My wife needed a little break and my son wanted to go to the Delaware river yesterday so he and I jumped in the car and headed for the Delaware. I decided to stop at a lfs to pick up a new net since I had given my small extendable net to my sister, she studied marine biology in college and her oldest daughter(six years old) is well on her way to being a collector. Well I get to the store and they are out of nets and I hadn't even brought my backup net a much larger,sturdier model that I bought without a telescoping handle. Somehow I knew the lack of a net was going to come back to haunt me.

We got to the river at a spot I've been fishing for years. A long but short spillway that separates the Delaware-Raritan canal from the river. I've caught just about everything the river has to offer here over the years including the biggest trout I've caught a 3 pound breeder that must have come over the spillway from the trout stocked canal into the river. The river has been slowly filling the area in over the years but there is still deep enough water on one side of the spillway to hold decent fish. Sure enough I see small fish literally everywhere when we get to the water. Some were Black Nosed Dace but I think I saw a darter or 2 plus some hatchlings that were too small to identify. It was at this point I started kicking myself for not bringing some kind of net.

We still had fun though. I got my son to walk across to the other side of the spillway, the water was only knee deep to me and the current wasn't bad. He's getting more and more used to the moving water and slippery rocks and once he learns to swim better and gets a little taller he'll be ready for some full fledged fishing trips. I did catch a crayfish of a species I've been looking for (Orconectes virilis)but I made a mistake which cost the poor thing its life. When I caught it I didn't have my usual minnow bucket since being netless I had left it in my car. I put it in the chest pack I carry when fishing knowing it would be fine there for a little while. We walked back to the car and I grabbed the bucket out of the trunk. Here's where I made my mistake. I took the crayfish out of the pack and put it in the bucket that had been in a hot trunk for hours and started to walk back to the water. The hot air must have put the cray into shock and in the 2 minutes it rook to get water in the bucket it dies. I really hate killing something because of a stupid mistake and this is even worse because these crayfish aren't all that common in my part of NJ and I don't know when I'll come across another one.

Here are some pictures of the trip minus any fish unfortunately. These are pictures from my camera phone since I also forgot to grab my waterproof camera.

Here's a garter snake we came across on our way to the water


Here's one big spider which the Delaware river seems to have a lot. Flip a rock along the river and chances you'll see a big to huge spider or a watersnake.


Here's some pictures of the area itself. There used to be 3 channels that ran from the spillway to the river. There's only 2 now and neither channel is very deep.










My fishing partner lol

Edited by davidjh2, 29 August 2010 - 12:16 PM.

David,
Not a better way to spend a day out on the water with your son. Some of best memories are out on a creek or hiking with my daughter, she is 18 now and will still be seen with me out in the woods.

David

David,
Not a better way to spend a day out on the water with your son. Some of best memories are out on a creek or hiking with my daughter, she is 18 now and will still be seen with me out in the woods.

David

Yep that's what made it a good trip. If I had been by myself it would have just been plain bad. My son loves the water, I'm trying to get him interested in what's in there now. He'll look at a fish but show him a crayfish and he runs for it hehe.