Fishing

My brother always loved to fish. He still does, though I’ve abandoned the notion years ago. It got to the point where after looking the fishing rule book in Oregon I decided I didn’t want to take an attorney fishing with me just to make sure I wasn’t breaking any laws. It’s just not simple here. Each stream comes with its own laws. It’s just too confusing for me.

As a younger brother, I was delighted any time my brother included me in his activities. He loved fishing; his friends didn’t, so I got to go with him often. Being seven years my senior, he had his drivers license and a car when I was ten, so I got the benefit of going to exotic fishing holes all over Northern New Jersey. I don’t know how he found some of the spots. Many weren’t even on the map. It was like he was a blood hound with a nose that could detect good fishing holes from 40 miles away.

On opening day of trout season most streams had fishers elbow to elbow on the banks going for the hand full of stockies that were tossed into the rivers a week earlier, by the Fish and Game Department. We instead were hiking up to obscure small streams and lakes in the Ramapo Mountains where the trout were wild and native. We were catching fish that had never had interaction with humans so we just about always got our limit.

When I moved out here I tried to fish like I did back East. I once heard that there is a fine line between angling and standing on the bank looking like a jerk. Of all the time I spent on the upper Lewis and Clark; day after day; winter after winter, I only caught one steelhead, one jack salmon and some cut throats. It was horribly disappointing.

I’m often asked if I plan to go back to visit New Jersey. I have no plans to ever go back, but if I do I am going to bring a fly rod.