August 29, 2021 – Still Not Making it Easy – Northampton County Limestoner

Definitely made me work for him.

After a cool rainy morning on Saturday, and not as much flooding as expected, I set the alarm for Sunday.  I was just going to get up and check gages, which I have done quite a bit this summer.  Often, the tea leaves tell me to go back to bed, but today the signs were looking positive.  This creek holds a charge longer after the rains, so it was pushing 75 CFS, which is about double normal flows for this time of the year, but the color was good enough to nymph with natural bugs for the most part.  The bump of water is both run-off here and revitalized springs after a soaker, so it is not uncommon for it to run high but also pretty clean.  That said, a few deep holes were cloudy enough that I tossed a black jigged bugger and connected with a few, but for the most part, in the absence of hatches, a caddis larva did the trick.  It took me an hour to remember I had one of Eric’s versions in my box to beta test.  I caught a lot of smalls on a size 16 green caddis, but after switching to Eric’s variation with a pronounced dark collar and a little wire for flash, I actually caught three of the best fish of the morning, including two over 12 inches and the one pictured above that was a solid 14.

Many smalls and YOY.

Despite better flows, my recent experiences have underscored that the better fish are still in summer stealth mode.  It takes a little work to coax the better ones out of the better cover, and the truly big fish have mostly eluded even that extra effort.  I think I would need a weed whacker and a chain saw or even night vision goggles to get at some of the pigs of spring.  Sometimes, all this getting up early, swatting mosquitos and spiderwebs, avoiding stinging nettle when not swamping up waders, and then working really hard for dinks in order to land a decent couple of fish, well, it gets old.  I hit the wall around this time of the summer and start longing for shorter days, cooler mornings, October caddis, and so on.  Today was trip 60 of the year, however, so I didn’t say I wasn’t fishing a lot, just starting to feel the late-summer blahs…  I see from the blog archives that I often do at least a couple bass trips in September, as well, but that’s another case of watching the gages with more tropical storms on the way.

More smalls, even on a bugger, until Eric's lucky caddis.

In order to give myself at least three hours of fishing, I thoroughly worked through a few holes and two distinct stretches of pocket water.  While there are fish in the riffles this time of year, most are in the deep water and/or close to undercuts and cover.  I think it’s a lot of effort for fish to hang in the heavier water when it’s getting close to 70 degrees each afternoon, and with fewer hatches, the terrestrials probably make an easier meal in slower water.  As a nympher, however, I am happy for the lifecycle of caddis, since there are multiple broods in different stages of life all year.  A larva or scud will often do the trick, as will a midge or perdigon, of course, but those small bugs get the prevalent small fish.  I landed the usual array of dinkers and YOY.  I can’t tell how successful last winter’s spawn at this point, as the YOY are not yet annoyingly voracious on any of my go-to cricks.  There have been hungry babes present in all of them, however, so I am hopeful.  Despite the heat, the amount of rain we had this summer bodes well.  And as kids go back to school and people to work, they may get a well-deserved break too.   The boy starts school on Monday, Labor Day next weekend, both sure signs that a much needed change is on the way!

Not a bad showing despite my bad attitude!