August 23, 2017 – Precious and (a) Few… - Valley Creek

Fun with filters: a doe and her two fawns in painterly fashion.

After celebrating the boy’s tenth birthday and then taking a mini-vacation to a waterpark resort early in the week—not to mention (or belabor) my continued role as nurse, therapist, errand boy, entertainment, and so on for my temporarily ACL-hobbled wife—I needed a quiet moment or two this week.  After climbing stairs, at times carrying a tube (or two) for the boy and his buddy Thomas who tagged along to the waterpark, waiting in lines, eating poorly, packing and unpacking, doing laundry, catching up on work, I did not sleep well last night.  I was up at 4:30 AM and, knowing it had stormed in the wee hours, I wishfully opened the laptop and checked the USGS site, just in case….  Imagine my joy, then, when it appeared that nearby Valley Creek had just crested after a flush of stained rainwater!

Had to give up on the midge...

While everyone but the cat slept in, I decided to stay up, suit up to wet wade, and grab a couple fly rods from the garage.  I had one rigged up to fish a streamer, which I did the last time I fished Valley with a degree of success, but I also wanted to nymph and try out a new reel that I paired with my 3 weight rod, so I just brought both, thinking I would make a decision when I saw the creek in person.  Well, the gauge is pretty far downstream from where I decided to target, so the creek upstream was stained but certainly fishable, maybe even dry fly fishable by later in the morning?  I stopped at a bridge and peered over as I neared the stretch I wanted to fish and, as a result, decided to start nymphing and watch for early risers. As I pulled into a parking spot just before sunrise, I was greeted by a doe and her two fawns.  Nearly tame, as many Valley Creek deer are, for better or for worse, they didn’t get alarmed while I rigged up at the Subaru.  The flash of tail only came after I took a second low-light photo of the trio.  Babes were everywhere this morning!  While I caught some Valley-respectable browns, I also had to abandon the zebra midge as a dropper because the parr—more like fry—were big enough to eat with gusto.

Big enough to give a good tug on the 3 weight and damn pretty too.

I must have caught five of them that were minnow-sized and beautiful, and others popped off the barbless or probably just let go of larger nymphs.  A size 5 Rapala may have been like cheating today!  Strangely, though, the streamer was the only fly that got zero love this morning, believe it or not.  In roughly 4 hours of walking and fishing, I had at least 10, maybe 12, Valley-respectable fish at least three different ways, but nothing hit the streamer.  Early, I had one on a foam beetle and missed a couple others, and then I tied a dropper to the dry, and had the aforementioned parr-fest on the zebra midge.  I also caught a handful nymphing with a caddis emerger, a pheasant tail, even a brassie—highsticking runs and pockets and alongside roots, using the indicator around some down timber—before turning back to the parking spot and fishing my way back downstream while swinging a size 18 olive wet fly.

Wild trout at least three ways.

The wet scored the biggest fish, which freed himself before a photo-op, and it also scored maybe 3 others before I quit around 11 AM.  I am sure many of the pops and nudges I got on the swing that did not connect were also from my little friends who emerged from the stream bed this year!  I didn’t take a water temperature, but the fish were plenty active and sporty in the cool morning conditions.  On my 3 weight, a few of the fish pulled hard and required some thought to turn away from downed trees and other obstructions while not hanging my rod tip in water-laden late summer branches.  In other words, it was a fun, productive morning, just the thing I needed after a vacation and before three days of teaching and grading.

Everything but the streamer this morning

I still have a 7 weight to break in on some smallmouth or, at this rate, ravenous fall trout, but the semester is beginning and my wife is still not driving (though swimming, yes, and walking without crutches quite a bit!) so while I hope it won’t be another two weeks before I set the hook on another fish, it is possible.  My wife knows I need this “me time,” though, and she both humors my obsession and supports my mental health—it was she who encouraged me to stay out longer this morning, in fact—so who knows what the next couple of weeks holds.  Until then, I have photos of beautiful wild browns (and deer) and their offspring to hold me over.

August 9, 2017 – Just Ignoring the Tricos, Really? - Northampton County Limestoner

Tricos in flight (click to enlarge).

I finally got out fishing again!  It has been a while, but we are beginning to see the beginning of the end for my wife’s ACL recovery.  We are on to physical therapy and getting strong enough and quick enough with the right leg to drive.  This goal is still a month away, maybe, but things are getting better each day, especially her mental state.  Being cooped up for so long is not Tami’s style at all. Knowing my mental state was in question, too, she gave me a green light this week to get out.  The issue with being so busy is that I had no time to plan or change gears, and I also wanted to be nearby, so I just picked a relatively close limestoner, hoping the cooler nights and rains would give me something to bend the rod.  Mission accomplished, but it was not easy.  It was a perfect morning, almost fall-like, so the walk and the fresh air did me wonders.  The fishing was a little worse than expected, honestly, but not terrible for a short trip in August.

Close but not there yet: Still too stained for dry fly fishing.

When I arrived a little before 6 AM, the creek looked great from afar, within its banks and only mildly stained in the shallows.  The deeper holes were pretty opaque brown, however.  As I hope you can see from the collage above, the tricos were out in force for a couple hours, but nothing but a few chubs and/or small trout in the clearer shallows were taking notice.  I was hoping some dark caddis or other bugs would come off later in the morning, so after watching for rises for a long period of time, I decided to rig up to nymph some pockets and pools and return later to the hole to see if it cleared more.  Before leaving home in the morning, I strongly considered tossing my new toy, a 9 foot 7 weight, with a big streamer, but I was expecting that after a full day of rest that the creek would have cleared enough for dry fly action.  Oh, well…  

A holdover bow in good colors and translucent fins.

The water temperature that I took was 60, but I didn’t take my time with it or take multiple readings, so it is very likely that the creek was a bit warmer than that, which could account for the slow fishing.  At 60, the fish should have been very active, but they were not.  The air was 58 or 59 when I started, so instead of waiting for the thermometer to lower from the air temperature, I probably should have been waiting for it to rise from sitting in high 50s all night.  Again, oh, well…  It took going down deep with shot and an indicator to dredge up two hold over rainbows.  I also missed one half-hearted bump while swinging a wet fly under some overhanging trees that I couldn’t fish effectively with anything else.  I quit by about 11 AM after taking a little walk back to the car, happy that I had some success in less than prime conditions.  The streamer rod should get some action after the next rain storm, however.  If the rivers keep dropping, I feel smallmouth in my future too!