December 29, 2018 – Blue Skies, Blue Lines, and Silver Foxes – SEPA Tributary

Looks fishy.

The Silver Fox/Tom H. showed me around his favorite trickle in SEPA this morning.  It is a very small creek with some limestone influence, I gather, and it is on the natural reproduction list from the PFBC.  Whether it has been assessed in recent years, I don’t recall.  Over the last year or more, at least once by bicycle, however, Tom has done some work with getting permission and legal access, for which I am especially thankful because I narrowly beat a trespassing rap on another branch in the same watershed a while back.  Much like last week—in fact, almost exactly like last week—there were heavy rains and warm temperatures on Friday, followed by high water runoff, bright sun, and steady wind on Saturday.  When I proposed this trip to Tom on Friday afternoon as the rain continued to fall heavily, I assumed this creek, which has no gage and no real equivalents in the immediate area, would nevertheless be fishable this morning. Having much more experience with it, Tom concurred, so we decided to give it a shot.  I picked him up around 8 AM and headed to the creek with no expectations—me, just excited to see it, really.  The creek was indeed fishable and, according to Tom, back to about normal with a stain, a lot of mud puddles, and one breeched log jam all that remained of the previous evening’s floods.  It is definitely a small creek, perhaps 12 feet wide at most, but it meanders and is littered with good cover, so I am not surprised that it can support a small population of wild browns.  Tom has confirmed this on a few occasions, with fish over 12 inches, judging from the photos he sent, but because it is so tight, never with the fly rod.  We decided to double-team it today; he carrying the short spinning set up, me a light 9 footer with some small bugs.  To be honest, with the exception of a few nice plunge pools, the spinning rod felt like the right tool at least 70 percent of the time.

They are in there, just dickish today...

We gave it a go, and we earned our skunk in beautiful winter conditions.  I spooked at least two small trout, and we both watched one poke his nose out of a deep run to take an emerger, perhaps a midge or small BWO.  When not plucking my own flies out of trees or Tom’s spinners (some from last trip well before the spawn) out of heavy brush, I did get bounced at least twice.  I missed these fish both times, either because I didn’t completely expect a hit or because I had no idea where my rod would go to accomplish the hookset.  I was twice too pleased that I snuck a lovely lob into the sweet spots in the small holes to think of what would happen if I had to hook a fish, perhaps even land a fish.  At any rate, it was cool to see Tom’s little obsession.  It is a rare gem in a rather densely populated area.  With all the rain this year, spring on this creek could be very interesting.  Perhaps we will try a do-over in April or May when some more bug life brings them out of hiding.  Solely based at the present time on the 4-inch chub Tom landed with my rod on a walt’s worm minutes before we called it a morning, I am convinced it can be done with the fly rod too!

Earned our skunk with middle-age gymnastics.