Fish, Fishing and Fisheries of Pennsylvania. 19 



CHAPTER III. 



Eakly Fisheeies op the Delaware. 



To the world the Delaware river is known. On its banks is nestled 

 the third largest metropolis in the Union, and one in which its inhabi 

 tants justly take pride in calling the "city of Brotherly Love" and of 

 "Homes." On the broad bosom of the stream for thirty miles above 

 Philadelphia thousands of craft, great and small, are constantly moving. 

 Dividing Pennsylvania from New Jersey, and in part from New Tork 

 its course is through a country famous in history and in verse, and for 

 the magnificance of its scenery. 



Above Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, shallowing suddenly, the 

 river speeds its way southward in sparkling wavelets and foam beaten 

 rifts over a rough, stony bottom, resting frequently in long reaches of 

 pools in the depths of which goodly fish love to lie. 



To the traveler journeying along the banks of the Delaware in the 

 swiftly moving trains of the Belvidere Division of the Pennsylvania rail- 

 road, there seems to be a contest between the hills and the meadow 

 lands going on. At the outset the meadows, carpeted with flowers, 

 grass or grain, appear to have the best of it and to be pushing the roll- 

 ing hills, clothed in evergreen and deciduous trees backward, but as the 

 train speeds along, it is seen that little by little, the rugged hills blot 

 out the low lands till below Easton they seem to dare even to attack the 

 river itself, thrusting themselves in sheer precipices several hundred 

 feet high at the very waters edge and in their picturesque features rival- 

 ling the famous palisades of the Hudson river. ' 



Above Easton there is no handsomer scenery in the state. The hills 

 become more and more lofty, till at the Delaware Water Gap, now a fa- 

 mous summer resort, but in the misty past the terminal point of a vast 

 lake, the river cuts its way through the Blue Kidge mountains. 



The Delaware is to-day among the best, if not the best, of the shad 

 rivers on the Atlantic coast, and though the Schuylkill has become bar- 

 ren in this respect, there are many other of the tributaries that still 

 rank high. Among them, and all in New Jersey, are Cooper's creek 

 and the Eancocas, above Gloucester city, with Big Timber creek, Sa- 

 lem creek, Raccoon creek, Old Man's creek and Woodbury creek, empty- 

 ing in below that city. 



In Big Timber and Rancocas creeks, the shad run up a distance of 

 fifteen or twenty miles. The former is one of the best shad fishing 

 streams on the Jersey shore, and has been successfully fished for many 



