Monster NJ Wild Brown in a May Snow Squall (5/9/20)

[JDTuna]

After running a bunch of errands, I headed out for a few hours to fish for NJ wild browns. First few holes I hit didn't have a sign of life, which was a little unusual. I kept working my way upstream and got slammed at the next spot. Ended up being a solid fish.



I continued to work my way up river, through the craziest May weather I've seen. At the next spot, I missed a fish and jumped a nice rainbow.

The next spot was a perfect looking hole. Despite how great it looked, I've never seen a fish there. This was going through my head as I fired off the first cast. About halfway through the retrieve, I had a fish swipe at the lure. My initial thought was that it was a jumbo brown. The fish followed the lure to the bank, and I saw how thick it was, but didn't get a great look. I was expecting to get slammed the next cast, but it didn't happen. Nothing on the next few casts. At this point, I started to reason with myself that it probably wasn't as big as i thought...maybe just a large average fish. My coping mechanism for missing a big fish haha.

I continued to cast as a snow squall closed in, and the fish finally crushed my lure. It was a violent strike, and a tense fight as I could see it was a big fish. The trout came to the surface thrashing wildly and I saw my opportunity and netted him. An absolute monster. My second largest NJ wild brown.



Called it a day after that, and walked back to the car in an insane snow squall. First time I can remember one in May.