July 2, 2023 – I Can’t Decide If It Was a Good Morning or a Morning of Missed Opportunity or Maybe Both? - Northampton County Limestoner

Second-best opportunities would have to do.

Had I not grabbed my phone and furtively parted the curtains again for a second peek, I would have thought I was still dreaming.  You see, I was up before my 3 AM alarm, and the first thing I did was look out the window to check if it was raining—maybe I was secretly hoping to go back to sleep, but more on that later.  Anyway, at eye level no more than five feet beyond the glass was a buck with a big old rack looking right back at me.  Maybe he didn’t actually see me this first time, and he surely was not a dream, because I opened the curtain again after getting my phone to attempt a photo, and he was bent down chewing on our succulent hosta treats.  When I opened the curtain a third time after failing to get the camera working correctly in my grogginess, he was gone.  Arguably still groggy and way more swampy, I got a do over much later in the morning with a deer on the train tracks ahead of me, but she was more like fifty feet away and was certainly not a trophy buck.  I also landed a great, beautiful small stream fish today, but I had a knot fail (my own fault, as I was physically not all there this morning) after a prolonged and winnable battle with a far larger and angrier wild brown buck.  And so, a theme and a title for today….

Not quite "the one" but pretty good.

I had a couple streams on my list to investigate this morning, and based on all the stumbles and mistakes and miffs and treed bugs and bad knots, I am glad that I did not settle on the mighty Lehigh River, as I would have taken a swim today and lost fifty bucks in tungsten, for sure.  Instead, I stopped at a small stream on the drive north that has some limestone influence and took a piss while I soaked my stream thermometer for a good 5 minutes.  It came back 64 degrees, upstream of the piss, so my window would be short, but it was good enough that I could save myself more driving and avoid the possibility of getting soaked even farther from home.  I was suited up to wet wade by 5:30 AM, and I am sure I landed at least 8 trout before 6:30 AM—the problem is they were all holdover rainbows and smallsies to boot!  I switched up bugs a couple times because no hatches were showing.  Instead of a caddis offering or two, I put a frenchie on the point in case mayflies were still on the menu each evening, and I put a tiny perdigon on the dropper in case it would take midges to fool a wild one or two.  It did, although a few took the french pt in deeper riffles.

A lot of smalls in the wee hours.  Plenty of cool-ish flow.

That changed worked, although the first five or six wild browns were also smallsies in their own right.  I took another water temperature around 7:30 AM too, just in case, because I could not find an adult fish that wasn’t a rainbow.  Some of them were really pretty and might have even been stocked by a Trout in the Classroom program, but I was not ready to lower my expectations just yet.  The water temperature was still fine, though inching up already, so I knew 9 AM would be quitting time unless I found a spring on my walk.  I was sticky and tired and not all that coordinated, as I mentioned above.  I had that feeling when I got up, but I ate something at 4 AM and packed more food and coffee, knowing that would work to prolong things.  It did keep me going, and I did catch a mess of fish, but I was not on even my B- game today.  Had I been, I would have not only had a photo or two of a great 14+-inch fish from a small creek, but I also may have had a selfish shot with a true small stream piggy.  Don’t get me wrong, this first nice fish I did land was a blast!  Hanging in bouncy rainbow water, jumping three times after hooked, but I wish I had been half as efficient in sticking the landing with my next big fish routine.

Bug changes and browns came.

When I have fished this creek in the past, I have remarked to myself that there are two holes along this stretch that are “big fish holes.”  I have been shocked that I have not even spooked or turned or messed with one in the handful of times, maybe more, that I have fished this particular stretch.  Earlier this year, I pulled nothing but rainbows out of both of these holes, but today it was all browns, so at least my hunch was right—the residents had probably tolerated the bows for only so long.  As I snuck up into position today, careful in my current state to map out in my head all the overhanging limbs above and rocks, logs, and more industrial debris below in the water, I stuck a huge fish on the perdigon dropper tag.  He (or she) was angry!  I could feel those violent head shakes before I could see them in the deep, broken, and still somewhat stained water, and just knew it was a wild brown.  The fish tried to go up into the next hole twice, and I got him back down, and then he started digging for all the debris in the hole—there is metal and wood and cement and you name it, plus a bunch of branches hanging over the water, so basically a good place for a big fish to live, but not a good place to try and land one.  I had him about ten feet in front of me twice, so I got to witness this big old fish, mouth wide open, trying to shake the bug out of his face and/or the rod out of my hand.  Angry, yo!

An especially pretty one

I had to put pressure on him a few times.  If I let him take over the fight in a creek this small and full of obstacles, I would surely lose this one.  Hah.  He was not fighting recklessly but instead intentionally going toward every place in the hole I did not want him to go—typical seasoned wild brown behavior.  When he popped off not 5 feet from my net, I was pissed!  I was like, I know I had to put the boots to him a little to end this sooner than later, but I did not use THAT much pressure, especially on 5X and 10 feet of a 3-weight rod cushioning him!  Was I going to fight a big fish in 66-degree water for 20 friggin minutes!  I did not throw the rod, partly out of self-control and partly because I had a new reel only two trips old, but I definitely was that guy cursing out loud by himself on the crick.  It was my own damn fault too.  

Rather pretty but industrial so a lot of stuff in the water.

The size 18 competition hook held tight, might still be deep in his kyped jaw, my dropper tag triple surgeon’s knot did not fail; instead, it was a damn blood knot I lazily tied after two previous snags in a row.  In lazy lieu of starting over with a fresh 4 or 5 feet, I added length to my tippet like a mitch not expecting big things to happen on a small crick (even though they already had not 20 minutes earlier!).  Instead of a big old fish, I had 3 feet of 5X with a squiggle where the business end of my rig was once (poorly) tied.  So you tell me:  Was a it a good day or a bad one???  I am going to go with good, but it was definitely complicated.

More bows to end, and I placed the rod on the ground, I did not toss it, I swear.