Friday, April 25, 2008

Fishing - So. branch of the Raritan and the Ramapo.

I went on my second fly fishing adventure of the year today. Got up at 4:30, was fishing on the south branch of the Raritan river by 6:30AM. A cold front came through early in the morning and brought some showers, which made the fish good and aggressive.

Their aggressiveness made up for my lack of fly fishing prowess, and I had a fish on at 8:00AM after I got acclimated to the river (I'd never fished this part of the river before). My excitement was short-lived, however, as the fish broke off at my feet. It was a decent sized brown trout, probably 10 or 11 inches.

As the morning progressed, the sun started to come and go, and the fish activity slowed. Surface breaks from rising trout were becoming less and less frequent. I had another hit at about 10AM, but couldn't hook up. That was the end of my action on the Raritan, although I stayed until 1PM.

I had my brown trout on a parachute emerging caddis dry fly (one that floats on the surface). It looked similar to some insects I saw gathering on a rock in the river, which must have been what the trout were eating on the surface.

At 11AM, a couple of guys rolled in with spinning gear and night crawlers, and cleaned out the hole I was wishing. They took 2 nice browns and a rainbow. I tried fishing some nymphs along the bottom, and even a woolly bugger, which was the closest fly to night crawler I had. Nothing worked.

At 1PM I left, and headed north, up to the Ramapo River. The Ramapo was pretty dead, but I did get in some good casting practice.

Hopefully this week I'll make it up to the Saddle River after work one day.

No comments: