October 27, 2017 – My Home Away from Home Stream Was Good to Me Today – Brodhead Creek

Only 17 inches but one badass.

My favorite creek in NEPA can be totally confounding one day and immeasurably awesome the next.  A lot of the creek, which would be called a river in any other state in the Union, is stocked, so rainbows find their way all over, and even come up from the Delaware River, but there are also much more fickle wild browns, some really quality fish, often hiding in plain sight.  This condition is not uncommon, even on wild brown trout streams with a Class A biomass of fish.  Some days you would swear there is not a fish in there, and then when conditions are right, or they simply feel like it, there are fish all over the place.  Of the fish in his similarly positioned home creek (also more like a river) Sam says, “These fish can be dicks…”

Sure, it looks friendly... today!

The Brodhead does not carry a heavy population, certainly not Class A, but it does carry a healthy one and, while the fish were not “all over” today, they definitely came out to play.  High sun, breezy, low water, 10:30 AM to 2:20 PM fishing window, and still the big creek gave up a good one today.  I landed 7 or 8 wild browns, and a few were 10 to 12 inches, but two were quite nice fish.  The measure net keeps me honest, so I know one was 17 and change and the other was 15.  The 15 looked bigger than the first, and without a tape on him, I would have claimed it was 17 too!  While other game fish are measured by weight and even girth, we trout guys usually use one metric alone, length, to measure the fish, but it does not mean some shorter fish are not impressive in other ways like shoulders, kype, and teeth, not to mention balls when it comes to fighting!  I was duly impressed by both fish today and thankful that the creek decided to grant me a memorable one in a week or two of memorable ones.

An average one to start the morning.

The water was cold.  I know this because I had to save myself from a slip by taking a knee and bracing myself with a stiff arm, which was soggied to the shoulder about a half hour before I headed for home.  This is usually a good sign to head for home even on a nice 60 degree October day.  By that time, I had had my fun, but I still managed to land one more little guy in some heavy riffles.  There was a small spike on the gages on Thursday, so I suppose there was a little stain to cover my approach, but I did take advantage of low water in a couple places in order to cross the creek to have the sun at my face instead of behind me.  A long rod and longer casts helped too.

Perhaps more impressive than his longer cousin earlier in the day.

I started out fishing with big nymphs, a brown stone and a yellow stone dropper that was a little smaller.  There were still cases on the rocks in spots, but I didn’t hook up until I switched to much smaller bugs, size 16 to 18.  Most of the fish took the anchor fly on a two fly set up, usually a jigged pheasant tail, but a couple took a caddis pupae too.  There were caddis and midges in the air, so I am not surprised that smaller was the ticket, especially in low water. 

The pockets gave up some, but not the bigger ones.

I crept around and highsticked some deep pocket water behind big boulders and beneath plunge pools, and a couple smaller fish came from these places.  The two larger fish were further back in the runs and shallow, the largest also tight to a log jam trailing parallel to the run.  The other was in a dark bucket in an otherwise flat tailout littered with boulders.  It was sunny enough that I could cast to the spot and use the high visibility tippet floating on the surface to detect the subtle take.  Still, I was surprised to take the beauty 15 inch fish out there exposed with hawks and eagles about, as I saw both today.  I spied no spawning redds, but sometimes fish act oddly when the time nears, not unlike all the bucks that become roadkill this time of year.  It is also possible that this pocket is his home and is deep enough most of the year to keep him safe.  It is certainly a good spot to intercept a meal!

The release of a dark and lovely one.

In about four hours, I had lost half a dozen flies to submerged timber, gotten a sun tan, almost taken a swim, caught a good number of fish on a tough creek, and covered only 100 yards of water, which leaves plenty for next time I take a longer drive.  The heavy rain on Sunday sounds promising, but we have been down this road before this month.  I will wait and see, but if the flooding rains come, I will be out there taking advantage.  For whatever reason, I was extremely grateful to the universe today.  I don’t really pray much, especially FOR things, but as I walked back to the Subaru, wringing out my left sleeve, I did take a deep breath this afternoon and say thank you to no one in particular.  Perhaps it was gratitude to god but it may have been gratitude to the creek itself for being so nice to me today.  While much of the world worked, I was outdoors, you know?  I will pay for it this weekend, as final grades for three of my accelerated courses are due by Sunday, but it was totally worth it.

More dark and lovely fishes.

One last one for the road, wet sleeve and all..