July 19, 2016 – Storms They Giveth and Storms They Taketh Away (or Vice Versa) – Salvaging the Day with Some Trout on the Spinning Rod

Some beautiful wild browns made the morning a memorable one

I had been looking forward to an inshore fluke charter with the Ward party, who were on vacation in Ocean City this week and had the Adam Bomb booked for the day.  Winds had been bad for a few days, and then thunderstorms moved into the area.  The Tuesday forecast looked okay for a while, but the captain called Ward late in the day and cancelled when conditions changed and it looked like 5 foot seas in a strong North wind—and bad to mediocre fluking all season to begin with.  With his excited nephew onboard, Wardman was disappointed, as I was, but also relieved that he didn’t have to take a young bull out in snot and possibly put him off inshore fishing for a long, long time!  As Ward knows, having fished with me on his boat for 10 or 15 years, I am certainly more at home waist deep in the surf than 30 miles offshore, so I was okay with it too, I suppose.  Nothing worse than getting beat up for 8 hours for very little payoff, so Adam did us a favor, no doubt.  Occupied putting the boy to bed, I didn’t get word, however, until about 8 PM, so I was already packed up for a 3:45 AM departure to Cape May.  I knew I was not going to go to work, but I wasn’t at all sure what to do now!  I could meet my old man in LBI and fish the bay, I could set up and catch kingies in the surf in South Jersey, squint at tricos, or I could just throw a spinning rod and some plugs in the Subaru and wet wade the early morning bite.  Guess what I did?

Stained and normal flows for this time of July.

The storms gave all the streams in my area a little color, I bet, but in looking at the gages not many creeks looked like they spiked enough to make a real difference.  A couple in the Lehigh Valley looked to be normal for this time of the year, on top of getting a bit of rain, so I took a gamble that they would be cool enough, at least from 5 to 9 AM, so I went to bed with a rough destination, at least.  There was some early morning fog and mist as I made my way to the creek, but the air temps were comfortable enough that I got a chill with the first steps I took in the 67 degree water.  I had temps as low as 66 and as high as 68, but nothing over 70 degrees, and I mostly stuck to fast moving pocket water and downstream of a cold tributary, but 68 was why I quit before 10 AM and enjoyed the rest of the day with my family chasing Pokémon with our phones at the Elmwood Park Zoo…

One or two even before sunrise.

I hooked a nice wild brown on a CD 5 on my third cast, at least 15 minutes before official sunrise.  He jumped 5 times or more!  All the browns I caught today were ridiculously acrobatic!  One at least 13 inches long that escaped his mug shot was the most memorable on a day of memorable trout.  I hooked him in a small, fast and deep pocket, and he shot up so high, so many times that he landed on an exposed rock at my feet at one point.  Needless to say, I was struggling to keep him tight, but I landed him eventually.  Then after all that nonsense, I brought him to hand (I forgot the net today with my quick packing job) and, of all times, the trebles decided to let go.  Someday I will post all my botched photos: my arm, my empty wet hand, an empty net, impenetrable fog, tails with the rest of the fish in the water, or just the splash (out of focus) which is always awesome.

One of two beefy rainbows.

That was okay, though, because I landed several nice fish and tangled with double that amount.  I was trying to count on the way home, and then determine by the camera shots I had, and I arrived at 11 trout to hand—two brookies, two bruiser holdover bows, and the rest wild browns—an equal number, mostly little browns, shook off after short fights and hyperactive leaping, often towards me, which is not the easiest to manage sometimes yet is definitely exciting!

Many smaller wild browns like this got long distance releases...

I worked a quarter mile stretch of pocket water before I ran into a pair of minks having fun in the sun and water.  I took a short video trying to capture the festivities and managed to capture footage of one swimming at me, turning tail, and heading back to cover in a pile of streamside rocks.  I actually saw a third one across the creek from me as I made my way back towards my parking spot.  There were also at least 6 mergansers swimming in formation, so it’s a wonder any fish survive this stretch!  All it needs is a couple blue herons too.

As I said, the browns were in great shape, and the bows I caught were incredibly fat, strong and healthy, but I knew it was time to quit when a little brookie at the mouth of a small feeder struggled a minute to recover after a short battle.  A bigger, beautifully colored brook trout who probably outgrew the available food in the feeder creek, hit about 15 minutes later at the base of a plunge, his nose nearly in the shallow white water. He was a beauty, and shot back to his cold refuge, but 68 degrees has to be tough for a brookie.

A colored-up brookie

Around 9 AM, with about 3.5 hours of fishing, I hoofed it back to the ‘Ru, hoping to be on the road before 10 AM.  But I had to stop at a favorite log jam under a cool, shaded bridge.  I tossed the CD 5 into the mess of sticks and logs and dark water, and a brute of a bow violently hit the plug.  No jumping for this slob, who was as wide as a smallmouth bass, but he bulldogged and tried to get into all the obstacles he could before I got my hand under him for a photo.  The pic below is not distorted; he was that wide and fat.  I would estimate he was only 15 inches long, but the rest of his dimensions were very impressive.  What a way to end a great morning, especially after rebounding from the disappointing change of plans and only a tertiary pass at preparation compared to my usual pre-game machinations!

As wide as a smallmouth!