The South Branch Raritan River flows 51 miles from the source at Budd Lake, to the confluence with the North Branch at Hillsborough, Branchburg, and Bridgewater townships. From High Bridge southward, a state-stocked trout fishery exists from fall through late spring, a relative few trout getting caught in the summer where the river is a resilient smallmouth bass fishery. North of High Bridge the river is also stocked and among New Jersey’s finest wild and native trout streams.
South Branch Outfitters (SBO) in Califon also stocks the river for the winter. One of the guides, Gerry Dumont, told me last winter, “It’s probably about 50-50 this time between rainbows and browns. In total about 400 fish. They were spread out from the top half of the Ken Lockwood Gorge to about halfway from the shop to Vernoy Road.” The state stocks from the mill dam 200 feet upstream of CR 517 in Long Valley, to the confluence with the North Branch. The springtime fishing is fantastic; the fall stocking supplies the river until the next spring. When I spoke to Dumont, the tagged SBO money fish of the Califon region, “Bubba,” remained at large.
Wild browns, wild rainbows, native brook trout all worthy pursuits. “Anywhere you have pressured fish, they’re going to be selective,” Dumont said, which applies anywhere on the South Branch. Comparing Catskills streams, he says of our river, “The hatch durations are shorter because the water warms faster. The major hatch is caddis.”
Above Long Valley in the Claremont he said “there used to be a ton of brookies, but the best brookie fishing is way up almost to Budd Lake. Now there’s more brookies by the bridge in Long Valley than in the Claremont, but where Electric Brook comes in, there’s a lot of brookies in that section. There’s still a decent number of wild browns in there, but I think the state is trying to get the brookies to come back.”
The Ken Lockwood Gorge – catch and release only – has wild and stocked trout, but Dumont finds it crowded. “I don’t fish the Gorge much with clients, but I like the South Branch,” he said, adding “There’s a lot of wild fish compared to other streams. It has more wild browns than the Musconetcong.”
It has those stocker browns, too, thanks to SBO. Comparing them to stocked rainbows, Dumont says, “I think the browns seek out certain spots of the river more, but once they find their spot, that’s their home. They won’t stick around where they’re stocked as much,” and he adds, “It’s hard to tell a holdover from a stockie, because stockies don’t all look the same. After a brown’s in the water awhile, it starts to get bluish spots in back of the eye, and you can tell if it’s wild or holdover because wild fish have a little more orange in the tail and adipose fin. A wild rainbow is not quite as wary as a brown. Not quite as selective. I don’t think there’s that many of them, but there’s some, even some in the Gorge.”
Not very far below the Gorge in High Bridge, plenty of smallmouths inhabit the river, but some are present in Califon, too, and above Vernoy Road. “John Collins got about a 3-pounder a couple years ago in the club,” Dumont said, adding that the many guides employed by SBO do take clients out for bass. “Later in the season when the water is too warm for trout, and people want a guide trip with us and learn how to fly fish, we’ll take them for smallmouths,” Dumont said.
He exemplified action downriver. “An old man came into the shop and wanted a guide trip for his grandson, saying, ‘I’m gonna come too, but you’re not guiding me.’ In other words, the guy was paying for only one person. I was fine with that, and Jimmy (Jim Holland) was alright with it. The boy might’ve been 10 or 12. On flies now, this is. He caught about 30 smallmouths. The biggest might’ve been 8 inches – down at the Stanton Station area.”
While “average stream bass” measure 8 or 9 inches long, big smallmouths do oblige. I never forget reading The Fisherman’s “Freshwater Report” in 2010 about a 6.6-pounder from the South Branch, weighed in at Efinger Sporting Goods. Make sure you add the South Branch to your fall stocking hit list!
Keep an eye out for Bruce Litton’s upcoming book release, “Microlight: Trout, Adventure, Renewal.” You can also check out the author’s spotlight on the North Branch of the Raritan in our March, 2024 edition Hot Spot feature.
