Ok so Monday I went over to the creek in West Milford by the shoprite in town. Had no idea a crap load of yellow perch would be stacked up by the pine cliff lake dam!!! THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS. Anyway, I fished under the bridge of Union Valley Road, caught 8 of them on fatheads. Kept all 8 because I have heard they are good eatin and I figured I would give it a shot. Dam right they were AWESOME. Filleted them, no bones, not HUGE fillets and kind of a pain in the ass because the fish werent gigantic but they were AWESOME fried with tartar sauce.
Tuesday I drive by on the way to work and I see no water is flowing over from the lake down the dam. I stop and look, there is no water in the creek, perch are flopping around everywhere as they are trying to spawn... 2 chinese guys with buckets were taking them by hands and dissapearing. I called NJ FISH AND WILDLIFE and PINE CLIFF LAKE COMMUNITY and told them both thousands of spawning perch are dying because they closed the dam and that this is absolutely ridiculous, I made a big fuss about it because that is not right.
I went there today... some water is flowing back down the dam and perch are doing there thing. Was a fun week!
