Got out this morning in the kayak and had a banner day. Planned on light tackling with some Crappie and Perch, but was in for a BIG surprise. Was throwing a 2" swimshad when it got hammered by something. Drag starts screaming and its on. Fought this fish for a good 3 minutes before I saw it. Thinking it was a big Smallie, my jaw dropped when I saw those beautiful HYBRID stripes! Got her in the boat, estimated at 24". Sweet!
Thinking it was a fluke catch, I started bouncing a rapala on the bottom when no less than 10 minutes later, BAM. Another epic fight on 6lb test! No way it could be another Hybrid, right? WRONG. Got this one in the yak, a little smaller but still a solid, healthy 23" fish.
At this point I'm thinking that was it for the day. WRONG again. Went back to the swimshad and picked up two big mommas of a different species. Lost what would have been a new PB Smallie at the boat after some crazy acrobatics. I was bummed for no less than 5 minutes when I get slammed again. Great fight, thought it was another Hybrid, but was greated by a big Largemouth, my biggest of the year! Realizing I had my tape measure, she taped out to 21".
Wind picked up and I was off the water by 2pm. One of my best and most surprising days on the water in a while. Don't sleep on any of these big NJ rivers, you never know what you'll catch
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EDIT: I apologize for the subpar pictures. My Galaxy S3 took a crap yesterday and my GoPro was dead. Only way to get some pictures was with the crappy loaner flip phone from T-Mobile!
