Its been a long winter and while I spent much of my free time in Quest of a wily old 10 pt buck that has eluded me for the last two years, I didnt do much fishing. Which is really a shame because New Jersey rivers fish real well in the winter. The few times I did wet a line, the fishing was good...I also am limited to fishing weekends and with two very young boys, even finding time on weekends can be a challenge...So when I saw an opportunity to fish this past Saturday, I jumped at it...
I hit the Ken Lockwood Gorge section of the South Branch of the Raritan, this is one of NJs best rivers and if you didnt know better, you would swear you were deep in a Northwoods Forest..The river has a healthy population of Browns, Rainbows and Brookies..The stockies far outnumber the wild fish but the fish hold over well. The fish also arent pushovers, this is one of the most popular waters in the state...It was a cold, grey day with a fresh dumping of snow from the day before. I was pleasantly surprised not to run into any other fisherman...I noticed some small black bugs in the snow on the waters edge, a closer inspection revealed little black stone flies...So I tied on a black hares ear and added an egg pattern on a dropper with one split shot and no indicator..I waded into position to fish a slower section behind a large boulder..On my fourth cast, a nice 12in brown took the hares ear...A quick landing job, photo and released..I tried to keep the fish in the water, not wanting and damage from the freezing weather...Over the next hour I caught another brown and one fiesty rainbow...But the real trophy of the day was just standing knee deep in cold, clear water, snow covering both sides of the deep Gorge and much needed solitude....
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