February 22, 2015 - First Trip of 2015 - Little Valley Creek

It has been one of the coldest winters in a long time.  I was out a couple times in December 2014 on Valley Creek and the Tulpehocken with some success, but the previous year, I found a day here and there all winter and even fished spots in the Poconos when days hit 55 or 60 degrees. Not this year!

This week all the freestoners around me were iced up pretty good, but I HAD to fish a 45 degree day in February, the first break we'd had in a while, so I decided to head to a limestoner in SEPA. I had fished Valley Creek many times, but I had never ventured up to Little Valley and Crabby, two of the tributaries that are a bit away from the National Park.  Valley can be tough with the fly rod, and Little Valley is even shallower and tighter, so I didn't even bother with the long rod (or even the 6'6" 3 wt), instead opting for my ultralight spinning set up to get some casting distance in what I assumed would be tight cover and overhanging trees.

Little Valley Creek

I don't think it's taken this long into the new year for me to go fishing in a very long time, but damn it's been cold. I actually passed people sledding at the National Park on my way to the creek, but I have fished opening days that were colder. The weather was actually quite nice, and the sun was hot enough to get the snow we had the day before to start melting.  A little stain in the water always improves your chances on a trout stream, especially a tiny, shallow, and clear one like this.

All in all it was a great day, especially for just over an hour of actual fishing. I arrived about 1:30 PM to a creek nicely stained by the snow melt and set out to find some winter holding water. Behind a down tree, the first promising spot I found, I had a decent fish follow my Rapala CD 1 plug almost to my feet without committing.  That was a good sign though for two reasons: 1) I saw a fish willing to think about feeding and 2) he didn't spook easily even coming that close to me.

No one else was home in this hole, so I had to walk a bit to find another deep hole that looked promising, but once I did, I got a fish on the first cast. I was throwing soft plastics on small jig heads as well as the CD 1, but when I landed the first one on the soft plastic/jig head combo, I stuck with that, first slowly retrieving it near the bottom and then eventually floating it on a long line under a cork.   The first was a dink, but he was my first fish of 2015.  I was so excited or relieved that I basically tanked the photo op.

A blurry shot of my first wild brown of 2015

After the first fish, a couple slowly followed and didn’t commit, so I went to the gentler presentation of a float.  That was the ticket.  If I adjusted for the right depth, landed my cast in one of two seams, or was patient enough to let the jig do its work in the back of the pool, which formed an eddy, I got a hit or hooked a trout.

Another pretty little brown that ate the jig like he was hungry.

I got 6 more in short order, counted myself blessed, and called it a day by 2:40 PM, so that my wife stayed happy with me and so that I ended on a good note.  I have a tendency to make a lot of "last casts" - just one more, just more, and so on. The best trout of the day was 12 inches, but that is good for this trickle, and they were all pretty, wild brownies in the heart of a metropolitan area.

A respectable fish for this trickle.

It’s been a long winter, so I was grateful for a good afternoon on a stretch of water I never fished before.  And, more importantly, I didn't see a soul while fishing.  In another month, that is not possible in this area, and it's why I only fish Valley in the winter!

Still plenty of ice in the slow water.

And you don't see this kind of beautiful color while sitting on the couch in February.

The requisite trout with snow shot, which is slightly more glamorous than the trout with wet hand shot.