SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2011
Potbelly's Fishing Contest
in memory of Tony Arico
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(Scroll down to see story below photos)

Above: This photo appeared in the Daily Record on Sunday, May 23, 1973, and shows youngersters who participated in the Tony Arico's 1950 trout fishing contest. Below: The following two photos appeared in The Citizen on Wednesday, April 14, 1976, and pictured youngsters fishing on the Jackson Avenue side of the river and; Bottom: taking a hot chocolate break in Arico's backyard. All three photos were scanned from newspapers clippings provided by Ann Marie Arico, Tony's granddaughter.

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       ROCKAWAY - Ann Marie Arico remembers when she had the "biggest catch of the day" ... her brother Frank remembers cleaning up the backyard every spring ... and the fishing - they both remember the fishing and the fun.
       Most of all, they remember their grandfather - the late Tony Arico.
       Tony Arico ran a trout fishing contest from 1948 to 1976 out of the backyard of his home and store - Arico's Riverside Shoppe - at 26 East Main Street at the Main Street Bridge on the Rockaway River.
       The contest quickly became a tradition for borough fishermen between the ages of 4 and 14 and the banks of the river were filled with young anglers every opening day.
      Rob Grow, a life-long resident of the borough and one of the the co-owners of Potbelly's Riverside Cafe locaed in Arico's old shoppe, will be running his third annual trout fishing contest on Saturday, April 9, the first day of the 2011 trout season.
      He is dedicating the contest to the memory of Tony Arico.
      "When I was a kid, my friends and I couldn't wait for opening day because of Mr. Arico's contest," Grow said. "We had a lot of fun trying to catch the biggest fish and win a prize."
      Grow sets up his contest much the same way as Arico ran his. Grow and other merchants in the borough purchased 20-25 two-pound-plus tagged trout that are stocked in the river between the falls behind the fire house and the falls at Jackson Avenue. One fish running close to four pounds is added to the mix for the contest's grand prize - a dinner for four at Potbelly's with the chef fixing the winning angler's catch as the main course.
      Boxes of lures, fishing equipment, gift certificates and gift cards await any angler who brings a live tagged trout to the weigh-in station at the front of the store after  the 8 a.m. start of the season.
      Grow got the idea to dedicate the contest to Arico's memory last year when two young fishermen brought a stringer of five nice trout to the weigh-in station and were so excited they couldn't stop talking about their catch and how they landed the fish.
      "They caught their fish early in the day and were still all excited about it later when they brought the fish to the shop," Grow said. "It reminded me of how excited we used to get about Mr. Arico's contest."
      Frank Arico, who is now 43 years old and left Rockaway 16 years ago when his job took him to McHenry, Ill., says his grandfather was also an avid fisherman but that he "... didn't do too much on opening day ... he was always helping the kids, untangling line, showing them how to cast.
      "It was always about the kids for my grandfather ... he loved seeing how excited the kids got. He knew the guys from the state who stocked the river and would always go out and talk to them when they stocked our section of the river, trying to get them to throw an extra net or two of fish into the river.
      "I remember one year it snowed and the ground was completely covered, but everybody still came out," Frank Arico added. "My father Frank was always helping and as I got older, I helped more and more, too. But I always got to my spot down by the big rock and I always caught fish."
      Ann Marie grew up in and still lives in the apartment above Potbelly's and remembers helping weighing the fish that were caught, checking the tags, and sorting out the prizes on the tables.
      "The contest was a big part of it but it was a social event, too, and a ton of kids came out," Ann Marie said. "And now my friends who used to come out are bringing their kids to fish in the river ... it's nice to see."
     Ann Marie didn't realize how popular the Rockaway River and her grandfather's contest really was until she attended Caldwell College in Caldwell after high school.
     "When some of my classmates found out I was from Rockaway, they'd start telling me about going there on opening day of trout season because there was always a contest," Ann Marie explained. "Then they would start describing a favorite fishing hole they had found - and it would be the one in our back yard."
      Ann Marie made the biggest catch of her fishing career when she was about five years old and had just received a casting lesson from her grandfather and one of his friends.
       "I have a vivid memory of casting and then wondering where my hook went," Ann Marie said. "I pulled the pole down and heard this guy beind me scream  ... I had hooked my grandfather's friend right in his nose!
      "They told me later that I had the biggest catch of the day."
     Tony Arico stopped running his contest in 1976, but his son Frank Sr. and the Rockaway Fire Department ran it in Arico's name until he passed away in 1980.
      And now, more than 30 years later, Tony Arico's name will again be part of an opening-day trout fishing contest.

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(For more information on the contest, to donate a prize, or to sign up to help purchase fish for next year's contest, please call Rob Grow at 201-602-6835)

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Zak Wetzel and his 11-pound channel cat.

Former MK baseball stars
still making nice 'catches'
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      Posted July 20, 2010: A couple of former Morris Knolls High School baseball players got "hits" of a different nature recently when each pulled in a fish worth bragging about from a favorite lake.
      Matt Malejko, MK Class of 1989, was having a productive evening of bass fishing at Lake Shawnee last week, catching and releasing "... about 10-12 bass between 1.5 to 3 pounds," when he hooked into "... something that felt a lot bigger."
      It didn't take long for Malejko to boat a 5.1-pound, 20-inch largemouth bass that he weighed and measured and photographed before releasing. (See photo below)
      Malejko, who co-owns the new Hit & Run Sports indoor facility in Lake Hopatcong, caught his lunker on six-pound test line using a seven-inch PowerBait ribbontail rubber worm.
      "Everything we caught that night was on rubber worms," Malejko said. "It was a lot of fun."
       Zak Wetzel, MK Class of 2009 who is playing for the Denville Post 390 American Legion senior baseball team coached by his father Chris, was fishing at White Meadow Lake last week when he caught his prize - an 11-pound, 34-inch channel cat fish - just before 11 p.m.
       It took him 15 minutes to get the fish to the side of the dock and, once he did, he realized there was no way the monster cat was going to fit in the landing net he had with him - so he folded up his fishing chair, slid it under the tired out fish as it lolled at the side the dock, and lifted the chair and his prize onto the dock.
       Wetzel, who will be entering his sophomore year at West Chester (Pa.) University this fall, was fishing with Legion baseball teammates Geoff Cox and Jimmy Graziano, who helped him measure and weigh the fish before returning it to the water.
       Wetzel used "... stew meat" as bait and also had six-pound test line spooled on his reel.
       No mention was made about the brand of his "landing net."

Matt Malejko and his 5.1-pound largemouth.