeply muddied Delaware on a Rat-L-Trap during summer once.
We didn't have too much rainfall down here. The river's level rose upstream. I felt certain that streams like the Lockatong Creek flowed clear. Before I left home in Bedminster on Monday, I was confronted with the choice to put my waders, salmon eggs, and microlight rod back in the car. I knew I couldn't foresee what might possibly arise, but I felt set on fishing the river, if it didn't rain much. But what I didn't think of was rain to the north, river high and stained--Hunterdon trout streams clear and fishable.
No big deal. An alternative fascinated me more than trying to pick off one or two rainbows late in the season given the stocking schedule pertaining to those streams. I hadn't fished in a long time the mouth of the Lockatong where it forms a confluence. Judging by the looks of a photograph I took on Opening Day 2012, my son and I visited the spot when access was better. Many decades ago, an earthen lot existed across the road, completely grown over and fenced off now.
I felt surprised to find any pullover at all. Privilege is clamping down on access--as if we're not all privileged in America--at what I feel is an alarming rate, pushing American values back before the years of the American Revolution's defeating Great Britain. You can't fish in England as we can fish in America. No matter the British democracy. That society is essentially ruled by monarchy, which means--as it does in any case of monarchy--that privilege has an upper hand that excludes so many opportunities ordinary subjects would have to fish.
I parked, despite the "No Stopping. No Standing" sign. I took note of the Division of Fish & Wildlife stocking sign posted on a tree there. Absolutely, I resolved to fish--come hell or high water. With that sign from the Division present, I knew I had a chance in court.
And I felt disgusted at the effrontery to access that "No Stopping" sign represented. Can you believe it? In 1979 three friends and I camped here. We put a 12-foot Starcraft on the canal. Me and one friend fished muskies. After doing that, I walked upstream, fishing as I went with a Mister Twister, catching 10 smallmouths over the course of about two miles and having climbed untold vertical elevation. The Lockatong flows pretty quickly down and out of the hills.
I guess the other guys wanted to get high, rather than fish hard.
But I fished today. Up here, only about three miles from where the canal begins at Bull's Island, the canal flowed high and deeply stained. Only where the tannic flow of the Lockatong flowed into the canal was some clarity present. I fished all the clarity I could find, and deep into the edges as well, except for upstream of the bridges.
I hooked a musky about 30 inches long here in 1977. It didn't stay on the hook, but you can imagine that such a deep break in the canal structure as this confluence would attract them. I witnessed a friend of mine, Joe Kasper, fight another musky the same year at the same spot. It leapt right in front of our faces, throwing the hook, a small one about 24 inches. Tiger musky. I saw the vertical markings clear as day.
When done below those bridges, I walked across the road and looked down over the bridge, curious about any further possibility of access. I saw that to the left, a deep hole might hold some bass. Black, tannic water. (I've caught Maine smallmouths in tannic water.) I don't remember the creek being tannic here in the past, but that's beside the point. I didn't want to fish any longer today. That disgust I had felt had taken over, and I just wanted to get back to the Air B & B and write my post. But before I would walk back across the road to my car, no ticket on its windshield, me feeling as if I were being judged by passing traffic for being in the wrong, not in the right we sportsmen understand, indeed I stayed in the right, turning the corner of the metal fence and making my way to where, yes, it's possible to access the creek.
If I were to be ticketed, I've already conceived a defense by the rights of the American Sportsman. (Last I checked, this nation still is the United States.) I would study the constitution, because, seriously, it must be open to the interpretation that public water must be allowed convenient access.
The Lockatong Creek enters the Delaware and Raritan Canal to the right of the picture. Across the canal, some of the water overflows into the Delaware River, as if the creek would flow across and into the river. Because the canal is only about three miles downstream of its origin at Bull's Island, building an aqueduct for the creek to flow under was not possible. The level of the canal is only so much--maybe a few feet at most--above the river here.
