March 16, 2016 – East Branch Brandywine Creek DHALO on the Fly

A beauty on the conehead muddler.

I drove about 40 minutes west this morning to the East Branch of the Brandywine.  I have never fished the creek before, but I have been visiting a bunch of new creeks that are less than an hour from my house.  I landed about 10 trout, and only this one fish was anything remarkable, however.  I threw my 9 foot 5 wt today for something different, and it did make slinging a heavy streamer much easier.  But at this point in the season I have such a nymphing touch with my 4 wt set-up that I missed a few fish when I switched to nymphing around noon.  I got the hang of it with the bigger rod eventually, though.  It’s funny how the rod you use most of the time ends up feeling like an extension of your own arm.

No one else fishing, so first I took a walk

I arrived at the lower end of the special regulations stretch around 8:45 AM, and there were only joggers and dog walkers for the first hour.  By the time I left around 2 PM, I had run into about 4 other fisherman, two fly guys and a couple guys with spinners.  The creek was still a bit muddy in the deeper, slower sections, but the faster riffles were clearing up.   As the day progressed, the water got better and, subsequently, so did the fishing.  Not knowing the creek at all, I took a long walk when I first arrived.  With no one else fishing yet, there was no pressure to stake out a spot.

The lower end did not look all the fishy.  It had some deep slow holes and a few down trees and exposed roots.  The banks were muddy and wet from the rain, and plenty of sand was piled up from run-off.  I am sure when the water is clearer and fish are active on the surface that the long flats in between the upper and lower sections can be productive.  I actually caught quite few trout on the way back through this lower section while walking to my parking spot—and I also hooked a dozen or more chubs…  

My walk did reveal some nicer looking runs and rocky outcroppings, so I dropped into the creek and decided to swing a streamer downstream on my way back to some promising looking holes I scouted on the way upstream.

First fish of the day, swinging a streamer.

It didn’t take long to get a rainbow to hit the black and olive conehead muddler, and I moved a couple others before I hooked another one.  Some of the fish were tight against the banks or at the first drop off, probably because the rain yesterday had pushed them up, but also because a lot of the creek is on the shallow side, so overhanging limbs, roots, and ledges afford them protection not found out in the current, especially in lower flows, I assume.

Fish # 2

At the bottom of a rocky slide in a small pocket, I finally hooked into a big trout on the streamer.  He accounted well for himself, and I was glad I brought the net with me to help land him.  He was a healthy hookjawed 17 inches and arguably worth the trip.  I was now happy that I rigged up the 5 wt for some streamer fishing!

There were some black stoneflies coming off the water sporadically, and I saw one fish rise to one.  There were also a couple BWOs and midges.  When I switched to the nymph in a long deep stretch, I had success with a mayfly beadhead and a baetis emerger dropper.  The chubs tore the beadhead up, but I got a fair share of trout on it too.  An equal number took the BWO emerger, and some of the ones I missed while “relearning” my 9’ 5 wt no doubt took the size 18 emerger and spit it out before I could react.  In an effort to show them something different, I ended the day having success, including a decent, lightly colored brown, with a caddis nymph too.  I probably hooked 15 and landed 10.  I caught far too many chubs, a couple quite large, but it was a pretty good day despite the muddy water.  And I thought I was fishing a Keystone Select Creek all morning...  Oops.  At least I got one fish that would have qualified!

The only brown, a pale one who took a caddis pupa.