New Jersey Kayaking

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Westons Mill Pond is the northernmost of several lakes created by damming the Lawrence Brook, which flows from south to north, and into the Raritan River. This access point is the road that led up to the old bridge, which is gone. There is always enough parking and it is an easy launch, just a few yards to the water.

If you go straight out, you can paddle open water all the way to the dam, in sight of Route 18. It’s not a straight run – the lake follows the stream’s old path and snakes around. On one side is the Rutgers Botanical Gardens; on the other side are houses. The Rutgers side is mostly a low red shale cliff.

One of the best things about this part of the lake is otters! I’ve seen them scrambling around the old bridge abutments, and splashing around out in the water. Dusk seems to be the best time to see them.

If you go the other way back under the Ryders Lane bridge, the lake is quite different. It is much shallower and weedy, with lots of water lilies in season – white and yellow on this lake. There is a small pool on one side for some sort of industrial water intake. Pretty good sunny fishing there.

Pick your way all the way through the weeds, and you get to where the lake turns back into a slow-flowing creek. The creek is navigable, and will take you, with a little difficulty, all the way to the dam at Milltown. Watch out for poison ivy overhead.

If you scroll the map down that way, you can see I’ve left another marker. You can access the creek behind the Post Office in Milltown. Unlike most of these spots, this is right in the middle of town, you can get food, beer, anything you want! Parking behind the Post Office seems to be fair game.

The water level on this dammed lake is not perfectly constant, at some times the authorities lower it a few feet. At those times, the entry can be a mucky mess. The dam has a pretty good flow to it, and I wouldn’t approach it too closely.

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Above the dam in Milltown, there is a weedy pond fed by the Lawrence Brook called Mill Pond, not surprisingly. You could portage your boat across South Main Street and drop it in on the same side. I’ve set another marker where you can put in on this section of the Lawrence Brook, which is navigable most of the way to the Farrington Lake dam. None of this is really worth doing.

The old abandoned factory by the pond is a 1907 Michelin tire plant that closed in 1930 and has been mostly empty ever since. It is scheduled to be torn down. New Jersey needs more condos.

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Warning:

Westons Mill Pond has a lot of nepids, or water scorpions. This is an insect than can make you wish you had never met it, so keep your wading to a minimum, especially around weeds and reeds. The only place I’ve ever run across numbers of them is right at the launch on this lake. Just get in your boat and get going.

You’d probably have to work at it to actually get stung. Like the guy in the picture above. The long tail is just a breathing tube, the bad end is the mouth, which is basically a hypodermic needle. The effect is about the same as a hornet sting, so I’m told. Most water bugs have a bad bite, you don’t want to mess with them.