A good amount of people seem to think NJ has no holdover potential. While running errands yesterday I ended up driving through the area I grew up in. I had the rod in the car so I decided to check out some of my old favorite holes with the 15 minutes i had to spare. Now this river is trout stocked in the spring, but not in the fall. Water was very very low, but cold and clear. Walked up to the first hole and was shocked to see so many rainbow trout pulsing in the current, rising to feed on flies. At least a dozen. They weren't interested in the trout magnet, but a little smallmouth who was living with them was.
Moved down to the second hole, another dozen trout and a huge school of suckers. One trout shot out from under some structure and swiped at my jig, the biggest in the pool, but missed and after 10 more casts towards his hideout he never came back out.
A lot of people in NJ seem to think holdovers aren't a thing, that they don't make it to the fall. These were two extremely popular holes and they were chock full of them still. This stream is very similar to many others in the state, so if these trout could make it through this summer I imagine many others do too. What do you think?
