January 11, 2023 – A Handful of Holdover Trout, a Gaggle of Geese, and Way too Many Fishermen for a Winter Wednesday – Northampton County Limestoner

Hopefully, Eric is okay with me tinkering with his bugger. Pretty bows on a gray day.

It was cold overnight because of the clear skies, so despite the forecast of milder, mid-40’s air temperatures, it took a while to warm up today.  I can’t say it ever got warm or mild, however.  A little breeze and mostly cloudy skies made it feel colder as the day progressed.  Not what I expected, which was a theme for today.  I took my time leaving the house, so it was 40 degrees in the Lehigh Valley when I began suiting up about 10:15 AM.  I could not fish where I expected to fish today.  With the visibility through barren woods, I could see a bundled-up dude was chunking a spinner at the first spot I wanted to park, and another fly dude was suiting up in the lot.  I took a ride downstream to another access, and there were two dudes with fly rods crossing the bridge on foot and getting ready to drop into another prime spot.  That was four so far on a Wednesday in the middle of winter and not on a freak 60-degree day either.  Valley 2.0?  I settled on what one might call in music parlance a “deeper cut” spot, one that is also literally a bit deep for winter fishing.  Fish are there, but the wading is more challenging and takes commitment.  The water also takes more time to warm up.  I fished two very deep holes, first with midges and then with the jigged bugger that I fished for most of the remainder of the day, before another fly dude and I surprised each other.  He had perhaps wisely skirted the deep wading and bushwhacked into a spot, only to see this bundled-up mitch working some pocket water.  That was now five dudes on an average winter day.  I need to start night fishing, maybe?

No wild boys today.

Before I encountered dude five, who was friendly and cool enough to know not to jump in ahead of me, I had notched two fish on Eric’s jigged bugger.  One was a holdover brown that had me fooled until he was in the net because he fought so well.  He jumped three times in sub-40-degree water, which is something none of the holdover bows that I later landed did.  I expected to land at least a small wild brown or two, even in this deeper cut spot, but I only messed with five spring survivors.  I expected that geese would have vacated for the winter, but there were 50 of them being all loud and splashy.  They don’t really affect the fish in my experience, but they do cut into the peace and quiet, the gentle lull of pocket water and winter breezes.  I stuck with the bugger until about 3 PM, when I finally saw some midges hatching and even one riser at the tailout of a deep run.  I was lazy by then and rigged a midge off the hook of a pheasant tail on the same 4X I had been using to toss the small bugger, so I am not surprised that the fishes did not jump all over my presentation!  In the end, this was not the day I expected it to be, but that is fishing, especially in winter.  The presence of all the other fishermen, and even the geese, are signs of the times, I guess.  There was even a (corporate sponsored, mind you) story in a national fly fishing publication about the advantages of winter fishing, which used to be a niche pursuit for only those most sick with it.  I will eventually get used to seeing larger numbers of fisherman this time of year, larger numbers of fishermen, period, but it takes a while to retrain my expectations.