June 19, 2017 - Hot Soup! – Brodhead Creek

Spider will be happy.  A couple dark caddis and some small mayflies managed not to be washed away..

It was a bit sticky today, and I had second thoughts about fishing, but in the end I made the most of about 4.5 hours on the water, landing probably 10 fish, mostly Czech nymphing the riffles and runs of the summertime Brodhead.  For Father’s Day, I drank a few beers and ate good bad food at my brother’s house, so I was probably dehydrated and loaded with salt and did not sleep well as a result.  I was up at 2:30 AM this morning, a good 30 minutes before the alarm, so I took my time getting ready and driving to NEPA.  When I arrived at the first section of the creek that I wanted to fish, I had to wait out a short thunderstorm, but the rain held off again until 11 AM when I had to quit and hide from another downpour before driving home.  Tami was not feeling well, I learned about 10:30 AM when I checked my text messages, so I was trying to get home quickly, but the weather had different plans for me.

That haze was not on my camera lens... for once.

Even in a just a T-shirt and breathable waders, I was hot and pretty uncomfortable with the evaporating moisture everywhere, but the water was still plenty cold.  I started out the morning catching two small wild browns of about 10 inches, as I worked my way slowly through a favorite stretch of pocket water.  I missed one other fish in the first 45 minutes that gave the tungsten pheasant tail a good thump in a deep run, and I also saw a few small fish rising in some back eddies against the far bank, so I was hoping things would turn on a bit as the weather calmed down.  As luck would have it, my mind was not playing tricks on me when I thought I heard voices behind me earlier in the morning.  A couple wet-wading spinner fishermen jumped not too far ahead of me in a run that I had been saving.  For what, you say?  Exactly.  Wasting no more time, I returned the favor and jumped ahead of them so I could fish another usually productive run before the pocket water peters out.  

A couple wild brows in the 10 inch range and this guy, probably washed down from a club upstream.

Here I quickly battled what I was hoping to be a decent wild brownie, but when I brought him to the net, though awfully pretty, I think he was a holdover who escaped from upstream somewhere.  He still accounted for himself well, as did a decent rainbow that hit my caddis dropper on the swing and a bonus 13 inch brook trout, also a wanderer, unless the local TU is “supplementing” this stretch.

Why not a 13 inch brook trout too?  Where'd he come from?

I waded belly deep to avoid some posted property on the more convenient and safer side of the creek and made a few blind casts in a good, though quiet today, pool before jumping out and hoofing it up to another stretch of the creek that is not stocked.  The water was low, but normal low for this time of year, so the faster runs were plenty deep enough to hold fish and offer some cover.  I was a little disappointed to hook a nice rainbow here, hoping he was an equally nice wild brown, but he was a pretty fish and a sporty one too.  By this time, I saw Tami’s text and knew it was time to get home soon.  Before I spoke to her on the phone, I fished a big deep and braided run and dredged up more rainbows.  All three of my last fish of the morning were good rainbows, but one in particular was fat, strong, and colored up beautifully.  

A pretty bow.  Fish do get around by this time of year!

I almost made it back to my parking spot before the sky opened up again, almost.  I hurriedly undressed and packed up for the ride home, glad I snuck one in this morning but also glad for air conditioning.  Tami was a mess when I got home and didn’t get back to herself until 4 or 5 PM, so even though Kev wanted to do some storm chasing for big wild browns on Tuesday morning, I had to decline.  The boy spent all morning in the house nursing Mom, so I have to take him to the pool and/or a movie tomorrow, maybe even some ice cream.  Mom is probably dying for a good cup of coffee after a peaceful night’s sleep!  If I am up at 2:30 AM again, however, I have not ruled out storm chasing wild browns on Valley for a couple hours before the heat comes back.

A few nice ones to end the morning before getting poured on again.

Water is cold, but the air, not so much, although both were pretty wet...