North Branch Raritan River Fishing
Wild brown trout caught at Bedminster.
Down to the Confluence
Here’s yet another article originally published in New Jersey Federated Sportsmen’s News, the publication of the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs. Last week I wrote about fishing the South Branch Raritan, including my mentioning that it flows further south than the Confluence. The North Branch, on the other hand, pretty much flows directly down to where the two rivers meet.
The North Branch is a two-tier fishery of bass and trout, too, and like the other river, has carp also, although you won’t find carp north of where the Lamington River flows into it. The Lamington, however, has carp as far upstream as Fiddler’s Elbow Country Club.
Why It’s not Spot Burning
It’s no secret fish exist in the North Branch Raritan, nor that the river exists in certain ways open to description. Given that I know a little about it, the question is whether I should hide what I know from others. The river is not mine, and while some will tell me it doesn’t matter, I should protect what I know, I don’t believe serving the interests of ignorance is superior to the honor of education. And as much as I teach anyone else, I teach myself. It’s the relationship that brings things to light.
Secrets I don’t divulge—everyone has them—aren’t the issue. And rather than this article’s and many others I write consisting of personal values, they amount to sociability. To raise the status of the North Branch by opening some of it up to my own and other people’s knowledge affirms that river. What other status can it possibly have but what we bestow upon it as a society? Without at least one of us acknowledging it, the river is a complete unknown, as status depends on intellect’s drawing upon what it learns. Fish will thrive without us, but they don’t have the social institution of language to convey the river’s value.
People can and do trash the North Branch, lowering its status, but they are in the minority, and people like Sustainable Raritan Award winner, Andrew Still, do clean-ups. Not everyone needs to care about the river; it’s not within everyone’s scope of interest, but some of us want to be informed about it, so I write.
The lower North Branch below the confluence with the Lamington River is rocky and gravelly in the channel but collects a lot of silt. Here semi-aquatic arrowhead plants grow.
Matt Litton with a 27-inch carp caught on the North Branch in Branchburg. He hooked it on a Yum Dinger fished from a canoe, which we beached so he could land the fish.
Matt Litton with a nice smallmouth caught at Branchburg. We’ve caught others as large as a sliver under 19 inches.
Below the confluence with the Lamington, more largemouth bass exist, although we’ve encountered them upstream in Bedminster, too.
Lower River
Comparison to the South Branch Raritan would be a natural place to start, although the North Branch can be compared to any North Jersey river, including the Rockaway, Passaic, Musconetcong, Pequest, Paulinskill, Ramapo, Big Flatbrook, and others, each markedly different. Maybe the Big Flatbrook compares best. Both streams are rocky for their entire length, but there are major differences. For example, you won’t find carp in the Big Flatbrook. Below the confluence of the Lamington River with the North Branch, carp exist where the river does get deep and muddy, even though plenty of gravel, rocks and stone continue to characterize the bottom.
Kevin Ortiz, who guides on the North Branch, told me he and his clients catch wild browns below that confluence, even though the Lamington raises the North Branch’s temperature during the warm months. A state electroshock survey was done at Fiddler’s Elbow Country Club in 2016, two little wild browns discovered in the Lamington along a golf course, but inside the club’s borders, there are 15-pound carp. On down to the confluence, the Lamington is more like farm water, compared to the freestone character of the North Branch especially upstream in Bedminster where no carp exist but white suckers and bullhead catfish do.
The North Branch Raritan flowing low just below Far Hills.
Fall-stocked rainbow trout caught at Bedminster in early November, black marabou jig at the mouth.
Upper River
Further upstream—above Bedminster, Natirar, and where a dam forms Ravine Lake—the North Branch is a small stream mostly bordered by private land, though some access exists where wild browns can be caught. I’m certain no suckers or catfish. It might be possible to catch a native brook trout, because a tributary flowing near Sammy’s Restaurant in Mendham Township has them. Living in Chester with my wife during the 1990’s, I read about that creek and paid a visit. I spotted, among numerous little ones, a brookie fully nine inches long. The tributary isn’t nearby India Brook, which used to be stocked with brook trout.
Wild Browns
Wild trout downstream in the Bedminster region raise a fascinating question. Are these resident fish, or do they only enter the river from Peapack Brook during the cool weather seasons? Ortiz told me the biggest he’s caught is 18 inches, but Tim Carmen, who used to be a butcher at the supermarket I worked for, has fly fished Peapack Brook. He told me about a 16-incher, so nice fish exist in both streams. It’s not as if an 18-inch brown proves river residency. My feeling, though, is that river residents do exist, perhaps spending summers in Bedminster above the confluence with the Lamington. Tim’s father, Richard Carmen, wrote a fishing column for the Bound Brook Chronicle during the late 1950’s. I wonder how long ago the river and Peapack Brook were first stocked with browns.
Spring Trout Stocking, Smallmouths and Largemouths
Spring trout stockings by the state amount to the most popular river fishing. The fall and winter fishery, less popular than that of the South Branch, is also available year to year. Stocking points are posted online by Fish and Wildlife, but trout spread through the flow.
Bass don’t inhabit the river’s entire length, but a relative few largemouths do exist, easily inferred by mention of deeper, muddier water, though I’ve hooked them upstream in Bedminster. Purportedly more swim the lower South Branch stretches, turning up seldomly when the all but ubiquitous smallmouth bass gets targeted. (I don’t believe you’ll find any bass of either species near Mendham.)
I’m a veteran of the former abundance of smallmouths in Mercer County’s Stony Brook, so I know a big one when I see it—they came as a surprise when I began fishing the North Branch more than two decades ago, my biggest from Stony only 16 inches. Suddenly, I was into bass nearly 19 inches long, my son and I spotting one over 20. On a more recent North Branch occasion, a bass my son said looked like five pounds tried to eat a nine-incher he played while positioned in a canoe. The late Jim Stabile, who enjoyed a much-noted career as an outdoor writer, told me he canoed the same stretch of river from the Lamington River confluence to Route 28 during the 1950’s, catching a five-and-a-half-pound smallmouth. That was about the time Carmen was writing.
Summer is the best time to fish smallmouths, if for no better reason than the river’s making the heat comfortable. You can catch plenty in September, though the water gets chilly and doesn’t feel as nice on the skin. Wet wading in October, my legs got numb. In recent years I’ve worn waders.
Access available from Natirar to the Raritan Confluence, the stretch between the Lamington River and Route 28 is something of an exception to that, about two-and-a-half miles mostly accessible by floating. Much the same can be said of the river upstream of Burnt Mill’s Road, because it flows through several miles of private estates, though people have put kayaks in at U.S. Highway 202/206 and floated through. I’ve parked at Stahl Natural Area, following a trail back. About a mile downstream, I found a low-head dam I hadn’t known about. The river will always conceal greater mystery than we know.