January 15 and 18, 2019 – A Couple Local Trips after the Light Snows and Before the Next Deep Freeze – SEPA Freestoners

1/15: Sunny but cold.  Fish sluggish and small.

It was not the warmest week of the winter, but it was not the coldest either, so I did sneak in a couple excursions, just chasing fall stocked trout in Montgomery County with midges.  I had equal success in slow holes with an indicator and in soft pockets around riffles and runs while continuing to work on my dropshotting technique with a pair of midges above a split shot anchor, which I find a lot more fun.  Tuesday was barely above freezing, and ice was forming on the fringes of some slower holes, so fish at the first creek, which is getting low and clear (not for long, with heavy rain coming this weekend) were rather sluggish.  I spent 90 minutes on the water, and I landed only one little rainbow that nearly looked like a fingerling stocking, barely legal and still sporting parr marks.  I stuck two other fish on the same rainbow warrior midge pupa, briefly turning them with my hookset before they quickly shook off the line.  Since this stream is tiny (and low and clear as I mentioned) I had the bright idea to fish with my 8 foot 3 weight set up and a pair of Palsa pinch-on indicators, which land almost as gently as a dry dropper and in tandem do a good job of tracking the position of the light midges as they move through the current.  This idea is a work in progress, however.  I am so used to the long rod, which makes line management much, much easier, that I grew frustrated with getting the right drift, especially when fish were holding in slow, soft water adjacent to current, as winter fish are apt to do, and I had to manage fly line on the water without throwing too many mends that would likely spook the hole.  With a 10 foot 3 weight, I think the set up would be very effective, but I will likely employ this short rod in the way I usually do going forward, tossing dries and small streamers on small creeks like Valley and mountain brook trout trickles.

1/18: Picturesque, quiet.  Fish bigger and hotter.

We received a dusting of wet snow overnight, so conditions looked too picturesque to stay home this morning.  I worked last night, and I had some grading and paperwork to do early in the morning, but by 11:30 AM, I was itching to keep working on my midge dropshotting technique instead.  I decided to stay close and visit another nearby creek that received a fall stocking.  There was a sweet spot today, around 1 to 2:30 PM where the air temperatures were mild and comfortable but not warm enough to get the snow melting in earnest.  I caught 7 fish between noon and 3 PM, but most came during this magic time before the snow started plopping off the tree branches and the creek started getting a bit gray from melting snow.  I caught 3 under an indicator in a deep flat hole, but I also caught 4 others nymphing soft pockets with the dropshot set up.  While the hits were very slight, a couple of the fish were hot!  Two of them took multiple runs and leaps, and the average size was 12 to 14 inches, I bet, so they were a lot of fun.  It was quiet and picturesque as expected, but the fish also made the afternoon surprisingly exciting at times.  I guess this aforementioned sweet spot before the water temps started to dive again had them feeling good.  The rainbow warrior accounted for all the fish today, so there are midges hatching and keeping the fish fed and healthy too, it seems.  The weather and my calendar look iffy next week, so I was very happy that I decided to get out today.  I am getting more confident and proficient fishing midges without the indicator too, which may just make things a little less monotonous this winter!

Dropshotting the rainbow warrior above some spit shot was just as effective as the indicator.

January 11, 2019 – Barely Avoided the Skunk on a Cold One, the Last Fishing Day of My Winter Vacation – Tulpehocken Creek

Cold air, high water, and windy, but it was a nice day and a fishing day.

It was only 28 degrees and breezy when I arrived at the Tully this morning before 11:30 AM, and it only got up to 35, even with high sun, so I was not expecting much magic to happen.  I just wanted to see it this year, I guess, since I don’t think I fished this creek in 2018 at all.  In fact, I have not been to the creek since November of 2017, according to this here blog, which is pretty accurate (unless a post is buried in a two-fer post, which can happen during the meh… months of the year—sort of like now).  Since it is a tailwater, and the lake can only hold so much water, the Tully had been running high all of 2018 and the beginning of this year, and it was still about 400 CFS today, but I just needed a little adventure on my last day of vacation.  I haven’t taken this particular ride in a while, so I figured what the heck.  I was dressed well, so warm enough, even in the wind, and cold days like this seem to cut down the crowds—this can be for good reasons, but it can also mean a few more fish that have not been otherwise disturbed by a parade of anglers.

One of each, and no size.

I thought about tossing a streamer, but instead I started out nymphing with a couple bigger bugs.  They got no love, and when I lost them on a nice deep snag, I decided to practice my dropshot midging.  Before literally dropshotting, I had three flies going, a rainbow warrior on the dropper tag, a deep sinking caddis larva as the anchor, and a zebra midge tied off the bend of the anchor fly’s hook.  I hooked, fought, and managed not to net successfully a small brown, who took the top midge, the rainbow warrior.  I didn’t want to get my hands wet anyway, and my phone was buried in a pocket under a couple layers of clothing, but this seems to be a theme this month.  Even with barbs, it is not uncommon to lose a fish on a size 20 or 22 midge, but when the hits are few and far between, it still sucks.  After losing my tungsten anchor fly, I decided to rig up to dropshot for real, with two midges on dropper tags and a split shot or two rolling along the bottom.  I experimented a little this spring on the Wissy, and had some success fishing this way.  I have also watched others do it in the winter, even with an indicator and eggs instead of midges.  I certainly lost no more flies, and only a few split shot, so I was getting to the bottom okay, but it was not the magic formula.  I did land one small rainbow on this rig, however, so I logged two fish in over 3 hours of fishing.  Not a great day, even by winter standards, but it was a fishing day, and with the cold weather, I had the creek to myself, which as I mentioned above rarely happens on the Tully.  Back to work next week, and it is supposed to remain cold, but I am sure I will chase some more stockies or sneak around Valley if I have the opportunity.

January 3 and 8, 2018 – Miscalculations, Missteps, and Mistakes – SEPA Winter Fishing Continues

No tells.

After a fun day on Valley on January 2, the last few fishing days have been less than spectacular.  Last Thursday, I took a longer drive to fish a couple smaller Lehigh Valley creeks, but neither stop was what I was looking for in a winter fishing destination.  Monocacy was still pumping a lot of water, dirty water, and every step near the water’s edge released more mud to swirl up and eddy in the holes I wanted to target.  I spent about 30 minutes roll casting a streamer from the bank with nary a follow before heading to the much smaller (and tougher) Cedar Creek in Allentown.  I have limited experience with the creek, and the last time I fished it was in very high water, so it presented a very different challenge today.  The Class A section of the creek runs through an open field and city park, so when the streamside grasses are dead and the willows are bare, it requires a lot of sneaking, perhaps crawling, to scare up a fish who is likely hiding in an undercut bank.  Although clear and low, clearer and lower than I had calculated in my mind on the ride over, the banks surrounding Cedar were also saturated with mud.  A step within two feet of the bank released muddy water from the sponge and dirtied the otherwise clear flow.  Odd, perhaps cool to witness, but not great for fishing if any of the near-bank flow starting heading upstream, as with an eddy or other soft edge.  I managed to sneak up on a monster, probably 18 inches or more, and not scare him, but he ignored my offerings before I finally spooked him.  Again, it was cool to witness, but it was not great for fishing.

"Sluggish like a wet sponge."

I had been texting with Sam since late last week about a trip to Centre County Monday or Tuesday, but creeks were blown out, another round of rain was set to arrive early this week, and it was going to get very cold, so we postponed.  I was feeling a little tired and nauseas in the morning today, but I figured some fresh air would be good for both of those conditions.  I appreciate it and am fond of the place, but I could not go to Valley again, but I did not want to drive too far, either.  Instead of chasing fall stocked fish at the usual places, I suited up to confirm a hunch.  With all the rain this year, I had a feeling that this would be a year when spring stocked fish would hold over in the Wissahickon.  I know I already wrote about all the holdovers in the Pickering DHALO, mostly browns who made it through the warm months and were willing to eat in October, but I had yet to try for them in the Wissy.   It was cloudy and supposed to get warm, although it never broke 50 degrees, but it felt good to walk in the woods and try a couple of my favorite holes, places I hadn’t been since June.  In an all-time favorite hole, one that is always cool and oxygenated, and very difficult to fish well with a wad of Powerbait or a spinner, I dredged up a rainbow, not a brown.  

Provided enough O2 and shade for a few to make it through the summer.

Hunch confirmed.  I dropped him before a picture, just another mistake for this week, so you will have to believe me.  I hooked one other fish in this same spot, but I grew tired of the many snags in the sweet spot within the hole, so I tried two other high percentage holes downstream.  Midges were coming off, but if there were shoals of holdovers feasting on them, they gave me no tells.  I am convinced that a fish or two made it through the summer in the last hole I targeted, but there was just too much water to dissect for my patience level at the time.  The hole was also mighty deep, perhaps scoured even more than usual with all the rain this year, so standing waist deep in 40 degree water to confirm a hunch or not was also beyond my patience level today.  Perhaps on a warmer day later this winter, I will try to move something in here with a streamer.  I have a couple more days off before classes begin, but cold weather has arrived again.  Hate to even think it, but Valley is not off the table for Friday!

January 2, 2019 – Had to Break in the New License and Voluntary Wild Trout Permit – Valley Creek

A pretty good start to 2019.

There are a few voluntary choices for fisherman in PA this year beyond the required license, trout stamp, and Erie stamp, including permits for musky, bass, wild trout, and even general habitat/waterways conservation.  The wild trout permit is an extra $26.90 beyond the usual license and the trout stamp fees, but since I fish for wild fish a great deal, I figured I must do my duty.  I gather that the PFBC will monitor these sales closely to see how many of us take them up on this offer in order to help meet funding gaps (and we will likely want a report on the returns).  License sales are down, and no one in the State wants to own a raise in license fees, even though it is time.  To cover the losses, hatcheries are closing, and other cost saving measures are underway, so this sounds like a noble experiment to see who puts their money where their mouths are—that money targeted to the PFBC program they value the most.  More information can be found here and on the PFBC website. 

The new Voluntary Permits are designed to help maintain funding levels for several key fishing related programs. Revenues generated from the sale of these permits will be reinvested into their respective program. - PFBC, 2019.

I am off work until January 14, and we don’t have a printer at home, so I began my morning buying my license and stamp and the aforementioned permit online, and then I used our library’s cloud printing service to send a copy and retrieve my new print-outs while dropping off the week’s DVD and book returns (I am at the public library at least twice a week with the readers in my house!).  After all that, I could not rightly chase stockies, you see, so I decided to spend a couple hours at Valley Creek to bring in the new year.  

Wood and deep.

It was in the mid-40s and overcast, and the rain over the weekend promised a stain and continued good flows, so it was not a bad choice, and I ended up having a pretty decent 2.5 hours on the water.  I fished well upstream of the Park, in some skinny water that I have not visited since before the spawn.  Fish were in winter mode, schooling up, sometimes with suckers, in the predictable winter spots like deep slower holes, deep undercut banks, and deadfalls in deep water.  Because the spots where I fished were deeper, but indicators on Valley can spell disaster, I used a heavier tag fly with a rainbow warrior midge pupa tied off the bend, so that my flies would get down and I could tuck them into pockets more quickly.  I caught about 7 decent fish and a few micro-trout too, all but two on the midge.  The other two actually fell for a small green over black bugger slowly retrieved around heavy cover.  I was about a day late for the streamer bite, but it is always an option in the winter, when a good meal is hard to pass up, especially when the usual fare is about size 20 or smaller.  It was good to stick two on the bugger and move a couple others, even though the water was pretty clean this afternoon.  

A couple long but skinny ones.

I had the place to myself, and I caught at least two decent fish in the 10 inch range, so I would call it a successful afternoon.  I hope it is one of many fishing days this winter and that last year’s deep freeze and accompanying ice are not regular occurrences.  At least give me a few more days this January and February!  While the temperate weather lasts, I will definitely get out at least one other day this week, perhaps Thursday, perhaps even a little further from home now that I am legal-plus for 2019.

A couple even ate a streamer.