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| May have missed this guy last month. Pretty fish. |
I usually have a class on Tuesday nights, so I often
sleep in on Wednesday. I knew it was
going to get warm again this week, but my Thursday and Friday are totally
booked up with meetings and appointments, so I tried my best to get up and out
today. I slept until 8:45 despite my
best efforts, and I didn’t leave the house until 10:15 AM, but at least I knew
I could fish until about 4 PM today and still have time to get home to teach a
class online at 6 PM. Once again, I am
not used to these late starts, especially because it has meant that I actually
see other dudes in some of my spots! I
guess there is a reason why I get out early when conditions allow. At least I beat two other fishermen to my
first spot this morning, and I landed a couple trout on a jigged bugger. The best was about 13 inches, which was fun
for a tiny creek. I lost a decent fish,
maybe even this one, the last time I fished this hole on this creek, so it was good
to get a good hook set and an actual picture.
I caught a few more fish last time, however.
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| Far less snow melt at spot one, which probably helped my chances. |
The other highlight here was getting a do-over at another
hole. The last visit, I found a pod of 8
to 10 inch fish, even one about 12 in the mix, and I stalked them without
spooking them. After landing a perfect
cast, I caught the smallest fish in the bunch and it was over.… Today, I got one a little better to take
Eric’s bunny leech bugger, so that was something—and then it was over. I also saw the first signs of early black
stoneflies at this creek. I have had
some awesome days here when there are enough of them for fish to notice. Maybe it was snow melt or high pressure or
high sun, but they were a bit sluggish today and also spooky, so I decided to fish
another spot about 15 minutes away. Before I left for the
second creek, I ran into one dude starting to fish below me, and another truck
was in a small pull-off, just scouting.
I did not expect to see any anglers let alone two anglers, so it did
make me wary of what I might find at the second stop, which is more well-known
and accessible.
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| My second do-over with only slightly better results. |
Of course I saw two cars at the second creek. I still don’t know if it’s been my later
starts, or winter fishing has caught on, or way more people work from home and
make their own hours. For as long as I
have kept this blog, and longer, I cannot remember running into so many
fishermen on weekdays on these little creeks, especially in what used to be
most guy’s off season. I guess I have
done my own small part in advertising winter fishing, but my reach is far short
of YouTube and the magazines and professional blogs. Creek two is stocked trout water, but it has
a decent population of wild browns that fluctuates year to year. This year has been bad because of the storms
and habitat destruction, but it’s still a tradition to fish this one and one
other that I might hit next week at least once in the late winter/early spring
before they are closed ahead of stocked trout season and Opening Day.
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| Only one from spot two. |
Seeing two cars and actually seeing one dude fishing, I
drove to a couple other spots to find parking and finally decided to park at a
business and sneak into one favorite hole.
If I could just get one fish, it would be an accomplishment today, I
figured. The water here had that
telltale color of snow melt, and while my feet were not cold at the first creek
earlier in the day, they quickly got cold here.
That is a bad sign. No bugs, no
surface activity, and I moved nothing with a jigged bugger the first pass
through. I decided to rig up to nymph a
couple bugs under an indicator in the deep, slow section of the hole, and I landed
my one and only on a size 18 walts worm.
I am pretty sure it was wild, and a decent size for a wild fish
here. It had no fused spots, full fins,
and beautiful parr marks. I was not able
to raise another from this hole, so instead of moving up or down and possibly
running into one of the two parties I saw when I first arrived, I just called
it good. Three fish in close to four
hours of fishing, even factoring in the drive to spot two and the search for
open water, so not a banner day. It was
pretty typical for winter fishing, however.
Sadly, I am tied up on Thursday and Friday, as I mentioned above, but
next week returns to normal, and the temps seem favorable. I may even start planning my first trip to Central PA this week if conditions remain pretty level and flows don't go crazy after the massive cold front on the way.
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| Far less snow left at spot two, and more of that dreaded gray color in the crick. |
Nice water and nice fish. Are you all in on jig head streamers now, or are there circumstances when you prefer one over a conehead?
ReplyDeleteRR
Thanks, RR. Well, the mighty roberdeau was always a jigged streamer, and I have fished that as traditional streamer or a jig. I used to bring two rods, but with the smaller jigs, I can throw them with a 10 ft 3 wt or switch to nymphing with just a change of tippet size. I also have a 10'6" 4 weight rod, and a 10' 5 weight rod, so I can scale up for bigger creeks and the rivers. I don't throw cone heads much, and I have even less love for the fish skulls, but they do work for fishing streamers the traditional way, which I do plenty of with both types. Confused yet? Oh, and Eric gave me a bunch of jigs this year, so I have been fishing them instead of say, stoneflies, this winter!
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