Chasing Lifers in NJ

[Johnsfolly]

It's been a while that I took this trip (Oct 19th) but too busy to post after I got back. I went up to NJ to fish with Mark and his friend Steve, another life lister from NC. We were going to fish the Passaic River for Northern Pike. This river gets stocked with young pike and does have some natural reproduction. I haven't caught a pike and was excited of the prospect in landing my first. There was also discussion about some lifer shiners and maybe some night fishing as well. The objective was to try for pike with lures and them switch to bait, i.e., creek chubs, fallfish, etc., if needed. 

I left the house just after 6 am to meet with Mark and Steve by 9:30. I had inline spinners with swim baits, big Mepps spinners, Whopper ploppers, super flukes, etc. for these pike. I had my tanagos, UL rod, worms, etc. for the micros. I started fishing the big bladed inline spinner with a white paddletail swimbait. I tossed it behind, in front, along, deadfalls, brushpiles, drop offs, etc. I had one small tug on the tail by a small bass or sunfish. I switched to the whopper plopper and again fished all around the cover. Still no bites. Put on the #5 Mepps and again no bites or follows. After a few hours of this we put on the live bait. I had on a 4-5 inch creek chub and tossed it up into the back end of a brushpile that I thought I spooked a fish on my first cast in the morning. As the bait drifted I got a strong hit. I gave it some time and then set the hook to nothing😒. The bait was still lively and did not have any teeth marks. Seemed like a bass hit it. I tossed it back out and let it drift in the current. Didn't take long and the bait started moving back upstream and in a circle. Set the hook again and landed a decent bass.

The bait had a little life left and I caught a smaller bass. We soaked baits for another hour or so hitting more of the cover. While we soaked baits Mark was catching crappie after crappie on a white marabou/flashabou jig under a float. I couldn't take it anymore and took his rod. My first fish on my first cast wasn't a crappie, but a decent bluegill.

I caught another bluegill then it was onto crappie. I stopped fishing for them after landing a dozen. If the river was not contaminated these guys would have made a nice fish fry. Then again if folks kept all of the them we wouldn't have caught them one after another 😉

It was now 3 pm. We left the Passaic. After a 45 min drive we had lunch and then drove another ten mins to fish for the shiners.

This spot has both ironcolor and bridle shiners. Both would be lifers for me. Steve needed just the bridle for his life list. As I was getting my microrod out of the car and baited, Steve found an active school and landed his bridle shiner on the first drop. Mark mentioned that the bridles are a vulnerable species since the are losing habitat across the state. He mentioned that I should not be satisfied catching the more common ironcolor and try for the bridles. After catching his bridle, Steve was done fishing. No need to just catch numbers if they weren't going to contribute to his lifelist. I saw fish and caught my first fish. It turned out to be a bridle!

As I was taking photos Mark foul hooked a bridle and landed an ironcolor using's Steve 8 ft extendable tenkara rod.  I could see the groups of fish that Steve and Mark were fishing but could not reach them with my 6 ft Airstream rod. I took over fishing with the tenkara rod. I was in the zone. I caught one fish after another. The big difference between the two species is the ironolor shiner has a darker lateral line stripe that extends to the front of the face and lips of the fish. The bridle has a white chin and lower lip. The problem was that I could tell that they were bridle shiners only. Mark was playing the guide. Each fish I would pass back to him to remove the hook, id and release the fish😉😁. Afer catching 19 bridle shiners, I found a small group of four or five darker fish. They were not as aggressive as the bridles. While trying to get one to bite the wind would gust and I would lose sight of the group or they would move off the sand patch. I did finally get one to bite and it was my lifer ironcolor shiner!

Here you can see into its mouth and see the black lips.

After catching that fish we headed another 50 mins to get a Steve a slimy sculpin. I went along to try for longnose dace. Mark helped my by headlamping a much bigger are with his lamp (1080 lumens) than I could with mine (325 lumens). Longnose dace live in the current. We targeted the tail water just below the riffles at the head of the pools. It took me ten to fifteen minutes to position a bait right in front of the first dace. He bit and I lifted him out of the water and lost it. I tried for a couple more. One dace I just couldn't get the bait in front of it before it moved on and the other was another lift and loss. I did catch one Eastern blacknose dace but no photo. I caught two of the four targets for the trip. I pulled into the house just after midnight, tired but satisfied!

[Johnsfolly]

Bonus NJ Lifer from this summer😁. Trip wasn't worth a full write-up.

I have been chasing fish species that I have tested in our labs. So far I have caught, rainbow trout, channel catfish, common carp, largemouth bass, mummichogs, inland silversides and sheepshead minnows. I have tried on a few occassions but have not been able to catch a fathead minnow. This summer we fished the Mercet river. Not really a river but more of a small stormwater creek🙄. We did find and caught several fathead minnows. So it was all good!

Male fathead minnow

Female FHM

Livie's FHM male

Livie's nice satinfin shiner

 

I still have to go down to Georgia/Central FL and catch bannerfin shiners to round out the US based species. I would have to travel to Asia to catch zebrafish and Japanese ricefish.