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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