Raritan river MEGA float 8/10/18:

[AndyS]

Luke and I started at Orlando Park in Raritan Borough just before 7am. We flew down the river with the nice high water, a big change from dragging and scraping we were used to on the N and S branches. No shortage of hard fighting smallmouth from start to finish. Lots of SMB up to 14", we both rolled a heavy fish at the Manville rapids and again at the old Conco pipe.
Just after the Conco pipe Luke hooks a huge one, massive run, then in typical smallmouth fashion the fish comes flying out of the water, seemed to go 6 feet into the air !!! Big head shake, jig goes one way, the fish the other, heart breaker for sure ! Hit the Piscataway take out point just after 1pm.
Water looked good, just a slight stain to it. I think we covered 10 miles in a short amount of time.
With the North and South branches and the main stem of the Raritan done, the next stop on the Tour D' Watershed is going to be the mighty Millstone.

[thmyorke1]

Surprised how good the fishing was in the shale flats, or whatever they're called when the river bottom is huge flat bedrocks.

That's actually where the quality fish started to show up, quantity was early in the day.

A nice float, those smb dont give up!

[DanH]

Nice report guys and catching those smallies in the middle of August is awesome!

Can't wait for your Millstone report! Just when I think I've figured that river out it throws me a curve! lol.

[AndyS]

Timing was everything on this trip, both had the day. Water flows were good, clarity was good and no T storms to speak of.
No doubt I am still learning. I stopped by The Sporting Life and Tom had a great selection of Keitechs. I picked up a few packages of Swing Impact 2.8 inch Blue/Pearl. I also got a few packages of jig heads 1/0 hook size which the bass had no problem wrapping their faces around. At first I wasn't catching anything but Luke was hooking up steadily. He told me to slow down my retrieve a bit, bingo ! I was reeling a tad too fast trying to keep the baits above the weed patches, little did I know there was a preferred speed for these fish.

[JDTuna]

Awesome guys! Looks like a great trip. Must have been a blast!

[Jigman13]

Try the 2.5 trd tubes in pbj or green pumpkin with the 1/15 or 1/10 ned rig jigheads or pair with the zman finesse micro jigs. Robust yet compact profile that smallies absolutely crush.