May 28, 2023 – Patience Pays Off with Some Brodhead Bullies – Monroe County

Still keeping August-like hours.

I was suiting up at 5:30 AM this morning, and I landed at least two fish before 6 AM.  Seeing the gages is depressing in NEPA, but like last week I selected a creek and a section of creek based on taking advantage of low water.  I have never seen this creek so low, honestly, so I targeted an area that is unwadable during most Mays—or is just getting wadable around this time of the spring in drier years.  I definitely stood in places where I would not have stood without going heels-over-head and swimming, even when I used to wet wade and bass fish this area in August back the 90’s.  The lowest gage on the creek in Minisink Hills was like 200 CFS.  Crazy.  I was fishing closer to the confluence with the river on a crick that drains quite an area, and below at least two tributaries, and I still took a double take when I peeked over a bluff before first light.  Thank goodness for cooler nights while they last, as the water temperature was probably optimal.  Fish like the ones I ended the morning with—fat, healthy, full-grown adults—are dangerous in 60 F water!  Tailwalking, multiple jumps, dragging line under mid-river rocks, bulldogging into every nook and cranny, even breaking off 5X one time—those moves were all on the menu before I quit around 11:30 AM.  But first I had to pay my dues and get away from the footprints of other intrepid explorers.

Other early risers besides me.

There were clouds of micro-caddis early in the day, but fishing started out challenging.  Before some larger caddis commenced with their own far more low-density swarming, I think the trouts and other creek dwellers were tuned into those size 20 bugs, and I was not ready to dropshot 200 CFS with bugs that small or embrace the bobber just yet.  I actually did embrace the bobber by the morning’s end, and it paid off big time, but it took some time for me to adapt accordingly.  Instead, I did what I did last week, what I tend to do when flows get low in general, and that is to tightline nymph the riffles and runs with a heavier bug on the anchor and a little bug to match the hatch on the dropper tag.  I had some more success, landing a couple little wild boys, a stocker brown, and a few rainbows, but I was feeling cursed.  At least twice in a thirty-minute timespan, I dropped decent wild fish in that 11- to 12-inch range.  They just got off the size 18 dropper tag, it appeared.  Hits felt lighter and more tentative, but it could have been that most were taking a tiny bug on a longer dropper and not clobbering the anchor fly that was keeping the whole thing tight.  The other problem with the tiny bugs was all the rat-tat-tat from the YOY and even a couple fallfish, so I kept trying bigger caddis, a walts, a couple stones when I saw one adult, and then finally I noticed a spent sulfur spinner while releasing a fish.  It was in the film of a big back eddy, so the thing had been cycling around (getting rusty, you know?) since the previous night, I am sure, but my mind said, Duh! Frenchie with a yellow hot spot in size 14, I have dozens of them!

Didn't know they would get bigger before staging the selfish!

Forget these tiny caddis when there are larger adult mayfly nymphs in the water, you jamoke….  Not long after, and still trying to tightline over some current to the opposite seams, I started getting into some nice fish.  I lost a bow that was shaped like a smallmouth and that leapt like one too when it dragged my rig under and around a big boulder during one of its runs, but at least knew I was onto something, and more fish were to come shortly thereafter—and after another modification.  Even in 200 CFS, this area of the creek is deep, so even standing waist deep, I could not fish the opposite bank seams with a size 14 on the anchor fly, even with 5X, and 6X was not happening after I saw the fish I lost and another that broke 5X leaping straight away from me on a tight line.  As MC Hammer would have said had he been a fly fisher: Stop!  Bobber time!  I would still tightline the seams that I could reach comfortably with my 10’ 6” 4 weight rod, but when I couldn’t, or when I would benefit from a much longer drift, I popped the bobber back on.  Perhaps because many fish could see me unless they were across the way, perhaps not, but for whatever reason those farside bobber casts started getting eaten by some nice fish, angry river fish, fish used to relaxing in far more current than present this odd spring.  I had a blast with them for the next couple of hours!

Low, browns would come, spent from the previous evening.

I landed a twin of the bow I lost and, because there was a convenient rocky backrest for my phone, took a selfish with it in case this was the highlight of a challenging day, especially after losing two of them.  This was a fat fish, but bigger fish would come.  The very large hen I caught not long after looked damn near wild with nearly perfect fins and a wide tail.  Like most of these bows a long way from where stocking stops, she had done some travelling and had spent some time in the usually mighty Brodhead.  I was content to catch beauty holdovers who thought they were wild, so I was surprised to see a wide-bodied brown take to the air three times, but I would land at least four more gorgeous browns before I quit.  They made me work all morning, but they cut me some slack in the tenth or eleventh hour—well, they cut me some slack in being willing to eat, but they did not really want to come to the net or be photographed.  I discarded a few blurred hand-without-fish shots, and I had to be content with a couple fish shots just in the net, but I got at least three to cooperate with me.  More bows were mixed in, as well.  I took the water temperature when one of the biggest browns took his time sitting next to me in the calm depths, but as the thermometer came back 60 degrees, I think he just gave it almost everything he had.  River fish don’t quit, and these browns were acting like rainbows—for which the hand-without-fish B roll is often a given when editing photos.

Pretty one.

So, it could have all been timing, or that I got away from footprints, or that I eventually made the right moves, but I can say that I stuck with it and never stopped trying to solve the current day’s mystery.  That is all fishing really is, I have learned: perseverance, not staying stagnant, making informed and sometimes intuitive moves, and just time on the water.  I know this creek, and I know what swims here—in fact, I ended up near the one-time home of one of my white whales, should he still swim this earth.  This fish was all of 25 inches and just as angry as his cousins I landed today.  Even in this low water, his lair, a rock ledge with a rather deep cavity, was sitting in four feet of water.  No wonder I didn’t stand a chance landing him in double the flow and in winter.  No sign of him today, but I do believe all the fish on my side of the crick knew I was coming in the high sun and clear water and were moseying off.  Holes, even very deep ones, are not your friend in these clear, sunny conditions.

Getting better and better...

Thank god that I still have a selection of bobbers in my wader pockets for moments of inspiration like today.  No matter what, it is still a blast to see that thing give a sharp telltale jerk or get completely buried by a nice fish.  And who knows, the extra drag from pulling the thing around the crick may have tired out a couple of these little studs a little faster too?  I will take any help I can get some mornings, especially when my powers of observation are suffering from a short night of rest and not nearly enough water or calories to think straight.  Another successful weekend trip, and even on a holiday?  Don’t jinx it, yo!!

...and better.