March 9, 2020 – Leisurely Fishing the Second Shift – Northampton County Limestoner

Not a day for olives, but they must be showing at times.

It was close to 70 degrees today, bright and sunny with a bit of a breeze.  Nice people weather, but maybe not fish weather.  With the changing of the clocks, I was not raring to go this morning, and I had to finish some reading, writing, and work for the upcoming week, but I was getting restless by 11 AM.  I talked to Tami on the phone around noon, and she too was feeling tired and rudderless.  My advice to her to just get out at lunchtime and take a walk helped me, too.  I started tinkering around in the garage debating whether to do a wader repair or start raking the lawn or something, but instead I started packing the ‘Ru for fishing.  The boy takes the late activities bus on Mondays, so I didn’t need to be home, and I rarely get to fish past 2:30 PM on a weekday.  I took a gamble that olives—or fish conditioned to look for olives since conditions weren’t great for much more than midges—would be active midday.  No food, one water bottle, and 4 hours later, I had put together a half-decent afternoon of fishing.

Normal flows, but a good tint.

I saw isolated olives and some larger midges, like size 18 or more, when I arrived.  Much smaller midges were everywhere.  The water in the channels had a good limestone tint, but not enough stain and particulates to make the sunshine really cloud it up.  It looked good, in other words, so I started nymphing a deep hole up to the head of the run, and twice hooked a monster.  I truly believe it was a sucker and that I had hooked his lazy self twice because he wouldn’t give up his lane.  Due to some overhanging trees, I had to keep the rod at a low angle that he could use to his advantage, but the size 18 walts really gained no purchase twice.  Thankfully, after that minor drama, I did land a nice 10- or 11-inch wild brown on my dropper, the same hot spot soft hackle jig I had been using last week to mimic the emerging olives.  I caught about 8 fish between this time and 4:30 PM when the bite just died, one more fish just before I decided to leave, and they were split evenly between the two small bugs.

A few decent small stream fish.

I was not shocked to see another car parked along this stretch when I arrived, but I didn’t run into the other fishermen until they were walking out—two young guys throwing spinners.  They were walking up from below me, so I was encouraged that no one had fished the pocket water upstream.  I did my best to sneak up through the creek, hoping not to spook up into the run fish set up in the tailout, and I guess I did a decent job.  I landed three trout and dropped one (more tree branches overhead) in this short run, and I landed a fourth in a slightly deeper depression in the riffles that feed the run.  Like last week with Sam, some fish were very shallow and on the edges of bouncier water—conditioned to wait for emerging olives, as I had hoped.  Most of the fish were deeper today, however, but not that deep.  It was not silly fishing, but I picked up two more, including a couple close to 12 inches long as I worked my way through the pocket water to the flat hole where I usually turn back. 

Bright.

I decided to try the deep hole where I began the afternoon, and I hooked some part of the large fish again, so I had now decided sucker for sure (man, I hope).  After that, I ventured downstream to fish some more pocket water, but I was worried that this was the area the other dudes had fished, two of them wading and disturbing.  I think my fears were confirmed, though the time of day could have had something to do with it, as I couldn’t buy even a hit.  I switched to smaller bugs because midges were still present but no more larger ones, no more olives either.  Even that proved useless until I had worked my way back to the sucker hole one last time.  Since it was close to the car, and I was mentally planning to leave for home, I gave the small bugs a shot.  I landed what I believe was my ninth fish here, still on the soft hackle dropper, though.  I couldn’t get to an even ten, but after a good 45 fishless minutes, I was happy to end on this high note.  It now stays light until nearly 7:30 PM, but with leafless trees and long shadows, the bite does seem to end much sooner than that.  I did appreciate the novelty of leisurely fishing at this time of the day, though.