Texted Noel Sell from work yesterday. He lives in Pennsylvania but knows North Jersey. He phoned me and we talked about a river. Made me realize I could get out for a short time in the morning, and I committed to doing so straight away.
River wasn't high or off color. Water was cold but probably milder than last I got out two weeks ago during the cold snap. Air temperature was about 41 when I caught the trout at 11 a.m., after casting some 25 minutes including a break to get the photo below. Yesterday temperatures got into the 50's, and such spells of mild weather do increase water temperature, though it came down a bit last night.
Thus far, I've caught only one river trout with the air temp at 39, none in weather colder. Have only caught wild trout in a creek, colder, besides ice fishing once...with Noel.
I hear a lot about worms lately. I haven't been fishing a whole lot, but I remain in communication with people who fish, though they, too, haven't been fishing. Besides, of course, what I see on social media. Garden worms are great. Pink Berkley worms drifted, too.
I like my jigs. But I am so relieved the Kalin's brand I buy at the Sporting Life work. The marabou is a little shorter than the marabou on a Haggerty's jig. Naturally, if you're paying a whole lot less, it's understandable if the manufacturer is saving cost on marabou, relative to what Haggerty's puts out. But really, if length were a determining factor in the interest trout take in these jigs, then why not experiment with a full three inches of tail? Why not four inches? Some of us do make our own jigs.
It probably gets absurd real fast. And not only will trout hit a Kalin's with a little less marabou--they'll hit a Kalin's jig with some of it's marabou pinched off, which is what I inadvertently did when taking leaves off the hook. I thought of tying on another jig, but something told me to keep that jig with a shortened tail on the line. Sure enough, I caught the trout within five minutes.
I kept fishing. The river isn't wide and I got casts almost on the opposite bank. I made one of those casts, began reeling, and had a good one on. It came up, rolled on the surface, and lost the hook.
I kept fishing. Another one struck almost at my boots and didn't get hooked. That's what the first one did, too, leaping three or four times before I got the net under it. Fifteen-and-three-quarter inches.
So today I've felt fully converted to Kalin's, which, again, is a good thing, because I'd not only rather spend my money at the local tackle shop; I sure as hell don't care to spend $4.75 apiece for Haggerty's! I paid a lot less two years and some months ago for that brand, but though I've looked, I haven't found anything like $18.00 for six jigs and shipping online recently.
