November 26, 2016 – The Wrong Choices for the Right Reasons – A Tough Pocono Trout Trip

Eric being skunked with finesse (and with a nice beard going).

With a little one in preschool and another on the way any minute, young Eric’s time away from home is limited these days.  He did get an 8 pointer with the bow on, like, day three of the season, so even though time was running out for archery, he wanted to fish today when his wife gave him the green light to get out.  He told me so in a text at 6 PM last night, when I was getting ready to go out and see a show in Philly with some friends (Peter Hook of Joy Division and New Order playing Substance in its entirety, so a slightly niche form of nostalgia).  I usually avoid dropping 25 bucks on nostalgia tours, but the show was a chance to hang with some old friends at the Trocadero, a venue where I lost a lot of hearing in my twenties.  Same deal with Eric this morning, I guess.  I have been itching to get some redemption on the beach, but my loving wife likes it when I socialize with friends (Okay, I like it too sometimes) so I chose to suck up my aging hipster pride and see old Hooky play songs from his seminal years, and I took Eric up on a NEPA fly fishing excursion.

Big blurry bow.

I chose an old favorite, a place Eric had not fish before despite going to school at ESU.  It was low the last time I was there, so I knew it would still be tough, but it would be an outing on a mild November day.  I was hoping drizzle and cloud cover would bring trout who have spent the last few months with their heads under rocks out of hiding.  Not so much, unfortunately.  Eric took a skunk with finesse, and I managed one wild brown and a nice, healthy rainbow, tight-line nymphing with a lot of weight.  I broke off another with a less than subtle hookset on a stonefly nymph.  Fishing barbless, and with my net stuck on a carabiner, zinger, or the fly patch of my slingpack, I only managed one blurry, albeit artistic, shot of the rainbow before he got a speedy release.  I actually caught this same fish in the same pocket last year, so even though he gained an inch or two, I recognized him and have his mug on file already J  He is a beauty hold-over with perfect fins and a thick silver body, and I still know his secret lair.

Pretty, but hard to come by.

I was a little hoarse from singing in an affectless baritone, ala Ian Curtis, along with 500+ other old heads packed into the Troc, and tinnitus has long been a trusted companion the morning after, but I felt good physically (especially for 4 hours of sleep) and good about earning a couple fish on a tough, tough day.  By the end of the second hour, I was playing cleanup, giving Eric first shot at some good holes, trying to be a responsible host and friend. When I got home, Tami told me she was proud that her little hermit boy had spent so much time playing with friends.  Sure, I wanted to pound the surf this morning, and I usually pay 10 dollars to see new music in smaller dives in the city, but I enjoyed myself on both fronts this weekend.  I made all the wrong choices for all the right reasons, I suppose.

November 23, 2016 – Oh, If I Had a Kayak on My Back Instead of 20 lbs. of Plugs...

The morning stats.  Too old for this crap....

I hit the outgoing tide in the dark on Wednesday, tossing big wood at the 3 AM flood tide until the sun came up.  There was no surf action to speak of, and even out on the bar in crystal clear and calm water, I saw no signs of life until after sunrise.  Sometimes, you can even smell bunker when they are nearby (I swear, you can!) but all my senses were tuned and found nothing alive in the dark but a foul-hooked northern stargazer and the silhouettes of a couple dolphins or porpoises.  About an hour before daylight, I switched to a smaller SP minnow, but I was starting to see that with all the beach replenishment and nary a wave (plus at least a week of NW winds) there was no soft structure on an old favorite stretch of beach.  Even being mostly out of the game for a couple years, my instincts are okay, though.  In the dark, I drew boot lines with my heal at what looked like promising spots, and even though no one was home in the dark, at false dawn on my walk back down the beach, I could see that I had marked some minor cuts and points in the mostly uniform bar.  I am glad people’s houses might be saved after the next super storm, but dammit, I want my rocks and cuts and sloughs back!  Even bait guys are walking waist deep out on the bars to launch bunker chunks to water deep enough to sustain life when no blitz is present or the tide is not at its peak.

Just half a football field too far, even belly deep on the bar!

Speaking of blitzes, at sunrise, a huge blitz materialized almost out of nowhere.  Hundreds of gulls and gannets were having at a big school of peanuts.  At one point, they looked like they may come close enough to reach with a pencil popper or even a snag hook (I had it all in my heavy-ass plug bag), but they ended up splitting in two and heading northeast and south, staying at least 50 yards too far to reach.  I am always considering a kayak before I get too old and cautious for a beach launch in late November, but a kayak only would have helped today if I was dragging it with me all morning.  My boy Dolf wants to get out on a boat, and I might be game, as two weeks in a row, I saw schools of migrating bass just out of reach.  This does not mean I won’t be back on Friday (and Monday) after resting the elbow and the legs for a day or two!

November 13, 2016 – First Casts in the Atlantic this Fall

Blue skies, clear water, NW wind (so no surf) but good to be out there for a while.

I had a “boys’ weekend” in Bradley Beach this weekend, mostly a drinking excursion in Asbury Park with some old friends who, like me, are now just getting old.  Dave said we have been doing this annual get-away for 13 years (minus Sandy), which is quite a run! Seeing the tides and the forecast (and the agenda), I was not planning on any serious fishing.  I packed a two-piece plugging rod and my bag, however, in the event I was up early (or late) one of the days.  Some years we go hard on Friday night, and by Saturday we are all in bed by 10 PM. Well, 5 AM came and went without me stirring, but I did take a stroll and jump around a couple rock piles for an hour late in the morning on Sunday.  I saw well over a hundred boats tearing them up about a half a mile offshore.  Birds and bait were everywhere.  

A few too many.

Tom described the number of boats he saw off the coast on Saturday, and as a fisherman who rarely gets to Monmouth County (especially after what the beach replenishment has done to Deal!), I was doubtful until I saw them all for myself.  If the bait schools were as big as the armada of boats, then there is plenty of bait heading south.  The water was clear, the tide was low, and I was waderless, not to mention a little dehydrated, but it was good to swim some plugs for a while before driving home.  I did some whale watching, as well.  A couple came completely out of the water, putting on a show for me and the dog walkers.  One particular jetty had a bait ball swimming around the tip, but nothing was harassing them but my Smack-It.  I was happy to see that the fall run is happening.  Now I just have to find the time to get my butt in gear.

November 9, 2016 – Poking around the Oley Valley for a Bit on the Day After...

Despite the low water, and likely warmer water temps this summer, last year's crew seems to have made it.

I had a little time in the morning to fish before an 11 AM meeting.  I was up a lot checking election results, so I was in no rush to get to work either.  This is not a “Deep Thoughts” post, but let’s just say the morning was rough for everyone in the house.  I was trying to comfort Tami and the boy, as if I had it figured out (I don’t), but deep inside I was also wondering how I was going to comfort my students on the day after the election.  At both of my jobs, I work with groups of students, and most of them are students of color, the vast majority black and Hispanic, from 17 year olds to adult students in their 50s and 60s.  All of them would be upset, and they would be lining up to talk to me like I knew something, like I could help them figure it all out.  I needed a mental break from it all to feel what I was going to feel and then get on with life.  Fishing helps, although passing so many Trump signs on my way west, even seeing some batty lady dancing on her lawn asking cars to honk for joy, did get to me a bit.

It was raining all morning, but it barely moved the water level.  I put my thermometer in the water to take a water temp, and it’s still there sitting on the bottom reading about 50, I bet.  I will need to get another one of those…  I caught dozens of chubs, which means this creek in the Oley Valley probably got warm this year.  It was still very low.  The good news is that I did land two little 7 inch browns, so the yearlings did survive the summer.  In the first deep hole I fished, I lost the only decent fish of the day.  I was not on my mental A game, so I missed a couple, but I was glad to get out for a bit and walk and fish before returning to the real world on Wednesday afternoon.  As expected, I had an office full of young people with a lot of questions I couldn’t answer and a lot of fears.  At least I could be an old bearded white guy who listens to them and helps them keep defying expectations.

November 5, 2016 – A Fall Morning in the Lehigh Valley

After a frosty morning, the sun was appreciated, even if it put the fish down far too quickly.

I have not had a spare weekday to take off, not even a morning, since the last time I fished in October.  I picked up another class, so I am teaching two now in addition to my normal 9 to 5 day.  We also stopped using aftercare for the boy, so Tami and I are platooning on bus pick-ups and drop-offs.  It has not been bad, but it has cut into my fishing for sure!  I keep waiting for a sign to head east to the beach, and I am actually rigged up and ready (maybe Monday), but I have not had the energy to fish the night bite or get up at 2 AM to make the morning drive.  I needed to fish this morning, however, so I decided to head less than an hour north and give the fall trout a shot.  If nothing else, it would be a morning out in the woods in some beautiful weather.

See what I mean?  A chilly start!  

I arrived right before sunrise at a new stretch of a creek I have only fished once or twice before.  Parking was easy, and I had mapped out another access point in case the first area was dead.  It was only 37 degrees at dawn, but it was crisp and beautiful.  The first round of the leaf fall has slowed, and those trees still holding on were full of vibrant yellow.  I didn’t take a water temperature reading, but it was cold, about as cold as the air, no doubt.  

A dark and lovely right before sunrise.

I moved my first wild brown on my second cast, and after a handful more casts, I landed my first of the morning.  He was dark from all the decomposing leaves in the stream but still rather lovely, even in the low pre-dawn light.  He jumped a couple times before I let him go, which was a great way to start the morning.  I wish it had continued like that, but as the sun got higher, I could see how low the creek was.  Cold, clear, and low water on a cold, high pressure, sunny day does not usually equal an awesome fishing trip.

On the suspending Dynamic Lures HD Trout.  It stayed out of the leaves more than the Rapalas.

A little further upstream, under a picture perfect overhanging tree, I hooked my second of three trout.  All of them hit a Dynamic Lures HD minnow in black.  A CD 1 tended to pick up too much debris, as the bottom was blanketed with vegetation and fallen leaves. I walked quickly trying to cover ground and find deeper holes, or at least braided water to cover my approach, but I eventually ran into some posted signs and turned back.  I picked up one more little brown on the way back to car, and as a bonus, I tossed the plug in a small mill pond across from one section of the creek, and I picked up a little bass too.  Why not, right?  I think it was a public pond?

Why not?

I decided to take a ride to another access point and give the fly rod a go for an hour or so.  I saw one pair of trout on a redd and one riser in a flat pool, and I left both alone.  Instead, I targeted a couple riffles and eddies that would have been decent spots in higher water.  I did not get a hit in any of the nymph-friendly pockets, so I even tested my patience going slow and low in a different flat pool.  I missed one half-hearted strike, probably because it was time for my tired body to go home.  I’ll say it was a chub in case it was actually a missed opportunity on a nice brown (I spooked one in this hole on the way back down to the Subaru that was probably 15 inches!) After taking a nice walk to explore further upstream, I turned back and called it a morning.  I do like this weather, but it’s going to be a long winter if the creeks stay this low and I can’t continue to chase trout!  Hell, I will take snow if it raises the gages a bit.  I grow tired of complaining about low water.