Troutzzzzz - NJ wilds/stockers and NY steel

[Chrisper4694]

Two trips for trout and 1 for steelies over the past 2 weeks. one trip was limited due to recent rains and rivers all messed up, but my buddy and I hit up some nice numbers of NJ stocked rainbows with some either wild or long term hold over rainbows in the mix. The full fins, amazing color and unmistakably stronger fight were a sure giveaway.

recent stocked


wild or long term holdover


After work on a later date, with the rivers calmed down a bit, I hit up a NJ spot after work and found the fish to be super picky. After going through a bunch of lures and flies, I found what they were looking for...the evil plug! Ended up nabbing quite a few wild browns and a wild rainbow, including this absolutely gorgeous brown that was either wild or long term holdover (i'm leaning towards wild, based on body shape, color and strength of fight).









OMC and I also did a last minute trip the other week to hit up some fallback steelhead in NY. We opted to pay for a drift boat for the day and we had a real fun, relaxing, ball busting day we went 14 for 24 I was using a center pin for the first time so I may have skewed the fish landing ratio haha.

[FASTEDDIE29]

Awesome!!! Beautiful Trouts from all over the place. That one brown has a silvery look to it! Pretty cool!!!

[Adrenalinerush]

Dropbacks Chris, lol, but you are learning! Careful with the pin, can be addicting at times.

[Drossi]

Nice fish. I'd lean towards the browns being wild unless said stream has a private club somewhere on it. The little silvery rainbow has parr marks so maybe that one as well. The other bows are long term holdovers, hard to grow wild bows in NJ, to get them to that size would be rare. Been a good year so far for holdovers though with last years high water and semi-mild winter. I've been getting into real nice fish in the more remote spots that I habituate. Will continue too with the high water.

[Chrisper4694]

Originally Posted by Drossi

Nice fish. I'd lean towards the browns being wild unless said stream has a private club somewhere on it. The little silvery rainbow has parr marks so maybe that one as well. The other bows are long term holdovers, hard to grow wild bows in NJ, to get them to that size would be rare. Been a good year so far for holdovers though with last years high water and semi-mild winter. I've been getting into real nice fish in the more remote spots that I habituate. Will continue too with the high water.

that's pretty much what i figured too. also imo you can easily tell the difference between a fish stocked this year or one that's been in a while just from the way they fight a lot of the time.

[Chrisper4694]

Originally Posted by Adrenalinerush

Dropbacks Chris, lol, but you are learning! Careful with the pin, can be addicting at times.

haha, well i must've been holding it wrong cause my wrist is still killing me!

[BT67]

Nice!!

[thmyorke1]

Nice trout and steel, chrisper. How was the center pin? Looks nifty.

[Hookmanski]

Slaying the trout dude!! Some real beauties!

[JDTuna]

Multi-state trout fishing...gotta love it! Those are some great fish! Center pin sounds fun!