Oakland, New Jersey

New PB brown trout! I came home this weekend to celebrate my birthday, and the river did not dissapoint. This fish ties my longest at 18" but is definitely much larger. After the downpour yesterday and the continuous rain today, I was worried the river would be blown out, however, it was just a bit high and dirty. This of course made the perfect conditions for these fish. Overall, I landed 2 fish and missed another 3, but this time I managed to land the largest fish of the day. One of the fish that I missed was about the same size as this one, but launched its entire body out of the water to try and hit my rapala. I had it on the surface less than a foot from shore and was about to lift it out of the water when the fish came out of nowhere. I have a feeling that I could throw a popper and get a brown on topwater in this stream. The fish that I caught was in a run that is usually shallow. There is a large hole under a stump, but the last two days there was only a trickle going into this hole. Because of the rain, the trickle was now a very nice run, and sure enough he smashed it in the current. I'm very lucky I was still using my braid rod, because he wrapped me around a tree, and I had to go into the run to net him. If I had my ultralight, I most definitely would have lost him. All of this happened in 3 hours of fishing, and I still havent explored upstream. This is definitely my new favorite fishing spot!