NJ Brookies

Fishing continues to be great this year in NJ. Went out of Sunday afternoon for NJ brookies. It was cold (high 50s), overcast, and thus, in many respects, not a promising afternoon for fishing. I didn't arrive on the stream until 2 PM.

"T" Brook is a lovely, high gradient stream through a Hunterdon County preserve about an 1:10 from Trenton. Access is too easy... a small road runs the full length of the stream. This is why I rarely fish it - I prefer more remote streams - but for a quick afternoon's fishing it seemed perfect. Also, I figured brookies (which tolerate cold better than other species) would be put off by the weather less.

Despite the easy access, Tetetown is certainly not overrun with people. On this day, I saw only one other person, a photographer. Water was running high and tannin-stained, but the stream was still very fishable. I started at the bottom and worked up.

Initially tied on a series of dry flies...but nothing rose, even in very fishy looking holes. After about 15 minutes, switched to a small PT nymph. Hooked a green dace on the first cast. This was a VERY fishy looking spot, I figured it HAD to hold a nice brookie. But cast after cast I hooked dace. Maybe 10 in all. I was nearly ready to give up, when on perhaps the 15th nice drift through this hole I was rewarded by a throbbing tug when I set the hook. Shortly thereafter, landed a fat 10" brookie.

For the next 45 minutes or so, I went through a very high gradient set of plunge pools, and raised nothing but dace.

Then the gradient eased a bit, and the pools started to look truly fishy again. Hooked two lovely brookies on consecutive pools... another 10", and one slightly larger. Hooked a couple of other brookies as well, but didn't land them (though I continued to hook and land a lot of dace).

On a subsequent pool a brookie rose to my strike indicator ( a green foam tube around my leader), which I assume it took for an inch worm. I tied on an inchworm dry, instead of the PT, and worked that for a while. One brookie took the fly when it got dragged underwater, but otherwise no joy.

By that time it was time to go.

Still, 3 nice fat brookies in a couple of hours...plus the pleasure of getting to know a stream I don't fish very often a bit better. Next time, I'm going to fish the upper reaches first.