September 21, 2021 – More Storm Damage Touring – Berks County

If there were trout to be seen, there's a good chance I would have seen them!

Having hit the wall with my Lehigh Valley limestoner visits, in my last post I mentioned that if we got a few cool days in a row I might visit more of my favorite creeks this week.  The damage to them and the possible impact on the fishing has been hit or miss during my in-person “surveys” thus far, but the smaller creeks with fewer places to hide, perhaps, seem to be the most impacted.  I hold out hope for this one, but it was pretty messed up in places.  A place where I fought and lost a 20 inch fish this late spring, for example, was nearly unrecognizable—no depth, wide and sandy, with channels spreading all through the woods.  This creek gets warm most years, very warm some years, and this year was warm despite good flows.  The high flows here in summer always raise the water temps if the gages are correct.  The limestone influence is minimal and limited mostly to tribs, so I hope that is where all the trout went because, with the exception of one tiny smallmouth, it was chublife today.  The water is high for this time of the season, but because it was crystal clear I would have seen at least a couple spooked trout.

#chublife but pretty out there.

I did not expect much, but there are a couple holes that often hold over fish, so I guess I was expecting at least a couple fish, even if they weren’t wild.  That is perhaps counter-intuitive, though.  Logic would say that the stockers would be the most impacted and the least adapted to survival in this watershed.  As I mentioned above, I believe the wild fish spread into this creek and retreat into the tributaries almost every year, and they probably know what to do in storms.  I will likely give the creek another shot in a month or so, but I won’t spend much time if I find the same lack of trout and the same concentration of ravenous chubs, who were feeling safe enough to rise to olives this morning!  I got two on the swing and a hundred on a size 16 frenchie.  Even my go-to caddis larva for this time of year could only manage the tiny bass you see pictured.  The tour continues this week, maybe Friday if we don’t get too much rain on Wednesday night into Thursday.