May 10, 2019 – Went Out Chunking a Streamer for a Good One and Ended Up Just Having a Good Day – Bushkill Creek

Had to head for the bank to capture even this mediocre shot.

I fished the Bushkill today for the first time since February of this year, and the conditions were not dissimilar: high and stained!  The difference today was that the water temps are now prime, and the fish are a lot more active than in late winter.  I had a plan to search for a good fish, even if it meant not getting one, perhaps not getting any.  I have not yet spent a day tossing a streamer this spring, and today seemed like it was going to be the perfect day to do that.  In all honesty, I did go back after a short break at my car and fish the same stretch—working downstream the first time, upstream the second—with my nymphing rod before going home.  Blame that on the presence of many little black caddis and some large tan caddis too.  I caught fish both ways, but only stocked rainbows, probably 5 of them, while nymphing to close out the afternoon.  Again, with the presence of those dark caddis and the stain, my last purple CDC jig did the trick, even at 1:30 PM and in brighter sun.  I spent the first 3 hours of the trip as I had intended, however, throwing a big streamer, a rubber-legged, bulky, tungsten jig in size 6, and I had a lot of fun and moved a lot of fish, mostly in light rain and drizzle.  The water was pretty stained, so I saw signs and flashes of many of the fish I disturbed, but the water was too dirty to know if any of the fish that I missed or who didn’t commit or who just lurked behind were the big ones I was looking for today.  

Cold water, warm air.  I didn't notice it had gotten hot since I was in shirtsleeves and soaked by 1 PM.

That said, I did catch at least 10 fish on the streamer, including a beautiful wild brown who has not passed up many big meals.  I did not measure, as I could barely handle him once landed, but I would say just about 15 inches.  This was a hot fish, even on my fast action 9 foot 5-6 weight that I use primarily for streamers.  He hit like he wanted to kill the streamer and then went into the air twice before trying to dig into every boulder, log, bedrock shelf he could find.  As I mentioned, I had a heck of a time getting a good photo.  He would not quit, and it was raining and my hands were wet and my phone was acting squirrelly, but I got a couple shots.   A good wild fish cleverly hidden in plain sight within a city park, you know?  In addition to this quality brown, I caught the fattest brook trout I can ever remember catching.  It fought like neither rainbow nor brown, so I had no clue what I had on the line.  The fish battled a little like a smallmouth bass, actually!  I was hoping big, fat brown, but I still enjoyed this bonus baby, probably a holdover and courtesy of the Forks TU chapter?  I caught one other smaller brookie on the streamer too, so brookie, brown, and rainbow all decided to take the big meal when offered.

Big, fiesty brookie!

I had a few tentative bumps when I first got started, but as I worked through my repertoire of streamer approaches, I finally hit on the most effective today.  All but two rainbows, so 8 out of 10 fish, plus two dropped fish, all took the streamer as it was rather violently and quickly stripped.  I gave it a couple seconds to sink from, say, 10 AM to 12 noon in front of me, and then stripped the heck out of it as it did its swing.  No need for a strip set, as they were on it, and my strip to keep the fly moving ended up imparting action AND hooking the fish.  This is a lot of fun, almost like tossing the old Rapala back in the day (not that long ago, honestly), only the streamers usually don’t fall apart or lose pieces when they bounce against a rock on the retrieve!  

Educational signs, bows, hawk watch.

As mentioned above, I was fishing a city park (suburbs to a city guy like me), one I have not fished in a while. I wish I had more city parks nearby where visitors needed to be educated about the presence of wild fish!  The educational signs, an example pictured in the collage to the left, are nice and maybe somewhat effective maybe? I still find it puzzling, though.  So, on one hand a local organization stocks over wild browns with these brookies, and on the other it does a lot of stream work, advocacy and watchdog work with the local businesses, one that notoriously dewaters the creek when its pumps go out, and education to protect and preserve these wild fish.  They are not alone; TU chapters all over the state, country do this too.  I guess like the Fish Commission they are all threading the needle.  Enough editorializing today (this is not a Deep Thoughts, after all).  Since fishing was good, I considered moving to another one of my spots, places where I have caught or moved or lost really good fish, but those caddis in all the bushes and bouncing around the water convinced me to take it easy and just stay put.  After working through the most productive-looking water, some of it better nymphing water than streamer water, I walked back to my parking spot, refilled my water bottle, and grabbed my nymphing set up.  I only had another 40 minutes to fish, but I didn’t have a long stretch to work, anyway.  I was encouraged when I landed two rainbows on the CDC jig pretty quickly, but I had to work a good deal harder for the last three fish of the afternoon.

Some nice looking rainbows too (white tips indicating fin regrowth)

I ran into one other fisherman, a young guy just getting started on his fly fishing journey.  We talked for a minute as I passed behind him to move upstream and target one last hole, the place I started this morning.  I tried to give a little advice since he was friendly and asked how I was doing, so I hope he landed a couple this afternoon.  For me, I ended up landing one more rainbow before hitting a convenient place to climb out of the creek and head for the parking lot.  The nymphing gave my shoulder a rest, sort of, from all the chunking and stripping, but prime time had passed, and the boy was likely heading for dismissal from school soon, so I started for home about 2:45 PM.  I technically did not live or die by the streamer today as intended when I left the house, but I had a lot of success and a lot of fun.  Even if the piggies stayed in their lairs, I found a couple little giants, and there are certainly worse things to be doing on a rainy Friday than tangling with healthy fish in high water.

This is me trying to get a good shot, and him never staying still!