July 5, 2015 – Wissahickon Creek – My Last Attempt at Wissy Trout until Next Year

A Wissahickon Creek brown trout chewing on a san juan worm.

To make up for a hot and dry May, June in SEPA was one of the wettest in a while.  Even though the Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia is a freestone stream, it can stay cool into July and even August if we have a wet summer.  There are cold springs, more like cool water seeps, really, and a lot of shade from big mature trees.  On occasion I have caught trout here in August tight against the shallow riffles while targeting smallmouth bass, but that is rare.  

Another decent brownie

Neither serious fishing nor travel was really on the agenda this weekend; it was supposed to be more of a relaxing family time close to home, but my son and I did well during a short trip last weekend, and there were some showers and cool weather during the week, so I figured if given the opportunity I would give the creek one last chance with the fly rod at some point.   The fish last week, and this week, seemed healthy, and today I only stressed out one big rainbow enough that I considered keeping him.  I was able to revive him successfully and watch him strongly swim away, though.  Well, seeing an opportunity on Sunday morning, I gave myself a small window from about 5:30 to 10 AM, in order to beat the heat, not to mention the crowds of bikers, hikers and, my favorite, folks swimming their dogs off the lease in Fairmount Park, destroying the banks and making them like muddy beaches in the process.  But enough about my pet peeve: there’s no authority in the park to enforce the leash law, and there is probably not much public desire to do so, anyway, and so it does me no good to get pissed off, I try to remind myself.

One of 3 or 4 rainbows who ate the scud nymph.

I didn’t sleep well, so I was up at 3 AM and then tossed and turned until the alarm went off at 4:15 AM.  It only takes 15 minutes to drive to the stretch I had decided to target, so I took my time and had a leisurely coffee and even rigged up a dry dropper in the garage.  I secretly wanted to catch a Wissy trout on the dry this year, but it didn’t happen today or any other day.  Hatches are sporadic, at best, but on the right day, I am sure a big splashy terrestrial or caddis would get their attention, as it certainly works for the bass when the water conditions are right.  Today, I caught nothing but sunfish on top, and had to resort to the scud and san juan worm to catch trout.  The water was still stained and the temp was reading 68 degrees at around 7:30 AM, which are nice wet-wading conditions but borderline conditions for catching trout the way I had hoped. 

Rainbows preferred the scud over the sj worm this morning.

The water temps in most pools must be hitting 70+ degrees almost every day now, so I knew this would be my last trip chasing trout on the Wissahickon until next year.  Thankfully, my last trip was a good one.  I landed 7 or 8 trout once I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to a use proven fish catcher like an SJ worm to get their attention.  The best part about summer fishing for me, however, is where the fish tend to set up—in the fast, oxygen rich waters—so I had great time high-sticking fish out of tiny deeper pockets in the shallow riffles.  I caught a mix of browns and rainbows.  The browns seemed to prefer the san juan worm, and most rainbows took a flashback scud pattern in the seams of a couple deep runs.  I even caught one bow stripping a bugger in a fast, shallow riffle.  I caught fish steadily throughout the morning, likely my last morning on the Wissy targeting any species of fish until the fall.  Bluegills, especially, appreciated the SJ worm, but they wouldn’t say no to the scud either if it landed too far out of the current and away from the likely trout holding spots.  

All said, it was a good way to spend a few stolen moments close to home. Despite minor nuisances like misguided dog owners, I am always grateful that I have such a beautiful park and stream so close to home.  And there are other funny things that happen in a public park.  With folks walking on Forbidden Drive, I sometimes have an audience, and today two ladies stopped to watch, and I didn't even know since I was probably hooking and landing a trout.   Finally, one of them said something funny to get my attention:  "We are watching A River Runs Through It, and you're Brad Pitt."  I laughed and said, "That might have been true 25 years ago..."  Even that long ago, I am not sure how true it was, so we were both being kind!

The best of the morning.  He needed a bit of time to recover from a good fight.   The water is too hot, finally.