Point Mountain TCA river restoration project

[Bucksnbows]

Going to be a great section of the musky when it's done.

 

I'm looking forward to the project, but I can't believe all the obstacles I've had to overcome and continue to chase down.  Yesterday we received the permit, but the NJDEP has the wrong exclusionary times on them and I can't work until they fix that mistake on their end.  They listed trout production time frames (no work from Sept. 15 - March 15) instead of trout maintenance time frames (no work from March 15 - June 15) and we are scheduled for March 10-13. Then Fish and Wildlife tells me they may not have done the lands management review and that could also delay this until summer.      

[LittleM]

Ah yes, permit review woes.  Been there, it sucks.  Good luck.

[Bucksnbows]

How 'bout a follow up since I have been gone so long (long story, just computer issues that made it tough and still does to get on this site).  We did this project back in June and restored about 1/3 mile in the Trout Conservation Area and another full mile downstream from the Pt. Mountain Road bridge to the Mannon Farm above Butler Park.  It's already fishing very well and the state has decided not to stock below the bridge (except at the bridge) to see what number of wild brown and brook trout appear over time.  Electro fishing this summer after the project turned up both species and all were wild fish.

 

I'll post some pix shortly.... 

 

 

 

 

[Rusty]

 Electro fishing this summer after the project turned up both species and all were wild fish.  

 

That's great to hear !! 

[Bucksnbows]

Some pix.....

 

 

We chipped away at the limestone bedrock which you can clearly see here.  That means we exposed ground water into the river bottom in these locations.  The significance is colder water on the bottom in the hot summer months so that trout can thrive in this TCA.

 

 

We found this pebble just lying around, so we decided to stick it in the river to make a pool.  This is highly unusual to make a deep pool with a single boulder, but this isn't just any rock  

 

 

 

 

Apparently, I have a bit of a mean streak or so say my friends that like to fish nymphs down deep.  This is going to act like a fly catcher!

 

 

 

More shortly....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bucksnbows]

.........and that same root wad in the channel:

 

What could possibly be mean about this???

 

 

Some more photos:

 

 

 

 

This section was a mess and we needed to armor the banks, redirect the thalweg (deepest part of the river's channel) and dig a deep pool with lots of large boulders to break up the velocities during storm events.  Now if we ever get rain again, we can see just how well or poorly we did here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kype]

looking good. i caught one of my biggest brook trout there (stocked). it was on a salmon fly but wasnt catching anything on anything so i figure what the heck. one cast and strike indicator took off lol. sometimes it all about throwing what they never seen. however this fly looked extremely buggy