Musconetcong River 4-21-12 How low can it go?!

[Lard Almighty]

Made the 1.5-hour drive to the Musky to see if I could continue my big trout mojo. I pull into the lot at Saxton Falls, already six cars there, everyone clustered under the falls undoubtedly picking up where they left off yesterday evening. I started a few hundred feet downstream from the falls, looking for deep water. There was none! Runs normally waist deep barely made it over my ankles. Trout had nowhere to go, so they stayed wherever the truck dumped them.

I worked about a half mile stretch downstream and hooked up with two small rainbows (out of the same pool), and a whole bunch of little smallmouths and sunfish. Caught fish on a gold Mepps spinner, a small husky jerk, and a white Mr. Twister. Lots of life around and in the water; I saw plenty of suckers, chubs, rock bass, a jumbo perch, and even a pike/pickerel (could not get a positive ID). I did see one jumbo brown, my guess is about six pounds, milling around in one of the deeper pools. I got it to turn on my spinner a couple of times, but it wouldn't commit. I also saw a few small brookies that looked like they were in June mode already; holding on the bottom and would not chase anything.

Water was lower than I have ever seen it, and very warm for this time of year. I could have been wading in sneakers and been pretty comfortable. I hope we get a big time soaker over the next couple of days to fill the rivers back up and spread the fish out some more. On the plus side, there are plenty of fish in the river.