June 27, 2017 – A Lehigh River Tour with the Consummate Tom C.

Tom landing one of two he scared up on the dry fly after a brief rain shower.

Tom C and I have been trying to set up a day to fish for most of the spring.  I met him through the Paflyfish site, and he has read my blog for a while, as well.  He is 75 years young and fishes more than I do!  This week alone, he fished for fluke and trout and was heading up to meet a guide, YouTube’s own Jim Misiura (more on that below) on the Lackawanna River too!  Not even having met him in person, which I did for the first time today in a hotel parking lot, so we could wisely carpool a 12 hour fishing day, I could tell he was a well-read, intelligent, interesting man, who was also a bit sick with the fishing disease.  What’s not to like about the guy?

We met up near 476 to pick up the northbound lanes for the Poconos.  The plan was to fish the Lehigh River, but also just meet and talk and show each other some spots.  I have almost zero experience with anything on the river below Jim Thorpe, but Tom was shown around by some respected professionals and other Paflyfish guys, so he had over the last three years culled a massive river down to a few usually productive spots.  We didn’t meet until 8 AM, so we probably didn’t fish the first spot until after 10 AM, but the first stretch he shared with me was a great looking one.  The water was sporty, at the bottom of a long, long riffle, and it also had a deep run that hugged the far bank.  While I only hooked one fish here swinging a soft hackle at the end of my drift, I could tell that when it was on, as they say, it would be on.  The story of the day, actually, was that plenty of olives, midges, and even some stones and sulfurs were present, but not in enough abundance to start a party.

Hit the soft hackle pt on the swing.   An about average rainbow for the day.

After the first drop, Tom gave me a thorough tour of his favorite spots on the lower end of what I would consider the trout-friendly half of the river.  We didn’t even fish three of them, just shared stories and watched a couple distant risers before driving to the next.  After a tailgate-gourmet lunch (the guy cooks too!), it was my turn to lead a tour.  We took about a 50 minute ride upstream to an access point that I usually find productive.  The flows were perfect, and the water temps were 64 or 65 even at 5 PM after some sun, clouds, and even a shower or two, but the bugs at the next stop were also sparse.  Tom and I both hooked a couple early on, and I was deadly with the 8 inch smallmouth bass and 6 inch chubs (so I guess my Czech nymphing touch is working) but I managed to break off my largest fish of the afternoon trying to net him in water too fast to wade.  Tom scared up two solid rainbows on a dry fly, however.  As his fly had a bright, indicator post, neither one of us are sure if they wanted a sulfur or an olive, but who cares, really?  He caught two on the surface on a tough fishing day!  The picture that opens the post is Tom in action, by this point hand-lining one in for a quick release.  I took a few blind casts with the same pattern and a sulfur, but nothing came up to look or even take my dropper.

A keeper spot on a near-perfect weather day.

After spending some time at this first run and the tailout, I wanted to show Tom one more spot that was likely better-suited to dry fly fishing.  On the walk up, we saw no risers, and at this point in the day, Tom would have needed a rope or a burro to get out of the river bed in most of the “access” spots.  When we got to the head of the pool, Tom obliged me a solo trip down the steep rocks and roots “staircase” to the river while he rested at the top.  Like most of the day, it seems, I caught and long-distance released a couple fish at this spot without a photo, and then spent more than my share of allotted time trying to end with a decent fish pic.  No dice, but I take better photos when I am alone anyway, taking more time to record the experience.  Besides one 10 inch wild brown, the fish were all stocker rainbows in the 13 to 15 inch range, nothing spectacular, so it was better that I was in the moment and enjoying the company and, besides a short shower, the near-perfect weather more than the fishing.  I readily took the wheel on the ride home and, as a bonus, I got to hear Tom set up plans with Jim Misuira on the Bluetooth speakers.  If you have seen his fly fishing videos on YouTube, you would recognize at once the hard, NEPA accent.  Hopefully, it will not take me all summer to fish with Tom C again, and I pray he takes good notes of all Jim’s spots on the Lack!