September 6 and 7, 2026 – A Couple Late Summer Walks with a Fly Rod - Let’s Call them Scouting Missions – SEPA

Should have been the spot, low water or not!

September can be crueler than March for fly fisherman.  Actually, even with saltwater fishing I have always had a love/hate thing when it comes to September.  The water is often cool enough to fish, but the fish don’t always get the memo.  I did great last weekend in NEPA, and the previous in Central PA, but I struggled this weekend in SEPA trying to stay close to home.  I think that is common too.  Comparing yourself to others at this time of the year is also rough since conditions vary by region, by type of creek, by weather and water conditions.  Mountain freestoner with some rain, magic hour.  Limestoner in between tricos and the next batch of olives, maybe not so good.  A creek with some limestone influence where fish move miles each year to seek summer refuge?  Easy to jump the gun.  I try to stay off social media in general but even more so this time of year.  Like this weekend, I just try to enjoy the cooler temps with a walk in the woods with a fly rod, knowing the party will start soon, albeit in fits and starts.  Some company and, like this weekend, some wildlife sightings often make the walks more enjoyable.  Eric and I fished our spot on Sunday morning and were met with typical September low water conditions and borderline temps in certain stretches.  As a result, we struggled to find much more than chublife during our time on the water.  We covered a lot of ground and got to assess the many changes that have happened since the spring.  A lot of tree work, manmade and natural, has occurred.  One favorite stretch looks like a beaver pond, but no rodent was involved, just two trees giving way.  It is great for duck hunting this fall, which the landowner will do, but not great for the fishing—nor the stream flow below this massive, growing impoundment. 

Buglife, chublife.

We had fun and got a lot of walking in.  We also spooked an immense buck, who had bedded on the bank right next to one of our honey holes.  Eric and I were sneaking up to the spot through the brush with high hopes of actually sticking a trout when we heard what sounded like a cow jumping into the deep hole!  Not long after, a huge animal with many, many tines scrambled under a cattle fence and up the steep bank opposite us.  As an archer, this made Eric’s day, of course, but it was pretty exciting for me as well.  Last night when Eric texted him that we’d be on the creek this morning, the landowner actually asked us to avoid a stretch of crick downstream of here.  He had been seeing a couple big bucks on his trail cams.  Either this was a third one, or Eric and I met one of his dream quarry this morning.  Notch this up to things you would not see if you had chosen to stay at home today.  To that add the stick bug that landed on Eric’s rod.  As for fishing, well, I dropped one brown trout after a short battle on a jigged bugger deep in a root ball.  Otherwise, we had to be content with chubs and other wildlife to keep it interesting.

Eric trying to make it happen and better flows on a SEPA limestoner.

I packed up on Sunday night in case I had the drive to get up again, but my research that night did not leave me charged up or with any clear plans.  I slept in and took care of some Sunday stuff on a Monday before the gorgeous weather gave me enough FOMO to pack up the ‘Ru for an evening adventure.  I drove under an hour to a SEPA limestoner to poke around for a few hours, but mostly to get out and enjoy the wet wading and the bushwhacking.  I spotted an eagle, jumped another buck, and actually caught three wild trouts.  Two of them were barely legal, but one was at least 8 inches long.  A family with young kids was out swimming in the creek, so I dropped a thermometer a couple different times and found temps between 66 and 62.  They and the trout were swimming in chilly waters.  Flows were also amazing for this time of year, so the springs were charged up.  I kept expecting to raise a good fish, and I even tossed a bugger after the sun had dropped below the western ridge.  Again, the fish really didn’t get the memo that conditions were looking prime out here.

Where's Wal-buck?

When I got up to the hole where I was convinced I might find at least once decent fish, I only found one of my two dinkers there and willing to eat.  All the fish hit a drowned ant pattern on the dropper tag.  In the absence of any aquatic bugs besides size 28 midges, a terrestrial was likely the move.  I thought I saw two pale evening duns, but I saw zero rises even at magic hour, so am not sure that prospecting with a terrestrial dry would have netted any more fishes than my nymphing and bugger chunking.  I hit one more hole upstream and then fished this honey hole again with a bugger.  Nada.  I tossed the bugger in likely spots on the way back, but I had a bit of a walk to take with limited daylight, so I moved back along the bank pretty quickly—and loudly enough to spook a decent buck and a couple doe.  I even thought I saw a coyote at a distance, but they are far more ghostly than deer.  I have had a sighting here in recent years, however, so it probably was not just my eyes playing tricks in the waning light.  Again, a reason or two beyond the actual fishing to get me off the couch and into the woods while I wait for the real fall fishing to commence. 

Some actually wild browns this time ;)

Yes, March is cruel but I have found that September can be as well.  Still, it was good to get outdoors in the much cooler temps and also spend some time with young Eric before deer hunting consumes his time.  I will probably be at it again next weekend.  Some bigger NEPA creeks are getting close to what I like to see, and there is always the longer drive to Central PA on the table.  When I look at the blog, September often has fewer trips than January, so I will be grateful and take a wet September with below average temperatures.  If I keep getting out of bed, there will be more big fishes and more double-digit days ahead.  Until then, I guess I just have to enjoy the changing seasons and the walks in the woods with a fly rod.  Patience, I tell myself.  Patience.

Bonus shot

August 30, 2026 – Other People’s Flies + It’s Only a Matter of Time Now – NEPA

Eric's bugger got us started.

I worked the early shift this morning and caught at least a dozen trouts, a mix of browns and holdover bows, including a really nice small stream fish as a bonus.  I was expecting much cooler water temperatures, but I was dealt mid-sixties, so fish were good but also not that active—with the overnight temps in the 50s, I was hoping for better, but I am still learning this creek in different seasons and have noted that next time mid-September is better than late August.  They would eat if you put it in front of their faces, and I guess I put it in front of at least a dozen faces between 7 AM and 11 AM.  They were tight to cover and mostly in holes with current, not riffles or seams.  Even though it was humid and gnatty, and I was wet wading, there were signs that seasons are changing rather quickly.  Some leaves falling, wildlife moving about, including three turkeys and a couple small bucks.  I did not see any aquatic bug life, and I tried a weenie and a drowned ant on the dropper without takers, but fish would eat buggy looking bugs.  I caught one fish, the one that opens this post and my first of the morning, on Eric’s small stream bugger, but I caught the rest on big bugs, small bugs, a perdigon, a big prince jig, even Josh’s bug I found stuck in my drying patch.  After loosing my small purple CDC dropper tag, I noticed what we are now calling the Funky Dutchman itching to get fished as my dropper.  Josh broke a rod when we were fishing last Sunday, so I let him borrow one of mine.  His fly was bycatch when I broke down that rod for the drive home.  It did not slay, as it has for him in the past, but I did catch a few fish on it before I hung it in a tree on a hero hookset in a tight spot.

The best of the morning with some early average fish.

I did get a couple things right: Flows were perfect, like late-June flows, the kind of flows when I can catch 30 fish on this creek in the same amount of time.  The rains we got in recent weeks also moved some stuff around or slightly altered holes.  I caught my best fish of the morning behind a logjam, not in front of a logjam, because the hole is now further downstream by a yard.  A nascent beaver dam in a side channel somehow created a deeper spot in a favorite riffle, and a good 11-inch fish came out of the deeper spot.  There were only bows in a spot I thought would be good summer holding water, but maybe they just outcompeted the browns in there today.   None of the fish got stressed from fighting me and my 10-foot 3 weight, but I still decided to quit at 11 AM anyway and not fish another long, usually productive beat.  That stretch is also mostly pocket water with few holes and longer walks in between them.  Fish did not seem to be active in random pockets or seams, as I noted above, so I decided to save that stretch for another visit on a cooler, buggier day.

A lot of holdover bows and Josh's Funky Dutchman digging up more browns.

The other thing I got right was the assumption that no one else would be on this stretch.  The only actual signs of life in the woods were deer trails when I had to bushwhack.  No other footprints or bobbers in trees or worm containers.  A good number of cooperative fish and some solitude was what I needed today after a very social week at work (and last weekend at the Josh Jam).  Because I ran into a road closure on the way up to this creek, which delayed my typical “Dawnstalker” (Larry’s new name for me) start time by 20 minutes, I took the scenic route home.  The route follows the creek for a while, and I saw no one else out at 11:30 AM as I made my return trip.  With how muddy the Skuke looked last week, not to mention the great flows in this trib, I thought the Delaware would look much less fishable.  It looked really good, maybe not wading good, but boats were out there fishing.  That would have been my other plan this morning had the gage shown a bit more wade-friendly, but I am glad I got up early and fished this morning.  I like trouts.

A real sexy spot and my last decent brown of the morning.

I am looking forward to the shorter days and longer nights, and I hope the overnight temperatures stay cool even if we hit 90 degrees during the upcoming week.  A busy work week ahead, but I do have the long weekend coming up and may suck it up and rise early at least one day.  Go figure: The summer grind is less of a grind if I can anticipate comfortable and productive fishing conditions.  I think there is more rain coming, as well.  I will not be at the beach next weekend mourning the end of summer, but I may be in NEPA jumping the gun (again) on the fall fishing.  Spoiled, I guess?  I really should not call a dozen cooperative fish in four hours of fishing in late August jumping the gun.  I am certainly grateful for that and excited about even better days on the water in the coming weeks and months.  It won't be long now before it gets real.

Bonus pic of a small stream beauty.

August 21 to 23, 2026 – The Warmwater Jam Pivots to a Late-Summer Coldwater Jam and a Memorable Fall Trout Preview – Central PA

Friday view from the front porch.

Because of the rain that had fallen and promised to fall harder on Saturday evening, a smaller number of guys from the fly fishing forum made the trip this year to the Josh Jamboree on the Juniata.  For those who didn't come, it was their loss because the fishing was really good, especially for August.  If you had your heart set on wade fishing for smallmouths or taking that half-day float on the river, it was not your weekend, of course, but for those who decided to pack the trout rods and make the drive anyway, it was hard to beat.  I believe nine dudes, ages 28 to 70 and all points in between, spent time in and around the farmhouse on the property instead of sitting under the big top and grilling over charcoal.  We also fired up the gas grill near the cover of the back porch and ate a lot of cold sides and a more continental-style breakfast.  The group was small enough that when rain approached on Saturday night, we were able to gather indoors and be entertained by Shakey, a working blues guitarist, and Josh, a more than competent amateur performer, on dueling guitars.  Pre-season football flickered in and out of focus during the deluge while we ate well (don’t ask about the chocolate lasagna) and shared plenty of stories.  It seemed that everyone was content with the fishing, too.  We spread far and wide (well, within 30 minutes of camp) and caught fish in the big crick and the little cricks.  The Juniata never got to fishable flows, at least for fly gear on foot.  I saw one jet out there on Saturday night. But I counted us fortunate to have nearly springlike flows and conditions for trout on Friday and Saturday before Sunday blew up most creeks for a second time in three days.

First pig brown in probably 6 weeks or more.  And on a streamer.  Fun stuff.

No Larry, no Brian, but many other Josh Jam regulars.  In the absence of the rest of our core crew, it was easy for Josh and I to pair off both Saturday and Sunday.  Josh was generous with the local information so that everyone could find fish, but only I was fortunate enough to have the local guide with me all weekend.  When everyone was convinced that Sunday was a bust, Josh found a creek in good condition that produced at least 10 wild browns for us while everyone else was driving home.  I even scored a pig on a streamer on Saturday night.  And this was after having a 15+ fish Saturday morning.  Rainbows dominated for us, but we caught many dink wild browns too, and our buddy Joe caught a handful over 15 inches.  He was the outlier though.  Most of us reported very eager holdover rainbows and many small wild browns tuned into a decent showing of size 20 BWOs.  I had fish jump all over a size 18 soft hackle dropper on Saturday morning, but I couldn't find a good fish until the evening.  And it was a streamer eater, a ferocious visual eat!

Perfect flows for late August and many cooperative trouts.

Even with Josh’s knowledge, we had some misses and errors in stream selection due to the unpredictability of the weather and flows on cricks without gages.  We had a great spot in mind to throw streamers on Saturday morning, only to find surprisingly low flows and visibility too good for a bonkers streamer bite.  The same stretch was blown out on Sunday when we took another peek, determined to get the good fish that live there to chase a bugger or two.  Even a tributuary of this creek was too dirty, so Josh pivoted to another favorite trib instead.  Here we found much better visibility.  Sadly, no fish over 8 inches ate our nymphs and small jigged buggers, but we did catch 10 or 11 wild browns between us to end the weekend on a high note.

Despite most creeks being blown out, Josh found us some small stream fish on Sunday.

I wish we could have caught a few bass, but the weekend did get me excited for fall trout fishing again after braving the summer doldrums with nearly zero motivation to get out.  I am already seeing rain on Thursday after a cool first half of the week, which has me thinking about the weekend.  I have a couple creeks in mind that could fish well on Saturday or Sunday.  This past weekend started with me taking the boy back to college on Friday after working a half day and then driving another hour to the Jam, but now he’s there and settled for the semester, so I have a lot of unrestricted fishing time ahead.  Work is still crazy until about September 10^th, but weekends are free, so more fish will be caught in August and September and beyond.  I need to walk off the meat heavy menu from this weekend, not to mention chocolate lasagna.

A close up of the tank.

August 13, 2026 – Dipping my Toes Back into the (Warm) Water – NEPA

Looks like holding water.  Looks....

It’s been a while since I’ve had the desire to get out.  I don’t love the hot weather, and neither do the trouts.  With the price of gas, I have not been raring to go when it comes to the surf, and I actually had to cancel out on the annual Ward fluke trip because I was sick for a few days prior.  Besides that inconvenient week, things have been good.  I think I have been working on a few things at home and reading actual books again, like real literature!  Not a bad way to wait out the heat and humidity and thunderstorms, I suppose.  I have gotten the urge again recently and have monitored the gages a couple times, but I did not like what I saw.  Honestly, I have cringed when I’ve seen videos of dudes fishing on creeks I know are hitting 70 plus every day.  I feel like I am even more prone to give the wild fish a break the older I get, and with this new job and all the time off, it’s not like I won’t be at it again really soon.  In order to catch a few trouts today, I had to fish the dreaded (for me) Pohopoco.  Like the Tully, it is not a trout stream in my head, just a place where someone puts trout.  The Po is functioning bottom release tailwater, however, so the water is cold year-round within a couple miles of the dam.  And wild fish do exist in the main creek, not just from the tribs like the Tully, so it's closer to a trout stream?

Dry fly eats after an early start.

I got a couple holdover bows, and they were on a dry fly, a big stimulator, so that was fun.  I also landed some of the resident wild fish.  I nymphed up a few before switching gears as the sun got higher.  For some reason, most of the wild fish that I’ve encountered are sub-legal—maybe their parents retreat to posted property and/or better holding water.  I only fish the crick once a year in August because it’s the only game in town, so I am hardly a regular.  I have heard this from others I trust, though.  A lot dry fly eats from dink wild browns is a common story.  From afar, like in the pic above, places look sexy, but then you realize it’s ankle deep and wide.  I had one big hole in mind that was good to me last year and other years, but it was dead this year, so I went with the random big dry cast to cover.  I had only one blow-up that I missed.   By 10 AM, I was comfortable because I was wet wading, but I knew it was over with the sunny conditions.

Just stopped to change for the drive home, but too wadable not to try!

It was so hot where I parked that I decided to head for home along the local roads, which takes me down the Lehigh River, and look for a shady spot to change my wading boots and have my lunch.  I found a nice park above Slatington to do just that, but when I saw the River was low and wadable, I decided to catch a bass or two.  Not that I had bass stuff with me, but I did purchase a new 11’ 4 weight nymphing rod this summer.  It was in the tube in my car, and I found a couple balanced leeches and a bobber that would suspend them.  To my pleasant surprise, I was able to wade across the entire river to a shady and deep bank.  I guess that even with the rain, flows are still down.  I did not have high hopes at midday, but I was very pleased with myself when the bobber went down.  Like on the Juniata, which inspired my use of the balanced leech for bass, the bass buried the bobber when he ate.  I had a couple short hits after that, which I should have known were not bass.  I was right.  When I became vigilant about reacting to every pause and dip, I caught a couple fallguys (or bottom).  Still, mission accomplished.  I even put on Eric’s jigged bugger to see how this new rod would perform on the trouts this fall way upstream of here.  I may have shared that I broke my 10’6” this year on the River with Larry, so this was my inexpensive replacement.  I may need to work on balancing the outfit a bit, but I do like the extra reach.  It will work.

One on the balanced leech, so worth the stop.

I get busy at work until a couple days after Labor Day, but then it's game on, I hope.  I am taking the trip to Lewisburg to return the boy to college and then on to Lewistown for the Josh Jam, so more fishing for bass and maybe even trouts in August.  I like August.  Days get shorter and nights longer, which cools the creeks.  The forecast is for a below-average second half of the month, which sounds good to me.  I am done with humidity and pop up storms that flood some creeks and don't touch others.  I mean, the Delaware was too high to wade today, but I was able to have my way with the Lehigh River.  No wonder I have been sleeping in!  That should be changing very soon.

Pretty low or pretty and low, something like that.

July 10-12, 2026 – Mostly a Social Visit with All the Muddy Water – Central PA

You're a king, fallguy!

You know when I start a post with a pic of a fallfish, albeit a citation-worthy specimen of the native Pennsylvania species, that this post is going to have more crick pics than fish pics.  I spent Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning out near Raystown Lake with Brian and Josh.  Brian’s sister has a place out there, and he was kind enough to invite us for what might be a new tradition, a low-key supplement to the camping trips and the Josh Jam on the Juniata.  It’s a cool place, and we had beds and A/C, not to mention Father Josh Mitchie treating us to some guitar playing and even singing.  Heck, Brian and I even had a couple beers after a rough Saturday evening session.  It was a long ride for bad fishing, and Brian almost called it off, but it was good to hang with the boys a bit, and a few fish were caught.  Brian lost power in Lancaster County for several days leading up to our departure, so it was touch and go.  His area got 3 inches of rain one day, and close to another 3 inches the next, and that’s what it looked like on the creeks and rivers further west in Huntington County too.  The Juniata River had been low, so it was wadable and fishable, but the color was awful.  The same goes for a bigger warmwater trib and even a couple third-order trout streams, which were both muddy AND warm despite the limestone influence.  We did not even try the Little J or the Frankie, but we bounced around a bit.  Honestly, we gave it a good shot on Saturday with at least three different cricks, but results were not much to write (home) about.  We did not even fish on Sunday....

The chanterelles could have been the highlight!

Brian and Josh had been up since Thursday, and they had a good lake outing for panfish, but I did not arrive until about 7:30 PM on Friday.  I had to work until 2 PM that day.  I did get to have dinner with the boys since Brian saved me a little something from the grill.  And we even got into some Corropolese tomato pie and bakery chocolate chip cookies that had been torturing me in the passenger seat on the drive out there.  After breakfast on Saturday morning, we assessed a small creek near the house for wild fish, and Josh did get a tiny brown to eat a dry fly before we decided it was not worth much more effort.  The potential highlight was that Brian found some chanterelles and filled his hat with the bounty.  Unfortunately, with all the rain, they ended up being covered in grit and sand when we tried to eat them with eggs on Sunday morning!  I know you’re not supposed to wash wild shrooms, but I guess the heavy rains had splashed soil all of over these ones, so in retrospect a little rinse in the sink would have helped.  Nothing went all that well this weekend, I guess!

Pretty spot minus the muddy water.

After a break at the house (and more tomato pie in the truck for lunch) we drove to a warmwater trib of the Juniata that has bass, panfish, even pickerel.  Brian and I caught a couple sunfish, he dropped a bass, Josh “got a rock” trying to fish bigger stuff for a pickerel, and I landed king fallguy.  After chunking a bugger and then plopping a gurgler close to cover for a couple hours, it was the balanced leech under a bobber that scored this native stud.  After a great battle (and I have gone on record saying that I think the fallfish battle is often over-rated) I thought maybe this was a good bass.  Brian happened to be walking back down the access road toward the parking spot and saw me mid-fight.  He thought it was a big bass, but I was not totally convinced yet.  Trout?  Pickerel?  Sucker?  When I saw the forked tail of a fallguy, I was a bit disappointed but also impressed.  Josh had already called us both by this point, but service was spotty.  He was at the truck and ready to go, and I was too, honestly.  Even wet wading, it was an uncomfortable day to be outdoors.  There was 100% humidity and hazy sun and just ugly, muddy water everywhere.  We dropped a thermometer in a couple trout streams on the natural reproduction list, but they were 68 F.  The first little creek was even 65 F, so it was not a trout day/weekend.  After a rest at the house, Josh decided to head home to appease his woman, and Brian I and I just chilled at the house, having dinner before deciding to toss spinning gear at smallmouths to end the evening. 

We only stayed long enough for me to take a pic upstream and a pic downstream...

After a bushwhack down to the river with Brian in shorts and getting covered with ticks, we made a dozen casts behind an island, a classic high-water spot when fish are cooperating in high water.  We did not get a touch!  I did find a box of small stream bass lures that I willed to Brian.  It was full of the classics: Rebel Crawdads, Baby and Tiny Torps, inline spinners, a little Spook.  I have a garage full of this stuff that my son will have to get rid of some day, so I knew Brian would put them to better use.  They needed a good cleaning after sitting in river silt for an indeterminate piece, but there was no rust or damage otherwise.  We decided not to waste too much time here and went for a drive in the waning daylight.  Brian knew a tailwater branch nearby would be clean, at least.  It was.  Almost too clean.  I tied on a Baby Torpedo and basically waited for darkness.  It was not a bad plan.  I caught some panfish on top killing time until the low light hopefully woke up the bass.  In the last 20 minutes before dark, real dark, I managed two smallmouth under 11 inches long.  They blew up on the topwater in riffles, so they were fun, but they were not exactly what I drove 3 hours to find.  Nor did Brian drive 2+ hours to catch a holdover rainbow trout on a soft plastic creature.    It was just one of those summer weekends, I guess.  July has been rough.  I had 4 days off around July the Fourth and it was 100 degrees, so I am glad I got out this weekend and saw the boys.  Neither Brian nor I had any motivation to do it all again on Sunday, and so we did not.  I took the long way home and enjoyed the views of the rivers and mountains.

Clean low water at last, but no camera-worthy bass.

June 28, 2026 – I Got High Holed, Lost a Stud, but Still Had a Great Late-June Outing – SEPA

Insurance shot of piggy #1

I committed to the thing this morning.  The summer grind.  I was suited up at 5:30 AM and wet wading balls’ deep into a spot on a SEPA limestoner that tends to stay cold.  A couple days of clouds and a little rain this week helped the cause.  We did not get as much as forecasted, not nearly as much as we need, but a little color helps.  It wasn’t American Flag blue or anything, but there was a stain.  I don’t often over-plan my trips, but I went as far as to track precip totals in the region last night, and I found a little pocket that got half an inch.  That definitely helped narrow down stream selection. Near my house, we got half of that until the evening, when we got a short deluge.  Wet wading in 60 F creek water when you have to go over the waist to get into a spot, well, that is an adventure.  Sadly, I was reminded early why I don’t visit here as often as I would like to, as often as I used to.  Even though I was here before anyone else, not a half hour and a few rainbows on a streamer into my morning, I smelled tobacco smoke pass behind me.  That smoke must have belonged to the guy who high holed me about 6:15 AM.  As I shared, I had already done some work to get into this spot, while dude decided to skip the hard but sometimes most fishy spots and jump ahead of me.  Maybe he didn’t see me?  Pretty sure he did.  Maybe he was new to this thing?  Likely, based on how he was fishing.  He was nymphing in a very unnatural posture and often standing where the fish are—too much wading, especially marching right into the crick without fishing the seams close to you, is a dead give away that you are not a sharpy.  Wild fish, especially with water at 60 F, can be anywhere on a Class A creek.  Front-plater?  Well, honestly, it was hard to tell from 25 yards away on a somewhat-foggy morning 😉 

The reason I take insurance shots in the net and Piggy #2.

My typical mode is this: if I see a car or two at a spot and I know it’s a one-man beat, I move on.  You may have noticed that I’ve got spots, and I work to get more as fast as I abandon or temporarily abandon others.  If someone jumps ahead of me, I ask “Which way are you fishing?” as an opener.  If they say upstream, then I say, “Well, I have been here a while and am heading that way too.  I am going to move upstream past you and give you some space….” HINT HINT.  If dude is an a-hole and jumps me again, I throw rocks in the pools above him.  Kidding.  I say a little something along the lines of watching a stream etiquette video on the same platform you learned to cast, and then I go to another spot or go home if I have already had my fill for the morning.  Most of the time, I just move to another spot on the creek or another creek because the conflict can ruin a day and for what?  Today, I was not backtracking through deep water to abandon this spot, especially since fish were biting early.  I had a few rainbows on a streamer already and was hoping to find active browns along the way based on conditions.  I watched dude fish for a minute while I rigged to nymph, and I liked my odds of catching fish behind him.

Other wild fish in the riffles, but nothing of size.

And catch fish behind him, I did.  I landed two high teens browns, and I broke off a brown in the 20s.  That one got to me more than the high holing.  It was a heartbreaker, enough to make me dry heave as the adrenaline from my focused fight left my body.  I did everything right besides not using heavier tippet, basically.  When I decided it was time to end this fight, I broke him off trying to turn him away from the bank and towards my waiting net.  Apparently, he was not done despite jumping twice, ranging all over this deep hole, and at least twice allowing me to get his head to break the surface and come my way.  He had one more lunge that just broke the tippet at the fly.  I was so close to ending this thing, so close!  Had I not landed the other two beasts, I may have been sick to my stomach.  In retrospect, it was a series of (un)fortunate events that even allowed me to have a shot at this fish, so I was not really mad at him.

Some stockers to round out the morning's catch.

I landed the first good fish, and because it was so big, I dropped my thermometer to make sure I was not going to exhaust the next one.  Not a chance.  The water was 60 F, and the fish went back spry as heck.  The second one did too, not two casts later!  I sure hope high hole dude from Jersey saw all the commotion down here in the honey hole he skipped or fished poorly!  Anway, I moved on after the two piggies since conventional wisdom would say that two big fish fighting all over the hole would probably put down any others for a while.  Two things happened after that, and I ended up standing in the same spot again messing with the king of the hole.  First, while walking up the creek to approach the riffles above this hole, I saw a bumblebee struggling in the water.  I did not rescue him, no!  The kid in me tossed him out into the current to see who would eat him.  Well, a massive fish rose and ate the bee where I had already caught two big fish.  If that was not enough, a text from Eric asking about water temps reminded me that my thermometer was still down there.  What’s a guy to do while he’s back retrieving his stream thermometer at the hole where a bumble bee just got got ?  Make a cast, of course.  You know the rest of the story already.  I don’t know if there was a lesson to learn, or it was just luck.  I am sure there a larger lessons about high-holers and front-platers and all those distractions and disruptions.   Another time.

June 21, 2026 – Exploring a New Stretch of Crick and Finding Some Small(s) Success – NEPA

A spa day?

Brian sent me a pin last week, a legal parking spot on a stretch of unposted river that he and I had not yet fished together.  I knew my son had to work on Father’s Day, and I was not in the mood to visit my old man’s grave on what is supposed to be a happy day in my book.  One thing that makes me happy is fishing, right?  Not that I want it to be some new tradition, but I think I did this last year, too.  I likened it to a spa day on Mother’s Day, except my spa day started with me getting on the road at 4 AM and quitting the beautiful but warm day by 10 AM.  Four hours was just enough to cover this beat, which I covered pretty quickly in the low water.  There was a lot of low, dead water, and where there was depth in places, it was often frog water—I literally spooked a dozen frogs on Friday on a similarly low Lehigh River.  I knew from the gage that it would be low, like really low, but I knew from my visit to this area last Tuesday that the water temperature would be fine.  I was right on both accounts.  I did catch at least 25 trouts, however.  Like Friday, most of them were juveniles, maybe even a couple of fingerlings.  The two best fish were stocker rainbows, but they were ornery and acrobatic. And I did catch a couple adult browns in the places I knew had to be prime spots in better conditions.  Low water is a great time to explore, so I explored, but I did not take the excursion too seriously or move to a second location when I reached a logical end of the line.  It was just a relaxing walk on the creek with a fishing rod with enough cooperative fish to be more than a hike.

A few adults cooperated.

After parking, I hiked a deer trail downstream for about 10 minutes until I ran into frog water.  I could have gone further, and Brian shared a landmark in his text last week that would be a good place to start if I wanted more water to explore.  I have done this enough to know that the beat I had before me would be more than enough to have a morning.  I moved faster than I imagined, but I also spent time in the few prime spots picking through dinkers to find a handful of adults, including the holdover rainbows.  Small bugs was the order of the day.  This creek does not have a lot of bug life, but midges were heavy in a few riffle-ly sections.  Most of the trout ate an olive perdigon on the anchor or a caddis larva, but an equal number took a small CDC dropper tag too.  I had to fish upstream and far away from myself, and yet I am sure I still spooked a couple fish in the deeper water below riffles and runs.  It might have been a day to toss a terrestrial into the deeper slack water from a distance, but it was chilly to start, so bugs may not move around until 10 AM when the day starts in the 50s.  My compromise was to toss a streamer at wood in some of those spots.  The streamer was a chub magnet, so every fish eats every other fish in this rather infertile place, which explains how plump some fish get.

More fishes.

As noted, there were definitely some sexy looking holes along the way, and it was good to see the slower deep areas in low water.  Some of the deep stretches would be chest high in normal flows, and some had undercut banks and wood, so there are not just little browns living here.  But today was the day for the little browns to feast on midges, I suppose.  I got so many pecks and short hits, and I yanked a few little fingerlings skyward on the hookset.  In shallow riffles, reaction time has to be fast, which sometimes means a bit too much muscle by accident.  All it takes is not setting hard on a good fish to lose it, and I have learned that the hard way over the years.  I was hoping a rainbow in the mid-teens was one such fish worth the hookset, but she jumped within seconds of being hooked and jumped at least three more times just to make it clear she was not an equal-sized wild brown.  The best wild fish was likely 10 or 11 inches and fought well too.  It was good to see a new stretch of creek and have some success despite unfavorable conditions.  It was a perfect day for a exploratory walk.  I have had worse Father’s Days!

A few prime spots held fish that weren't 2 years old.  A fine morning for some exploring.