[briansnat]

I had a couple of hours free and decided to give the Passaic a try over the weekend because I was too lazy to take the cover off my boat. I used Google Earth to ID some potential access points. Most didn't pan out, but after driving around I finally found one at the end of a cul-de-sac in Montville.

River was down within its banks but the color of chocolate milk. Tossed a buzzbait for about 20 minutes with nothing happening. Then I started retreiving it with short jerks and it got slammed by what seemed to be a pike judging from it's slender shape. Unfortunately I didn't hook it. So I tried again with the short jerks and it got slammed in the same spot by what I assume was the same pike. Four times I did it and four times the pike hit it and missed. Stupid pike. He eventually lost interest.

After a while I switched to a jointed Rapala type lure and on my second cast a bass hit it and jumped and spit the lure. It was a darn big bass, probably in the 4-5 lb range.

Unfortunately I had somewhere to be and called it a day shortly after that. Certainly enough action to keep me coming back. Need to find a better access point though. The bank there was really slick and I almost wound up in the river.