Fly Fishing New Jersey's Paulinskill and Stony Brook in Early May

This past weekend, I drove up to northern New Jersey to fly fish one of my childhood streams. I spent countless hours at the Paulinskill River as a child, throwing Rapalas to willing stocked trout. It was my late grandfather's favorite stream, and it was there that I learned the basics of trout fishing. As much as I don't like the river for technical reasons - it's slow, it's muddy, it's too warm, and it's full of stocked fish - I nevertheless enjoy stopping by once a year. I'm sure any fly fisherman reading this has a similar stream in mind. You know, a place where you learned the ropes, a place where you caught your first trout, a place where the outdoors became home.

After eating lunch with my sister and two best friends in the Poconos, Jackie and I briefly stopped at the Brodhead. We found more flowers than fish, including purple trillium, large toothwort, wood poppy, golden alexanders, chickweed, and Japanese baneberry. We then decided to head to the Paulinskill. In the overgrown horse pasture that's adjacent to the stream, we found a number of wildflowers: lesser celandine, spring beauty, and dog violets. As for the fishing, I caught two stocked rainbow trout on a size 14 bead-head pheasant-tail nymph and two stocked brook trout on a Rapala (nostalgia, nostalgia, nostalgia).

On our way home, we stopped at Stony Brook in Princeton. Stony Brook is a lot like the Paulinskill: muddy, slow, and full of stocked rainbow trout. In the waning sunlight, I caught one rainbow on a size 16 sulphur dun and another on the Rapala. We also photographed some yellow violets, ragwort, wintercress, thyme-leaved speedwell, and lesser celandine.

Image #1 - Catching the first fish at the Paulinskill
Image #2 - Purple Trillium
Image #3 - Second rainbow trout at the Paulinskill
Image #4 - Wintercress

Overall Total: 24

River Breakdown:

Spring Creek - 5 (4 Wild Rainbow, 1 Wild Brown)
Marshalls Creek - 4 (4 Wild Brook)
Paulinskill River - 4 (2 Stocked Brook, 2 Stocked Rainbow)
Penns Creek - 4 (4 Wild Brown)
Fishing Creek - 3 (3 Wild Brown)
Stony Brook - 2 (2 Stocked Rainbow)
Elk Creek - 1 (1 Wild Brown)
White Deer Creek - 1 (1 Stocked Brook)


Species Breakdown:

Brown Trout - 9
Wild - 9
Stocked - 0

Rainbow Trout - 8
Wild - 4
Stocked - 4

Brook Trout - 7
Wild - 4
Stocked - 3



Wild Trout - 17
Stocked Trout - 7


Trout 15+ Inches: 2


Fly Breakdown:
Olive wooly bugger, size 14 - 4 (4 Wild Brook)
Tan Caddis, size 14 - 4 (4 Wild Brown)
Black Caddis, size 14 - 2 (2 Wild Brown)
Green Weenie, size 14 - 2 (2 Wild Rainbow)
Bead-head Pheasant Tail Nymph, size 14 2 (2 Stocked Rainbow)
Bead-head Green Weenie, size 14 - 1 (1 Stocked Brook)
Blue Quill, size 16 - 1 (1 Wild Brown)
Blue Winged Olive, size 18 - 1 (1 Wild Rainbow)
Golden Stonefly, size 8 - 1 (1 Wild Brown)
Scud, size 16 - 1 (1 Wild Rainbow)
Sulphur, size 16 - 1 (1 Stocked Rainbow)


Angling Breakdown:

Fly Fishing Rod - 20 (8 Wild Brown, 4 Wild Brook, 4 Wild Rainbow, 3 Stocked Rainbow, 1 Stocked Brook)
Spinning Rod - 4 (2 Stocked Brook, 1 Wild Brown, 1 Stocked Rainbow)


State Breakdown:
Pennsylvania - 18
New Jersey - 6
New York - 0