May 20 and 21, 2019 – Isolated Storms, Check Your Gages, a Reprieve from the Heat, Joe Makes Stuff Happen – A Couple of SEPA Creeks

A little dirty and way up from overnight rain.

It was not until I drove over the main branch of the Perkiomen Creek yesterday that I realized that my plan was a wash.  The ground was dry at my house, and the forecast on the hot Sunday that preceded was for a minor chance of rain, at best.  I now recall seeing some flashes of heat lightning in the west around dusk on Sunday night, but I did not pay them much mind.  I didn’t look at USGS water gages Monday morning either.  I just drove west.  Out of ideas, I guess, knowing that the bigger creeks I would like to be targeting right now were a mess, I headed towards the Oley Valley again.  The number of wild fish I found, albeit small, on the Manny had me wanting to try another spot or two and find a better one or two or three wild fish.  When I crossed the Perk, however, I found milk chocolate flowing between its banks.

Pretty, but barely 10 inches short.

In my head, I came up with a plan B but kept on driving, hoping that the floods were very isolated.  When I arrived at the Manatawny, I was disappointed but not surprise because that looked as bad as the Perk, so on to plan B, which was only 15 minutes away.  Plan B was also a mess, even though it was small tributary.  How did I miss so much rain?  I know that even a tertiary perusal of the gages in the state would have shown a lot of color, so even old men make rookie mistakes or get lazy sometimes!  There was construction, a good 4 mile detour to get to my plan C, so I gave this second creek a shot, anyway.  I eventually landed one 10 inch wild fish on a black streamer, so I quit and resigned to drive the extra miles to plan C.  Well, the road was completely closed, it seems, not at just one end but both ends.  It was getting hot by late morning, and I didn’t want to get further frustrated, so I just accepted a leisurely ride home through farm country as my reason for being out today.  Don’t folks just take Sunday drives (on a Monday)?

Hooked up to one that didn't want to come up.

Tuesday started out cool and breezy, so I decided to call my dad and propose a short visit to the Wissahickon before I had to teach this evening.  Retired, he was just getting out of bed at 8:30 AM, but I waited for him.  We got to the creek a little before 10 AM, and I liked what I saw.  Good flows, a stain remained from the last rain storms, and there were even swallows in the air nipping at bugs.  The last time we were in this same area, we hiked down to a favorite spot, only to find another fisherman in it.  Today, it was vacant, and we probably caught 25 fish or more from this stretch of creek before working some riffles and pockets on the walk back upstream to the take out point.  We caught a handful more on the walk up too, including my dad’s first fly rod fish without the bobber!

A size 12 frenchie was eaten many times.

The water temperatures are over 60 degrees, but the fish were in good shape and feisty still.  I will likely check water temps and pick the right days if I return to the Wissy again this year.  There are obviously a ton of fish left and not many fishermen targeting them.  All the fish took either a hot spot Frenchie, my anchor fly (and my dad’s bottom fly too) or a soft hackle pheasant tail on the dropper.  I worked through this run and pool at least twice, catching fish on the first fly and then more on the second and then still more by adding a single split shot and digging a couple more out from the deep.  Once we got my dad’s weight and depth correct, he caught fish too.  It was an even mix of bows and browns, and we each tangled with a golden too.  Browns, who seem to know what’s up on the survival front sooner, were already in the shallow riffles and pocket water chasing caddis emergers and the extra oxygen.  The better fish, a couple 14 inches, were rainbows, however.

Success with and without.

The most fun, probably for both of us, was the slow walk upstream picking apart riffles and pockets that few would choose to target.  By this late in the season, there are plenty of fish, mostly browns, where you would think they would be—in other words, a long way from the holes where they were originally dumped.  I tried early in the trip to coach my dad into catching one without the indicator on his own 9 foot 5 weight, but while I’d given him one of my indicator leaders and some bugs that should have worked, we had to play with weight and tippet size.  Eventually, I retied his rig with some 5X and a tungsten frenchie, which worked well for him under the bobber.  On the walk up, however, I coached him using my rod, and he hooked two and landed one tightline nymphing some good water.  A few times, I grabbed the rod and tried to show him how fast I work through likely holding water, only to hook fish in the process.  I caught at least three more when I was supposed to be teaching him!  I am still working on my guiding skills, obviously.  I was happy for him when he landed one and, like many who have success with this nymphing method, he vowed to stop using a float as an indicator.  I don’t blame him for, in the right conditions, it is probably the most efficient way to catch fish feeding subsurface.  Had I really concentrated today and fished hard, it may have been an even sillier day than it was!  After the hot and humid weekend into Monday, today would have been great even if the fish weren’t cooperating so nicely.

A soft hackle pt on the dropper was also eaten many times.