Lopatcong Creek 3/14

This creek reminds me a lot of the nice little streams I fish over my way. I always like how the obivious creek is always the overlooked one.

a 21" Brookie is a monster almost anywhere, let alone a small creek like that! Impressive. Was that a fish that ran up from the Delaware, or do they dump a few big breeders in there? Nice job with the photos BTW.

I caught him just above the mouth. The river was running really high and I think he came up into the creek to get out of the turbid water. He was definately a wild fish from what Ilearned about them here. He really smoked the drag on my little ultralight reel. I was using 4 pound test fireline. I may have overplayed him a bit but there was no way i was gonna let him snapp that line. You would have laughed if you seen the dance i did on the shore after I landed him.

Hey, I would also do a stupid dance if I landed a wild 4# brookie in a public trout stream in the Northeast. That will be a tough fish to top. In my mind it's the equivalent of a 30" resident stream wild brown trout and about equally uncommon.

It was for me, a fish of a lifetime.

Biggest wild brook trout I ever caught was 12", on a #1 Mepps spinner. I once landed a 5# plus over 22" specimen on a #2 black Bugger in CT, but it was in a stocked private lake you had to pay to fish where they pellet fed the trout, so it doesn't count. Venwood Lake in Killingworth, they went out of business though.

I caught this one on a gold #2 mepps vibrac spinner. A little heaavy for my 4'6" spin rig but the smallmouth get in line to hit that spinner in the Delaware.

Here are 2 pics from last fall that I finally figured out how to get off my phone. Picture quality isn't that great, sorry.

http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/s...1014081811.jpg

http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/s...1022081650.jpg

Tommorrow is going to be my last shot at fishing in lopat until the season reopens in april. May the fishing gods smile upon me.

nice trout that is a sweet little stream.

Today's Lopat report. In a word----SKUNKED. I fished the morning until about 11 and the fish were there but just not interested. After 11 midges started hatching and the fish started taking them. I sat down at the base of a large sycamore and starting watching the fish in a certain pool. The pool was loaded with them, I counted up to 30 and lost track. These fish ranged in size from about 5 inches to about 12 or 13. I sat still for awhile with my back to the tree and they started to become active. In the following pic you can see a pile of rocks on the bottom right hand corner. This big brown came up there and started to feed on something that was just under the surface. I sat and watched him for about 20 minutes, he was only about 5 feet away from me. It was so awesome, I totally forgot about getting skunked. Any fish that came near that spot was immediately chased away.

http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/s...shing021-1.jpg