August 9, 2020 – At Least It Wasn’t Me This Time – Northampton County Limestoner

 

The early shift with good flows and temps for August

Not that I wish a bad night of sleep on anyone, especially a good buddy like Eric, but I am glad it was him and not me that got owned by a legit pig this morning.  As it happened, I was on the bank behind him retying after having a decent fish drag my dropper into some debris and hang it up.  It was a good fish, maybe 14 inches, and I would have liked a photo after pretty much subduing him, but the one Eric hooked was big.  From where I stood, I only saw the initial bend in the rod when he set the hook, but even a 12-inch wild fish, hell, a particularly ornery 10-incher, can stand his or her ground like that.  The fish was in heavy current, so it did not move at first, which is not uncommon of big fish, and Eric uttered something about how big it was from his vantage point.  Tragically, when this trout decided it was time to go, the encounter did not last long.  I did see the silhouette and large wake he made, heard the short scream of drag, when he turned downstream.  That move must have dragged the midway point of Eric’s tippet over some sharp rock because the line was abraded and cut through in a matter of seconds.  The first thing he said was, I am going to throw up.  I have been there.

Both on the board early

Despite these early misfortunes, the creek fished very well, so we really had no reason to complain about roughly 14 fish between us in about three hours of fishing on a heavily pressured creek.  Add the fact that it is August, and a Sunday, and we only saw two other fishermen (one who seemed pissed to see us—seriously, if I pull up to this creek and see two vehicles, I go elsewhere, fella!) then we were especially fortunate.  No hatches, but we saw a couple errant caddis flying around.  Fish were up off the bottom early, and they took the dropper, but we had to work to dig a few out later as the heat and sun returned.  Water temp was 66 and the flow was twice as high as normal, close to early spring flows in my experience.  No gage on this creek, so I really just wanted to do a drive-by on our way to another spot.  It was still dark when we rolled up, but when we encountered no other fishermen suiting up (yet) and optimal conditions, we decided to stay put.  We took our time waiting for daylight.  Eric had a fish on right at sunrise around 6:05 AM.  I would say it was good fishing until 8 AM and then tailed off to nothing.

Some good and bad moments, but mostly good.

As I mentioned, we had a lot of excitement, good and bad, before 7:00 AM.  Even, or perhaps especially, after tangling with a couple good fish, I was hopeful that we might actually net and document one today.  A dude who perhaps unwittingly high holed us, then moved below us, then decided to high hole us again, this time not unwittingly, kind of put a damper on the hot and heavy action (for here) and took one of my favorite big fish spots off the docket.  Instead, we beelined it to a long stretch of pocket water and had to be content with pictures of pretty wild fish in the 10 to 11 inch range.  I think Eric’s new caddis tag fly/peeking caddis accounted for 3 or 4 of my fish, especially later when I had to work to get them to even nudge a bug deep in the riffles.  Before that, because of the stained water, a dark CDC jig worked, as well as a brown hare’s ear larva that often does wonders on this creek—a little brown nothing on a tungsten bead and competition hook that likely looks like a rolling caddis and/or scud/sow bug. Small bugs seem to work well here in all seasons.

An especially pretty one on Eric's green peeking caddis jig.

It was humid—we encountered dense fog on the ride up—so even before the sun starting breaking through, moving around in the heavier water resulted in a lot of sweat.  I am still trying to dry the swamp out of my waders, which I wore this morning mainly to give my new boots a test run.  By 7:30, I was happy with the boots but wishing I was wet wading for some relief from the heat.  We fished a few of my favorite holes here hoping to find another good fish, but it was clear that our last half hour or more on the water was more casting practice than fishing—like they tend to do on most summer days, the fish decided at some point to shut down, perhaps go back to bed.  It was good and bad while it lasted.  I hope Eric doesn’t replay the what-if scenario all night.  I will wait a couple weeks to share my “be prepared for a good fish at all times” speech—partly as a reminder to myself.  He is probably in his garage setting drag and reexamining his spools of tippet for defects, so I will not wait long to remind him (again) that big wild fish are experts at getting away.  They did not survive this long without learning a few tricks, and they resort to hiding reflexes they’ve had since they were wee parr.  Just be happy you saw him.  Like I said, this is equal parts reminder to myself.