River Smallmouth on the Black Marabou Jig

Mark thinks with the low water fish got caught and taken home. Seems a possibility to me, too, but maybe we just didn't see fish through the water's tannic tone, nor hook many. 

Mark caught a couple rainbows. I had a fish on for a moment that probably was another one, lost a small fish that could have been a sunny, and caught the smallmouth bass photographed below. 

Mark uses a centerpin outfit and usually does pretty well with it. On a springtime occasion, he told me his river stints are practice for Pulaski. Recently, he was up there for steelhead. The news he has today is that fish have pushed upstream in numbers since the four days that yielded him one. (He also caught three resident rainbows, each about a foot long.) One of the guys he fishes with is fantastic at using plastic beads for the steelhead and caught only four. Mark said of his fish, "It made the whole time up there worthwhile."

My sympathies exactly. The last I fished steelhead, my son, Matt, and I went up there with fly rods in November 2015. I remember fishing only three days. On the first we kind of messed around after getting up there in the afternoon. The second we fly-fished with a guide, and Matt caught the only steelhead reported on the Douglaston Salmon Run the entire morning, a fish of about six pounds on some buggy-looking blue fly. The third day, I caught one about four pounds on an Estaz Egg imitation, Matt fought one that took off downstream, and I almost hooked another. Enough to make me want to go back.

Beautiful warm day today. It's hard to believe it's over already as I write, but as I drove away from the river, the day felt full. I had given the fishing the sensible effort it required. I know these marabou jigs work. I've caught a lot of fall & winter trout on them. Mark with his egg sac under a float that positions so precisely in a pool is a little intimidating, because he seems to always catch more that way. But instead of succumbing to suckedness, I fished that damn jig as if it has the dignity it's proven to have. I was looking at pocket water that did have depth to it, for example. Instead of passing it up or fishing it half-assed, I fished every pocket thoroughly, as if a rainbow might be there that would hit. Or even a wild brown.

Instead, one of the pockets resulted in a smallmouth bass that had taken station, probably feeding. Had I not fished as confidently and thoroughly as I did, I never would have come across that fish. The mystery, though, is why am I not catching the rainbows? Last year, I caught them every outing this time of year. Water was pretty low then, too. At least I had that hit today, surely a rainbow, though I don't really know. 

Before today with Mark, I fished the Flatbrook, where I really did not see many fish, and the North Branch yesterday, where I also saw relatively few fish compared to last year. Both places trout took interest in the jig. They followed. But none lurched ahead and struck as they did last year.

North Branch Raritan flowing low

Last Year