March 22, 2023 – Ain’t Nothing Gonna Break-a My Stride…. – A Couple SEPA Class A Cricks

First nice one of 2023.

I apologize for the corny Eighties song lyric in the title, but it may make sense by the end.  On Tuesday this week, I got a Google Photos notification, one of those “A Year Ago Today” messages, with a pic of a piggie fish from a favorite stretch of a favorite stream.  It had been on my mind, and not in a good way, this week in particular because last week some time I saw a YouTube video in my feed featuring a dude holding a pig with a very obvious landmark along this creek in the background.  As if this place hasn’t been pounded enough by the tri-state area as of late (see my post from February of my encounter with guides, sports, and several dudes, half of them from Jersey, on a winter Wednesday) said YouTuber’s new friend/subscriber was showing him around “a new creek.”  No, he didn’t name creeks, though he sometimes does (just like I do with larger watersheds or cricks whose cover’s been blow for decades) but my heart sunk—and I still haven’t watched it. Just so you know, I do a lot of cropping of photos to avoid sharing too much.  Those of you who know the creeks I fish, know the creeks (Jay knows this one for sure!) but these are almost exclusively NOT those Keystone Fly Fishing travelogue/destination types of posts.  Due to access taking some commitment, very deep water, and its more industrial surroundings, this beat is always my go-to when I’ve passed nothing but Jersey plates at all the other lots.  I think I was even high-holed by one such mitch today.  He looked lost and seemed unsure even how to get near the water, so I am going to say it was his first time here and YouTube sent him….  Anyway, call it arrogance or being well-informed, but his game did not look tight despite mostly dressing the part, so I rightfully assumed I could catch fish behind him.  My cocky self said,” This mitch vaping and not wearing a hat has no chance with these wise wild fish.”  I was actually thinking, “I already made quite a wade to get here and have landed a decent holdover rainbow, so let’s assume dude doesn’t know any better and just enjoy the beautiful day, especially now that some bugs have started to show.”  I am trying to evolve, I guess.

No love at the longer shot spot.

Before finding myself in this predicament, I had spent at least two hours at a Class A that I am about to write off for a few years, maybe for good.  It has not been good in over a year since some construction and massive storm damage at the lower end.   I just wanted to see it since I knew the water would be low, and it was good cloudy light to see some fish while not spooking them as easily.  I tossed a dry dropper as stealthily as possible and did not get a hit.  I did see one or two wild fish hanging around a pod of suckers in a deep wintering hole, but they spooked at the line shadow since I had to approach from below, and the sun kept peeking out even though the forecast had called for mostly cloudy.  I had one other even smaller Class A in the area in mind, but when I saw how low and clear it was, I did not even make a cast.  I chose instead to brave what I assumed would be a busy day on the creek discussed above.  It did not take long to hook a holdover rainbow, but the next rainbow took some time.  By now, the other fly guy was casting away upstream of me 100 yards or less, but I did not see him land a fish.  I hooked and dropped one more smaller fish before the net job, and then I treed my tandem of nymphs while making a stumbling snag retrieval.  I was approaching some more good pocket water, a stretch where I caught my first nice fish of 2022, the one sent to me by the folks at Google this week, in fact, so I rigged up a heavy micro-bugger with a lot of action and movement.  This is actually the same bug that scored my last big fish of 2022 while out with Eric on December 31, so it had good, pretty recent mojo on it too.  

A couple bows before the little piggy on a size 12 micro-bugger.

It was a good choice of bug, as I quickly tagged a thick, bright fish that jumped twice and then got off in some challenging pocket water—more on that below.  I had a plan to get below this fish and then let him get downstream in some more landing-friendly current, but he was not having it.  It was probably a 15-inch fish too.  Dammit.  Well, at least I was right about the other dude walking right past these fish without moving them.  I stayed hopeful as I crept up to the next big pocket with competing currents moving around a big boulder or two.  The bugger got dinged on the first drift, but I did not get the hook into whatever that was.  The next drift, I landed the bug a hair farther away from the white water but still in the seam where a wise fish might expend very little energy next to an easy food source.  I got popped again and got a strong hookset on something that refused to move out of the current once it moseyed over about a foot.  We were in a standoff for a moment before I took a gamble to change the angle on him, and that certainly woke him up.  

B reel.

I will spare you the blow by blow, but this fish bulldogged, burrowed under one of the boulders, tried to shoot through shallow whitewater to reach the next pocket upstream, and even had two jumps on a short line in him just when I thought he was ready for the net.  I had rethought my endgame this time, and because flows were very wadable and I was rocking felt and spikes, I waded out into the deeper riffle so I could reach over and net him in the slower pocket, which was all of 5 feet long and 3 feet wide.  It worked, though I was in danger of breaking the thing off with the amount of pressure I had to put on 5.5 X tippet—don’t ask, just lazy rerigging after losing the nymphs.  I stumbled back to safety with this beautiful fish in my net and got a couple shots, including the selfish that opens the post.  We were both tuckered out by this short scuffle!  I gently put him down in some clear, quiet water and, despite the cold water temperatures, he had a nice rest there before sneaking back to his lair.  I drank my last bit of water, noticed the time, and decided to head for home before a meeting online at 4 PM.  I made it back with at least 10 minutes to spare, maybe even 15 minutes!  In the end I didn’t let a couple mental challenges take me out of the game and so, nearly a year to the day of my first good fish of a previous year of many good fish, I had my first of 2023.