Picture of the Day: New Jersey Slob Brown

What exit am I from, you ask? The exit with the fat brown trout; that’s what exit. photo courtesy Scott Bowen

Anyone who lives in New Jersey quickly tires of being asked “What exit are you from?” by out-of-staters who think they are the very soul of wit. For those who see Jersey only from the Turnpike or the Parkway, the state looks like this:

The Elizabeth “skyline” at 65 m.p.h. photo via flickr

When I was in in graduate school at Rutgers, I discovered that there are many parts of the Garden State that live up to the nickname, and I cut my teeth on the South Branch of the Raritan River, which looks like this:

There be big trout in those waters. photo via waymarking.com

My friend Scott Bowen, a Jersey native who lives across the Delaware in eastern Pennsylvania, fished one of his old haunts last weekend in the Long Valley stretch of the South Branch and laid into the slob of a brownie at the top of this post.

As Scott put it, “That is not a trout; it is a pig dressed as a trout.” It took a size 14 olive Beadhead Woolly Bugger, fished on the dead drift. It was revived and released healthy.