Last-minute spot change ends with my biggest wild brown trout ever | Trip Report

The wild brown trout that saved my trip.

The night before my last fishing trip, I faced a tough decision. I could either make a two-hour drive to New Jersey’s Stokes State Forest where I expected some wild brown and brook trout awaited in the woods, or I could go to more familiar, and more suburban waters closer to home.

In the end, the thought of spending the day truly in the wild on new waters was too strong a temptation, and I woke up (too) early and headed two hours to the Northwest.

When I made it to the parking area and stream section I’d researched, I had mixed feelings. While it was no doubt a beautiful setting, the area was surrounded by campsites full of people on this warmer-than-usual, mid-March Saturday. Not exactly the solitude I was seeking.

Making matters worse, a sign on a tree in front of my car declared, to my dismay, that this was a stocked section of the river, one that closes to trout during the spring stocking season, and not the catch-and-release only section full of wild trout that I thought it would be.

The first river looked better than it fished.

Having driven so far, I forged ahead anyway, frustrated but hoping some wild trout also inhabited what was still an idyllic mountain stream.

But three hours of careful fishing and difficult wading, numerous fly changes, and repeated run-ins with day hikers later, I was fishless and more than a little disappointed how the day I’d looked forward to all week had turned out.

Another beautiful, fishless hole.

As I headed back to the car, I had another big decision to make. Either I could forge ahead downstream, drive to another spot I’d never been to on the same river, or drive halfway home and hit one of the streams I’d decided to pass on the night before.

With three hours until I needed to leave to make it home in time to walk The Dog, and after much dithering on what to do, I chose a small stream an hour away that I’d fished once last winter.

The section of this particular river was supposed to have wild brook and brown trout, and having been there, I knew for sure it hadn't been stocked in years and was managed as a wild trout stream by the state.

But I also knew that the one time I had fished it, I found only a few good holes worth casting to and caught no fish.

Still, I was confident my chances of avoiding a skunk were better there than where I had been fishing all morning. And I had one great spot close to the parking lot in mind.

Pulling into the parking area, it looked like all eight spots were taken, with lots of people out enjoying the walking and biking trail that ran along the stream. But before giving up and backing out, a sliver of a spot appeared at the end of the lot closest to the stream, and I squeezed my car into it as best I could. It would do.

Ironically, the one hole I was most looking forward to fishing most was partially visible from my seat in the parked car. And with the water levels up, it looked even better than the first time I saw it.

As I got out and grabbed my gear, I watched as a strong current swept around a laydown into a slower, deeper hole with tree branches hanging over it. At maximum, the stream here was 10 feet across.

I chose a hooper-dropper combo, with an olive double trouble from Allegheny Native tied at the end.

It was a tricky task to get my flies to the top of the hole without snagging in the branches waiting just two feet above the surface of the water. But with some creative side casts I managed.

On my first good cast, my hopper went underwater briefly in the middle of the pool, and I lifted the tip to find nothing attached. With my confidence low from my unsuccessful morning, I assumed my weighted nymph had simply pulled the hopper under when it reached the deepest section.

So I made another cast.

In the very same spot, my hopper plunged under again, but harder this time. I hit it and was truly shocked to find something pulling back. And hard.

Having spent most my time the last two months fishing for tiny brook trout, I knew right away this was not one of those.

My first glimpse confirmed my suspicion: a 14-inch wild brown trout was desperately trying to throw the barbless hook at the end of my line.

With my adrenaline pumping, I was able to fight him into a slower pool and awkwardly get him in the net. When I did, I looked down and could hardly believe it.

My reward for a day of grinding.

It was the biggest wild brown trout I’d ever caught, and it was a beauty. My hail-may effort to avoid the skunk had paid off big time, with a lifelong memory.

And it will live on mostly in my memory, because other than a decent short release video of you can see here on my Instagram page, I failed to get even one good photo. My hands were literally shaking from the shock of the catch, my thoughts were scrambled and I wanted to release this mighty creek monster as quickly as possible.

After another 45 minutes of fishing, and with my mission complete, I decided to pack it in and head home, grateful that even in the most populous state in the Union, even in 2024, you could still find some wild trout.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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The Dog’s first wild brook trout and an unwanted hitchhiker | Trip Report

The Dog’s first wild brook trout…

I can be selfish with my fishing obsession. I disappear for entire days in pursuit of fish, yes, but also solitude. A little peace and quiet is always on my wish list.

But with The Dog and my partner both in need of some refreshing time in nature, we decided to take a Thursday off and head to my new favorite brook trout stream in New Jersey together (Editor’s note: My “partner” and I are engaged and soon-to-be-married, but I’ve never gotten used to saying “fiancee,” so I’m sticking with “partner” until we tie the knot).

My partner has joined me on many fishing trips over the years. Early in the pandemic, we regularly made morning trips to The Park to fish for largemouth, and she usually caught the bigger bass.

When The Dog arrived in late 2020, things got complicated. She was a six-month old stray who’d been found on the streets of The Bronx by some police officers who brought her to an ACC shelter. Her genes are a mad scientist’s brew of mostly Siberian husky and pit bull, with a few other breeds thrown in the mix for good fun.

We love her unconditionally. She has a huge personality and can be the sweetest, funniest dog you’ve ever met. But she also has a wild streak in her, along with an unquenchable prey drive. And she’s a flight risk. All of these things made it difficult to bring her fishing, especially because she incorrectly recognizes the rod and lure as one of her toys, wanting to grab onto the hooks with every cast.

Dog on a log…

Over time she’s improved, and we’ve brought her on smallmouth river wading trips. But today, I was hoping to get both my partner and The Dog their first wild brook trout.

The focus of our trip was the hike, but we squirreled away an hour or so for fishing. When we got to a choice spot on the stream, I handed over my fly rod to my partner and let her ply a few holes for her first brookie, while I stood back trying my best to secure The Dog.

My partner showed a knack for small-stream fishing and excelled more than me in certain areas immediately, notably in the form of patience, especially when freeing flies from trees. Better yet, The Dog showed considerable improvement in her fishing etiquette. Unfortunately the fish weren’t biting.

The Dog checks out the action…

Toward the end of our trip, we happened upon a beautiful hole where the current diverged around two big rocks, with a sliver of current coursing between them and a log jutting out from within.

After she fished it for a few minutes, she handed me the rod to take a try, fearing she’d spooked any trout in the area. I crouched as I approached the hole from the bank, ducking down behind a large border at the edge of the water. I pulled on the end of my hopper-dropper combo to give myself enough line, then popped a roll cast right under the log in between the rocks.

Moments later, my hopper plunged under the water. I hit it quickly and pulled out a beautiful brookie. My partner ran up to me, both of us smiling, and we let The Dog take a close look at the native trout in the net.

The first and only wild brook trout of the day…

In the past, she’s given a good look at (and even attempted to bite) smallmouth bass. But this time, she took a quick gaze, and then stepped into the stream to find a fish of her own.

All in all in was a rejuvenating trip, and one that has me dreaming of many more like it to come.

Another view of the brookie…

Unfortunately, the next day, almost exactly at the 24-hour mark, I found a tick on the back of the upper left arm. Given it was early March, the threat of ticks hadn’t even crossed my mind as I pushed through streamside brush. But this guy got me good. Consider it a lesson learned: the little bastards can get you even when you least expect it. All I can do now is monitor it, and hope a case of Lyme disease doesn’t put a damper my spring fishing plans.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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An amazing day of brook trout fishing thanks to a major conservation success story | Trip Report

Evidence of a conservation success.

With a day free for fishing and the early-March weather cooperating once again, I headed for a now-familiar wild native brook trout stream in New Jersey, hoping to find some willing trout to highlight a quiet day in the woods.

I had initially planned to explore new waters I’d found after some internet digging the week prior. But some last-minute research the night before foiled my plans.

One faraway stream I had in my sights, located hours away in the wilds of northwest New Jersey, turned up zero trout of any kind during two electrofishing surveys in 2014 and 2018. So that was off the list.

A second was located in what appeared to be a gorgeous nature preserve even closer to home. While it wasn’t home to native brook trout, my research showed it was full of small wild browns and rainbows. But a check of their website before bed revealed a special fishing license was required. I had to strike it from the list, too, at least for now.

So instead I was off to a stream I’d started fishing just a month prior and, in two or three trips since then, had a ton of success catching brookies.

But my success was only made possible by a major conservation success story focused on that very stream.

Mind the plaques.

Just 10 years ago, an angler throwing flies into these same riffles and waterfalls would have found plenty of fish, but not brookies. Back then, it was full of wild brown trout, likely ancestors of trout stocked here at the turn of the 20th century. Brown trout are not native to the Americas, and instead hail from Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia, where the colors and markings vary widely from place to place.

Here, they are invasive, and a threat to the native fish.

Electrofishing studies confirmed there was still a remnant population of native brook trout clinging to survival alongside the invasive browns, so the state enacted a plan to help the brookies re-take the stream.

More electrofishing was done, and all brown trout captured were removed.

Within just a few years of repeated removals, surveys showed not only that all of the browns were gone, but that the native brook trout population had rebounded, and likely better than anyone had expected.

It was now chock full of the native fish, as I found once again on this day.

My first catch of the day waited for me here.

Within my first hour of fishing, I caught three of the biggest and most beautiful fish I’d seen there.

The first smashed my small hopper fly as it drifted through a run between two rocks.

One of the early catches of the day.

The second and third came from separate holes farther up the river, each preferring my green beadhead scud nymph I dropped about two feet below the hopper.

Another brook trout from a great day.

And the action never really stopped. I hiked to a neighboring brook trout stream, one that had never been colonized by browns, and had similar success, catching a handful of small brookies on both flies, in addition to a chartreuse pheasant tail I switched to later on.

More brookie goodness.

That was in addition to twice as many fish that hit my flies and missed the hooks, and still more I was able to observe doing their thing in the high but crystal clear waters.

It was a day I won’t soon forget, and one that reinforced my gratitude to the many dedicated conservation professionals out here fighting to preserve and protect as much of the wild as they can.

It’s an ugly, uphill, potentially hopeless war, the this battle can be officially recorded as a victory.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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The best brook trout are found under POSTED signs | Trip Report

The best brookie I’ve caught from this stream to date…

All morning long, throughout my early-hour prep, hours-long drive and ensuing hike, the vibes were strong.

With a Monday off from work, temperatures pushing 60 F and hours of fishing in the woods ahead of me, my positive outlook seemed impenetrable as I started casting into the first few riffles and holes in what is fast-becoming my go-to wild brook trout spot in New Jersey.

At first nothing was biting, but I continued working my way slowly and quietly upstream, confident my luck would turn at the next bend and ultimately unbothered if it never did.

It was enough to enjoy this beautiful place, a tiny slice of the wild cordoned off from the encroaching developed world.

More cordoned off than I would like.

Forty minutes into my session, I reached the point I knew was coming. Only 500 yards or so from my starting place, a park boundary sign declared the end of my journey upstream on one side of the river, echoed with more severe declarations on the other bank in the form of an army of orange “POSTED: Private Property, No Trespassing” signs.

The offending POSTED signs in question pictured on a previous trip.

Even though I’ve come to know this stream well and have become all too familiar with these particular signs, it’s still a jarring experience whenever I see them.

Put aside the fact that these POSTED signs block off at least a mile of undeveloped stream full of brook trout from anyone but the landowner, they can ruin a mood faster than just about anything.

Just the sight of them can sour a beautiful day, inciting feelings of frustration, anger and some vague form of helplessness.

They also act as an unwelcome human intrusion in wild, beautiful places, not just in the Northeast, but across the country.

American anglers far and wide know this dilemma all too well.

I don’t deny the necessity for private property and, in many cases, the need to keep people off of said property. But, in my opinion, the amount of land and water cut off from responsible public use in the U.S. is untenable and getting worse.

And I just hate those damn signs.

But while I let them invade my thoughts and disrupt my tranquility briefly on this day, I wasn't about to let them ruin it completely.

The final hole I was allowed to fish stretched less than 10 feet across. On one side, a shallow rocky area with a POSTED sign looming over it. On the other, a plunging run under the overhanging tree that hosted the park boundary sign.

The park boundary sign…

And waiting for me there, hungry and willing to take my nymph, was a stunning 10-inch wild brookie, the biggest and most beautiful I’d caught on that stream to date.

A native New Jersey stunner…

Afterward, I turned around and walked far downstream, then worked my way back up fishing every good-looking hole I came across.

The higher the sun and the temperatures rose, the more the fish starting biting, and I brought a few more to hand over the next hour or so.

This extra-yellowy guy crushed the hopper…

The juveniles were hungry too…

Another beauty…

Then it was back to the car, and eventually back to the city, grateful for my run-in with a treasure of a trout, but still miffed and a little disillusioned by my other run-in.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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How my first bass of the year cured my swimbait allergy | Trip Reports

My first largie of the year…

Swimbaits are not my thing. The soft plastic baits featuring paddle tails are popular choices for fresh and saltwater fishing, with the unique kicking action enticing fish all of kids to bite.

Allegedly.

I say that because, for one reason or another, I have an allergy to using swimbaits. Despite throwing them a decent amount, I rarely catch anything. That’s true for largemouth, smallmouth and striped bass.

In what is mystifying to non-anglers, confidence in your gear and bait often proves essential to a successful day on the water. Part of that is because you usually only gain confidence with a bait that’s catching fish. But I also suspect that when using confidence baits you simply end up fishing more accurately and efficiently, leading to more catches.

Whatever the reason may be, I had zero confidence in swimbaits, despite the fact that they are a favorite pick of anglers for many of the fish I go after.

The one exception is the Eurotackle EPF Swim, but at its tiny size of 1 inch, I don’t really count it as the same type of bait.

Anything bigger, and I run into trouble.

So with temps soaring to the 60s on a recent Sunday morning, I decided I’d head over to The Park and try to catch my first largemouth of the year. But I wouldn’t be bringing a full suite of rods and baits. Instead, I took my 8-foot medium-heavy spinning rod and decided to only use a 2.8-inch Keitech swimbait on a ballhead jig.

My plan was simple: cover as much water as possible in an hour to see if I could finally build some confidence with the one bait that has frustrated me the most. If I didn’t catch anyting, so be it.

The fishing was slow to start. With limited time, I chose one side of the lake and started working my way around it, and nothing was biting at first. Fortunately my mood was unaffected given the beautiful spring-like weather.

I continued to work my around the lake, hitting up my favorite spots with a few casts before moving on. But still nothing.

Approaching the final stretch on a peninsula, my hope of a catch was nearly gone, and I was getting ready to swear off swimbaits for good. Making matters worse was that I’d never had success at the few spots I had left to fish.

But at the second-to-last casting area, I tossed my Keitech past a submerged log off a point, and as I reeled it in past the laydown, THUMP. Finally, a 12-inch largemouth had taken the bait.

The bass in The Park get a lot smaller than this one…

I quickly pulled him in and snapped a few photos, releasing him back to the lake with a smile on my face. It was another skunk avoided, another species crossed off the list for 2024, and one of my first proper swimbait catches.

At the very next spot, another area where I’d regularly struggled, I received an even heavier bump on my Keitech, but the fish pulled off in a matter of seconds.

No matter. The second bite was almost as important as the first, proving that the one catch was not a fluke.

At long last, I’d built a little confidence with paddletails, just enough that I made the plan to stick with them on my next trip to The Park.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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Why a creek chub got me jacked and beaver dams are whack | Trip Report

My lifer creek chub, a native gem.

Rough fish. Trash fish. Minnows. Bait. Disparaging names abound for so many fish species that swim in American waters. Fish that the majority of anglers have decided, for one reason or another, to avoid, arbitrarily treating them as mere annoyances getting in the way of more cherished fish.

Count me among the growing group of anglers that who see through these outdated notions. Especially when it comes to native fish.

Native fish populations, ones that have existed in the same places for thousands of years and against all odds survived the human onslaught of the last 200, should be cherished, no matter their size or reputation. And protected, too, as essential species within their ecosystems.

But Brook trout, at least in their native Eastern range, have never been considered trash fish. And they were my primary target on a recent day off, when I took a drive to New Jersey for some late February fly fishing. But it was a different native species, one that never gets any respect, that stole the show.

The stream I was headed for was one I knew well. I regularly fished its lower reaches for smallmouth in the warmer months, and a few times I’d attempted to find wild trout in its higher reaches.

But even farther upstream, just before a large dam that holds back a deep reservoir, there’s a small stretch that’s managed purely as a wild native brook trout stream. And this section I’d never laid eyes on.

When I arrived, I was surprised by the layout of the area and the steep elevation changes. I can’t tell you how often the mental image I’ve created of a fishing spot is dead wrong, having been fooled by deceiving Google Maps satellite images, which never give you a good feel for the topography.

I started out by trying to reach the section of the stream closest to the gravel parking lot, but it wasn’t easy. I had to fight through thick briar patches and deep mud, unexpectedly plunging to my knees in the muck every few steps.

But there was another problem when I got my first glimpse of the water. What was supposed to be a tiny, trickling stream below a dam was instead a glacially-moving, flooded expanse of shallow swampy water.

I couldn't figure out what was going on but decided to exit the bush and follow some well-worn paths away from the river until I reached a downstream section that looked more like, well, a stream.

The hike was a strange one, too. Every 100 yards or so NO HUNTING signs were posted on trees. Some were from the local nature conservancy, others from the state and still more that looked like private signs.

Even stranger was that up in the trees, interspersed between these many signs, were hunting stands. A lot of them. In fact, they outnumbered the signs. With tracks from deer and other critters everywhere, I started imagining a local feud between the hunters and the non-hunters tearing the small community apart.

Signs of deer and hunting were everywhere.

Eventually the stream started looking like one, and I cut off the trail to throw my first casts. It was a struggle from the start, with more briars and dense brush making access difficult. I found myself struggling to get into good-looking spots, only to spook all the fish in the process.

Except for one hole. Two hours in, with hope dimming, I tossed my hopper-dropper rig into a good-looking run between two rocks. The dry fly plunged under the water and I struck, with a small fish pulling back on the nymph.

My assumptions that it was a brook trout were discarded when, amid the fight, I noticed a distinct lateral line on its flank. My first thought: had a rainbow trout invaded this brookie sanctuary?

But once in the net, I realized it was something, at least in my eyes, far better than an invasive trout: a creek chub.

My only catch of the day, but I’ll take it.

Creek chub definitely find themselves among the maligned fishes of the U.S., but they are native to the stream I was fishing. Plus, I had somehow gone decades of fishing without every catching one. It was my lifer creek chub, late but still welcome.

Laugh all you want, but I was pumped, especially after failing to get a bite all day. I took a few photos and then revived him in slower water until he jetted off.

As I continued up the stream, I came across the best-looking hole yet, a five-foot deep plunge pool running up against a tangle of logs and branches with a deep undercut.

On my second cast, I carefully watched as a fish appeared underneath the dry before grabbing it from the underside without breaking the surface of the water.

I hit and hooked him. He turned hard to get away, revealing the entire side of what appeared to be a sizable 10-inch brookie. But after a few more tugs he pulled the hook and my line went slack.

Farther upstream, and beginning to near the flooded parking area, I finally realized what had caused the bizarre pond-like conditions.

Right in front of me in the stream stood an exquisitely-crafted beaver dam, three feet high and at least 20 yards across. It was so big, it had turned what should have been a stream just a few feet wide into a several-acre pond more than 200 yards from one bank to the other.

One of the biggest beaver dams I’ve ever seen, and it wasn’t the only one…

As I continued up the “stream,” hundreds of small stumps lined the bank, with the distinctive tooth markings of a beaver gnawed into all of them. Nearly every sapling of a certain size had been chopped down to create the massive dam I’d come across. They’d even gone after the bigger trees too, giving up after a while but not before cutting large wedges into the trunks.

The beavers were hard at work.

Some trees proved too big for the beavers.

The stumps continued three hundred yards upstream, all the way to a second beaver dam, smaller than the first, but still sizable in its own right.

The twin dams had certainly ruined a small section of the stream for trout fishing, at least temporarily. But I could hardly blame them. Humans had built a far bigger, far more destructive dam long ago just a quarter mile upstream. And a few more downstream, too.

While I felt satisfied with my chub and the experience as a whole, I also left thinking that might be the last time I try that particular spot for a while.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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A few brookies caught (and lessons learned) on a picture-perfect day | Trip Report

The trophy brook trout from this trip…

In fishing, you can learn a lot of valuable lessons that apply to wide swathes of life. On this trip, I re-learned a few that, at least when it comes to fishing, never seem to stick.

Among them: Don’t try to recreate great past experiences; and, everything can change overnight.

After a dream day of brook trout fishing on a Friday, and with mid-February temps sticking in the high 40s, I decided to run it back on Saturday.

With the same weather and water conditions on the same streams using the same flies and techniques, I was confident I would be able to have another wild brookie day for the ages.

And I was wrong. But the trip wasn’t a complete waste, far from it.

The New Jersey park I had in my sights held two wild brook trout streams. I had the most success on Brook #2 the previous day, but I only fished it for an hour at the end of my session. I usually don't advise fishing the same small streams too frequently, especially in a short amount of time, but I’d only explored a small portion of Brook #2, so there was plenty of water left un-harassed.

My day started with a 30-minute hike up and along a steep ridge, with mountains looming in the distance.

A pleasant hike opened my day…

Once I arrived at the stream, I headed to the my favorite hole from the day before to get started on the right foot. And pretty quickly it seemed like a solid decision.

On the first cast with my hooper-dropper combo, the chubby chernobyl got smacked by a photogenic brookie immediately, getting me on the board early.

The first catch of the day…

Within a few more casts, I’d hooked and lost a really nice fish on the nymph and brought another tiny one to hand.

Then it was time to move on down the stream. Every 10 yards or so there was a great-looking hole. But none of them seemed to hold any willing trout.

POSTED signs marred one side of this stream…

As I continued on my way, the stream started to drop altitude severely, creating waterfalls and sketchy hiking and climbing conditions.

Nothing biting here…

Photos don’t do justice to how steep and sketchy some of the hiking was…

Still, I found a way to fish dozens of little spots, but no more fish wanted to make their presence known.

After a few hours of fruitless casting, I decided to hike back to Brook #1 to try one final spot before leaving. And it was another good decision on a difficult day, resulting in my third little brookie of the outing.

With my lessons hard-earned, I headed back to the city. For my next trip out, it was time to explore some new brook trout water. And I had just the place in mind.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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False spring brings dream day of New Jersey brook trout fishing | Trip Report

The biggest brookie of my dream day.

One week after finally catching my first fish of 2024, and a memorable one at that, I had a similar plan. With temps soaring to the low 50s and the day off from work, I was heading back to the same New Jersey State Park in search of some more February wild native brook trout.

After a stop at a nearby Dunkin, I pulled into the parking lot early enough to be one of only a few cars there. This park is quite popular, at least on weekends, but most people are there for the many beautiful hiking trails, or to catch stocked trout in the bigger stream into which the park, and its twin brook trout streams, drain.

So I pretty much had the place to myself. I picked a starting point and began bushwhacking along Brook #1, where I’d had a lot of action, though only one trout in hand, the previous week.

Right away, one thing was clear. False spring had everyone, and everything, fooled.

Everywhere I looked, skunk cabbage was poking out of the streamside mud and muck. The birds were singing in relief.

Skunk cabbage was popping up everywhere.

But most importantly, as I quickly learned, the brook trout were active and hungry.

Just not right away.

Despite having landed on a pattern that worked the week before, I foolishly believed I could make an even better fly selection. I’d received a bunch of bites on a small chubby chernobyl dry the previous trip, but the tiny brookies couldn’t seem to get the entire fly in their mouths. So I chose to downsize to a size 14 Royal Wulff. I did the same with my nymph, choosing a minute olive midge.

After quickly plying two or three holes without a sniff, I realized my error and swiftly switched to my previous rig, the hopper and an electric green scud.

It was a good decision, as on the very first cast in the next hole, I dropped my flies right next to a log in a tiny pocket and a small brookie walloped the hopper, hook and all, getting me on the board right away.

The first brook trout of the day.

A few bites on both flies followed, before I approached the park boundary and turned back downstream. A short while later I arrived at another small pool where the current escaped through two rocks and watched as three brookies raced out and hit the dry on three casts in a row. But none stayed on long enough for a photo.

The next hour and a half was spent grinding down the tumbling stream, but the fish had seemed to lose interest.

That brought me to a critical juncture with an important decision: call it a day and head home early to relax, or push my luck and make a decent hike to Brook #2, where I’d have only on hour or so to fish.

Hike it was.

Twenty minutes later, I arrived sweating and winded to Brook #2, having stripped down to just a T-shirt and my waders. In early February.

Having experienced the most luck on Brook #1 in the higher reaches near the park boundary, I decided to do the same at Brook #2. A short walk upstream brought me to a good-looking spot, though one that didn’t seem much better than dozens of others I fished without a bite that day.

A large rock split the current in two, with the left side running shallow, but the right “plunging” into a two-and-a-half foot hole underneath a dead overhanging tree. The depth was good for this stream, but the hole only ran a few feet before the water shallowed up again.

No matter. This tiny little depression was absolutely filled with brookies, who eagerly hit both flies as I made careful cast after careful cast into the hole. The very first fish to hit, though, was a really nice one, by the looks of it a hearty 10 inches, a monster for this creek. But he pulled hard on the nymph and was off.

Over the next 20 minutes, I brought four brookies into my net and received three times as many good bites.

This little guy took the scud.

Eventually the fish spooked and the biting stopped, but it took far longer than I would have expected. For the final 30 minutes, I quickly tried a few holes farther downstream and almost every one offered up a bite, the best of which resulted in an 8-inch fish that counts as my biggest from the stream.

Another look at my biggest catch of the day.

With plenty of photos of scaly gems in my phone and a lonely dog waiting for me on the couch, I decided to take the short but steep hike out and make my way back home to the city, a good hour-and-a-half send.

Reflecting on my drive back, I realized that this was the exact type of day that my 12-year-old self had always dreamed of. A mild day spent in an idyllic mountain stream with beautiful brookies biting on nearly every cast. I caught my fair share of brookies as a kid, including a 14-inch spawning male that to this day is my personal best. But I never truly figured it out. I was always left dreaming of the action-filled brook trout days I'd read about frequently in books.

Now, over 20 years later, and with more than one hiatus in between, I’d finally experienced it. And it was every bit as wonderful as I knew it would be. All the more so with the memories of the many fruitless brook trout fishing days gone by still fresh in mind.

Another look at one of the good spots from the day.

It was a such a dream experience, I couldn’t let it be. Because the next day was Saturday, and the weather looked even better, so I was already scheming out another trip…

SONG OF THE TRIP

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A fish of many firsts (and the first fish of 2024) | Quest for No. 1: Part V

A wild native brook trout in New Jersey, my first fish of the year.

My year of fishing got off to an unfortunate, frustrating start. As I’ve explained before, I typically like to get on the water in the first week of the year, most often New Year’s Day itself, in the hopes of securing my first catch right away, allowing me to move onto more important fishing concerns.

It also serves to satisfy another of my ongoing fishing goals: to catch a fish every single month of the year (much more will be written in the future on the passionate pursuit of seemingly meaningless personal angling goals and achievements).

RELATED: Skunking my way into the New Year on thin ice | Quest for No. 1 Part I

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The tradition goes back to my youth, when I taught myself to fly fish for wild, native brook trout in small Connecticut streams. More recently, the first week of January has often provided some mild, ice-free conditions, allowing me to make a quick trip to The Park to catch some small largemouth bass, black crappie, bluegill and pumpkinseed.

But on the morning of January 1, 2024, I sat in my Outer Borough apartment and waffled over whether it was worth making the effort to throw a few casts at The Park and get a few fish on the board. At that point, my streak for monthly catches had reached 10.

This system of waterfalls held no willing fish on this trip.

Most years my streak halts in February at 11, and I was already making plans to avert a February swoon this year. As I mulled fishing or relaxing on the couch with the dog, I reasoned that there would be plenty of time in the month to get my January fish. So I stayed home.

Fast-forward 32 cold, rainy days and four skunks later, and my laziness had once again proven my downfall. I failed to catch a single fish in January, thus ending my streak at a ignominious 10 months.

Fishing is all about failure, at least for me, though I suspect its a common condition. And this is another topic that will get lots of space to breathe on this website. So in a way, several skunks and a failed goal were the most appropriate way for me to start the year and this new writing pursuit (at least that’s what I convinced myself to ward of the fishing demons and move forward).

So as the calendar turned to the second month, the shortest and hardest fishing month of all, I was determined avenge my January failures.

My plan: go back to my roots and pursue wild brook trout in tiny, mountain streams on the fly.

While fly fishing for brookies sparked my initial passion in my teens, it hadn’t been a part of my fishing life for decades.

I spend most of my time conventional fishing for largemouth at The Park, smallmouth on The River in New Jersey or striped bass from the surf in New York. More recently, I switched to the fly while hunting smallies in New Jersey rivers, a thrill I recommend all anglers experience.

But with the smallies in their winter slumbers, I had cold water-loving brookies on my mind.

So I picked a New Jersey state park my fiancee and I had hiked with our dog, one that contained two winding mountain streams tumbling down into a small river. After some research I’d learned both streams had wild native brookies in them.

Unidentified fungi spotted after another soggy month.

So on February 2, I woke up early, packed the van with my waders, boots, and my old 7-foot, 4-weight Orvis Superfine fly rod, and headed West. The weather report had worsened overnight, and now called for light rain and showers throughout the day, which is an issue when temps stay below 40. After feeding the cat in the morning and making coffee, I nearly decided to ditch my plans. Driving hours only to stand in the cold rain and not catch fish, again, suddenly seemed undesirable.

But I wasn’t about to let laziness lead to a second-straight month of disappointment.

As I drove over the Manhattan bridge, across Lower Manhattan and under the Hudson River via the Holland Tunnel (which at 100 years old terrifies me every time I use it), a continuous light rain pelted my windshield. Things were not looking good.

But after a stop at for coffee and a breakfast sandwich at Dunkin Donuts, I pulled into the park only for the rain to graciously peter off.

I decided to use a dry-dropper rig, expecting the small hopper I chose only to act as nymph-guide and strike indicator. Below that, at the end of 18 inches of 5x tippet, I tied on a small, green nymph I honestly didn’t know the name off (and since learned was a scud). It had a sizeable bead head and a neon green body, instead of natural colors. In the back of my mind I remembered a recent video claiming green was the best color for brookies.

This small hopper was supposed to act simply as a strike indicator.

As I walked the park path down a gorge to the stream, my excitement grew exponentially, imagining every new hole filled with hungry, willing brookies.

I went upstream, as far as an old park boundary posting, worn and weathered to the point that I wondered if it marked anything anymore or was just a remnant of some lost past. I didn’t see any yellow POSTED signs, the ones that haunt many beautiful places throughout New Jersey and the country at large. But I decided not to push my luck and to instead start plying the numerous holes I’d spotted on the short walk there.

Who knows what this weathered sign marks anymore.

The first was riffle that ran under a downed tree, forming a wider pool downstream. On the inside of the main flow was a small hole, no more than two feet wide and hard against the tree, with an even smaller eddy within it.

From five feet away, no casting would be necessary, or even possible in small confines of this stream, with low hanging branches everywhere. So I tossed my flies under the log, right into hole I was eyeing. One second after wavering on the edge of the current, a dark shape darted from under the log and nailed my hopper with a resounding splash.

The first spot.

I was shocked. Not only because I had a bite, my first in many sessions, or that it happened in the very first spot, minutes after I arrived, but also because in the middle of winter this bold, little brookie tried to take a dry fly a third its size, and with authority no less.

After gathering myself amid an adrenaline rush, I tossed my flies back into the same spot. This time, the hopper plunged under the water, and I lifted the rod to find a small brookie, maybe the same fish, pulling back at me.

I quickly pulled the fish into a puddle beside me out of the current, and maneauvered it into my net.

Finally. After many hours of freezing effort, the drought was over, I had my first fish of the year.

And, man, was it a beauty.

As I looked down into the net, the astounding colors and patterns of the fish I had grown to care so much about as a kid blew me away once again. The squiggly vermiculations on its back, like a soldier in jungle camo. The flame-colored and white-tipped fins. The bright red spots with blue-purple halos. Despite seeing more of them than I can count, the sight of a wild brookie never fails to make my mind spin, my brain struggling to understand how such a beautiful display of colors exists naturally in the environments it calls home.

A fish of many firsts.

Native to the the northeastern U.S., eastern Canada and the Appalachian mountains all the way down to Georgia, the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) was here long before us, dating beyond the end of the last Ice Age, when glaciers stretched all the way to southern Brooklyn.

But they may not survive us. In my mind, the fate of the brook trout represents one of the greatest black eyes on the environmental history of the United States. And it’s the perfect representation for all of our ecological sins over the years.

Dams, over-development, habitat loss, pollution, deforestation, overfishing and climate — which makes all of those issues worse — have all struck a potentially fatal blow to this cherished native species, the official freshwater fish of numerous states. They used to swim free in nearly every creek and river in the Northeast, with monsters measured in pounds hunting in larger bodies of water, and still larger sea-run varieties making New England estuaries their home.

But now they’re all gone. At least relative to their historic prime in the 1700s. You have to travel to Northern Maine and parts of Canada to find the last vestiges of healthy populations.

Still, throughout the more southern parts of their historic range, small populations of brookies had survived the human onslaught, escaping to the small, cold mountain streams where they can exclusively be found now. Just like this small brook in New Jersey.

But my first fish of 2024 was one of many firsts. I’ve caught wild brookies in Connecticut and New York, but this was my first in New Jersey. It was also my first brookie on the fly in what could be two decades.

The joy of that catch, and the appreciation of the short interaction I was granted with such a perfect being, was enough to satisfy me for the day, if not the month.

Of course I kept on fishing anyway. And they were biting. Incredibly, more than 10 little brookies smashed my hopper dry fly in the three hours I was fishing, though it proved too big to hook any of them.

I switched my nymph to a larger, heavier stonefly-esue pattern, and under another fallen tree I hooked, fought and lost a slightly bigger fish.

At another spot, I stood on the bank and dropped my flies into a whirlpool next to current running underneath a plank walkway. As my flies drifted into the undercut bank, I felt my nymph get snagged. Upon lifting my rod, I felt a shake and to my surprise briefly glimpsed a chunky, 10-incher before it rolled and pulled free. It was a giant for the size of the stream, and the type of near-miss whose memory will power me through many skunk sessions as the year rolls on.

A little a while later, and shortly after a banana-peel style fall on my back after slipping on a wet rock, I made my way back up the gorge to the van, slightly damp, smiling and fully satisfied as I began my long drive back to the city.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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Last-ditch Hail Mary trip for winter stripers | Quest for No. 1: Part IV

This fishing pier offered epic views of Manhattan, but no striped bass.

It all came down to this. After a month of disappointments mixed with missed opportunities, I had one last shot to catch my January fish and, by doing so, extend my monthly fish streak to 11, one short of the 12-month goal I’d set for myself.

It was January 30th, and with the day off and the temps sticking above freezing, I had crafted a two-part Hail Mary plan to quiet my early-month regrets and secure a fish. One fish was all I needed. One single scaly catch to accomplish my meaningless internal goal.

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I’d be hitting both the sweet and the salt, hoping to find at least one fish to take my lure and stick around for a picture. First, I’d head to The Park, then to the East River for a chance at a truly unlikely late-January striper.

I was already feeling good as I walked into The Park, noting the shimmering surface of the lake, not a single shard of ice in view. From past experience, I felt like that was all I needed to find a few bluegill, black crappie or largemouth hiding in deep cover amid tangled branches.

No ice in The Park, but no fish either.

But as the cast count started to climb, and my hands started to freeze, I still couldn’t claim a single bite.

I was getting antsy, so after an hour-and-a-half of fruitless attempts, I ditched and started heading West to the river. In between I stopped at F&F Pizzeria, my choice for the best pizza in the world, to get a pie to bring home for dinner.

Somehow in the five minutes it took for me to park without paying the meter, pick up my pie and walk back to the car, I’d received a familiar bright orange parking ticket on my windshield.

A bad omen indeed.

I parked near as I could to the East River, then walked the last few blocks to a conveniently-located fishing pier. Despite being in New York for almost 20 years, and regularly plying the waters for striped bass, I’d never actually taken a cast in the East River, which isn’t even a river at all, but a tidal strait connecting the Long Island Sound to the Atlantic Ocean. It’s as if someone plopped Long Island down off the shore of New York, and the East River is the slither of water separating it from Manhattan.

Recent On The Water reports claimed people were having good luck catching holdover stripers in the East River all through January, a bucktail or soft plastic and an outgoing tide was allegedly all that was needed. This had me foolishly thinking that I could actually make it happen.

Walking onto the pier, the first thing I noticed was the water was chocolate-milk brown, a result of heavy rains a few days before. Not a good sign. Not to be dissuaded, I walked past the only other angler around, a guy with four baited lines in the water, and started casting.

But nothing would be caught, except a few minutes of lazy conversation with some passing dog-walkers. After more than an hour had passed, and with pizza waiting in the car, my confidence was shot, and I decided to pack it in and officially surrender.

As I walked off the pier deflated, I spotted a sign that I’d never noticed in that spot before, right at the start of the pier, though a type of sign I’ve unfortunately seen many times. It turns out exactly where I’d been fishing was a Combined Sewage Outlfall point.

It was a stark reminder that despite all of the process we’ve made cleaning up our waterways since the passage of the Clean Water Act in the 70s, raw sewage still poured into rivers and oceans during heavy rain events in cities across the country. In New York City, there are some 700 such spots.

It’s no secret how to fix this problem. All that’s needed are giant holding tanks underground to capture flood waters and slowly release them back into the sewage treatment system over time. They did recently it in the Seine in Paris, where Olympians will swim the waters in competition this summer. They’re doing it in one town in New Jersey, just across the Hudson. Money and political will are lacking, and that plays a huge role in this ongoing environmental crisis. But awareness is also lacking, as well as the wrongheaded, decades-long imprint on New Yorkers brains that the waters surrounding the city are toxic and beyond repair. As anyone who fishes or works to protect these waters can tell you, that’s utter nonsense. We’ve made huge progress, with massive schools of bait, whales, dolphins, bluefin tuna and sharks hunting hunting these waters as they once did long ago, what is just a taste of the natural abundance that marked New York for millennia. But much more can and must be done.

But none of that knowledge save my monthly fishing streak from an unceremonious January end.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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Can a New Jersey wild trout make my month? | Quest for No. 1: Part III

Now all-too-frequent floods had this New Jersey trout stream running high.

With the days moving faster and faster, it was already late January and still I hadn't caught a single fish. I only needed one catch to keep my monthly streak alive, and push it to 11, one short of my full-year goal.

With the weekend approaching and high temps expected around 40 F, I decided to make a trek to the upper reaches of The River, the river in New Jersey where I primarily spend my time smallmouth fishing in the warmer months. But where I was going, no smallmouth swam. Instead, wild trout called it home, mostly wary browns whose ancestors were stocked back in the early 1900s.

RELATED: Skunking my way into the New Year on thin ice | Quest for No. 1 Part I

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RELATED: Last-ditch, Hail Mary trip for winter stripers | Quest for No. 1 Part IV

RELATED: A fish of many firsts (and the first fish of 2024) | Quest for No. 1 Part V

The previous year I’d done a similar trip, on an even colder day, hoping to get an elusive February fish. I failed, but what I did learn is that it was a beautiful spot that beat sitting inside on the couch for another full day.

To my surprise, as I was suiting up in the parking lot, another angler ventured up to me, asking if I’d ever fished there, and if there were any deep pools. I told him that most of it was quite shallow, but historically heavy rains (which in recent years have pummeled New Jersey causing massive, repeated floods in the area) probably had the river high.

He thanked me and walked away, so I made my way down to the water, which at this spot meant pushing my way through dense swamp choked with briar patches for 100 yards.

The trek to this stream is short but treacherous.

The water was indeed high and very dirty for this section of the river. And my fly fishing skills were more rusty than I’d hoped. Much time was wasted liberating flies from trees and frequently changing flies. I mostly stuck with wooly buggers and hooper-dropper rigs. But nothing was biting.

And there were signs everywhere of just how high the water had gotten a few days before during the floods, which have become all too common in the region lately.

My favorite, though, was this “POSTED” sign washed up into the roots of a streamside tree.

This POSTED sign won’t disappoint adventurous anglers anymore.

After a few fruitless hours spent in the woods listening the to rushing water, I gave up and called it. My drought would not end this day.

Instead, I’d have to make one last trip on the second-to-last day of the month, and hope that somehow, some way I caught one single fish.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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This park (and this month) is full of skunks | Quest for No. 1: Part II

The closest I came to a fish on trip No. 2 of the year.

My hopes were high setting off for fishing session No. 2 of the year. The temps were mild and had been for days, guaranteeing no ice would get in the way of some small largemouth or panfish at The Park, unlike my first trip of the year.

Given all the open water, I decided to try a few different spots on the lake, instead of sticking to only my winter honey holes.

RELATED: Skunking my way into the New Year on thin ice | Quest for No. 1 Part I

RELATED: Can a New Jersey wild trout save my month? | Quest for No. 1 Part III

RELATED: Last-ditch, Hail Mary trip for winter stripers | Quest for No. 1 Part IV

RELATED: A fish of many firsts (and the first fish of 2024) | Quest for No. 1 Part V

But my go-to winter spot had to be hit first. After all, I only had a couple hours to fish and I was growing increasingly anxious about securing my January catch, and my first catch of the year.

Upon arriving at my choice spot, no other anglers were present, giving me the run of the place. I dropped my tiny EPF Swim swim bait into every section of every laydown, but the only fish I spotted was one small and very dead bluegill stuck in a tangle of submerged branches.

With my confidence starting to waver, I decided to take a scroll around the lake to the opposite side, where solid spot with a three-foot wall and a big, overhanging tree waited for my on a peninsula.

As I walked up the path to the spot 20 minutes later, my hopes were dashed once again. A wedding was taking place in the gazebo next to the spot, with the guests battling on-and-off-rains.

A cold, wet wedding in The Park.

I didn’t want to interrupt, so I moved on down the shore.

A few more choice spots held no fish willing to bite my lure, and I spent most of my time watching and trying (and failing) to get a good photo of a large group of northern shovelers eating and preening in the water.

After dozens of more fruitless casts, I decided to head out. The brightest spot of the trip was probably the group of three black squirrels I came across, darting back and forth on the path looking for acorns they’d burrowed away in the warmer months.

These little guys were the highlight of the trip.

Two trips, two skunks. The year was off to a frustrating, but appropriate start.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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Skunking my way into the New Year on thin ice | Quest for No. 1: Part I

The ice creep began early this year, despite another mild winter.

With my first glimpse of the lake I realized my worst fears had come true. Instead of rippling reflections of the overcast sky, through a gap in the trees all I could see was a dull, whitish sheen that wasn’t moving.

Temps had only dropped to 31 the night before, but without the warming help of direct sunlight a thin wrap of ice had appeared across nearly the entire surface.
As much can be expected in early January at The Park in Outer Borough, NYC. It happens fast.

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RELATED: Can a New Jersey wild trout save my month? | Quest for No. 1 Part III

RELATED: Last-ditch, Hail Mary trip for winter stripers | Quest for No. 1 Part IV

RELATED: A fish of many firsts (and the first fish of 2024) | Quest for No. 1 Part V

Typically I get out January 1st to catch a few small bass, black crappie and bluegill at The Park near my apartment, securing my first catches of the New Year to give me a bit of peace of mind as the winter takes hold. I also have an ongoing personal challenge to catch at least one fish every month. I have successfully gone 12-straight months catching before, but often I’m undone by the colds of February.

January rarely gives me a problem, with small fish often eager to bite in mild temps the first half of the month.

But thanks to my decision to forgo a New Year’s Day session for some relaxation (of course it was 50 and sunny with little wind), it was mid-January and my active 10-month catching streak was threatened. And it wasn’t even February yet.

Adding to the bummer was the many non-anglers with looks of disbelief or laughs at the site of me, dipping my tiny white EPF swim bait in the few spots of open water left. Although that’s a regular occurrence when fishing in NYC, no matter the season.

An ultralight rod and an Eurotackle EPF swim on a tiny jig are my winter bass go-tos.

On the bright side, the most prominent open section was in my only winter hotspot on the lake, a small circular area, about four feet deep and choked with branches providing abundant cover. Circling the spot are giant, old London plane trees (a popular urban hybrid of the mighty American sycamore), with the lowest branches hanging out over the water, 10 feet up.

I’ve had a lot of success on the panfish and small bass bite here in the cold, and even caught one of my biggest largemouths here in early May years ago.

I’d also seen an old YouTube video once of a guy pulling a 5lb-plus bass out of this particular spot with a live worm, snow blanketing the park path.

All of this provided my with enough of a false sense of confidence to fight through my quickly freezing hands.

Nothing.

Not good.

Later on in my one-and-a-half hour session, one teenage angler on a bike shouted toward me, asking if I’d got anything.

He was shocked by the ice too, and told me his friend had pulled in a nice bass the day before, without a cold crystal in sight.

And that’s the way she goes.

As he rode off, he related the bad news to his friend over speaker phone.

SONG OF THE TRIP

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