December 31, 2015 – Resica Falls FFO Section to End the Year

The Little Falls on a gray day.

Both Eric and I had off all this week, so we made tentative plans to fish if the weather cooperated.  It's hard to believe that we haven't fished together since April of this year when we spent Good Friday chasing trout on the Pickering Creek DHALO section.  Although it remained unseasonably warm, a lot of rain fell this week, but today looked workable, as the gauges fell quite a bit overnight.  It was only going down to 36 overnight, with a high of 46.  Not as warm as Christmas, but still mild for winter fishing. 

I picked Eric up before 6 AM, and we made great time to the Resica Falls fly fishing only section (FFO) of the Bush Kill, which I hadn’t visited in many, many years.  It is one of Eric’s favorite places to fish, and I know it’s a beautiful piece of water, so I was glad to take the long drive.  I used to fish the area while in college and even chased wild brookies in the State Forrest land along Route 402.  I may have even dragged a girlfriend down into the Saw Creek to show her my dry fly prowess on kamikaze natives.  I hope she at least got lunch out of the deal. 

Fish number one for me, one of 5 for the morning.

We have had quite the lack of winter this winter, but we did see signs of snow and ice in woods around the creek.  When we descended down to the water, my thermometer read a cold 40 degrees for water temp, even though the air got over 45 by the time we quit at noon.  Water was high with a slight stain, but no worse than it would be in, say, late April.  That said, neither one of us was game to make any creek crossings in high, stained 40 degree water (and air), so we mostly concentrated on one deep hole for most of the morning, with a couple short, unproductive excursions downstream.  Thankfully, it was a productive hole.

A healthy brown who made it through the summer.

Eric had early success on a zebra midge, bringing a fish to hand within ten minutes of arriving.  I got my first not that long after on a tungsten pheasant tail.  Besides the odd fallfish or chub, it was all stocked browns for the morning.  Eric missed a couple others, while I ended the morning with 5 trout and an acrobatic fallfish.  It was a great way to close a solid 2015 fishing season.  It was a bit trout heavy this year, but I have thoroughly enjoyed rekindling my love of fly fishing and hitting some new creeks and some old, old haunts in the process.  My 2016 license is purchased and ready to go in the event the cold front coming through is short-lived....

Eric working hard on the last day of 2015.