Yesterday evening, after a near insufferable connecting flight from Los Angeles, I returned to New Jersey. Unfortunately, due to my trip (The Death Valley Expedition), I missed the very hyped New Jersey worm dunking fest, otherwise known as opening day. The reports I have heard so far is that some skilled fly fisherman were able to land exceptionally large Brook Trout. I had the day off of work on Tuesday in order to campaign; I am running for Town Committee in Frelinghuysen Township, New Jersey. Continuing on, the function I attended finished a little early and I found a few hours to get in the water!

A Slow Start

In previous years the water has been generally above normal at this time of year; right now the river levels are exceptionally low. Fishing has already turned on, and I suspect we will see a fast and early season. Even so, when I was able to get on the water the weather was in the midst of changing to passing storms. I began with a nice size 16 Prince Nymph weighted with lead and indicated by a Thingamabobber. I continued to utilize this nymph, while walking upstream on the Paulinskill for about half an hour. Seeing no indication of Trout being interested in this pattern, I switched to a Zug Bug of the same size, and located a run downstream that might have worked. Still no luck!

Now I was quite discouraged, these Trout have been in the water for a couple of weeks, and I was the only one on the stream. Was it my pattern or presentation, maybe both? It appeared that nymphing was not the ticket to success today, I began to analyze the situation. The State Fish & Game stocks a large number of Brook Trout very early on, these are normally fished out by the end of the stocking season. Brook Trout love the colors Red and Yellow, especially with flash. This logic going through my head, I selected a size 12 Mickey Finn.

Slay Ride Begins

Meandering downstream, I began to dead drift the Mickey Finn, using a short strip retrieve when the fly was straight downstream. The Trout began to roll my fly on the dead drift, though not actually biting into the fly. Seeing this, I varied the tactic; cast straight across stream, start a dead drift, and then do a short strip retrieve with intermittent pause. Then it happened, the Brook Trout took interest!

The next two hours will go down in my personal fishing history. I closed in on the downstream pool, insuring that I explored every inch. The Brook Trout were stacked up here. First there was one fish, and then I had caught five; at five the tally was closing in on ten! Once you hit ten fish, you need to catch twenty (this is coming off of contemplating just going home to do work). As I continued to work the tail end of the pool, I crossed the 17 count, I sensed it was happening! The 20^th fish came slowly, when he bit I held my breath, ending the fight in my net, I gave a whoop of victory. What had seemed impossible three hours ago happened, a New Jersey Brook Trout Slay Ride!

Key Take Away:

1. Brook Trout love traditional Brook Trout flies like the Mickey Finn.
2. Vary the speed of your retrieve, and then duplicate the action to entice a repeat strike.
3. If you miss a Brook Trout, try again; they love to catch the fly.