October 3, 2022 – A Midday Walk with a Small Stream Streamer Rod – Valley Creek

A nice little stick, but it may be for sale....

All this rain is exciting, but it is also 20 degrees colder than normal, so I am not sure if  it has made the fish go bonkers yet.  I hope it has for some of you!  I guess I am playing the longer game and really shooting for Thursday this week on a bigger crick.  That said, I was finished working on some things this morning, so I took a short ride to Valley to do some recon—a walk with a fishing rod.  The flows were not all that high, but there was a nice-looking stain that certainly looked prime for a streamer bite.  I did not bring the nymphing rod, though I wished I had after I had so many average fish just swipe at the big bugger or maybe nip the back.  I tend to go for broke with the streamer, and I was playing with a new-to-me toy, an older American-made Cabelas rod I found in my old man’s shed.  It says it is rated 6-7 weight, but it has a moderate action, almost like glass, and casts well with a 5-weight line.  I am still on the fence about whether it is the perfect small stream streamer rod or not, and this afternoon hardly put it to the test.  The action may bely the true weight rating, as one of the fish I hooked came flying out of the water on my surprised "trout set."  It may actually have more balls than it appears to have.... 

A lot of the same size fish, still some gravel, and new deposits of trash.

I have not fished the creek much this year, and it had been months perhaps since I visited.  There were no miracle cures to the damage done by Ida, especially after such a dry summer, and I only messed with one year class size of fish—they may be two (or three on Valley?), about 10 inches long.  I believe I may have caught a bunch of smalls, or at least had a better chance of gaging the overall health by the variety of year classes, had I brought the long rod and nymphed some junk flies or a duracell.  Even though it rained off and on, it was getting brighter, so they may have been done for the day.  It is also possible that I was not first through this morning since I fished from 11:30 to 1:30 PM.  This is Valley after all.  The Silver Fox was out on Saturday and invited me along, but I have a hard to time getting motivated to fish my old home waters these days, especially on a weekend, so I declined.  Oh, I will be back when I need to stretch the legs in the winter, but this little gem has lost its luster for me for the time being.  The short trip did give me the chance for a hike instead of streaming services on a chilly, rainy day.  A couple fish, some deer sightings, a little test run with a new toy, they were just a bonus.