The last weeks of March are a great time of year. Being a fly fisherman and a baseball fan, I can't help but feel the parallel excitements of both trout and baseball seasons "officially" beginning. Here is a highlight fish from this years spring training on the water.
Hit the Gorge today with Dave from Princeton. This was Dave's first trip out with the fly rod and he managed to kep the good January fishing rolling from yesterday. Conditions were pretty much on par with what I reported yesterday, 37 degree water temps and flow on the decline.
Dave started of the morning by getting a nice brown that I will officially estimate was 14" about 2 feet from my net before it came unbuttoned. Damn, that was a nice fish!
Dave rolled one or two more before this respectable rainbow came to net.
We finished up our day not long after Dave landed this 15 inch brookie.
I fished the S. Branch by myself today and it turned out to be one of those days that further supports my preference for winter trout fishing here in NJ. What you lose in insect activity and surface feeding you surely make up for in other ways. Such as having the stream to yourself (which I think counts double in a densely populated area with not a ton of quality water), non pressured fish, and fish friendly water temps.
Anyway, haven't shared any fish pics in a while so I made it a point to take some shots today. I landed a nice mix of eye catching wilds and rod bending Pequest bruisers.
Nice example of marking variation in wild browns Camera 1 Camera 2
We have a January heat wave moving through this week with daytime highs forecasted to be close to 60! If you can get out and fish in these resultant rising water temps, DO IT! Fish will no doubt be on. All the recent precipitation has also kept stream flows up nicely, which will help protect fish once old man winter decides to put the hammer down once again.
Wrapped up my guiding for this calender year this past Sunday with a morning on the South Branch with a three generation trio. Dave, David and John joined me for a half day in fairly tough conditions. The river was up,(over 300cfs) cold, (38-39) and temp had dropped over the past few days. The dropping water temps are by far the most difficult of those three condition factors due to the concept of conditioning. It's not true that trout shut down under 40 degrees. I have had many VERY good days on the water with temps hovering in the mid 30's. The key to fishing temperatures below a trouts comfort zone is: HOW LONG has it been at the given temperature. Once conditioned to the lower temp, they will resume their normal, albeit slower (winter)feeding tempo. The practical fishing problem comes when the water takes a sudden dip or spike in temperature, fishing will then be tough for a day or two.
Dave, David and John were troopers and managed to hook three fish between them by lunchtime when we parted. I hung around for an hour or so after lunch and managed a few hookups myself on midges fished behind various attractors.
Here's quick video of a pretty fish from that afternoon.
This report comes a week late but is honestly the first chance I have gotten to sit down and type a blog entry.
Headed up to Pulaski to fish the Salmon river two Fridays ago along with my father Jim and long time fishing buddy Mike Larkin. Flow held steady at 750cfs for the weekend and reports had been fairly consistent.
After a breakfast stop at the Home Town Diner for some jalapeno bacon, we began our day mid-river. Within the first ten minutes of fishing, my father landed a decent little 2lb skipper and Mike rolled what looked to all of us to be an average 7-8 pound fish.
For a December morning, great start! We gave that area another hour or so and then headed up river and jumped into Fraziers run. We collectively covererd that water thourouly with several different patterns and didn't touch a fish. Before dark we slid up to the lower wire hole and saw one angler hook up, but for winter, the prime lies were occupied with other fisherman. Woke up on Sunday to air temps in the high teens/low twenties and knew it was going to be a day off Stanleys Ice off paste and cold fingertips. Started at the Pineville pool and watched a gentleman snag three or four steelhead. He got lucky and landed the smallest one. Again, we didn't have any hook-ups although we had some confidence there was at least a few fish in front of us. Headed up to the Muskrat hole and on his first drift Mike landed a perfect little Atlantic Salmon smolt. Later on we fished from the Altmar bridge down to the Schoolhouse pool itself but continued to come up empty for the rest of the day.
The best thing about a day like this is just being out there, battling through the elements, knowing some Knob Creek and a good meal awaits at days end. Here's a taste of the conditions. Love it!
As we head out on Monday morning I have yet to touch a fish and am hoping for a little 11th hour magic as we are set to get on the road by mid day. Headed back up river to an area that is often a early winter "ace". Good water that may contain both wintering over fish as well as fish just hanging around on their way further up river. After about an hour I'm IN! Nice fish that takes a glo-bug, comes up to the surface after staying down at first, gives three violent headshakes and my glo-bug comes flying back in my face. F!!!! Continue to work upstream and not more than twenty minutes later, fish-on again. Now based on rough weekend I felt certain that I would land this fish, but low and behold after a minute or so of a fairly non-spectacular fight, fish off. Like the ball through Buckner's legs, I knew at that moment that a steelhead to hand was not meant to be on this trip.
After my trip up this past April, I should have seen a fish less trip coming. After landing 20-30 fish in three days the law of averages exercised it's sobering power.
