I caught my first Striper ever off the "Wall" at the Green Island Ford Plant in 1953, on a side of Herring, using a True Temper square steel 5+' rod with a spring lock reel seat and a Pfleuger Knobby casting reel, and I haven't stopped since, as long as I was in the State. I have managed to avoid Fred LeBrun all these years too, by pointing out 'Better than I' fishermen who liked their names in the paper, to help maintain it's 'Secrecy'.
My largest ever Striper there pulled the big scale to its max at 50+lbs., and I've caught as many as thirty a day over 20lbs., using everything from whole,live Herring, to Eels, Cut Bait, spoons, plugs, jigs, fish parts, and hot dogs.
A very best friend and Game warden teaching me the ropes there was Benning DeLemater who drowned out there trying to save the lives of two errant fishermen who got too close to the dam. He was the first Service Officer who's funeral I attended as a kid, with far too many more in the ensuing years.
I saw paint and oil slicks on the river for many years, and when you could see down through 'em,(pre-polarized glasses fer the masses era), there'd be millions of Herring and Shad trying to get up into the turbines. My Mother and Father took me there and taught me many things about the River and it's denizens of the deep. We never ate them because of what we knew of polution back then.
Fishermen lined up to take their place up against the wall to cast out, then walk their way down the slick incline, and the end of their 'Float', hopefully with a "...Fish On..." call, then on down the bank when possible so's to play in their catch. I have left some several big baits hung from the railings at the catwalk above the turbines when the wind whipped 'em around, as did many other guys. The lost baits and lures up there though were nothing compared to what got lost on the bottom.
I tried the first ever spinning reel there too. A Lionel half bail, made by, you guessed it, the Lionel Train Company. It worked very well, but the lines available were poor and without 'em the company dropped the line. I had it on the first ever spun fiberglass rod that I borrowed and converted to large guides that we had to make ourselves. I used it to fling out the first ever rubber Eels, and black rubber worms that became so successfull over the years.
We, as fishermen and women, have been 'Kicked Off' the Wall many times by many authorities before and after Ford Motors made radiators there, and dumped the lead and crud into the River. We had no idea at all that the stuff would be as bad as it is, let alone the PCBs that efectively 'Killed' the River. I have canoed the entire length of the River from Lake Harris, in Newcomb, all the way to Hell's Gate, in an Old Town Canoe we restored as project with the Troop #7 Boy Scouts.
While on the faculty at SUNY Albany many years later, some of the other guys in Limnology,(Ron Stewart;et al-Papers published via Atmospheric Sciences Research Center'67-'70) did a study of the River flow from the dam at Troy, South, and the results of it's temperature and mixing stats should have scared the hell out of the EPA folks who want to remove the PCBs instead of capping them, and leaving them in place 'till a better technology is in place, like some microbes that eat spilled oil or something like that, that will change it's chemical composition to something 'Safe'.
No 'Superfund' money for us folks, and G.E. gets a cap on it's costs. Guess who's gonna lose the fishing industry all together and foot the bill when the loose PCBs that get downriver start invading the water intakes of all those communities that take water from the Hudson. They'll have to stop taking in water because legally they won't be able to 'cause of the drift of PCBs to their intakes.
This River is unique. It is the longest river in the lower 48 contained solely within the borders of N.Y. State. It shares no border with any other State. It starts, and ends, entirely in New York State, and is the spawning ground for Striped Bass North of Chesepeke Bay. It's our River and I have to wonder about some a-hole agency coming in here and telling us what we have to do to RUIN it for the next forty years, then go away and leave us holding the bag for the lawsuits by down stream communities who will not be able to legally take water from it anymore when the dredging starts. AAahh, but I do go on about the weather......sorry, I think.
...but then consider that every INCH of fishing we lose for ANY reason is just their way of saying "Get used to it, we're gonna close you out eventually anyway...", and losing access to the WALL is just the beginning.
