Winter Trout Trifecta

Fished with Mark Licht this morning and early afternoon, using my two-weight TFO. I have caught wild trout out of New Jersey streams with it, even a stocker rainbow once, when I expected sunfish and maybe a smallmouth bass late in June. I keep trying to catch more when I get the chance. Mostly, I find I improve my casting, but I did hook a seven-inch brookie during fall 2020. Tried a size 16 or 18 pheasant tail for the browns, that and a red dart for the brookies. I figured a brookie might get turned on by the red, but it never happened. I never used an indicator in the little creeks. I'm not saying I think I got hit and just don't know  None of the trout I've hooked in little creeks have involved use of an indicator; I always see my line twitch, if I don't see the trout hit. Mark caught two other browns, nice stream browns of about 9 or 10 inches, though smaller than the one photographed, which was at least a foot, more like 13 inches. About as long as the rainbow he caught, and the state says they don't stock them in the fall smaller than 14 inches.

In the river, Mark used Blue Goo from the Pulaski/Altmar region. It sure works on stocker rainbows. He fishes it under a float on a center-pin outfit, steelhead style. We probably didn't even fish a half hour, but he caught two. I put an indicator on my line and continued to fish that size 14 dart. Nothing happened, but I felt I fished pretty effectively. I was surprised at how shallow, both fish caught. Actually, when I began fishing where Mark caught his first, before he finished getting into waders, I did feel strongly there could be a trout there, even though the water was two-and-a-half or three feet deep. On down the river we walked a bit before quitting. Mark pulled one from quickly moving water that didn't look deeper than two feet.