June 28, 2022 – Overcame Some Challenges, Caught Some Trout – Northampton County

Struggles, but it ended up being a decent day.  Bows never rest.  Smalls gotta eat.

Man, I talked about a rough start a few days ago, but this one was really bad.  I have wanted to hit the Lack this month, but the water temperatures were just a bit too high to make a day of it this week, and the flow was a tad high on top of that.  It looks like I won’t get there until the fall at this point.  I set the alarm for 3 AM just in case.  I figured I could fish the morning and then head back and fish the Brodhead or another creek with slightly better temps.  When I went to bed, I believe I had already bagged that plan, but then I slept terribly on top of that too.  I am just grading a ton of papers, and all that screen time and mental activity too late into the evening has messed me up.  The cat also was in and out a couple times and in a mood.  At some point, I reset the alarm for 4 AM and set my sights on a NEPA crick a lot closer.  I knew this one would be getting too warm pretty soon, as well.  It is heavily shaded and rather small this time of year, so I was sure it would be okay until at least 10 AM. I took a water temp around 10:30 AM at my second stop on the creek, and as suspected it was still only 64 degrees, so totally fine.  I still quit by 11:15 AM after a run of holdover bows and (more) small wild browns.  I caught small fish steadily all morning, but it was most definitely a challenge on several fronts.

One decent one early.  Moved a couple pigs.  Would have been a longer day w/o water

First of all, the bad sleep.  I almost didn’t want to get up, but then this was likely the last day this week I could get out, so I got up.  When I arrived, it was still pretty dark in the woods just 10 minutes after sunrise, I bet, so I tossed my 10’6 with one of Eric’s heavy buggers at a big fish hole since this rod was in the car and rigged for the Lackawanna.  Sure enough I got bounced on the first cast and did not connect.  I saw a second pig follow and refuse too.  The water was too low and too clear to get another shot with the bugger now that I’d been made below the intended targets, so I actually went back to the ‘Ru and got my 3 weight that was rigged with small bugs.  I figured I would rest this spot, take a walk down the creek and fish my way back up.  Well, I had to net my water bottle with the first wild brown of the morning.  It would have been a long hot morning without it!  I think the net lanyard must have hooked it and pulled it out.  Did I mention I was tired and not too skilled to start?  I also got a rainbow a couple casts later, but I never got to work my plan because a dude high holed me (twice) soon thereafter. 

The riffle nymph and decent for today.

I actually saw him drive by very slowly and spotted the same car in a pull-off upstream as I worked up that way later, so I know he saw me.  This happened last time I fished this creek, and it makes me want to not fish it much anymore.  Someone gets there early, but not earlier than me, and then proceeds to jump right to the only two holes in the only stretch of a long creek they know or something.  Frustrating.  When I see cars on many of these creeks, I go elsewhere, but I learned fishing etiquette from some pros, I guess, and I have a rolodex of spots too.  I bit my tongue and went around him, but he frigging jumped to another hole ahead of me after that even.  So much for giving a mook the benefit of the doubt.  He wasn’t even fishing downstream, then—just decided he’d jump ahead of me, fish a while and head upstream again.  He was standing right on top of fish swinging a streamer in low water, so even though he had dressed the part, I’ll assume he was a novice.  If you drive the roads at all these days or watch the news, you know folks is effed up right now, a lot of anger, so I did not say a word.  I figured I would not be one of those effed up folks today and ruin my own trying-enough morning.

Another young adult at least.

Tired, missed a pig, nearly lost my Nalgene, high-holed, and then taken short all before 7 AM?  Yep, I could no longer ignore nature’s call, and had no time even to hike back to the parking spot for the role of TP in my car.  I just had to drop the waders and use some broad knotweed leaves still dressed in morning dew.  Arguably better than a port-a-pot and definitely better than a Wawa with feet lingering outside the door, pressuring and impatient for their turn, but still not my favorite thing in the world.  Things could only get better right?  Not really, not yet, anyway.  As I mentioned, I had to contend with the same dude jumping into yet another big fish hole above me.  I half expected to run into this clown all day, but I guess he didn’t catch anything for all his efforts because he was gone by 8 AM, and I did not see any other fishermen at my second stop of the morning.  I was catching little browns here and there, but they were hitting short.  I bet I got half a dozen on a walts or a green caddis larva, and the rainbow, in the first shift, but it was hardly magical, and I could not buy a decent fish after the first water bottle fish, and he was only 10 or 11 inches.

Mostly bows at the second stop, even one sub-legal size.  That micro-bugger to end the day.

After a rest and a water refill, I drove to a second section of this creek that is actually stocked trout water but holds some wild fish too.  The first fish I landed here was a wild one maybe 9 inches, and I got another that size and a couple dinkers too along with the holdover bows I expected.  I caught one rainbow that was so small I was thinking it was wild, but the TU in these parts is notorious (to me) for stocking over wild fish, so maybe it was a fingerling stocker?  The poor parr-marked thing would have been beautiful if not for a missing maxillary torn off by a barbed hook.  Life is tough on this crick for everyone these days.  It’s a shame because it’s a beauty, like a baby Brodhead in some ways.  I had some fun, though, nymphing pocket water and swinging a size 16 riffle nymph under overhangs and by undercuts.  To end the morning I even fished some deep plunges with one of Eric’s micro-buggers and landed a few bows and at least one wild brown—another may have gotten off before a photo, too.  This bug has been around.  I fish bugs to lose them most times—meaning I am not shy about putting flies where they need to be to get eaten—so it is a miracle that this one has probably been around since January!  One side has no paint left on the olive bead, but it still catches.  As if to tempt fate, I even tied it on the 5.5X tippet I had been using to nymph size 16 and 18 bugs.  “ELove Flies, tied to last”?

Smallsie's not-so-good side.  Barbs, yo.

I ended up catching a good number of fish again, but a couple of the bows looked rough at this second, more pressured spot.  The residents, especially the size I wanted to catch today, are used to hiding when it gets too pressured and too warm, but these rainbows may have been caught a dozen times each by this point in their short lives outside the cement pond!  A couple took the bugger hopping in a deep plunge or on the swing, so I was not mad at them today, especially because they were over 10 inches long, and that was a distinction.  The last time I fished this watershed, I avoided the usual spots and had a lot of fun, so that may have to be my new move here.  There are fish in the pressured spots, but there is too much pressure in the pressured spots too, even on a Tuesday at 6 AM in late June.  Access is too easy, I suppose.  I do have a soft spot for it, like I do a couple other cricks in the region that have been declining since the lockdown pressure was at its peak.  I am playing the long game, hoping they rebound and people pick up different hobbies or second jobs.  Days like this are also motivation to keep exploring new water and new stretches of old water.  Days like this are just plain challenging too!