June 16, 2026 – A Solo Walk Through Coal Country on a Perfect June Morning – NEPA

A perfect morning.

With Brian’s blessing and some intel, I took my second Tuesday in a row to fish for the trouts before the fishing for the trouts is but a memory (at least until late September or early October).  I visited a watershed that I have fished a few times now with Brian.  It was a backup plan when I noticed, with the exception of the Lehigh River (which I may fish on Friday this week), all the creeks I typically visit in June were way too low and getting too warm without some help from Ma Nature.  I dropped a thermometer in this creek today, and it was 60 F at 11 AM, so there is time, but we need rain, real rain, to help the cause even in this watershed.  The thing with AMD in this region of the state is that it sometimes creates an artificial limestone experience with the deep bore holes from former mining operations.  The color is a bit off, surely not that pretty limestone green, and the rocks show the rusty color of what scary stuff is in the water, but the water is undeniably cold.  The Brodhead by comparison is hitting 70-something each afternoon now—also known as done until the fall.  It was a perfect weather day for humans, so I was not uncomfortable in waders today, but waders seem like a necessity here even if I'd wanted to wet wade (I did).  That doesn’t stop the locals from swimming, but maybe they are made of tougher (uninformed?) stuff.  Two young bucks floated by on tubes today!  I am thinking Ward and I would have done the same, orange water be damned on a hot day during summer vacation.

A good start with a pattern established before 6:30 AM.

I was suited up to slide down into the creek before 6 AM, and after a short walk upstream, I bet I was fishing by 6:15 AM.  It was a really nice morning: low humidity, high 40’s, sun just starting to show in gaps in the mountains.  I had a couple pins from Brian, but I punted when I saw a landmark or two I recognized.  I decided to fish first and then check out a couple new spots.  This first stretch showed better than it produced when Brian and I fished it together.  We caught fish, many fish, but after a slow start where some really nice holes gave up no fish despite looking so good.  There was also a dude fishing one of the first nice riffles that morning.  I dropped into that stretch and fished up to the riffle using the low light to cover the back of the run in case they were set up there.  I quickly learned that they were up in the bouncy stuff and feeling strong and happy.  I caught a solid wild brown and an average fish in that first spot and luckily found the pattern that worked for the next five hours straight.  No big fish unless you count a couple mutant stocker bows who must get in from community stockings and stocked tributaries, but it was a numbers day for sure.  I lost count after a while and was wetting my hands and releasing many fish without the net by 10 AM.  Too many 8-10 inch fish in each likely spot.

The trifecta before noon

Throughout the course of the morning, I likely notched the wild fish trifecta: brown, bow, brookie plus two varieties of creek chub/minnow.  Those rough natives were the ones hanging in the back of the runs in the deeper water, which is sometimes a sign that the end of spring fishing is near.  Here, it is also a great sign that all the wild species are coming back from the brink of extinction.  I have seen a heavy midge presence each time I've been here, but I have seen caddis in decent numbers too.  Today, I actually stopped and watched wild browns take caddis off the surface for a good 10 minutes before I caught the three of them with my dropper tag—the same red tag CDC blowtorch that Brian and I had to beat the fish off of on our last visit, a fly that does a great job of looking like an emerging caddis pupa too.  I also caught a lot of small wild browns, likely two year olds, and even a couple YOY in those creek chub holes.  Along the way there were some solid wild browns and some spunky, acrobatic wild rainbows—the descendants of diploid fingerling stockings.  They prefer very different water, and they are fun to pull out of shallow, fast riffles where they don’t hesitate to clobber your offerings.  Brian was convinced I might bring up a piggy today, but when I thought I had hooked one finally, it was a big stocker rainbow.  I even put on a streamer in two holes that yell big fish live here! and only found a couple average browns wanted Eric’s big bugger.  I like big trout, of course, but I was content with the numbers today, honestly.

More insane rainbows.  The bugger hail mary only netted average size fish.

I was running out of drinking water around 11 AM, so I fished two more spots on this beat, left them biting (and rising) about 11:45 AM, and started hiking back.  The plan was to take a break in a park with some shade, eat, drink an iced coffee, and then explore a couple of the pins Brian shared.  I backtracked to a nice community park on the river with a shady tree and a picnic bench.  This happened to be a place Brian and I met one morning and actually fished.  When my son texted around 1 PM that he may get out of work early, I decided just to fish here after my break.  My wife was out with her car, so he was going to need a ride from me (or an Uber).  I don’t much love fishing in the heat and high sun, anyway, so I pledged to fish another hour in my current location and call it good.  This was not the adventure I had planned, but I was happy seeing spots for the second time and figuring some stuff out without Brian sharing his knowledge along the way.  It's typically how I learn cricks, anyway.

The locals don't seem to mind the potentially toxic sludge ;)  Even saw risers today.

I caught more wild browns in the heads of riffles after catching chubs back deeper in the runs, but they were more pecky and therefore more challenging.  The size of the active fish was also dropping.  It was the afternoon lull that I may have fished through on a different day.  It might have been a great time to explore one of Brian’s pins, but I stopped at the end of the next riffle and plunge below a low head dam.  It was here that I think my boys the tubers put in.  They were happy and polite as they drifted by, and I was kind of jealous standing there in my waders—but that orange water, you know?  At the end of the line, I saw a fish up in the water column moving like he was feeding.  Compared to my last four fish on this beat, he was a stud, maybe 12 inches or more.  He actually ate my bugs on the first cast at him, dug into some wood, leaped twice, and was gone.  That was my reminder to head for home before afternoon traffic started picking up.  It would have been a nice note to end on, but it kind of was anyway.  A brief exciting battle in a challenging spot after a day of very cooperative trouts, most of which stayed on the hook.  My guide in absentia (well, over text message) was happy for my success despite laughing at my lack of exploration today.  Even without the ride share duty to my son, sometimes it’s fun to visit new spots a second time solo and just do my own thing there, so I have no regrets.  It was a Tuesday in June with many, many wild trouts.  All good.

Many pretty wild fishes, most of which escaped the camera lens today.

June 9, 2026 – A Long Tour of the Lehigh River with Distinguished Guest Stars – NEPA

A pig, a donkey, just a thick one.

I got up at 3:15 am today and was on the road to meet Larry at 6 AM in the Lehigh River gorge.  I did not roll into my driveway tonight until 10:15 PM, after finishing the day with some dry fly fishing with Tigereye Joe up above White Haven.  It was my first trip wet wading, and I don’t recommend wearing wet pants that long to anyone.  I could have used some Triple Paste from the diaper bag by 8 PM, but it was worth it.  It got pretty hot by 1 PM, so I would not have made it all day in waders, anyway.  Fishing was challenging, as it can be on the river, especially with the wild fish, but I had a good day with good company, and I even caught a huge brown on Eric’s big, heavy jig streamer.  One major purpose of the morning round was to give Larry a mono-rig lesson, and had he caught some fish, it would have made for a much more successful day.  I think we’ve long established that I can be a terrible guide despite my best intentions (just ask my son).  Larry can fish and read water, which is half the battle, so he was in the game and would have caught.  We picked a heck of day and venue for his lessons, but he wanted this!  Honestly, even I had to go into my bag of tricks to get bit today.  That huge brown was hugging the bottom in current in a little spot within a spot, and I needed close to a ¼ ounces of tungsten to get Eric’s bugger down to him.  Other fish came on the swing, but heavy swinging tungsten bugs, so not many were coming off the bottom while we were in the gorge.  I had to figure some stuff out, and even then I had some challenges.  I lost another good brown after Larry left, and before that I broke a rod while fighting a fish.  It ended up being quite the day and not the one I had planned.

Larry doing it all to catch (and photographic evidence he once fished a mono-rig).

Larry gave it a shot for a couple hours before cutting off the mono-rig and swinging wets and even tossing a big dry.  He moved a couple fish that way late in the morning, but I think by then he’d taken such a Lehigh beating that he wasn’t ready when the few opportunities presented themselves.  Lord knows, I have been there, and more often than I’d like on big rivers.  Even when the water is low and you can move around and get at fish that would be off limits in higher flows, the fish still have to be willing to meet you halfway.  They decided to be dicks today.  One even made me strip him in by hand with mono and the top four feet of my broken 10’6” 4 weight rod.  It was like they wanted us to suffer a little.  To that end, after Larry and I parted ways about 12:30 PM, and I had a couple hours before I was going to call Joe for our meetup, I returned to a honey hole and caught rainbows and dropped the aforementioned good brown that tentatively took a perdigon on the dropper tag.  It was another wide, wild brown too!  At least the cooperative rainbows were a good sign that Joe and I had a good chance of getting into fish for the third shift.   Joe actually called a little after 2 PM to check on me when I didn’t check in with him.  I had intended only to put in an hour and then take a break to prepare for round three, but it was 3 PM before I arrived at our meeting spot.  I get more obsessive with figuring stuff out when fishing is tough, and figuring it out only to lose a good fish, well, that makes me stay even longer sometimes!

I did catch 8-10 fish early, including some other wild browns, but it was work sometimes.

Joe had gotten into fish for a few evenings, mostly prospecting with big dry flies, but there were hatches happening too.  We were hoping to get into a mess of rising fish.  True to today’s general character, we encountered very few bugs and only brief flourishes of rising fish.  Joe is a better guide than me, however.  I got a couple fish prospecting with a stimulator, and then dug up a wild brown and a couple small natives while working through pocket water with a dry dropper.  When we ended up in the same hole a while later, Joe suggested an Adams in size 16 ahead of the setting sun.  Even with my eyes tired from a long day squinting in the sun, I took his advice and tied on a smaller dry.  I trust my casting accuracy, so even blindish I know where my fly lands and have an idea where it’s drifting enough to set when a fish shows.  I had a blast targeting a handful of risers in a riffle, and we both had fish eat just fishing the water.  If you got a fly in the spot without drag, even for a couple feet of good drift, you had a shot at a trout playing along.  I teased Joe that he was getting cocky, calling out spots for me, but he knows this river well.  Thankfully, I am competent enough that I did not let him down.  I used to do this dry fly thing quite a bit.

Joe out there making it look effortless.  A quality stocker.

We arrived too early to catch evening risers, so Joe gave me a walking tour of a couple of holes while we just caught up.  It had been since last June since we’d fished together.  I recall that was a tough day too.  On the tour, Joe pointed out a few places where he noted that if you got a dry close enough to a certain rock or foam line you would get eaten.  When we fished close to each other as the night closed, he pointed at some of those spots again, and I executed the plan.  He was not wrong about any of the spots, of course.  Besides the one wild brown I caught and the dink brookies, Joe caught a decent wild brown and a legal brook trout that certainly looked wild.  Where there are tribs with brookies, this happens on the river.  Most of the fish were stockers, but they were all on dry flies and fun.  Joe and I actually talked about the confusion around chasing buckets dumped at a bridge vs big water, often float-stocked, where fish are spread around and holdover.  There are some quality stockie experiences in PA, as many of you know: Pine, Brodhead, Bald Eagle, (begrudgingly) the Tully, and certainly the Lehigh River.  And they are not always pushovers.  After the challenging morning, I was glad that these stocked fish were cooperative.  Despite some sore muscles and the diaper rash, it was a fine day with finer company, like a three-day fishing vacation crammed into one.

Joe called this my Orvis pose.  I had to share with Josh and Brian to prove I own fly line!

May 31, 2026 – Where I Land a Bombshell/Queen/Matriarch of a Wild Hen – NEPA

First self-fish of 2026

I am pretty sure this is my first really big trout of 2026.  Sure, I have caught some good fish this year, but this is the first one where I leaned the camera up on a rock and yelled, “Shoot!”  My first self-fish of the year.  I did not dig out the tape measure, but my hands from pinky to thumb are eight inches fully extended, which has been my go-to for many years.  It’s close enough for me and preferable to measuring on my rod or my net handle.  I can usually get an estimate in the wet net and not have to handle a big fish too long with my method.  I have also caught enough big trout to call it like I see it, even if Brian (and others) would say my estimates are conservative!  There are a lot of 17s being held up on social media that are called 20s.  I really don’t care about tracking PBs and such.  It was a big fish.  She was in the twenties, maybe 23 inches, a female version of a stud, a bombshell, a cougar.  I honestly came to this section of this creek for some redemption, so it could not have worked out much better.  I fished this creek a couple times last year, once solo and once with Tigereye Joe, and both times I tangled with huge trout that got off.  I never saw either fish, so I didn’t know if I was looking for a bombshell or a stud or even a pig holdover rainbow—although I was pretty sure from the way the fish(es) fought that it was a brown.  Consider me redeemed as of this morning.

A big, mature female specimen!

I wasn’t even sure of my stream selection when I arrived.  Had I made the right call?  I was disappointed that the bump from the rain had not lasted longer, but I was suited up and stepping into the creek at my first hole by 6:45 AM, so I had the low light on my side for a couple hours, maybe more with the trees.  I thought about moving to a bigger creek or even the Lehigh River, but I stayed when I quickly caught a decent wild brown up shallow in some pocket water.  If all the fish were moving into summer patterns and shallow when actively feeding, then I had a potential pattern and a potential shot at finding one of those big fish.  After hooking a mid-teens rainbow that jumped 5 times and finally got off, it was nothing but dinks for an hour straight.  It felt like déjà vu from Friday, right down to fly the little fish were enthusiastically eating, a little CDC tag fly on the dropper. I had to fish the honey hole though, so I worked my way upstream, picking up a dink here and there along the way.  I could nearly see to the bottom of the waist-deep hole as I got close to the spot, so I slowed down, stayed stealthy, and minded my mud. 

Crick pics.  Low.  But nature did some tree work since last June.

At least the fallen tree that had plagued Joe and I last year had died and broken down enough to allow passage to the head of the pool.  It was still in the way of effectively fishing some of the best water, but I made do with the improvements to access.  I also kept my assumption that any fish that wanted to eat were shallow and nymphing.  In the absence of any signs of mayfly hatches, I had switched out my anchor fly a couple times, finally landing on a small perdigon that would be stealthier and closer to the small caddis and midges present.  Nothing had eaten the anchor fly all morning, anyway, so it was more of a delivery system for the dropper, but it was a good choice.  I worked the bouncy water all the way to the head without so much as a bump before I switched to the stealthier point fly, which would still get the dropper down but in a quieter manner as it landed.  I gave the creek a wide berth and fished the same pocket water a second time, and this time my drift stopped in a little depression.  I set the hook and fought this trout to the net without truly appreciating her size until we were well into the battle.  

Some other fish pics.  That size 16 blowtorch is still doing work this month.

In the broken water and sun glare, I did not get a full look at her until we were in that final standoff where she was just dogging and I was holding her tight to keep her from taking a run downstream.  That was how she or her cousin got off last year—just darted at some point for the sanctuary of the deep hole and all its sticks and boulders.  Not today.  I got a photo in the net in case she didn’t cooperate, but it had finally registered how long she really was, so I took the time for a hand-with-fish shot AND the selfish before placing her in a clean, shallow spot to recover.  I needed more time than her, as she shot back into the riffle within 20 seconds of me placing her back in the creek.  I fished for another hour, even found another potential honey hole I had not fished before, but I only found more dinkers for the rest of the morning.  It was getting too hot and sunny for my liking, anyway, so I was on the road home by 11:30 AM, happy and redeemed.  I may be back here if it rains again, however😉

Bonus shot.

May 29, 2026 – Where Brian and I Pick through the Small Fish and Eventually Find a Few Day-Makers – NEPA

A couple studs.

I met Brian at about 6:30 AM on Friday.  He has off every other Friday this summer, so we had this one penciled in since the last time we met up in this same area earlier in the month.  Today we returned to a creek we fished together last June.  Early that morning, I miffed the landing on a pair of really solid wild browns, but Brian did not squander his chances.  I was just happy fishing a new creek and seeing the potential, totally content to be Brian’s personal photographer.  We ended today about 3 PM fishing some of that same water, and it did not disappoint.  Today, Brian got to be the photographer.  I landed a trophy native brook trout AND our only really good wild brown several hours and nearly zero calories into our long day.  Brian had our only rainbow and a run of like 5 fish in 6 casts on this stretch of the creek too.  It was a solid ending to a good day, but it was not without its challenges, mostly with finding adult fish.  That said, I will take a day when the biggest challenge is too many cooperative two-year old trout.  That is late spring fishing on a healthy creek for you.  We must have caught 50 trout between us, but 30 of them were likely born last March and the previous year.  These were strong year classes, and it bodes well for future fishing here.

Had to work for the adults, but a good one and some solid ones eventually cooperated.

After meeting at our fish spot and suiting up, Brian and I took a little walk into some beautiful water.  It was a pretty cold, so we were both grateful for the aerobic activity to start the morning.  We spooked a few deer while bushwhacking into the first stretch of riffle and run.  The little fish were all over Brian from the start.  I bet he had 8-10 fish in the first hour, all on a small blowtorch on the dropper.  This is what produced the last time we were out, so he had taken time to tie some up for today.  I started with a bugger and had a few soft grabs that resulted in fish.  The water was really cold after the rain had worked its way through the system.  Brian dropped a thermometer late in the afternoon, and it was 58 F, so I can imagine it may have been at least two, maybe three, clicks below that at 7 AM.  This creek has a heavy canopy, so the bright sun was not reaching the water for most of the day.  None of my fish took the bugs with authority, the drift just stopped, so you had to be ready for anything a little different.  I resorted to something I often do in winter and early spring: I give a short wrist-snap hookset when I know my bugs are in the sweet spot.  As my boy Sam (still) says, "Hooksets are free…"

That #16 blowtorch accounted for 80% of the fish on this gorgeous crick.

My fish were bigger, though certainly not big, but I was getting jealous of all the action Brian was having, so when I lost Eric’s black bunny leech to a stubborn, woody snag, I rerigged to nymph myself.  Most of the fish were eating a blowtorch on the dropper tag, which does a good job of imitating emerging caddis, and small dark sedges were plentiful.  I started getting into numbers too.  We moved quickly through some good water and found pockets of fish in the prime spots, but a good fish was probably 11 inches during this first round of fishing.  Brian had a plan.  We did not have to move the cars during a brief break to refill our waters and have a snack.  We just had to walk upstream this time to a couple really good holes we fished last year.  In a hole where Brian caught a big old brookie last year, he landed our first brown over 12 inches, and I followed up with fatty that was about an inch shorter.  Things were looking up. I got walloped for the first time all day, so much so that the fish took my dropper tag, and I caught a 7-inch brook trout, but the honey hole on this stretch was a disappointment.  Last June, Brian landed a couple of good wild browns here, but we did not even get so much as a hit today.

Reach for that far seam, mitch!  A decent one that cooperated early.

Brian had one more move in mind, a hail mary round or a redemption round.  After 1 PM, we took a drive to the place were a dull hook on one of Eric’s buggers that I had loved too much without treating to a hook hone cost me a couple mid-teens fish.   We slid into some deep water at the end of a long run.  We had to hug the bank to avoid filling our waders!  Pollen was fierce, and I almost threw up from a coughing jag as we used the riparian rhodies to keep us from slipping into the deep.  I had flashbacks of Joe and I trying to get around and then through a fallen sycamore last year, which oddly enough, made me think I needed to return to that creek on Sunday!  It was in this deep end of the run where I landed a brook trout that was probably the biggest one I have caught in decades.  Brian thought it was 12 inches.  I am always conservative with fish, but even I conceded that it was at least 11.  It looked like a mature male.  It was fat like most of the wild browns in this creek.  A trophy native.

A trophy native during the hail mary/redemption round.

As the water got skinnier, I found a few more wild browns.  I offered Brian the lead spot after I landed a couple, but he wanted me to fish this run out.  He may have been hoping that I get a little redemption from my previous visit!  I did not let him down.  In the sweet spot in the run, where I knew a good fish had to be if it was hungry and active, a solid hen ate my little blowtorch and just stayed put, dogging.  I knew it was a good fish even before she made a move and showed her long body to me.  I started backing down the bank when she started dogging again, so I was in position the first time I had a chance to get a net under her.  After a long day of hunting for a big fish to add to our collection of smalls and averages, I was not messing around with this one.  Brian was also ready with his net, but I waved him off.  Because he was right there, I got the photoshoot and the fist bump from my “guide.”  I am sure he was happy I got a good one from his crick.  I certainly was.  We should have quit after that, but I had to fish out the run.  I did hook a few more small fish, but we knew we weren’t going to top this brown today.  We are still due for a bonkers trip to this creek, and I don’t need much convincing that it will happen.  A good day with a good dude on a good crick that I am slowly starting to figure out.

Bonus shot.  I had to give her the "hand with fish" treatment too.

May 25, 2026 – A Day to Remember: Small Stream Sneaking in the Rain – SEPA

Some color after 3 days of rain.

Though not steady, we got rain for three days this Memorial Day weekend.  Nothing new.  I remember when Ward and I had a shore house for the summer and huddled under awnings drinking our beers every year at this time.  The unofficial start of summer and rain go hand in hand.  This is a good thing if you want to fish for trouts, however.  I had plans on Saturday, but I regret not making time to fish on Sunday afternoon!  Creeks spiked in places, but many small streams stayed very fishable. Eric and I had Monday bright and early on the calendar, so that helped me stay patient.  I did have a little FOMO since Josh and Clayton fished both days out in Central PA, and Josh even fished Monday.  Today was worth the wait.  We may have only notched 15 fish between us, but we managed to land some really good fish.  The best fish we have caught on this small creek was about 19 inches, but it was post spawn in the winter, so skinny and long.  Today, Eric landed a fat 17-18 incher!  Not 15 minutes later, I landed one slightly shorter but just as fat and mature.  Both of those piggies ate Eric’s jigged streamer formula, which accounted for a good handful of fish today, so he was doubly psyched.   

A big fish (two of them) in a small crick.

We probably started fishing about 6:45 AM.  We were in the area much earlier, but Eric wanted to stop at his parents’ house to “sit down.”  In theory, the pit stop would be quick since his parents were away for the weekend. I joked that he was going to stink up the locked house and probably stripe the bowl.  Little did I know (and Eric was none the wiser) that his dad in typical DIY handyman fashion had turned off the water.  Did I mention Eric had Mexican for dinner?  Anyway, we did start fishing early by most standards and in the rain even after that interesting detour.  This creek is in the farmland where Eric grew up, so his family homestead is within biking distance of the creek.  It was raining as we suited up, and it continued until about 9 AM before it tapered off to nothing.  It was swampy, so once the rain stopped, I had to stop back at the parking spot and lose the raincoat.  Eric caught a nice mid-teens fish on the bugger during this first rainy round, and I landed a couple fish from 10 to 13 inches on caddis nymphs, so not a bad start.  Once I could wear my amber lenses and not sweat it out in the rain jacket, I was feeling more ready for business.

Early success in the rain after an interesting pit stop.

We had a slow pick of fish up to the magic spots.  One memorable fish was a second solid streamer eater for Eric.  This fish was in a blowdown that has to shelter some pigs at times, but it is hard to fish and snaggy.  It’s the kind of place where you have to have a game plan in mind BEFORE you hook one in there.  Eric fought another nice 14-inch class fish and kept him from seeking shelter deep in the roots.  I had a similar fight for my last fish of the day.  It is a blast when they bulldog and you have to rope them into the net.  He was fishing 4X, but I was fishing 5X all day, so touch and go at least mentally—like, Are my knots good?  Did that last snag damage my leader or hook?  Low level anxiety is good sometimes.  Neither one of us made many mistakes or squandered opportunities.  When Eric dropped his heavy bugger into one of our honey holes, and I saw him set the hook, we both stayed quiet.  Earlier in the morning, when I thought he was fighting his first good fish like a mitch, I was offering backseat advice.  Not the case this time.  We both knew it was a big fish, and I just let him do his thing.  He was patient and brought the aforementioned pig to the net.  We have no pics besides the fight because the fish was still too green for the photoshoot, I guess.  I am glad Eric let the fish drop into the water instead of wrestling with it to insure we had a hero shot.  I saw it, he saw it, we both saw my fish that followed and agreed his was bigger.  

More fishes.  A good one from the log jam, but the real prize avoided the photoshoot.

I had been nymphing, as a good compliment to Eric chunking a big bugger, but my fish size by comparison suffered as a result.  I was not messing around (arguably, since I did tie a bugger with a 5 mm tungsten bead on my 5x leader!) when we got to the next honey hole.  With the bugger now tied on, my first cast was met at the back of the pool by a soft grab.  I should have known, but at the time and in the stained water, I was like, No, I don’t want a small fish to blow up the hole, I want big papa!  I set the hook hard anyway, and it became clear that I was not hooked into a little guy.  This was another stud fish.  If you want to imagine Eric’s fish, add an inch to the one I am holding earlier in this post!  For real.  We were in disbelief that two fish of this caliber came in two consecutive holes, barely 10 minutes apart.  I think a mitch hugged me he was so excited that his bugger had fooled 2 pigs like this and that our crick had been so gracious to us this morning.  This one got the full photoshoot and then hung out under my legs for 30 seconds before darting back into the muddy depths.

Nature b roll and some other nice fish came out to play.

We ended with a few more good fish over 12 inches, but we were not going to top the earlier pigs, so we quit and turned back around 11:30 AM.  We did not catch fish on the return, as we sometimes do, but we did see the nature show.  We nearly stepped on a new fawn.  She only moved when I pointed my camera 4 feet from her face.  I felt like I was taking B-roll for my non-existent YouTube channel, shooting a frog, a collection of snails climbing a reed, a sulfur, even a shot of the bugger that had done all the damage today.  Some days this creek gives up numbers, but I will take the size of these fish over numbers any day.  We did catch some variety of year classes, but it would be encouraging to see a dinkfest one day this summer, provided a mitch can get out again before winter.  It would be nice to know that the future year classes are as strong.  I have off this Friday, so a fishy May continues, I hope.

Some thick fish eating good.

May 18, 2026 – Way Too Hot for Mid-May and Not a Lot of Cooperative Post-spawn Fish – Susquehanna River

The Young Man and the Old Man

The Boy (now a young man) has been home from school for a week, laundry is done, final grades are forthcoming, and he doesn’t start work until Memorial Day.  I guess I knew last year that this time in May would be a good time for him to fish for a day with Glenn.  I was worried about the proximity to spawning season for bass, but the local bass have been done for a couple weeks at least, and fish on the Susquehanna are all over the calendar based on location.  Most seemed done too, but Glenn did avoid banks and certain shoals in favor of grassy islands and mid-river rubble, places they would/will be post-spawn.  He did really well yesterday, of course, so we did not give up on the types of spots that had produced for him.  We did not move around a lot, partly because he knew there were fish here, but also because he had to diagnose an electrical problem with the engine of his jet.  It ended up that a few contacts had vibrated loose and the system was throwing a code to protect the engine.  This is why I pay Glenn to take us out and don’t own my own boats anymore!  This time last year almost to the day, Young Kenny and I tore them up in the same general area of the river.   Of course, it wasn’t day two or three of a heat wave last year.  The pitch counter only hit 22 today.  Kenny and I have regularly hit 100, and the boy remembers 88 last year later in this same month. 

Tried to do math on me and tell me the percentage of big fish was higher with only 22 total.

Because of the forecast and the fact that Glenn had fished Sunday in the heat, we launched about 5:30 AM and only fished until noon.  By 10 AM it was already uncomfortably hot, so the last couple of hours were a chore.  The boy, who does not have my one last cast genes, sat out a bit the last hour.  I cannot do that, but I wish I could sometimes.  If I had stuck a high teens or 20, he would have gotten up, I am sure, but I did not.  He caught a couple in the 18-inch range, which is much better than what we could expect on the Delaware.  The same with 22 fish.  If my dad and I hit double digits on the Skuke or the Big D in SEPA, it was a good day.  We just get spoiled by the Susquehanna, and it is not cheap for a 6-hour trip these days.  Glenn was in contact with our boy Chris Gorsuch, and he and his party were having an equally challenging morning.  It happens, especially in this type of weather rollercoaster of a spring.  They don't know what's up any more than we do the last few years (decade?).

He let me catch a couple decent ones, but he definitely outfished me today.

All the Boy’s fish came on a paddletail swimbait, which is not my favorite lure to fish.  Even a crankbait feels like more active fishing to me for some reason.  Besides the tools for the electrical problem, Glenn had every rod out of the box, and he and I threw everything at them.  I got few on the paddletail of course, then a bug on a mushroom head, then a spinnerbait, maybe a chatterbait—there was no pattern besides fish with lockjaw.  On days like this, the little fish have to eat, so the average fish was smaller than usual.  The Boy reminded me that the percentage of good fish to small fish was better today than a day when we notch 100 fish.  I told him school was out and stop doing math, you damn future finance bro!  It was a good day with my son even if the fishing was tough.  We had lunch at quite possibly the last known Hardee’s in North America.  And we caught up about life on the morning drive.  He slept on the way home, so I was alone with my thoughts like usual.  I was thinking, a week of 90 degree days in May is not awesome.  I certainly hope the summer does not play out with these extremes again, but it seems inevitable.

A good May tradition continues.

May 16, 2026 – A Challenging Morning Followed by an Afternoon Flurry of Fast Action in Coal Country – NEPA

Brian in the spot.

I met Brian in Coal Country just after 7 AM this morning.  We had high expectations with good flows, and we quickly got into a few fish at our first spot, but we had to work for them for a couple of hours in between a decent start and a strong finish.  I landed three browns at the first hole, including one in the 14-inch range, but Brian lost one a lot bigger.  He will be replaying that failed fight for a couple days!  He did nothing wrong from my vantage point nearby.  The fish just came up to the surface and shook the barbless bugs.  We had high hopes after such a strong start, but the rest of this stretch of river did not really pay off.  The runs and riffles he showed me were really sexy looking, and there were many midges and some caddis showing, but the fish were dickish until after 10 AM when we fished a different spot with better visibility.  All the fish I caught in the first two hours or more barely stopped the bugs in the drift.  I probably felt none of the hits, just reacted to any slow down or pause in the drift.  The first spot was below a confluence and the water coming from one of the creeks was dirtier, which might explain why the fish were picky and pecky.  Even with a black bugger, Brian had more short strikes than committals.  I stuck to nymphing a heavy bug on the point and a CDC soft hackle in size 16 on the dropper.  That small dropper was a day-saver for me.  I landed a lot of fish on the fly, and Brian landed a number on the one I shared with him when he returned to nymphing.

A good start with 2 decent fish before it got challenging.

We made a move after a couple of hours at the first spot, and it was clear right away that the water conditions at the second spot were much improved.  Brian was now nourished with some grease from the BK in town, and I even had a few hash browns to top off my early morning PBJ and coffee.  We were ready to make stuff happen, dammit.  There were still good flows and a slight stain as we slid into this new spot, but the visibility was like fishing a green limestoner not a dirty freestoner after a rain.  That difference, and maybe a very quick warming of the air and water after a start in the 40s, may have made the difference at this second stretch of river.  We did not get into any real big fish, nor did Brian get any redemption for the big fish he lost, but we landed numbers.  I started fishing really shallow as the caddis presence increased, and like the CDC blowtorch on the dropper, that move helped changed our fortunes too. 

A venue change and some "wild" bows woke us up.

Don’t get me wrong, at this time of year, I will try shallow riffles everywhere, and I did at the first spot, but the attempts were finally rewarded in the late morning session. Typically, when caddis are active, at least some of the fish, and sometimes the better ones, will move up into prime, shallow feeding lies.  Just a small, slightly deeper bowl in a riffle or the lip below a small plunge will do just fine for fish of all sizes when emerging bugs and nymphs in the water column make it worth moving out of the holes and deeper runs. Ironically, a bigger stocker rainbow and then a mess of rainbows that were stocked as fingerings, bright and beautiful as a result, and nearly wild in behavior, gave us our confidence back.  After a flurry of the pretty and acrobatic, diploid bows eating in water from 8 to 12 inches deep, we were ready when wild browns eventually began eating in the same places.  We had to cover some ground to avoid wide and shallow spots, but that will happen on bigger creeks.  Brian knows his creek, and fish were present in numbers if not size in all his little honey holes and even some deeper cut spots that shared some of the same features as the honey holes.  I love pocket water fishing, so I was having a blast and had to remind myself out loud to step back after a run of fish to let my guide Brian also have some fun.  As I would be, he was just happy to see a buddy having success on his home creek, which was showing well finally.  

Some primo bows and a strong finish with wild browns.

Had Brian landed the first good fish, or we had found another in our travels, it may have been a very different day.  The run of many small to average fish would have been the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.  Either way, it was a fun way to end the morning.  It was breezy and clear-skied.  The sun was hot, even after losing a layer between spots, so we quit around 12:30 PM.  We hugged the shaded side of the RR tracks for as long as we could, but without the breeze, it would have been a swampy walk back.  I know a heat wave is coming, but it looks like it is only a few days, followed by storms.  I may need to meet Joe on the Lehigh or take Larry up there or both next week after the heat breaks.  Monday, the boy and I will be chasing smalljaws on the Susquehanna in 90-degree weather.  Hopefully, the bass are chewing and we can stay hydrated!  A rather fishy May marches on, mitches.

Rustbelt beauty?  Trout live in beautiful places AND uglier places with cold water ;)