Big D Surprise Musky and Smallmouth

[Pondhopper8]

Hit the big river this week again. Temps were 45-49 Wednesday to Thursday. Got into a bunch of smallmouth on spinnerbaits, Neds and tubes. Lots of 12- 14 inchers with fat bellies with a few larger mixed in. Fish were pretty spread out all the river. I caught them in mid depth soft current as well as up in shallow faster water. Drifting down river and saw a mark right on a drop off from 5 feet down to 14. Tossed my jig up river and dragged it right off the drop and hooked up. Thought it was a heavy walleye at first then when I got it up saw it was a lower 30’s Muskie. Took some runs on my light pole and peeled some drag. She was hooked right in the corner of the mouth. Always nice to see the little ones. Looking forward to the warm up and come May I’m gonna start concentrating my efforts on Muskie again in a stretch of river I’ve never gave the effort in. Will report back. Also if you are interested in Muskie fishing we have 4 spots open in Muskies Inc NJ Muskie School taking place May 17th on Greenwood Lake. I’ll include poster below for anyone interested. Hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weekend!
https://i.postimg.cc/5H6ZBfJ8/IMG-3580.jpg (https://postimg.cc/5H6ZBfJ8)

https://i.postimg.cc/F7N8Pymr/IMG-5994.jpg (https://postimg.cc/F7N8Pymr)

https://i.postimg.cc/KK6stLJy/IMG-6354.jpg (https://postimg.cc/KK6stLJy)

https://i.postimg.cc/5jSbNN2t/IMG-6355.jpg (https://postimg.cc/5jSbNN2t)

https://i.postimg.cc/ctm9qzZs/IMG-6357.jpg (https://postimg.cc/ctm9qzZs)

[Broad Bill]

Nice healthy looking musky. Is that a tiger or true strain. I believe they're stocked in the Delaware but is there true strain natural reproduction as well? Nice small mouths, just a great fish to catch especially river fish that are that much stronger. Great stuff!

[Pondhopper8]

Nice healthy looking musky. Is that a tiger or true strain. I believe they're stocked in the Delaware but is there true strain natural reproduction as well? Nice small mouths, just a great fish to catch especially river fish that are that much stronger. Great stuff!

Bill,
That is a juvenile true strain. Both tigers and true strain are stocked in the Delaware. PA stocks only holdover true strains 12-14 inches odd number years, alternating stocking locations. NJ stocks both true strain and tigers in the Delaware but those fish are usually what’s leftover after all the lakes have recieved their stockings. The fish go through the motions of spawning every year but the success rate is probably very low(that is straight from the biologists that manage the river). Smallmouths are a blast! So cool how strong they are and how they utilize the current during a fight. A smaller fish can really fool you into thinking it’s a bigger fish when they are using that current

[Gerry Zagorski]

Nice catch Pond! These river fish really do put up an extra hard fight!