I'm having trouble deciding to get a trout stamp if I never target trout and only lmb. There's a small lake near me in Verona Park that I'd like to fish in because its only 5 minutes away, but its apparently stocked with trout. I've never caught or fished for trout, or even heard of small ponds/lakes being stocked with them, and I always thought that it more of a fly fishing thing.
I tried searching around and I found completely conflicting answers, some
people saying you need a trout stamp for any trout stocked waters. Some people say you need it only to keep trout. Some people even say for specific lakes you don't. It's all very confusing. The official line I found on the njdep license site said something like you need a stamp if you are targeting and keeping trout, but its pretty unclear about fishing for other species.
I use crankbaits, spinnerbaits, and topwater frogs and lures for bass fishing, and sometimes doughballs for catfishing/carpfishing. Would using these baits count as targeting trout?
Here are some answers I found:
This person called up the F&W office and they told him a trout stamp is not required if you're not targeting/keeping them:
http://www.thebassbarn.com/forum/arc.../t-115714.html
This person apparently works for the nj f&w division and also says that you don't need one for bass fishing stocked waters:
http://www.thebassbarn.com/forum/sho...Stamp-Question
This is all I could find about the trout stamp issue. If you read through the threads its a bunch of conflicting answers. I'm curious as how many fisherman who don't target trout have a stamp or not. I'm not interested in trout, but Verona park is really close to me. Does anyone know of any other fishable waters near the caldwells/essex co.? The passaic river is close to me but I don't have a boat or anything.
