Raritan Help

[zaknorman75]

This weekend I decided to take a shot at a body of water I have never fished before and it was certainly a learning experience. I'm all for taking my licks and learning new spots through experience but I'm looking for some help accelerating the learning curve. I'm going to sprinkle it some questions below and I'll be grateful for any help!

My Saturday started with a long search on Google maps. I decided to hit the stretch of river about a 1/2 mile north of Johnson park. I parked roadside and huffed it through a stretch of woods and finally made the river bank (6 ticks and some poison ivy later..). First impression was the river was very low, low enough that I had to jump down about 5 feet to reach the bottom of the bank. The water was about 6 inches deep about 40 yards out so I just waded out till I started hitting the deeper stuff. There were jumping baitfish EVERYWHERE. Large baitfish. I'm pretty certain this area of the river is pretty salty, but I'm curious if anyone knows what these were, looked like Killies to me..

Considering all the baitfish around I through some plugs and swim shads that matched their color towards the deepest center of the river. I got one decent bump but didn't hook up. What kind of fish reside in this area of the river? I have never fished an area like this and am completely unaware of the species that are there. After about an hour a slight drizzle turned to distant thunder and a heavier rain. Considering I was the only thing standing in a river about 70 yards wide I opted to get out.

I waited the rain out a little and headed up 287 a while to the southbound brook area. There I fished the canal throwing mostly texas rigged senkos and top water frogs. Not a bump after an hour and then the rain picked back up again so I headed home. Access to the Raritan seemed much easier here, and I was thinking I should have gave the big river another shot..

I don't expect to hook up every time I hit a new area but I couldn't help to feel a little clueless about both what fish reside in the target area and the areas productivity. Anyone who'd like to help me out feel free to leave a response or PM me.. If you choose to keep your cards close to your chest no worries, I'll keep trudging around until I run into something..