No Kill Trout Stretches

[Bruce Litton]

Originally Posted by Billfish715

I remember quite emotionally fishing in the Big Flatbrook when I was a youngster. My uncle would take me there on several fishing trips each spring. We fished during the early season before the fly fishing only regulations went into effect and I loved every minute of my time in that wooded wonderland. It was and still is a trout fishing Paradise. I cut my trout fishing teeth while fishing on the exotic Rahway River in Cranford so you can only imagine how I felt when I stepped into the pristinely, magically clear water of the Big Flatbrook. That feeling is being denied to almost any youngster today because of the "study" being conducted. It will be a tragedy to lose a generation of youngsters who will never have the opportunity to experience what I was exposed to when I was little.

It's interesting to note just how cynical I have become since the new regulations have been instituted. I didn't mind foregoing the rest of the trout season on the Flatbrook or the Gorge to the fly fishing guys because I was able to partake in the beauty and charm of fishing there even if it was for a few days. Now, I'm shut out unless I conform.

I'm not taking a position pro or con, but I like this from Billfish. Back in 1972, for my special birthday trip in October, my family drove from near Trenton to the Flatbrook, by my request, for me to fish. I owned a fly rod and might have used it, don't remember. I was 12, and I have no idea how I learned about the Flatbrook. My father didn't fish and apparently had no knowledge of Sussex County. Going there was by my request. So naturally, I took my son there many years later, when he was about eight, and we came upon, on a cool July day, rainbows galore. I had bought him a fly rod; he used it, and what touched me most wasn't the rainbows, though that was a close second; they were beautiful in that clear water. Rather, Matt's authority at his casting simply came out of the natural setting. I could hardly believe how deft he became by no practice, though he had cast before, but by just breathing freely. I got a photograph of him too precious to post, catching attentiveness and poise with the fly rod ever so subtle.