South branch smallmouth and a surprise pike!!

[Pondhopper8]

Hey guys!! Hit the south branch for some smallmouth in my favorite section in Flemington. Caught a ton of them including this beautiful 22 incher!!, all on Ned rigs. Had a surprise guest as I looked down into the water and saw a Pike every bit of 40 inches!! Sad part was when he turned to swim away had, what looked like, a white Jitter bug stuck in the side of his face. Has anyone here ever seen pike in the south branch? I imagine he got washed down from budd lake.

[bigfishy]

Nice smallie!!!I've never seen em that far down....seen
them in the upper stretches....yrs age a couple dozen
were removed from the Califon area as they were
feasting on the troutskis...

[JimmyL]

Niiiiicce. Was he in the weeds?

Never thought there would be a pike in the SB. A game warden once told me there's a musky at a waterfall in that area.

[AndyS]

Nice bass !!

[Pondhopper8]

Originally Posted by JimmyL

Niiiiicce. Was he in the weeds?

Never thought there would be a pike in the SB. A game warden once told me there's a musky at a waterfall in that area.

Yea I was standing right in the middle of them and he was sitting right next to me

[Pondhopper8]

Originally Posted by bigfishy

Nice smallie!!!I've never seen em that far down....seen
them in the upper stretches....yrs age a couple dozen
were removed from the Califon area as they were
feasting on the troutskis...

A couple dozen!! That’s wild!

[bigfishy]

Ya it was easily ten plus yrs ago...what's wild
is seeing a three foot plus pike in a section of
river that's only ten foot wide....!!!

So did you site fish em???that would be sweet

[thmyorke1]

Could also come down from spruce run, including budd lake.
Dont tell the trout guys. As bigfishy warns, they seem to have a bounty on anything that hungers for 9 inch trout

That's a superb smb too. Sweet catch.