December 24, 2020 – The Fish Were Not Feeling Festive – Northampton County Limestoner

A bit cold and grey, the water not the air.

Once again, my last shot at the surf for 2020 was delayed or indefinitely postponed (perhaps cancelled at this point) by the threat of snotty weather.  Closer to home, it got close to 60 degrees, which is awesome weather for fishermen, but with all the snow on the ground rapidly melting, it was not really a great day for a fish.  I thought I would get up and fish in the morning, beating the rain that was supposed to arrive before noon and possibly some of that frigid snow melt water, too.  I slept until close to 9 AM, so I thought I had missed my window, but the new forecast and radar this morning had the rain arriving much later, like maybe 2 PM at the earliest.  It was actually around 4 PM when I was driving home when any real precipitation began to fall.  I left the house around 10 AM, drove about an hour, and fished until 3:45 PM.  I fished in rain gear the entire time, but I only had the hood up about half of the time.  Besides one other nice and courteous fly guy—he actually asked if I was working upstream or down, a lost civility on some of these pressured creeks—I had the place to myself.  If not for that and the warm weather, I would not have fished for as long as I did for all of three fish.  I think I had maybe 5 hits all day.

One fish.

I thought about fishing a different creek today, but I figured parking would be tricky in the one snowy/muddy/slushy pull-off.  My plan, then, was to drive to this second creek, suit up, maybe prospect, and then be dressed for creek one in case I had to park far away.  When I saw no other cars at the first spot, and I got bounced on my first cast in a tricky back eddy spot, I decided to stay put.  After that first hit, it took a good 45 minutes to land my first one, so maybe I should have stuck with plan A….  I just didn’t think it was going to be happening anywhere today with all the cold water, I suppose.  I worked the same stretch where I caught my first fish a second time because I dropped another one on a sluggish hit and equally sluggish hookset at the end of this stretch.  Doubling back, I actually got another fish.  By this time, I had encountered the other dude, who echoed my assessment that it was a slow, slow day.  I could see the flow rising and getting dirtier, and the two times I had to get my hand wet to release a trout, the cold was memorable.  I was hoping for one of those dreary day hatches of BWOs to turn them on, but I eventually threw a worm for a while before switching back to a bomb waltz and my go-to little brown nothing hare’s ear on the dropper.  The two fish I did land took a perdigon, but I had to work to get two midges down with any consistency, and I didn’t feel like indicator fishing or re-rigging with 6X in the rain.  Lazy or just unconvinced it was going to happen either way, I don’t know.   There are many upcoming weeks of watching midges under a bobber, too….

Two fish, and no pic of three fish....

I did hold out some hope that the later afternoon might prompt one or two desperate ones to eat (magic hour again?) and I had not explored a favorite stretch of pocket water in quite a while, a month or more, so I made my way upstream.  After 3 PM and in a deep pocket, I found my third fish, the best of the day and not netted or photographed!  I was a little miffed, mostly because I got a crappy hookset and knew it might come off.  After a second jump, I was actually surprised I had a chance of giving you some quality content—a 12 inch fish instead of the two 8 or 9 inchers that I did photograph.  But as expected, the fish eventually shook off that little brown hare's ear before I could drag her into a reasonable spot in which to net.  It was getting darker, but probably because the line of showers was actually nearing by now, but I did fish out this pocket water and then return to the hole where I lost the fish, this time with a big attractor, the sj worm.  Nothing doing, and nothing nosing in the flat water upstream either, even with a sign of some midges in the air (finally!) so I headed for home with my tail between my legs.  There are worse ways to spend a warm, drizzly afternoon in December, but there are better ways too, you know?  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, mitches!