May 11, 2017 – Hunting with a Dry Dropper and Finding Gold – Pennypack Creek

Well, look at that.  The things one finds in SEPA, sometimes!

I had no plans to fish today, and I needed to give the Wissy a break, but I got the urge to go about lunch time, and I let the urge turn to action.  I am glad I did, as I explored a part of the Pennypack that I have not fished before, and I found some cooperative fish, including a 17 inch bonus brown that took a size 20 midge under a caddis dry fly.  I caught a bunch of sunfish on the dry and hooked one decent trout on top as well, but the handful of trout I landed were all on one of two midges that I dropped about 36 inches below the surface.

A nice day for a walk in the woods.

It was a great day for a walk, so I covered a good mile of creek, I bet.  There was a lot of shallow, unproductive water on the way up to my final stop at around 3 PM, but I had the place to myself.  I also saw more fish scooting away in the low, clear water, so if we get another rain, there are plenty left to target here.  A hatch would help too, but those seem to be sporadic and usually don’t happen in the time-frame in which I am fishing.  Thank goodness for the midge, I guess.  The only downside is that, with a dropper so long and a fly so small at the end, I tend to turn a few without getting a good hook in them.  Funny how I can’t miss sunfish, though, even when I swung a couple wet flies at the end of the day…

A lot of these in between trout holding water.

It was a pleasant, relaxing afternoon, but there were some great highlights too.  I hooked a big 15 inch rainbow in about 10 inches of water, and he put on a show in the riffles, running here and there, leaping a couple times.  I also stuck the beautiful brown, who didn’t fight as hard as the rainbows, but put on a show of colors in the net and hopefully on my camera.  I am curious just how long this fish has been around.  It was one of the best looking holdovers I have seen outside of the Lehigh River—and in a creek ¼ the size that gets a lot warmer in the summer too.

The rainbows can definitely fight in the fast runs.  One later in the day nearly jumped into my lap.

I also had a random, advantageous meeting with an older gentleman John who was suiting up to fish as I was leaving.  Somehow we learned that we had a mutual friend, someone probably 30 years his junior, not much older than me, but with whom he remains close.  This friend Kurt was one of my early fly fishing partners and mentors.  He and his buddy Barry taught me a lot and tied me a lot of flies before we lost contact with each other.  My father worked with both guys, and since I have revisited my fly fishing obsession in earnest over the last several years, these guys have been on my mind.  

My fly fishing mentors would be proud, maybe (it IS a stockie and not on a dry fly).

Well, now I have Kurt’s current cell phone and a maybe even a new fishing buddy on the Penny in John, as we too exchanged numbers.  I personally think it is important to have friends of all ages, and I have them from 20 up to 80.  Age is a number, maybe, but the perspective of each generation is unique and important, and fishing is also an equalizer—perhaps not in the cardio category but no one asks how long it took you to get there, just how long was the fish, you know?  For an unplanned fishing day, it was a good one, close to home and with some nice surprises.

Not too deep but deep enough to hold a couple.