February 4, 2016 – Cedar Creek Class “A” Stretch After (During??) the Floods

A-Town does parks and rec right, yo.

I only had a couple afternoon appointments at work today after a busy Monday through Wednesday, so I decided last night to fish somewhere for a couple hours if the water levels (and fog) cooperated.  The mild weather since Sunday or Monday was killing me!  Today was not the best morning to fish, after receiving over an inch of rain, but sometimes you have to work with what you are dealt.  

In my area, we received less rain than expected, but looking at the gages in the Lehigh Valley, I am not sure it was true for that region.  I wanted to fish somewhere new, or at least different, than my go-to winter creeks, so I gave Cedar a shot in the park, hoping that it was not too muddy or high.  The Little Lehigh was very high, and there were signs that Cedar had flooded at a few bends, but it was mostly confined to its banks, although muddy and running at a good clip, also cold from the snow melting in the surrounding fields.  I have to say, Allentown does parks and recreation right, even if it has its problems in other arenas.  Granted, it’s a little weird to hook a wild brown under a heavily traveled footbridge adjacent to a fountain, as I did today, but how lucky to have your choice of streams full of wild fish in such an urban setting.  Cedar is not on my list of new favorites, but I am glad I saw it and, who knows, I may return when other creeks are blown out by spring rains.

The prettier one of the two I brought to hand.

I brought the fly rod (wishful thinking) but I never took it out of the case.  Instead, I gave the Rapala a little workout on some nice new copolymer line care of Kenny.  I was impressed with how it performed.  It didn’t get as many twists, stretch was minimal, and I felt the fish that I managed to coax into hitting.  Kenny knows his gear and terminal tackle (and he has good hair, to boot). Besides mono, I have tried just about every other type of line for trout.  Fluorocarbon is good, but I think the copoly is limper with less memory.  I am hoping that it’s a good compromise.

I don’t think I had to get my boots wet all morning, fishing from the bank and hiding behind what little cover there was on the bank.  Having never been here before and not yet knowing the winter holes, I was happy to bring two wild browns with nice touches of yellow and orange to hand.  Both were between 10 and 11 inches, which I will take on a creek you can jump across.  I did drop a much better fish under the aforementioned footbridge.  He showed himself once and didn’t fully commit and, surprisingly, after resting him a bit, I got him to take a smaller CD 1.  I would have like to have gotten my hands on him, but I did enjoy a brief battle.  I know where he lives if I ever visit Cedar Creek again.