May 11, 2015 – Tobyhanna Creek DHALO section – Another Silly One

Brook trout and more brook trout.

Today I visited a Delayed Harvest Artificial Lures Only section of Tobyhanna Creek in the Poconos with a young lad of 46 named Kenny. I had fished the creek a couple times in the past, probably 20 years ago, but the reason I targeted it today was because it was stocked late last week, and it doesn’t usually get a lot of pressure as a DHALO on State Game Lands (SGL).  The only other person we saw all morning, until a truck pulled in as we were leaving, was a very lazy turkey hunter, who was set up not 50 yards from the parking lot.  If all went well, it would be a catching not a fishing day, and we all deserve one of those once in a while. 

Notice: we dumped a lot of fish here!

The morning started out a little rough.  As we were getting close to our destination, I handed Ken my phone and asked him to put in Route 423 in Coolbaugh, PA, which runs parallel to the SGL and the creek.  Darn knock-off Siri in Google Maps auto-filled an address on Coolbaugh Road outside of Stroudsburg.  None the wiser, I let the voice lead us astray.  Granted, it was a nice house and even sat across the street from Delaware State Forrest or game lands, but it was not where we wanted to be.  Eventually we got there, though, and the plan paid off.  I should have charged my young protégé a guiding fee because I am pretty sure he’s never caught so many trout in his life!  At a couple points in the day, he was giggling to himself, I swear.

Ken all thumbs up in blaze orange.  Can't be too careful with turkey hunters hunting 50 yards from the road..

Not just a pretty face.

We gave the turkey hunter who was afraid to get too far from his car some space and jumped into the creek below the DHALO section.  The water was low and reading nearly 65 degrees, while the air temp was close to 75 and humid, even at 7:30 AM.  Ken and I both started nymphing under an indicator, and it didn’t take long for Ken to get on the board.  I left him to it and headed upstream to a hole spilling out of a beaver dam.  I quickly caught two on a caddis nymph below the dam and then hopped over to fish the deep hole on the other side.  By the time I waved Ken up to share the honey hole, I had 4 or 5 more to hand.  That was about where I lost count, as it was just steady fish catching for at least 3 more hours. 

Ken let me catch at least 25, maybe more.

Any nymph would do: caddis, hares ear, prince  This one hit the hares ear above the dropper.

We just picked fish at a steady pace, all decent-sized,  most freshly stocked brook trout, in a long deep hole like it was the kiddie trout pool at the sportsman show.  Around 9 AM or so, fish started rising, so I put on a caddis and got a few skating a big caddis across the surface.  I had half a dozen misses too, so it was a lot of fun.  I might have giggled at that point too.  Pretty much the only fish I caught that weren’t brookies were on the dry, which probably means the brooks were new to the scene.  I got two browns and a rainbow on the elk hair caddis and one brown in a deep hole under the bridge with a prince nymph.

A rainbow and a couple browns on the big caddis.  

It was hot, close to 90, and after exploring upstream and finding shallow water with little life, we needed a water break, so we hoofed it back to the parking lot.  After the Cliff Bar and beef jerky lunch of champions, I was hoping the dry fly action would make my afternoon even nuttier.  Ken decided to use his new spinning rod he made and some soft plastics, as if the morning wasn’t silly enough!  Needless to say, he slaughtered them.

Ken's very effective jig and soft plastics combo (and his new handmade rod).

The wind picked up with the high temps, like an August convection wind, so the dry fly bite never happened.  I got 2 more after lunch on the nymph and one while stripping a wooly bugger.  To give you an idea of how many fish we caught, Ken started to keep count while fishing the spinning rod, and as we quit, he had 19 from the same hole I called him up to in the morning.  He was sad that he didn’t get 20, but he did catch a little bass on a spinner, so I think he’s good.  It was well-worth the long trip, made longer with Google map detours, and I was in bed by 9 PM sleeping like a sunburned baby.

Pretty fish

Parting shot of one honey hole.