September 17, 2023 – Spotted by a Former Fishing Buddy at My (Our?) “Secret” Spot – Monroe County

Pretty morning with clouds on the way.

My day ended today with a run-in with Kev, with whom I fished a few times in the past in places in NEPA and the Lehigh Valley.  Back in the day, he was coming down to SEPA from out of state to see a girlfriend in the City.  He had weeks off at a time due to his work shifts, and as we know I also had plenty of weekday time to fish, so it worked out well.  I think we found each other on the fly fishing discussion boards if I recall.  He is a young buck, but he has fished for a long time, even did some guiding, so he was a good fishing companion.  We also fished a lot of the same creeks—still do, obviously—so we shared good intel too.  Today, we spent close to 45 minutes, I bet, sharing pics and then walking out to the lot together.  It was random that some clown asking me if I was catching anything ended up being some clown that I knew, but perhaps it was only a matter of time before we ran into each other again.  He is in NEPA full-time now, and I fish NEPA a lot, so we confirmed we still had each other’s numbers to connect again.

Chub life is not a good sign of how warm the summer stream got.

Before I ran into Kev on a last ditch walk to catch some holdovers up a tributary that stays colder, I did some exploring in a section of the creek that gets warm each summer.  It was under 60 F to start today, so I am talking about how hot it gets each season.  As a result of this yearly spike, fish migrate each summer or go into summer survival patterns.  I saw a big old golden that made it through the heat, however, so the good rainfall totals in NEPA this summer did help.  This was a go for broke sort of trip, at least to start, and then I just wanted to catch a few fish after two fruitless hours of looking for “the one.”  I only caught two little wild browns and a couple fallfish before landing a nearly wild rainbow on a size 10 pheasant tail jig dredging the bottom of a deep, deep hole.  The browns that live here were absent today, although I did turn one decent fish with a hookset that looked like a brown.  This sporty and beautiful bow was definitely the highlight and maybe worth the effort it takes to get into this section of the creek.  She was 16 or 17 inches, but if she were 20 she might have been more than my 3 weight and 5X could have handled on big water.

Finally, a little something, you know, for the effort...

As the rain and clouds approached, a smattering of blue-winged olives also started getting active, so I stayed out longer than my normal.  At what would typically be my quitting time, I decided to take a little walk to the confluence of a larger tributary that adds volume and makes a large, bouncy, and deep hole.  I caught the king of fallfish, now my third of the morning, on a jigged streamer at the confluence and was about to head up the trib when Kev, whom I was trying to ignore as a curious stranger in my spot, interrupted.  He’d caught a handful of fish, including a big holdover brookie, up the trib, so I did not choose to fish “used water” and, instead, decided to continue our conversation on a leisurely hike out.  Having fished with Kev, I knew it would be sort of like fishing behind a young version of myself, so probably slim pickins in the remaining active fish department.  It was a good outing even if the fishing was mediocre.  September has always been an in-between month for me.  I should probably go to Montauk every year or something, just to kickstart the fall.  But, as you probably know, crowds of fishermen are not my favorite.

An average September outing.