October 12, 2021 – Novelty not Quantity – Northampton County Limestoner

Le Tigre

I caught a tiger trout today that was so ugly he was beautiful?  Full disclosure: For a fish that was probably 15 inches long and wide, he fought like a wet sock, but he looked tough with a serious kype and great colors.  This is a first on this creek, but I have caught a couple smaller tigers in a nearby creek, so I assume that a club puts them in somewhere and, with the crazy floods, they can get redistributed miles from planting.  He had definitely been around for a while with the shape of his fins and deep colors.  Either that, or he was a unicorn or a really primo, high-end stockie.  When I sent a pic to the Silver Fox, Tom asked if the fish had a tag, and I did not think to look before a quick release.  The photos show nothing that I can see.  It was a novelty, at least.  The sad thing is that I caught a nice wild brown out of this same spot a couple months ago and thought I might have fooled him again this morning.  It is a prime lair, so maybe this tiger was just tired from having to defend it from the locals.  In the end, I was just happy it was a fish, as the early shift was dead today.  The flows were normal (which is low this time of year) and rather clear, but with the low light due to the cloud cover and drizzle, I tried to raise a good fish on a jigged bugger for the first hour. 

A nice brown on the dry dropper.

I had one bump by an unknown fish and had one 12 incher charge and turn back, never to charge again, so I eventually rigged up to nymph.  There were caddis in the vegetation from a recent hatch, but nothing happening otherwise, not even midges or small olives.  This creek has been challenging since Ida, but today ended up better than my last visit, at least.  Besides Tony the Tiger/Daniel Tiger/Tiger Schulmann I did hook and fight two more 10-11 inchers that came off a perdigon on the dropper before the net job—yeah, I tried to use one of Eric’s few failed prototypes again and was rewarded in kind!  I knew when I picked it up that it was probably part of the batch with the formula of hook to bead out of whack, but I also thought it would get eaten, and it did.  Honestly, I was just happy for the action at this point, and he has since fixed the issue with these otherwise effective bugs.

Stopped to smell the musty mushroom because fishing was slow this morning.

At least I did not lose a nice 14 inch fish, which I landed while fishing a dry dropper for about an hour.  After working though some pocket water, I watched a flat for a while and saw some life.  More like fish bulging once in a while or flashing than any rises, but I rigged a dry dropper on the mono rig anyway, just to change things up for a while.  He did not take the dry, but at least it was fun to see a decent brown come up and take the walts worm on the dropper just 8 to 10 inches below the dry.  This fish fought like a wild fish, though nothing crazy.  After the tiger’s poor showing, and this brown not really lighting me up, I dropped the thermometer.  The temp was 60-61 degrees, so better than fine, but I think this prolonged summer has them barely on the cusp of getting active before the spawn.  I also smelled sewage from the septic systems of some nearby houses in a couple places and saw more algae growth along the banks, so we probably need more storms to flush out and repair the effects of the superstorms if that logic makes sense.  

Bonus shots of brownie

A week of cloudy days has made for nice hiking weather and helps extend the fishing day a little longer despite the warm air temps, so I did enjoy the fall colors, along with some turtle watching, even a mushroom photo or two during my bankside walks.  I was very worried about this spot on my last visit, and fishing was not great that morning either, but today was a little more encouraging.  Fish are in there, but they seem to have no urgency to eat unless a hatch happens.  The adult fish are there, that is, as the YOY seem to have disappeared or found sanctuary elsewhere.  Hopefully, nature provides a good spawn this year and the water stays on the high side all winter.  My mailman Joe predicts a lot of snow this winter—he has been right before.  We have had a break from heavy precipitation for the last week or more, but it is not wrong to assume we might be stuck in a wetter pattern for the remainder of the year.

Almost looked like some kind of Pokemon