Crouching for Trout

Told myself recently today would be a day for catching up. No fishing. Ha! I finished a query I needed to write at 1:30 pm, after spending more than an hour-and-a-half before this at cleaning up my laptop. As my reward for good work done, I rode out to Scherman-Hoffman Preserve and signed myself in for some Passaic River fly fishing. I was notified I had to be out by 4:45, this at 3:12, so I briskly hiked directly to my favorite pool.

I got fully absorbed in the fishing right away, crouching with my Simms-covered seat in the water, but I caught no trout. I caught a silver shiner, the same species I use as bait, amazed at the three-incher's gumption at striking a size 16 beadhead. Soon I hooked something else small that got off, and then later caught a five-inch chub that fought like it might have been a little brown or rainbow, both species reproducing here in the big river's headwaters.

I can dig this sort of fishing. The particularity by use of my little six-foot, two-weight TFO involves plenty of reward for developing skills, which have paid off in the past, even though, so far, none of the trout have measured more than nine inches long. I have spotted them in this Bernardsville flow about a foot long in the past.

New Jersey offers a lot of opportunity for wild and native trout. It's no wonder they don't get much pressure, given the size of most of them, and relatively sparse populations for the most part, but I like the feel and I will be back, connecting at least to my own practice at gaining on some success.

On the way home, I swung over to the North Branch Raritan at AT&T, fishing persistently, wading across the river and upstream after fishing by the exit bridge, getting a beadhead deep in a nice pool with strong and deep current leading into it. I felt a nice trout had to lurk there, and I kept trying to get a hit, feeling as if maybe I could do this for a hundred years and nothing would happen, but who knows.

https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2018/01/wild-and-native-trout-in-small-high.html