November 24, 2021 – The Cold Day the Day before Thanksgiving Day with Jay – Little Schuylkill River

Jay's fish got the well-deserved full 30-second photo-shoot.

I hope that after a few middling-to-terrible days I finally delivered a memorable one for Jay today.  He had not been out in months, and he had this week off.  Monday (which was a perfect trout weather day) was the day after he had just done a long drive to State College and back, and Tuesday was not only frigid but blustery with wind chills in the 20’s.  With Thursday being Turkey Day, today was the day.  It was slated to be cold, but not windy, and so it was.  We fished the Tully this time last year on a beauty day, which was also Tully-crowded.  I like to stay off the wild creeks, especially the small ones, this time of year to give the fish, in whose continued abundance I have a vested interest, their privacy.  Others do the same, I know.  I knew every mook and mitch in SEPA would be off like us today, so I pitched a longshot to Jay.  I myself have never fished the Small Skuke at this time of year, but I have always wanted to investigate.  I know that the small number of wild browns continues to grow over the years, but I was really hoping to find a good number of holdovers.  We found more of the former than the latter, certainly not a bad thing, even a nice bonus fish for Jay, but it was a cold, slow four hours for a fun fifth.  We had the place to ourselves, however, and did not have to worry about fishing around spawning wild fish or dragging our feet through redds, as most reproduction here happens in the tributaries (or behind some islands) and what takes place in the river is surely easy to spot—I saw no redds today, in fact.

Had the place to ourselves, which was justified for most of the day!

We met about 9:40 AM and were fishing by about 10.  It was cold.  I did not drop a stream thermometer, but this is a freestone creek, so the water was cold too.  After a few days of low air temps and clear nights, I would assume 40 at best, likely high 30’s when we arrived. When wading too deep early, it was easy to start getting cold rather quickly, even in long johns and wool socks.  The river is mostly broad and shallow until it braids around islands or gets funneled through steeper terrain, so I tried to move quickly to high percentage late fall/winter holes.  Though the flows were between 80 and 100, the wading was rather easy.  We did spend a good while at the first deep section, in disbelief that it did not produce a fish.  I cycled through some bug options and presentations and finally got a half-hearted hit on two small larva under a bobber.  That was it for the first hour.  After spending time up a side channel, Jay and I lost each other for a while.  Of course, as we met again, I lost the only fish of the morning while talking.  It looked to be an average rainbow.  By now I was fishing a single caddis larva close to the bottom.

Pretty, cold day.

I quietly crossed the river below and fished this hole thoroughly without another bump, so we kept moving.  Jay caught a lost landing net hanging in a tree while I kept hoofing up to the next section of deeper water.  It was damn near 1:30 or 2 PM before our short spurt of afternoon action began.  After hanging some nymphs in the bottom on what felt like wood, I decided to rig a jigged streamer with an extra tungsten bead on 4X.  I had fished Eric’s thinner profile jigged bugger two other times today at prime locations, but this time I chose Sam’s bigger profile Roberdeau.  I had spooked a school of chubs earlier while sneaking around a deadfall, and they were bigger baitfish, but I think Sam’s bug also makes a nice crayfish or sculpin imitation too.  Well, it worked.  I finally landed an average wild brown on the bugger, followed by a plump and beautiful holdover rainbow that was probably 15 inches or more.  Jay took a seat and made the right move, tying on a black bugger and adding a little tungsten putty to get it down.  He worked through the same hole with the different color and profile and stuck himself a great brown buck within ten minutes of switching up.

Another shot of Jay's fish (in my cold hand).

The fish was just about 15 inches but broad, a perfect specimen of a post-spawn male, maybe an old mature fish from one of the tributaries that winters in the river—or maybe not.  There is plenty of forage and wood nearby, and it is dark and shaded in this section of the river much of the day.  I even saw some midges and caddis towards the end of the day, so life is good in these parts and fish have noticed.  Besides the bow, I landed two more wild browns out of this same hole, and Jay stuck another average wild brown here too before we moved on.  With bumps and follows, we interested a good number of fish in a short time period, and the hook-up average for bugger fishing was high, well over 80 percent.  The next deep hole did not duplicate that flurry of activity, but I dropped another average fish in a small wooded pocket on the way up there.  I did land two more little wild browns on the bugger at the last spot before we decided to turn back a little after 3 PM.

A sampling of my fish, including the sole holdover rainbow, the intended quarry.

We had at least a 15-minute walk back down to our vehicles, so we covered some ground today.  Sadly, much of it is a wasteland much of the year, just a lot of shallow wide flats that make good places to target stockies with dry flies, but there are pockets of promise throughout.  I guess that is why I dragged Jay here in mid-to-late-November, to see if the promising spots I had fished in the past would pay off.  I guess they did?  Close to 10 fish between us in a temperate hour?  Fishing on a cold day in November is hardly the right day to measure a creek’s potential, but I think the Little Skuke did alright today.  It certainly gave Jay and me a chance to catch up and catch some fish.  I think the descriptive word Jay used when he texted me a couple photos later in the afternoon was “satisfying.”  After some of the mediocre outings I worked him though in recent memory, I will certainly take it!

Some b-roll from a good November day.