February 6, 2017 – Skittish and Camera Shy Wild Browns in Berks County

Lovely day, and I landed one out of 4 rising fish on the dry fly in this shallow run.

I stalked around a little Berks County trickle this afternoon for a couple hours and had challenging fun, but I have zero photo evidence of my very mild success.  I started out midging a deep hole or two that I have fished before, but it was tough.  I could see 5 or 6 feet deep in clear, cold water.  I decided to explore upstream behind some un-posted backyards, places I would only venture on a weekday in the winter, I think.  Eventually, a few fish began to rise in the spot pictured above to what looked like blue winged olives.  At least that is what one pretty wild brown took off the surface.  The little 10 inch brown shook off in my hand and he put down the rest of his little buddies, so I moved further upstream.  When I switched to a caddis larvae in a great looking undercut bank, I couldn’t keep the creek chubs off my line, so my last 30 minutes or so involved chucking a streamer.  I crept up to a deep-ish plunge pool, wishing I had the dry fly back on because a couple fish were bulging the surface.  Instead, running low on time (bus stop duty), I tossed the streamer a bit shy of the disturbance and had one nice fish make a vee downstream grabbing the fly at the last minute.  Another photo-less catch followed as he too shook off at my feet before I got a net under him.  The next cast was met with a strong hit, so strong in fact that I overreacted (thoughts of 20 inchers lurking in unlikely places) and snapped the muddler off with my overzealous hookset.  This last experience was exciting enough that if it rains tomorrow, I think I am taking a break from this difficult, technical fishing and tossing the spinning rod in rising water.  Plenty of midging and minuscule dry fly fishing left this winter and spring.  I did splurge on some hi-vis gnats this week, though!