June 11, 2023 – Still Doing Whatever It Takes Part 2, with Much Different Results – Lehigh River

Slightly bigger river this morning.

Well, I blame Ron for reminding me how fickle and complex the Lehigh River can be and how many mediocre days I have had exploring its rich bounty!  As I took my first skunk of 2023, I kept saying to myself, “I should not even be here!  Damn drought!”  It was not for naught, however, because I explored another new section this morning at the crack of dawn, so there was that, even though it probably yielded nothing in terms of new water to fish.  Potential new spots always take effort and the potential for failure.  There were other complications in the plan too.  Not just a skunk, I struck out on a couple fronts.  You see, Saturday was a whitewater release, and I know to avoid those, even though the pulse of water moves quickly from the dam and leaves the flows on the upper reaches back to normal-ish in no time at all.  I am not a sharpie, and I should have asked a couple guys I know who are, but I neglected to consider that the creek even on Sunday, while back to more normal flows, would be dirty.  Duh.  I remarked about trudging through mud last Sunday, over a week after the last whitewater release, but I did not factor that in.  Until I saw the first lone, DIY kayakers and canoeist early, usually grizzled old mitches like myself, I also forgot that Saturday is whitewater but Sunday is lazy river.  Too cold for tubes yet, but I bet I waved to a hundred happy folks in boats from the livery upriver.  To add to my struggles, I usually fish areas of low-density wild browns, or more sparsely float-stocked bows from the local stocking organization, not the usual stocking points, where in retrospect I should have gone today to avoid my beating!  Sadly, I had already committed to a longer hike and wade, so I stayed put and took my licks while trying just about everything.  Heck, I had even carried two rods in the event that risers started showing late morning.  Nope.  Wild fish are dicks, and they were not happy with the floods on Saturday nor with 48 hours of shadows of watercraft and paddling noise, I guess.  I had two fish come off in riffles, but I bet most of them had moved back for cover in the high flows, and I could not reach those deeper runs that I could easily reach last week.  The pulse moves through, but the water does stay up for a couple days, I see, hence the canoes, you know?  As a result, I don’t think this exploration led to any new spots either, as the area was too deep and soft to wade and too overgrown to bushwhack except in winter and early spring.  Live and learn.  I should have soaked a clam with Jeff!

Shiny happy paddlers from White Haven.