Raritan North Branch near Bedminster - good multi species day for a noobie

[Pode]

I had my best day fishing yet today! I fished for a a couple hours leading up to sunset and multiple entrances to the North Branch in Bedminster and Far Hills. Around sunset I was about to give up, but saw the tiniest line of foam a bit downstream... I walked along the bank then waded across so I was downstream of the foam, then cast a trout magnet into the hole and BAM! Nice fat rainbow

I was considering keeping him for dinner, but I had half a calzone at home from lunch, and figured trout and calzone wouldn't make the best pairing, so I let 'em all go.

After that I caught 4 more fish from the same hole, all on the purple/pink trout magnet w/ a silver hook. My method was to let it fall, then jiggle it around a bit on the bottom (a method that thmyorke1 once showed me with a ned rig), then reel in a bit, raise it up to the surface, let it fall again and repeat. All but one hit it on the fall, but the third guy (bass?) picked it up off the bottom. I called it a night when it got too dark to see.

I'm still a bit of a noobie when it comes to identifying fish other than rainbows, but I think two of them are bass of some kind (which would be my first bass ) and one is a sunfish? I wasn't sure if it was the "green sunfish" that I'm supposed to "destroy," and I didn't want to kill a fish on a hunch, so I let him go.

Next step: work on my fish photography (fishtography?) skills.

[AndyS]

Nice report, thanks for posting !

[Pondhopper8]

Nice job 👍

[thmyorke1]

heeeeey nice yea thats two smallmouth bass and a sunfish i think a redbreast just with really faint marks but unsure exactly. Nice rainbow too ive found em there in July before, I believe they holdover up there on good years.

Pictures of fish in the net are fine, I will do that and then try another pic of it one handed over the water with wet hands just before i release it. The fish can slip away before the pic, but i have the picture of it in the net as backup

[MudCat08]

Agreed, that does look like a redbreast sunny. Probably female

[FASTEDDIE29]

Well done man! Great mixed bag out of the river!
Use the timer on your phone camera. Easy peasy.

[Pode]

Thanks guys for all the support and for the photography tips

[Gerry Zagorski]

Nice work and excellent mixed bag there!

[Jerzguy2]

The wonderful section of stream that I grew up on and fished whenever I could get a ride up there and dropped off for the day. I haven't fished it in 20 years and it looks like it finally came back from the destruction of the late 60's. Most on here are to young to remember how wonderful this section of river was, prior to the building of 287. I have no idea what the purpose was, but just below the bridge in Far Hills, where the river makes a sharp right to the bridge below AT&T, all the pools and river was channelized. They drove bulldozers down the river and totally channelized it. The destruction was unbelievable.