October 21, 2020 – More Bows but Made the Most of Low Water Woes – Brodhead Creek

Low for here, but finally some water!

I took a ride to one of my home away from home creeks this morning.  The water is low, but this is a big creek, so sometimes it is nice to see it this way.  For one, the low water reveals the structure that is often buried beneath four feet of rolling water.  And the second benefit is the ability to wade around without fear of bathing and personal injury.  In the upper reaches, the creek is sadly low, but I fished below the major tributaries today, hoping to get access to some pre-spawn browns.  The water tends to warm all summer down this end, so the spawn is a ways off, I think.  Not much bug life either, at least today.  It stayed cloudy and foggy until well after 12:30 PM when I headed for home, so maybe the sun would have sparked a few more caddis.  I did catch a mess of holdover rainbows, some on a big size 12 tungsten pheasant tail (larger mayfly or stonefly nymph hopes) but most on the size 16 CDC red tag fly on the dropper.  That does indicate that some of those caddies do emerge from time to time! 

Some bows early in bouncy water with small bugs.

I didn’t arrive until around 8 AM, having taken my time this morning.  The first hour has not been great this month with few exceptions, plus the first spot I wanted to visit is in a deep gorge that often stays cold and dark for longer.  Cold?  Hah.  In just one layer of insulation under a t-shirt, I was a fogging my glasses and swamping my ass by the time I made a creek crossing and waded down to a favorite set of riffle, run, riffle, run.  I was wading waist deep and cooling off in no time, however.  A couple smaller holdover rainbows cooperated in the first half-hour.  They were still in summer mode, or seeking cover in broken water, hanging right in the dark spots in the riffles.  I ended up getting only 5 fish in the first two hours or more of fishing, and they were all average rainbows.  Pretty, with white tipped translucent fins and deepening hues, but spring holdovers nonetheless.  I saw one little wild brown show himself chasing a caddis, and I got him to take a swipe behind a midstream boulder, but that was the only sign of these browns I was supposedly trying to target.  Waiting for a change of some kind—a hatch, the sun to burn off the fog—I fished a deep hole with a big stonefly and a worm on the dropper under a bobber for twenty more minutes with disappointing results.

Pretty holdovers in pocket water.

After fishing this too good to be barren run a second time and only landing one more bow, I had a decision to make.  I could take a humid hike down into the still bigger water and try to rouse something and/or take a skunk, or I could work up to a major trib and see what had gathered there during the warm months for thermal refuge.  I made the second choice, and it did mean numbers, though no brown trout.  On the way, I found myself at a spot that my old man (and Ward and others) spent a lot of time fishing until his passing last year.  It was an unintended bittersweet moment as I near the one year anniversary of his death.  I tried to catch a fish here for old time’s sake, but he never was much of a guide, more of a sport along to benefit from all my previous hard work scouting.  I took a picture to send to Wardman and kept moving to the tributary.  As I fished a couple side holes on the way up, I could see that another dude was fishing in the general area, but by the time I arrived he had moved well upstream.  I am thinking he did not fish this spot, or he was fishing without hooks!  Either way, it was fortunate for me.

The rare male rainbow?  One of two today.

In a deep run below a small plunge, in a place that is not often wadable, I found the motherlode of holdover rainbows, including a couple gorgeous males.  If you notice, the vast majority of stockies are female—one reason perhaps that more wild bows are not present in PA creeks?  It is kind of a novelty to find a pointy-headed and wide male, and I landed a couple of them in the final hour of the trip, along with at least 8 more rainbows of various average sizes.  The first couple pounced on the big fly as it swung down, but the majority took the smaller dropper, which I noticed at home was destroyed by these hungry things.  I figured 15 fish was worth all the driving, and I had some work to do at home, so I called it good around 12:40 and hiked out.

A couple ate the big fly.  This one chooses the supersized meal often it seems.

I had to strip off the layers for the ride home, but it was good to work up a little sweat on the Mighty-ish Brodhead.  It was so hard not to grab my streamer rod and head downstream, but when I checked with Tami, she had a request from the store on my ride home, so that helped me decide to call it for good despite the ever-present what if? that happens to me on this creek.  So many spots and so little time, and so many good times with my dad and my old friends, you know?  I will be back before they actually do start spawning in December, I promise, maybe even with a streamer if we get any rain!

Pic I sent to Wardman.  Tailout of our old hot spot with Joe!