Garden State Trout

I caught a beautiful 17" wild brown caught in a stream I had not fished since hs. It was a stocked stream when I was a kid with a few wild browns. Eventually more and more posted signs went up and stocking was eliminated. A few years back some land was acquired by the twp so I decided to finally give it a go. Only about a 1/4 of a mile is open but some nice pools. Caught 11 wild browns and missed a half dozen more. The blue on the cheeks is amongst the nicest I've ever seen

Thats a heck of a brown with a healthy looking belly, especially for what looks to be a really small stream. How deep is that pool? Looks to be lots of obstacles to climb over/get snagged on.

That brownie has not been missing any meals! Nice looking water, Mark.

Gorgeous! Not only does it have the blue dot but a whole blue cheek. I have never seen that before!

dat closeup

great fish man, pulling out browns longer than the creek is wide

martalus wrote: ↑

Mon May 11, 2020 10:33 am

Thats a heck of a brown with a healthy looking belly, especially for what looks to be a really small stream. How deep is that pool? Looks to be lots of obstacles to climb over/get snagged on.

Pool is about 4 feet deep. Its a small stream - maybe 4 miles or so long. And yes its quite the obstacle course with many old, hemlocks that have fallen and other trees victims of ice/snow/wind storms. Trout fishing these last few years has really been a pain in the ass climbing over, under and around so many trees.

Great fish!

I have seen some larger 14-18 inch trout in small streams with 'deep' pools of 3-4 feet deep, but they usually dont have bellies like that. Does that trout have access to a larger river that he fattens up in?

NICE.........

martalus wrote: ↑

Mon May 11, 2020 7:24 pm

I have seen some larger 14-18 inch trout in small streams with 'deep' pools of 3-4 feet deep, but they usually dont have bellies like that. Does that trout have access to a larger river that he fattens up in?

there's a burger king a block upstream.

coaltrout wrote: ↑

Mon May 11, 2020 9:46 pm

there's a burger king a block upstream.

martalus wrote: ↑

Mon May 11, 2020 7:24 pm

I have seen some larger 14-18 inch trout in small streams with 'deep' pools of 3-4 feet deep, but they usually dont have bellies like that. Does that trout have access to a larger river that he fattens up in?

Nope. The lower portion of the creek has an impassable dam. Most wild brown trout waters can produce trophy sized(>=15") fish IF there is sufficient cover, flow and food. Most small streams just lack the cover(depth). If you look at a little stream like say Dunnfield. Its not long(3.5 miles) and has impassable falls yet some decent browns are in there due to some really deep pools upstream of the main falls. My pb there is 18" and it was a half mile above the falls.

Yeah, I often find 14+18 inch wild browns in these small stream pools, but often they thin out as they get big as they just can't get enough food to sustain their length. This guy seems to have found a food source that worked for him (perhaps other browns like the other post). I do remember about 15 years ago Denis F 'blessed' my harvesting of a big headed 18 inch wild brown from a small pool in CB because at that point, it had outgrown its environment, it had passed on its genes multiple times, and was basically a threat to the rest of the population of browns.

he-she was eating its kids