Tightline Productions, which produces our amazing weekly fly-tying videos, recently turned their cameras on a large restoration project on their home water, the South Branch of the Raritan River in Califon, New Jersey. Joke all you want about The Garden State, but the South Branch is a wonderful trout river, which I fished regularly when I was in graduate school in Rutgers.
This project was undertaken to help return the river to a more “natural” state, which will allow it to better carry sediment downstream. This will also create lots more trout habitat. The video is long (13 minutes), but it explains a lot about how these stream-restoration projects work and how rivers are supposed to flow. It’s fascinating stuff.
Using materials already in the stream, the restoration project sought to make the South Branch healthier.
To bad its on private water and average flyfisherman dosent get to fish it . Its good for the river system but it does nothing for your average guy. To bad local TU chapters (10 in NJ) cant get it together enough to sponser this work on public water. This was done for the leather cooler crowd , NOT your digi camo twitter follwers.
Awesome project. Even though it was done on private land it sets a great example and will help provide actual research that can used for public projects to get funded.