Raritan river 6/5:

[Doug Vitale]

Originally Posted by AndyS

Heard some good reports from this morning and headed down to Roberts St. (soon to be removed falls) Talked and mingled and did a few throws. Lots of people fishing, that's a good sign. Listened to stories of trout, walleye, pike and musky.

It's easy to confuse pike and musky because of their similar shape.

According to the State's stocking records, musky are not stocked in the Raritan River. They are stocked, however, in the Delaware Raritan Canal. A total of about 800 small muskies were released into the canal in 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2010. According to the Hackettstown Hatchery's records this was done near the 10-Mile Lock in Zarephath.

The man who used to own the bait & tackle shop in Bound Brook in the 90's did tell me that he and some other guys stocked the canal with a couple hundred muskies near the Queen's Bridge in South Bound Brook.

Now every once in a while, some canal water will flow into the Raritan after periods of very heavy rain. As a result, it's conceivable that some of the muskies swam from the one body of the water into the other. However, I still think that the true muskellunge in the Raritan are very few and far between.