March 31, 2020 – Respecting the Social Distancing and Working Online Takes More Time – Northampton County Limestoner

Cold today, but good flows.

I am in this weird position where it feels like friends like Eric and Tom, young Kenny, are getting out to fish more than me.  I am usually the guy harassing you with a mid-week photo of a nice wild brown, not the other way around!  Nothing too abnormal in the grand scheme of things, but last week was just one of those weeks where I was very busy with work.  I had a bunch of online meetings, at least two online office hours for my students, a couple online classes for work, and even a long one for my own poetry class for my MFA program.  The conferences are not bad, and I teach online a lot, so I am comfortable with all the time on camera.  However, I usually teach two classes on campus and only one online because the online takes up more time.  Anything “live” tends to happen on weekends to accommodate working adults’ schedules, and writing responses to everything, not having a conversation, takes more time too.   Taking my MFA class online has given me a more empathetic stance towards my own online students, so silver lining?  For the last week or more, I have been the guy responding with encouraging texts to my fishing friends, but this week I was able to restore the balance a little bit.  I expect that to continue.

Thick, ornery small stream fish.

Tom invited me to Valley and Eric to Pickering in recent days, but I was both busy and not too keen on fishing popular destinations.  My TU chapter stocked a local creek too, and I see the sense in staying close to home, but I also lean towards choosing fishing spots at this time where I am not likely to see a half a dozen other dudes.  I drove 45 minutes today, and 45 minutes back, to fish for two hours, but it was worth it.  Besides some families of walkers and bikers, I had the creek to myself and caught some nice wild browns.  I nymphed one 500-yard stretch of pocket water with the mono rig and landed 4 decent fish.  The most memorable was a thick brown over 13 inches long that made me go after him in the slightly heavier post-rain flows.  The slight stain also allowed me to sneak up on the usually skittish fish here, and this one was sitting in the pillow in front of a mid-riffle boulder—just a lot of fun to see the take and fight a good one in the current!  I had an audience from across the creek of about 6 people, like 3 generations of the same family, two dogs, so I am glad I didn’t mess it up.  I held the fish up to one very interested son before I let the fish go, and the dad said, You made my day!  That one fish made my day too.

Another decent one, this one over 11 inches and beautiful.