Screw Work Go Fish 5/5/11

[Lard Almighty]

My dad and I both took the day off from work today to do some fishing. As shucker is still without job, we invited him along as well. We had originally planned to fish the Raritan, but the rain last night put the kibash on that idea. So, we made our way to some smaller waters. We started out fishing the Mulhockaway below the last bridge before it dumps into the reservoir. We each caught two apiece, a mix of brooks, rainbows, and native browns. After a stop for breakfast we headed up to Peapack Brook. Fished the falls in Liberty Park, and the fish were stacked up and hungry. The rainbow trout-colored Panther Martin was the key, as I caught seven brookies in about as many minutes. Shucker pulled two out on Andy jigs. Dad missed one, but couldn't capitalize. Fished upstream to the Main Street bridge, and picked away at stocked brookies and native browns. Dad was unable to catch a trout from Peapack, and amazingly never has in the several times he has fished it! I guess he's just cursed?

Since it was on the way back we decided to stop at Natirar to see what was going on. Good thing we did, as the water was high and normally ankle-deep runs looked really fishy. The fish were spread out, and we caught one or two in just about every hole. It was a mix of stocked brookies and native browns, and we all did well, pulling 20-something trout out of there in about an hour and a half, as well as a few miscellaneous fish. Once again spinners were the hot lure. We called it a day with the final tally between the three of us somewhere around 40 trout, all between 3" (yes, I actually caught a 3" brown trout) to 12". All were released. A fun day fishing with Dad and shucker. Maybe if the water clears up we'll hit the Raritan on Sunday before Mother's Day activities commence.

Sorry, no pics. Left the camera at home, because we all know that, if you bring your camera, you don't catch fish.