July 20, 2021 – About What I Expected this Morning – Northampton County Limestoner

Small creek, small bugs, small fish.

Since this morning was the only morning I had all week potentially to fish, I fished this morning.  Nothing too crazy at work or home, but just one or two things each day, often smack in the middle of the day.  Conditions on this small creek were normal summer flows, with a bit of a cool down since the last heat wave and a humid start.  It was going up to a hazy 90 degrees later in the day, so I figured I would have to be out early and finish early.  I also knew that if I wanted to nymph and not toss a dry dropper, I would really have to sneak around to scare up a few wild browns in pocket water with small bugs.  I was up for the challenge for the most part.  On 6X I was throwing Eric’s size 18 gasolina perdigon on the point fly and on the dropper a smaller black perdigon.  This creek does have some tricos, but it is also very woody with the riparian buffer mostly intact, so something that can double as a drowned ant is not a bad pattern to throw.  I caught a few (and dropped a couple others) on the gasolina, but the majority of the small fish ate that black size 20 perdigon. 

Gills like the sculpin snack.  More smalls.

It was not on fire, and the fish that were tight to the heads of riffles barely took the small bugs if they decided to move at all.  As a result, I actually dropped three in a row that were a little better for this creek at this time of year—maybe 10 to 11 inchers instead of the smaller fish I was landing.  That was mostly my fault.  I had to keep the rod low under a lot of overhanging branches, but I often wrestle fish bigger than these out of this particular spot.  I think I was surprised and a little miffed that a trico chaser stopped to speak to me and then proceeded to high hole me.  He was new to this stretch, so I gave him a little intel, and then he headed upstream not down below me, which etiquette would have dictated (actually, on this creek, I would have driven to a new spot).  I guess I let a mitch get in my head for a minute.  I didn’t let it ruin my morning, and I was just happy to be out for the first time in a long hot week, but I happened to be in this prime spot when we spoke.  In a last ditch effort before heading home, and because it worked last week, I hopped the jigged sculpin in a final deep pool.  No trout, but if I got too far into the back of the pool, I was met with some sunfish.  I took that as a sign that the creek was pretty warm, so by 9:30 AM I was walking back to the ‘Ru.  I was wet wading today, so I knew before I even started that the water was only going to be in the 60’s this morning.  It was still chilly enough in wet pants early that I wanted hot coffee when I got home!  I have been hearing cicadas in my yard, and I heard them for the first time in this region this morning, so I may need to chase some smallies or trout with those big ugly dries this week.  If I move some stuff around, very early on Friday is the next possible fishing window.