August 24, 2022 – Tried to Change It Up for a Better Chance at a Particular Piggy – Northampton County Limestoner

Hatched a plan that involved a black sharpie and not much sleep.

Yes, those are Rapalas you see in the collage above!  No, we really have not had a rain to justify tossing a streamer or a big plug.  So why, then, the change of approach?  Well, the last time I was on this stream, I had a beast roll on a micro-bugger just before sunrise.  I have seen this fish or a pool-mate before.  It is a big fish.  Anyway, the area where he, or they possibly, live is not only a bit shady to fish at night, but it is also nearly impossible to get a backcast in even in normal light conditions.  It is just too deep in spots to allow much wading, and a rollcast is disruptive AF in flat holes.  So, besides taking a black magic marker to a CD 5 and another Rapala suspending slashbait that rides a little higher in the water column, I also planted a seed in myself to arrive at this creek in the dark the next time I visited and try to land a pig.  It has been a while, both since I have caught a pig and since I tossed the Rapala with purpose.  I did try to get the boy on a big fish this spring at another spot, and I surely took a cast or two, but today I was going to try it for real.  Oh, I had the fly rod with me, and I caught half of my fish today while nymphing with a 16 frenchie and a 20 perdigon on the dropper, but I also caught a few average fish on the plug, even one average wild brown on the suspending plug well after sunrise.  I did not, however, even see a pig in the low clear water.  I had a couple tentative (i.e. smart) short bumps in another big fish spot, but those could have been last year’s YOY for all I know.  The browns I did catch were only a couple years old.  The bows were looking like they needed more food.  The water temps were great though.  As a result, I fished until after 10 AM for the first time in six weeks or more!

Did fall back to the fly rod for the rest of the morning.  Fish were caught.

I stalked through some dubious industrial environs to my first spot using the phone flashlight, and I made my first casts before 5:30 AM.  I spooked no vermin, mammalian nor humanoid.  When the first fish hit, I was really excited—visions of my target fish or a cousin in my head.  It was just a stocker rainbow all hooked up from rolling in the net.  I remembered then, in the dark, to remove the front treble and pinch down all the remaining barbs on the CD 5.  That likely allowed the second fish in the dark to get off before a photo, and the wild brown later got off because I was standing on a high bank crouching and reaching down to net him.  He was all of 11 inches, but better than the few others I did land on the perdigon later in the morning—a little too big, obviously, for the long-distance flip into the net too.  When I worked through this stretch with disappointing but at least novel results, I took a water temperature.  It was 62 degrees!  Yay.  That prompted me to walk back to the ‘Ru, which had not been broken into or towed or anything, and grab the fly rod for a possibly short round two.  It ended up being another couple hours of nymphing because the water temp at 10 AM was still 64 in this stretch of creek.  I had some fun landing a couple little wild browns under an indicator in a deep hole, and then I landed another in pocket water before taking a decent holdover rainbow who had tucked her head up under a plunge.  The water was too low in my estimation to check on a couple other spots I had in mind, especially in high sun, so I called it good at 10:30 and headed for home.  I have considered heading out on Friday, but this dog day fishing is a lot of work for minimal pay.  Rain might inspire me?