November 10, 2021 – Getting to Be About That Time? – Northampton County Limestoner

I just like the colors on this buck + a bird wound too.

With the long warm spell in October, I was thinking that the brown trout might spawn a little later this year, but today I saw signs that things seem to be on track.  For one, I caught one male that was nearly in full spawning colors.  I also saw a fish try to swim up a low-head waterfall.  Twice.  I kid you not.  Out of the corner my eye, I thought I saw something swimming with everything it had.  I kept an eye out for a mink or some other critter, but I was lucky enough a few minutes later to see the fish try again.  I was so close I could identify not only that it was a wild brown, but also that it was likely a male about 13 inches long.  I guess the rut is not just for deer because this fella was acting a fool.  Maybe he heard they want to pull down the rest of the dams here and got overzealous? 

Another bluebird and breezy day + one of those bows!

After the beating on Monday, the three trout I caught today felt like a treat, especially because they were all at least 12 inches long and very spunky.  One fish was one of the holdover rainbows in this creek that I always welcome catching.  She’d been around a good while and was 16 inches and thick.  It was all muscle too, as I was shocked that I had such a time landing this fish on a 10’6” 4 weight with plenty of butt section.  Not difficult in a bad way like she was going to get off, just a show of will and solid strength.  The two browns were quality too and both leapers in the tight confines of shallow pocket water.  The male that opens this post went up four times, but the female, who was a bit bigger, also put on a nice acrobatic show.

The female on the small bomb walts.

I fished a couple deep holes looking for a piggy with first a streamer and then some bigger bugs, but I did not even move a fish in the high sun and that damn wind again.  I saw some olives and very small caddis, but could not tempt any fish with the likely choices on the dropper, but a single size 18 bomb walts gave me what I was looking for, a nice spurt of activity on which to end the short trip.  Had I been able to fish longer, I may have gotten a few more fishing through spots where I had been ignored earlier in the day.  There were not a lot of bugs in the air, but the warm up had coaxed a few to go shallow and actively eat for a while.  Fall fishing can start getting tough as the spawn approaches, at least for the larger trout, but I will take 12-inchers all day (10-inchers too!).  It is not time to quit targeting browns altogether, but I will certainly have my eyes peeled next week for fish making redds in the Lehigh Valley and points north.  The surf crew is testing the waters, breaking in that beach buggy tag, and chomping at the bit for it to go off, and Jay wants to do the Tully or something like that around Thanksgiving, so plenty of fishing in November remains on the table once it does begin.