October 19, 2020 – Still Limping Along in Low Water – Northampton County Limestoner

A promising start.

I had no set plans for today, but I was up early to use the bathroom around 4:30 AM, and by the time I got the cat to settle down from actually having a friend awake at that hour, it was clear I was not going to fall back to sleep quickly.  I worked a lot over the weekend and was caught up on grading for the time being, so I had half a day to kill, but I had no motivation to plan anything on Sunday.  Fall streams are often low, but most of the streams within an hour of home are significantly lower than normal right now.  I am just tired of the work it takes to put together a decent catch in these conditions, I guess.  That does not mean I didn’t get up and pack up to go somewhere this morning, however, and I did get a good handful between 7:30 and 11:30 AM, even if I had to settle for some holdover rainbows on the old san juan worm!

Low even for fall, worms and bows, a perdigon brown.

After watching the news about morning fog and clouds (though no rain in the 5-Day, of course) I decided to try the largest of my four or five go-to Lehigh Valley limestone creeks.  The last time I fished this particular one, I landed only two fish, but one was a pig wild brown.  I had another stretch or two in mind as I headed up this morning.  Thinking about that big fish, and anticipating low water, however, I grabbed my 10 foot 4 weight that I had rigged up with a mono rig, 6X tippet, and two really small bugs.  Water was low and clear, as expected, but I thought I made the right call and that it might actually get good today when I landed a decent wild brown on a perdigon on my third cast.  I worked the remaining pocket water and a favorite deep, braided hole without a bump, though.  Besides this one early fish, the only other highlight was pulling two good tungsten bugs out of the trees.  The water was low enough that I could wade in places that are typically over waist deep, so I went prospecting when I saw something shiny.

White-tipped and pretty holdover rainbows to end the morning.

It was early, so I decided to throw a hail mary at a certain waterfall where I knew there would be deep water.  I went from being a little hot and overdressed to a bit chilly as I sat in the spray behind the falls.  All the sudden my mono rig choice was not optimal, of course, but this was not the first time I had chunked a bobber and a worm on the old 20 lab Maxima—actually, I had 20, tapered to 15, taper to 12, so casting was not impossible by any means.  I almost didn’t trust my eyes when I saw the indicator pause the first time, but it was surely a hit.  I wasn’t as slow the second time I put a cast back in the same seam, and I landed my second fish of the morning.  It was probably now 10 AM, and this was a holdover rainbow all of 11 inches, but he fought well and his fins were tipped with white and his colors were great.  I will take it, I thought.  Working the slower seams of the deeper run behind the waterfall, I managed to pick up 3 more nice rainbows, all solid holdover fish in great shape and happy in the cold water.  

Two of them were plumper holdovers.

I tried to work back and forth across the face of the dam to see if I could put together a stronger showing, but in the end all four rainbows came from the same run, two on each side.  Even in this deep water, they knew the only chance for a meal they didn’t have to hunt down was to wait off to the side of the strongest current coming over the dam.  There was still a lot of debris and a couple tree-sized limbs down there, so when I broke off eventually, I just called it a day.  In the end, I was glad I stayed up and made the relatively short drive.  I told myself on the ride home that I might target a larger NEPA creek on Wednesday.  I just have to find the motivation to plan and pack on Tuesday!

Worth staying up this morning?