Best/favorite catches of 2020!

[anthrax2244]

Wow, Some pretty amazing fish caught in 2020 both in and out of NJ!

This is a great thread.

2020 was not my best fishing year, but it wasn’t my worst. The wife and 4 kids keep my fishing to mostly short solo trips, some family trips and some short trips where I try to bring one of the little ones at a time.

The spring consisted of a few trips to the sbr and nbr for trout. Nothing big, but lots of action. This transitioned into quick trips to the Raritan and D&R canal chucking meat for whatever was willing to bite. Mainly walleye and smallmouth with a few channels cats. The 1st trip to the canal in late April, was a heartbreaker. My buddy and I were at our 1st spot of the morning. I was livelining a rather large baitfish. My line stopped, I gave a little tug to free the “snag”. I felt a Little resistance, maybe a little head shake and set hard. My rod bent sharply And I didn’t feel much of any movement....for a moment...just enough time for me to consider that I’m probably stuck on a large branch....Then my drag started singing as the fish took, peeling line as it shot upstream. It felt every bit as strong and heavy as the 20-30lb carp I’ve caught but with more head shakes. It tired after a few minutes of head shakes and bulldog runs up and down the canal. It finally came to the surface and I couldn’t believe that #1 it was a musky and #2 it was close to 4’ long, if it wasn’t. My buddy reached the net down and as he did, it rolled Away from us and out of the reach of the net and it cut the line in the process. And that was that. I was lucky that it didn’t cut my 12lb Berkeley xt mono leader sooner. I’m glad I was able to see it, but it still haunts me.
I Caught a decent northern pike the next weekend (My first) out of the river and also got a few nice walleye up to 24” and smallmouth through the spring.

May was a hot time for carp. My buddy and I were dialed in on a local Raritan River trib doing quick trips and catching 8-20 lbers.

During the summer it was game on for channel cats. Nothing huge but 20-24” were the norm. Got a few nice smallmouth as well and some decent crappies.

Fall was kind of a bust aside from a monster Pb lmb that I was not expecting. It was a good fight on my 5’ UL with 4lb test trout rod. Took my son to shore fish RVR many weekends and we only caught 1 rainbow. It
Was great to get the quality time in together and the fish would have just been a bonus.