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

Check out more from Fishing On Fire with our social accounts below…