Raritan river

[Mark B.]

Originally Posted by Jigman13

Why doesn't the raritan get a stocking of walleye and/or smallies? It's a great ecosystem, plenty long and has it's deeper sections and is loaded with bait. Aside from trout stockings it seems like the Raritan is the forgotten step child of NJ rivers. While obviously not as vast as the Delaware it can certainly handle a stocking of fish other than trout.

Quite a few of us on this board frequent the raritan targeting a multitude of species and to also aggressively clean it up (thank you Andy). There are quality fish in the river. We've seen epic shoals of shiners, shad, , suckers, chub, dace, killies, etc. We've witnessed a prolific population of crayfish and eels. Shad are slowly but surely increasing each year.

Maybe I'm missing something bc I'm fishing the river a lot but I think the state should really consider using some of those massive walleye stocking numbers on the big d to establish stronger populations of gamefish in the raritan. I'm sure many of us, members and lurkers alike, would be appreciative of this.

You are not missing something, because you state: “Shad are slowly but surely increasing each year.” = a recovering American shad population.

NJDF&W does want to, directly, stock predators of American shad in to the Raritan River.