Raritan river WALLEYE !! 3/25: - NJFishing.com Your Best Online Source for Fishing Information in New Jersey

AndyS · #1 03-25-2012, 07:23 PM

FINALLY ! The weather was nice and the river is about 10 minutes away so I figured I'd go back with some small jigs just to see what I could scare up. Fished the area below the falls with a black and brown marabou jig and finally got my Raritan river walleye. A small bugger about a foot long but fought great and looked really healthy.
I've written to the State and asked them to stock walleye in the Raritan and they said no, they will interfere with the shad. They put 146,496 walleye in the Delaware river annually, why don't those fish interfere with the shad ? I don't get it. They put 15,000 trout in the Muddysquan every year, do you think they could stock the lower Raritan with trout, no.
I sit back and think, okay I walked away from a spot and didn't catch anything, it's my fault. But wait, maybe fishing could be better, we have the resources to stock thousands of fish, fishing can be great !
Case in point, look at the Passaic river pike, great fishing. Sorry for going off on a tyrant. I think the Raritan river is a good fishing spot that could be great, time for me to start writing more letters.
Ultimately I want the Roberts St. dam and the Neviues St. dam to come down, then I can by my drift boat and start chartering from the head gates of Duke Island Park down to New Brunswick.
( 20 % discount for all NJF members of course !)

Mike M · #2 03-25-2012, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyS

FINALLY ! The weather was nice and the river is about 10 minutes away so I figured I'd go back with some small jigs just to see what I could scare up. Fished the area below the falls with a black and brown marabou jig and finally got my Raritan river walleye. A small bugger about a foot long but fought great and looked really healthy.
I've written to the State and asked them to stock walleye in the Raritan and they said no, they will interfere with the shad. They put 146,496 walleye in the Delaware river annually, why don't those fish interfere with the shad ? I don't get it. They put 15,000 trout in the Muddysquan every year, do you think they could stock the lower Raritan with trout, no.
I sit back and think, okay I walked away from a spot and didn't catch anything, it's my fault. But wait, maybe fishing could be better, we have the resources to stock thousands of fish, fishing can be great !
Case in point, look at the Passaic river pike, great fishing. Sorry for going off on a tyrant. I think the Raritan river is a good fishing spot that could be great, time for me to start writing more letters.
Ultimately I want the Roberts St. dam and the Neviues St. dam to come down, then I can by my drift boat and start chartering from the head gates of Duke Island Park down to New Brunswick.
( 20 % discount for all NJF members of course !)

Nice fish. Are walleye native to the Raritan or were they stocked at one time?

FASTEDDIE29 · #3 03-25-2012, 08:08 PM

WOW, nice WALLEYE Andy!!! Persistance pays off. Ill be down there 1 night this week after work experimenting!!!

shucker · #4 03-25-2012, 08:45 PM

The raritan is definetly a underutilized gem,slow moving deep water and fast rocky bottom that could support a variety of species.The state should really take a closer look instead of wasting resources on other less desirable bodies of water.

HerringKing · #5 03-25-2012, 09:13 PM

Nice walleye. I didn't know you could catch them in the Raritan. What part were you fishing?

AndyS · #6 03-25-2012, 09:16 PM

A lovely stretch in South Bound Brook.

ChaosStarter · #7 03-26-2012, 01:49 PM

nice catch andy!

GoIslanders · #8 03-26-2012, 02:47 PM

Certainly not a rant. I agree that the Raritan could be stocked better and they need to develop it as a better fishery. I don't know about the interference with American shad, but they also want to develop the striper run there, too, and stripers DEFINTELY like to eat shad.

In addition, the D & R canal needs to be stocked in more locations with different fish.

I had written a lengthy email to DFW some time ago about doing some stocking of waters in Union County with warm water fish, not just the trout stocking the do in Lower Echo Lake and in the Rahway River. The replied, but it basically said, thanks, but since you're not coming to the open forum your email basically doesn't count. The freshwater forum was to be held in South Jersey about 1.5 hours from my house. Really? They would discount my email just because I wasn't going to the forum. That stinks.

Lard Almighty · #9 03-26-2012, 03:12 PM

The Raritan should be stocked more, but not with game fish. Stocking herring and other forage fish should be top priority to strengthen the food chain from the bottom up. Once the baitfish population booms, it will only be a short while until the smallie, walleye, pike, etc. populations start to grow on their own. Stocking game fish may benefit in the short term, but ultimately will mean less food to go around, and could end up hurting the river a lot more than it helps.