[Photos!] For love of nature: 28th Friends of the Pascack Brook Kids Fishing Contest delivers

28th Kids FIshing Contest Hillsdale — Scenes from the 28th Annual Friends of the Pascack Brook Fishing Contest. Images by Danielle O'Brien

HILLSDALE—The 28th Annual Kids Fishing Contest, sponsored by the Friends of the Pascack Brook, delighted families and friends on Saturday Oct. 16 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Children, 4–16, were invited to fish the Pascack Brook between St. John R.C. Church in Hillsdale and Brookside Place in Westwood.

Kids also pitched in with stocking the brook with fish, and learned a truth embraced by fisherfolk and many others: part of nature, we get out of it what we put into it.

Westwood Elks Lodge #1562 served hamburgers, hot dogs, and soda. The lodge is at 523 Kinderkamack Road.

Competing for trophies, prizes and other awards, kids and their bigger fishing buddies had their trout caught that day measured and recorded at the police booth in Hillsdale during contest hours.

Friends of the Pascack Brook president John Hering told Pascack Press on Oct. 20, “It went well. It was a first time for us doing it in the fall; we usually do this in the spring. We couldn’t have it last year, of course, because of the Covid.”

He added, “This one wasn’t as big — we had maybe 200 kids fishing — and we didn’t put in as many fish. But we’re going to have another one in spring, and that will be bigger.”

He said the local Elks “were very good to us like they are every year,” and he lauded Suez for its part of the tradition: raising the water level.

The goal, Hering said, is “to keep kids involved in the outdoors, and respect nature, water… You have to keep things clean in order to catch fish. You show respect for the fish — eat them if you kill them.

He said, “It sounds funny but that’s what’s important to us. Keep the kids in nature. It’s not about winning a trophy; it’s about getting outside.”

He said the event was multigenerational, with grandparents as well as parents chaperoning. And he emphasized that it was for boys and girls.

He also said the event is old enough that “Sometimes we run into kids now in their late 20s and they say, Thanks, that’s how I got started fishing, you guys got me started. Now they’re taking their kids to the contest.”

Hering said, “People talk about climate change and you’ve got to keep the streams clean, but if you pollute the streams you can’t fish in them. Generally most of them respect it. They know. They learn.”

Pascack Brook is a tributary of the Hackensack River and helps define the Pascack Valley. The brook is dammed to form Woodcliff Lake Reservoir in Woodcliff Lake. The brook used to flow into the Hackensack River but now ends at the Oradell Reservoir, short of its historical juncture with the Hackensack.