Smallies and unlimited sunnies on the SBR. - NJFishing.com Your Best Online Source for Fishing Information in New Jersey

Fishinfire · #1 11-07-2015, 08:10 PM

Had to get dog food last night so while at the pet store I picked up a 50 pack of super mealworms in hopes of catching a fat rainbow today. Headed back to the SBR this morning. River was running clear, some leaves afloat but tons more blanketing the bottom. Started casting into the holes and almost immediate slam by a big fat sunny. Unhooked and tossed the line back in. THUMP THUMP THUMP, figuring another sunny, gave the rod tip a twitch and felt the same light tugging. Reel in and to my surprise it is a 6" smallie. This action happened all day long. sunny after sunny, baby smallie after smallie. River seems to be littered with them! Of course this was way better than getting the skunk!

End of the trip I decided to try the first hole I hit in the morning and hooked up with what I thought (and hoped) would be a decent trout for the table tonight. Get it close and see a decent fish to finish the outing. Quick photo and off she went.

I can't catch a trout to save my life this year! Guess my stamp is turning out to be just a donation this year!

On the positive side of things, all those baby smallies averaging between 6"-10" show a great hope for the future of smallie fishing!

AndyS · #2 11-08-2015, 12:40 AM

Good stuff. I was thinking the same thing, all those baby smallmouth growing up to be big smallmouth

I hope those efforts on the SB are starting to pay off now.

FASTEDDIE29 · #3 11-09-2015, 07:59 AM

Sounds like a fun day of fishing! Glad you gotta couple nice ones! BRONZEBACKS are thriving on the river. YEA BUDDY!

Bruce Litton · #4 11-13-2015, 02:04 PM

Noticed a lot of little smallmouths back in Sept. on SBR. Didn't hook any, using a big, fat 5-inch Senko, but plenty, besides those I saw, tapped and tugged at it. On that day, the river seemed in really healthy shape, lots of bass caught, for a change. But I saw water hyacynths from someone's reflection pool somewhere or whatever. Don't think they're much of a threat to the upper river around Neshanic, but maybe down in the Duke's slower stretches, could be a problem, don't know.