May 1, 2019 – Even if He Only Hooks a Couple of Them – Wissahickon Creek

Gold and a hawk in flight in there somewhere.

So, first off, I hooked more than a couple stockies today.  That is not what the title is about.  I will get to that soon.  I actually landed close to 20 trout, I bet, including a golden rainbow, and probably 10 more panfish and smallmouth, who are waking up in the 60 degree water temperatures.  Getting more reps with my new rod, I started out at a favorite hole that I have not fished since the winter when I tried for and confirmed holdovers from the spring 2018 stocking, and the hole and run below it are still loaded up with fish.  No brookies this time, but I landed probably 8 fish from this first spot, rainbows, browns, and some gold too.  After feeling like I was in danger of re-catching one, I got back on the path and walked downstream to cross a bridge and venture further into the park.  As I was walking over the bridge I saw a small group of elementary school kids on the bank with fishing rods.  I later learned that they were all from The Project Learn School in the Mount Airy section of the city.  I was not aware of it, but the mission and objectives seem cool, and at least one teacher is very cool in my estimation.  I will get to that too.

Nice looking stockies!

So, yeah, as I was walking over the bridge, I see this diverse group of kids and no adult in sight, and one of the boys politely ask, “Are you fishing, and can you help us?  My lure is snagged.  It’s my lucky lure.”  I could have kept on walking, but as a teacher and a dad, I guess I really couldn’t.  I went down there and spent the next 30 minutes untangling lines, retying lures, showing them pictures of the prized golden rainbow in my net, one that looked like the two or three they were trying to hook in this hole and, despite the disturbance of energetic 9 year olds throwing rocks in the creek, even landed a smallmouth for them to release and fought with one of the goldens before it came off.  All the snagging and tangles of four free-range elementary school kids was wearing me out, though, so I eventually took my polite leave, but in the next pool downstream I ran into more kids and Hus, their young teacher.

Some nice looking bows too.

He was wearing a Patagonia trucker hat and a 5 o’clock shadow and a smile too.  Apparently, he fly fishes or has fly fished, and the lures and fishing gear the kids were using were all his old gear.  He was running thin—one boy had a floating Rapala with no hooks as an indicator and a hand-tied caddis dry on the business end.  Others had trout magnets or jigs with soft plastics or whatever poor Hus had left to replace the snagged and treed lures, I guess.  He just wanted these city kids to get outside and learn a new skill or pick up a lifelong hobby or something.  If he only hooks a couple, it will be worth it, and I hope I told him as much.  Before I took my leave of this crew for good, I handed him my phone so he could give me his contact information.  I told him I would dig around my garage (and my dad’s shed and maybe Kenny’s garage) for any tackle I could find. I know I probably have hundreds of small jigs somewhere, maybe even an extra combo or two.  Anyway, that was quite an unexpected adventure and a bit exhausting, and this young dude apparently does something like this with the kids almost every Wednesday! 

Ended up just drop-shotting this grubby hare's ear.

After passing more kids, including three or four girls in the same age range, this small group hanging on a rope swing, I took a longer walk to put some distance between us.  On the way down, I picked apart some pocket water, looking for and finding a rogue stockie here and there and more panfish too.  I eventually ran into a handful of bank fishermen in a usually productive hole, so I left them to it.  It was around 1 PM, so I headed back upstream and fished the area that Hus and his students had finally vacated, and I picked up a few more trout, also in riffles and pockets away from the expected holes. Every fish took the dropper, a caddis larva in hare’s ear gray, so I eventually started drop-shotting this one fly and had equal success compared to a two-fly rig.

There are a lot of these around this year, a lot!

It was a perfect fishing weather day, 60 or less and cloudy, and I actually saw quite a few adult caddis again.  In one flat below a riffle, a half a dozen swallows were snapping up flies under the watchful eye of an opportunistic hawk.  I was hoping to get my dad out today, and he would have caught quite a few, I am sure, but he had another appointment.  When he heard how many fish I caught today in a short time, he postponed another for tomorrow and is supposed to meet me around 8:30 AM at my house.  We will visit another section, perhaps one where I beat them up last week, but it will be a Wissy repeat tomorrow.  The weather is supposed to be screwy like the past weekend again, like 85 and more storms after a morning low in the 50’s, so I hope the fishing remains good in the morning at least.  I may even take Joe to nymphing without an indicator school?  It will be infinitely easier than teaching 9 year olds, no doubt.  I have to respect a teacher who takes 10 or 12 kids into the woods to teach them to fish.  He is made of tougher and more patient stuff than me!