January 4, 2021 – Best Fish of the Year… Oh, Wait – SEPA Blueline

Eric may have found our best yet from this little creek.

Eric and I spent 2020 ranking our visits to our little slice of fish heaven, a blue line near his childhood home to which we gained access for the first time last February.  It has been the perfect getaway, especially during Covid.  It’s only 40 minutes from home, and we never see a soul, even on a weekend.  We fished on a Monday today, but typically we have fished on Sunday to avoid messing with the plans of any archers.  Some deer stands and a few ATV tracks are the only signs of others in much of the stretch we have been fishing.  Eric was even more excited to fish today because late last year while visiting his parents he found out where a landowner of a huge additional parcel of real estate lived.  Not only did he knock on his door and successfully make his case but, emboldened by the first success, he went and knocked on another door adjacent to a stretch further upstream.  Also a successful visit, we now have access to a full day of fishing, even a new parking spot if needed.  Pretty awesome effort on his part, and I did nothing besides befriend the right mitch at the right time!  We put a full day in, too, fishing from 7:30 to just after 3 PM.  The year is only four days old, so my title is a joke, of course, but held against last year’s successes today was still a solid day, ranking in the top three or four visits.  For a winter day, it was pretty exceptional.  Eric’s best fish also ranks up there with the best we have landed from this small creek too.  It was a colored up and shouldery small creek wonder. 

A good start that got better until it wasn't.

We felted charmed.  We were penciled in to fish Sunday, but the area was due to get freezing rain and sleet.  If we had to, we would have gone.  Luckily, Eric’s wife decided to take Monday off to help their daughter with her first day of school after the break.  Besides having eight free hours on a Monday, we also had overnight temperatures above freezing, which winter fish like a lot.  We even had a shot of water and stain in the creek.  In addition, it must have been a low that came through because it did not clear up but instead stayed cloudy and still for most of the day.  I was getting as excited as Eric when we crossed the creek a couple times and I saw the flows and stain.  It felt like a potentially magical day was upon us. 

Eric's first nicer one on a duracell.

We confidently strolled onto posted land and made our way downstream to fish a couple holes we only prospected last winter.  I think I landed a good 10-inch fish on my second or third cast.  Game on.  We were both throwing a bigger meal on a mono rig.  Instead of the usual 10-foot nymphing rod, we both had our shorter 9-footers in case the newer water got tighter (it did).  I had a single size 14 pink tag fly and, taking a page from my own winter notebook, I fished the single bug with a bit of action.  It is hard for fish to pass up a big meal in the winter, and I have found that if I can get that CDC feather pulsing in the slow pockets and around wood, even better sometimes.  Eric was throwing his own version of a Duracell jig with an egg pattern on the dropper.  When we eventually got into a handful of fish each, and nothing had eaten the egg, he also went with a single bug on a long tippet.  I won’t get into the choice of mono rig much, but suffice to say that the sensitivity is great (so no bobbers) and even though the casting is not great the ability to impart gentle action is very good.  With 30 or more feet of green camo mono and no fly line on the water, the stealth is worth any downsides, even in winter when, say, George Daniel might posit that the line doesn’t stay limp enough or whatever.

A pair of my early contenders. 

We caught mostly good fish.  Plenty of 9 inchers and at least two over twelve.  Eric’s that opens this post hand-measured over 13 inches.  We caught fish in a few of our favorite holes and didn’t catch fish in a few favorite holes, but we also caught fish in several new holes.  It was a one or two from a hole kind of day with a few exceptions, so even though they are bunching up now in deep water, they are easy to put down and not all of them decide to get active at the same time short of a hatch—pretty typical winter fishing.  We still felt fortunate that it was usually a good fish that decided to eat on the first good cast or two in each spot.  At a hot spot where we caught 10 or more during a hatch last spring, I landed what would have been our best of the day, a long and spawned out female that was hanging back in the soft water looking for an easy meal.  Eric thoroughly worked another honey hole and hit pay dirt with the aforementioned 13+ inch male. We landed three in a row at the next hot spot just around the bend, but nothing big from this hole where we have encountered some of the best fish in the past.  I did have one break me off on a streamer here on the way back—more on that below.  When we got into the new water, we nymphed for a bit with little success, so I decided to stir it up and go into explorer mode.  This new section of the creek was snaky and woody as hell.  With so many rakes, roots, overhangs, and undercuts, I tied on a small egg sucking leech bugger and went at it from whatever angle I could sneak in a cast.

Round 2, time for the bugger.

After watching me catch three in a row at a junction pool with another tributary, Eric also tied on his own bugger creation to give it a go.  George Daniel surely would have disapproved of us throwing a bugger with a mono rig, but he would not have been too lazy or content with numbers already to tie it right to the 5X tippet with which he had nymphed all morning—and he would have been proven right later.  For now, it was hard to argue with success.  I landed at least 6 more fish in very tight quarters lobbing the bugger upstream into cover or letting it swing under banks and through deeper tailouts.  I watched a decent one pounce on Eric’s bugger, darting out from a shallow undercut bank, and I had a few visual hits of my own to enjoy too.  It was like brookie fishing for the usually much warier brownie.

More bugger time, Eric's creation scores, and eventually snaky and woody.

Eric does not have much experience with water this tight, and I grew tired of dragging my old ass over and around log jams and boggy mess, so we decided to fish our way back downstream with the streamer.  I got one more at a previously dry spot, confirming fish in this hole, one we refused to believe was actually dry on the way upstream.  George Daniel could finally be justified in casting shade on me when I bounced the leech through a big fish hole, got walloped, and broke the 5X on a good one.  This is a spot where Eric and I both swore we saw a 14- or 15-incher rising for caddis last May. 

That pink tag fly with a little movement did well by me.

If not for the excellent day already, I may have been pissed at myself.  But I guess I was relaxed and content all day because I also miffed on another good fish earlier in the morning.  I landed a cast in a great but difficult spot and had already made the rookie mistake of not having an end game in mind—heck I did not even have anywhere to set the hook.  This fish was very forgiving too!  I didn’t stick him well or he was really hangry because he hit a second time.  I had to come straight up on the hookset the second time, and it was not a great one.  This time I got a brief tussle and a full view of another 12-incher, but that was it.  I tried this spot on the way back, now with a worm since I had retied following the break off with the bugger.  Not surprising, the fish did not eat a third time, even such a juicy meal.  That was a theme on the way back, actually: we had overstayed our welcome, I guess.  It was close to 3 PM and getting less humid and breezier, so maybe the magic time had passed.  It was really good while it lasted, though, especially for a winter day.  It was definitely the best day on this creek for 2021, and my best day of 2021 so far.  Centre County on Wednesday with Sam, so I am not sure how long the distinction will hold, but I hope Eric can enjoy the glow for a while longer.  He had the satisfaction of landing a great small stream fish in the winter and on his own bugs!

A good average size today, a b-roll beauty.