April 12, 2021 – A Few for the Smoker – Wissahickon Creek

Where'd he find such a contraption?

Eric got off work a little early, so I met him down the street for about 90 minutes before he had to be back for his daughter’s bus stop pickup.  The creek in my neighborhood has been a little depressing and challenging.  It is looking more like a flood plain and less like a creek every year, and I have a feeling that the Commish knows this stretch gets more marginal every year, as they have curtailed stocking to just two times for the season for a few years now.  Add little to no help stocking, all the efforts going to the Penny and Stony, it seems, since they have an interested group that the PFBC can contact for help during Covid, and I don’t see stocking continuing much longer here even when normal returns.  The irony is that the Commish likes when the resource is “utilized,” which is the reason they cited for cessation of fall stocking on the Wissy in the City years ago, but this spot surely gets used.  There are always cars in the lot, mostly bank fishermen in the easy to access spots.  Last year, all the fish were dumped near the bridge, so social distancing was a joke, and even on Mentored Youth day mid-afternoon, the boy and I had a hard time finding an open spot.

A brown on Eric's egg pattern

Well, Eric got himself a new smoker, and he had been picking away at the fish for a few days in one particular hole that must have been loaded up.  Since we hadn’t gotten out in a while, I welcomed the chance to take a break from work and hang with a mitch for a while.  Perhaps because the creek was still high and muddy after the Sunday rain, it was a challenge, but we landed a few in his spot before it shut off.  We moved down to some spots where the boy and I moved fish before Opening Day, but had no luck before a quickly approaching quitting time.  Good to get out for some air and fish, but the creek is in bad shape, and lines were in all the trees and snags, signs the creek has been loved since MY Day.  There was even a likely unlicensed dude hand-lining and tossing fish in the weeds behind him.  Maybe he forgot his stringer?  Yeah, right….  I have lived in my current house for about 13 years, so this park has been good to me, and Eric, and my son and dad, but I do foresee this convenient spot’s imminent demise.  As I have said before here, time to teach the boy to fly fish and surf fish!