April 27, 2018 – A Sucker for a Rainy Forecast – Northampton County Limestoner

A couple on the mouth, including one probably a pound heavier than this one...

I was all excited when I saw the forecast for Thursday night into Friday morning.  I was in need of a good day with some wild fish after a week of fishing close to home with mixed results, a result of a lot of work and home stuff going on.  Not the first or last time, but I fell for a promising forecast that never materialized; the heavier rain never really arrived, which was good and bad.  It was bad in that the creek I selected fishes well when it is stained and higher.  It is a small creek that hides some big fish, but those fish are in pocket water and deep holes, typically not in flats gently rising to bugs, and even if they were, one would have a hard time approaching them from anywhere but below them, in the water with them, hoping not to stumble or make a ruckus and spook them.   The lack of heavy rain was good in that I kept my hood up most of the 4 hours I fished, but only to keep a steady drizzle from dripping down my neck, not because there were any downpours or storms to dodge.  I caught wild fish and rainbows pushed downstream from a stocked section of the creek by the heavy rains earlier in the month, and I even caught a couple river run suckers (also wild fish, yeah?) up to five pounds and likely looking to spawn or returning from doing their thing and now ready to eat?

Not big momma, but a decent way to start the morning.

The first hole I hit in earnest has produced some big fish for me over the years, and I even landed an 18 inch rainbow earlier this year, but today it was not on fire, by any means.  I managed to dredge up two 12 inch wild browns that fought really well, though, so that was a lot of fun.  I concentrated around a piece of structure where I have seen a pig brown in recent months, but I just ended up losing a couple flies for the effort.  There were only midges and small olives, like 18 or smaller, coming off the water for the first hour, and besides the two fish I caught, I saw no other signs of life.  The water was high from a wet April, but not high and stained from any of the recent rain, so I scaled down to smaller bugs and drove a short way to another section of the creek that features shallower pocket water and runs.

Getting better!

I stuck my first decent fish of the day on the soft edges of a fast run, and after a good fight, I almost lost him when the pheasant tail dropper came loose and my anchor fly got a fin just as I was ready to land him.  With that leverage on me, I was certain he was going to swim away with my flies, but I somehow managed to stumble below him and get a net under him before any such disaster.  This fish was not all that colored up, even for the light conditions today, but it was also wild based on the fins and the blue spot behind the eye (and the fight he gave).  After a couple pics, he got the release he deserved.

A lot of bows got washed down, but some better ones at least.

Picking my way upstream, I got bounced a couple other times, and I landed three more fish, all rainbows that must have been pushed way downstream by the heavy water of a couple weeks ago.  There was still evidence of where the creek had been in high water, with side channels still full of water and last summer’s knotweed knocked down a couple feet up the bank in some places, so there could be a lot of bows in the creek this spring.  I don’t mind, honestly, as they get sporty in this kind of water.  Oxygen rich and full of bugs, you would thrive too—if you liked to eat aquatic insects, that is.  One big bow, shown in the blurry shot above taken in a rain shower, was pushing 15 inches, but a smaller one I landed earlier jumped a least 5 times before coming to the net.

Okay, so not all good ones...

Things got really interesting as I neared the end of this stretch of pocket water.  Below one last long shallow riffle, the creek widens to allow a soft edge, a hole, sort of, but a hole right next to a fast run that is 3 to 4 feet deep on average.  I thought I had blown up the spot on my approach because I spooked about 10 large suckers out of the tailout as I tried to sneak in.  I did catch two more trout in the hole, however, but not before I tangled with a couple of those huge suckers.  These were fish that had come up from the river below, not little guys who spend their lives in the creek.  And they actually bounced my Czech nymph rig!  I had put on a big golden stone to get down in the deep seam, and I got hit a couple times without hooking up.  I thought that maybe I had found the brood stock, too small to get hooked.  I changed out to a small walt’s worm and a tungsten pt, and landed the sucker pictured at the beginning of the post.

Good flows persist, but not what I was hoping for this morning.

After setting this sucker free, a good 4 pound fish, I bet, a solid river fish, I thought for sure the next fish I hooked was a big, big brown trout when I got bounced and set the hook and felt the head shake.  Imagine my disappointment and, to be honest, amazement when a 5-pound sucker tried to take a leap out of the water after bulldogging towards some tree roots across the creek from me!  This one barely fit in the net when I turned him back to shore.  I did not take a picture of this fish, as the novelty had now worn off… I remember catching suckers this big while trout fishing on the Little Pine Creek when I was young, fish that must have been making a spawning run from the lake below, and they were also fun then, but I was not going to hang out and wrassle with suckers for the rest of the afternoon, not when I could make better time getting home before the early Friday rush.  Not the day I had hoped for, but my expectations were pretty high.  I figure I landed 8 trout, 4 of them wild browns, so I will take it and be grateful while I watch the forecasts for those unpredictable perfect conditions.

A cute little guy.