Tropical Fish Netted In New Jersey River, Man Suffering Existential Crisis Finds Hope For Future

“Once the net was on the beach it was picking time. All sorts of bait jumped about. The majority of it was tiny green-tinted spearing. But the seine also netted grass shrimp, striped killies, a needle fish, one baby fluke and a tropical butterfly fish about the size of a quarter. Rarely do you see three people so fascinated by such a tiny specimen. Its golden green color glistened in the sunlight. ‘It probably came up through the intercoastal waterway,’ Figs suggested. The Manasquan River is the very northern end of the waterway that leads south to Florida. It could be that the little fish hitched a ride as larvae on a boat making the trip and hatched in the river. It’s anyone’s guess.”
–Three pages might be more than you want to read about casting nets for baitfish. But imagine pulling something that looked like that out of the water in New Jersey? It’d be like the brook trout in The Road. “On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming…” Wouldn’t it? A little bit, even? No? I think it would.