May 12, 2022 – An Incrementally Better Day Today – Northampton County Limestoner

Junior stud.

The creek I fished from about 9 to 1 today was on my list yesterday, but the gage looked a bit high still.  This creek holds a charge for a while longer than some of the other creeks nearby, which is a good thing, I guess.  I can usually hit this one, say with a streamer, the day after I would have fished a streamer on another creek in the region.  I did toss said bugger today, both in black and in olive, and only had one follow, so the fish had settled into eating small black sedges (or not at all).  Anticipating some mayflies larger than BWO’s soon, I did toss a larger frenchie on my anchor fly for about half the trip, and did land a couple of the better fish on it, but a size 18 purple hotspot CDC bug on the dropper was what most of the fish wanted in the stained water—again, that black caddis that seems to be dominating still.  Like yesterday, I beat up the smalls for a while before finding a few decent small stream fish, and then I beat up the smalls again for a while.  I did end with a nice wide male in that 12 to 13 inch range, however.  He weighed twice as much as the skinny 12-inch hen I landed yesterday, and he fought really well in the great water temps and strong flows. 

Pushy still, new wood, Ryan and his siblings out for a swim.

If I found multiple fish, they were pretty shallow and in a very specific rate of flow, and some of my honey holes gave up nothing or nothing but last year’s young of the year. The water was probably double normal flows, but it still looked great.  The visibility was at least two feet deep.  I had not been here since the last heavy rain, and there was evidence that it flooded here pretty good.  There were a couple of fresh trees in the water, including one right in the middle of the sweet spot of a favorite hole.  At least it will provide shelter for a big fish and/or the YOY.  It was good to see so many smalls at both of the creeks I have fished this week, but they are ravenous and hard to pick through at times.  I had a run of 6 fish under 6 inches at one spot today!  The downside of fishing small bugs, even if that is matching the hatch….  That run of smalls is what prompted me to put a gold hotspot frenchie on the point.  I know some 14 to 16 sulfurs arrive soon on this creek, and possibly some even some larger mayflies a bit later, so it was just a hunch.  I was also looking at my mayfly box and thinking, man I have not tossed many of these bugs yet this year.  My caddis box needed a rest, maybe?

Someone chomped the top's tail!

At two favorite big fish holes (well, for here where 15 is pretty huge), I caught nothing, not even a small fish.  I fished one of these spots twice, first with the two different colored buggers and then on the return with the nymphs.  Concluding that they were not active in the holes today, even in the sunny conditions, I took a walk to a run of pocket water with substantial intact riparian buffer on both sides of the creek.  It is fun to fish, but sometimes it takes higher water to make it an effective area to fish.  I have to stay in the water here and creep along without stumbling and breaking sticks and snagging bushes and trees.  It is good small stream fishing in other words, and it sometimes reminds me of fishing Spring Creek and one of its tributaries: standing in the middle of the crick fishing both banks.  Some of this area is still shallower than normal since Ida, but there are a few root balls and deeper depressions under overhanding trees and bushes where fish can and do hold.  I only caught two fish working this run thoroughly, but the second and final fish of the day was a baby stud.  He was probably 13 inches and hot.  In only a foot of water, he had to go up or up and down the creek and under bushes in order to try to escape.  He took that bigger frenchie right at the base of a root ball pocket too.  After a little downstream chase with the net, I took a few pics and called it good.  It was close to 1 PM and feeling hot and humid in waders already.  It was a good way to end a two-day run of just pretty average fishing before it breaks open again this month, I trust.

Small dark bug and one last shot of the incrementally better fish.