October 13, 2023 – Prepped for a Forty-Five Minute Drive, Ended Up in NEPA – Lackawanna County

Only bad travel math if the day sucks!

I had an annoying cold and sinus thing for most of the week—still do, to be honest.  Negative on the Covid, so I went to the office on Wednesday and powered through Thursday at home, but I guess I hit a wall by today.  When I saw that I was lucky enough to have no meetings on my calendar and two appointments cancelled, I knew it was time for a PTO day.  Since I was hardly one hundred percent, the plan was just to hit a creek in the morning for a few hours after dropping the boy and his buddy off at school.  I did not pack nearly enough water or food, especially for a guy whose nose had been running since Sunday, and I was not dressed for the high-40’s I encountered at 9:30 AM in Lackawanna County, but that is where I ended up.  It’s only bad math when it’s a bad day, I guess?  I drove four hours round trip, and only fished about 4.5 hours before I ran out of the juice, but I think it was worth the effort.  I don’t know if I was having brain fog or thinking more clearly, but I do know that the gauges in NEPA looked far better than those closer to home.  And so, despite a chilly, breezy, leafy, start and bright sun and clear water as the morning progressed, I had some success.

A good start in the chilly air.

In a favorite hole still shaded and chilly and full of swirling leaves, I had a good start, so I knew some things could happen today.  Of the first half a dozen wild browns, five of them were small to average fish, but I did stick one nicer one in the 14-inch range.  The flows were good, and leafy, as I mentioned, so I found success with a heavy anchor fly under a bobber.  The anchor cut through the leaves quickly and got my dropper, a #16 CDC blowtorch, in the strike zone.  There were caddis in the streamside vegetation, so I had confidence that this fly would work.  There were a few small caddis active over the water around 11 AM, and even a few olives a bit later despite the bluebird day, so I did change the dropper to a #18 pink bead pheasant tail later while working pocket water.  That bug accounted for a handful of fish too, including the best one of the day, a healthy 18-inch fish active in 18 inches of pocket water.  Before concentrating on picking pockets, mostly along a shade line while looking for fish avoiding the sun but eating those emerging bugs, I even stuck a few on a deep-sinking black bugger.  Those fish came from a very deep hole where I have tangled with and landed multiple big trouts.  Today, the best bugger eater was 11 or 12 inches, and I had one a tad bigger charge the bug not commit, but it was a nice, action-packed break in the nymphing.  Dammit if I did not spook a pig that was sitting in a little dark depression in the tailout of this hole as I made my crossing to begin nymping pockets!  I guess I should have dry-droppered the back of this spot when I saw some small fish suspended up waiting for emergers, but with the wind and the leaves and the mono rig, well, today was not the day.

I have had better photography days.

Broke out pinky when some olives joined the low-key caddis party.

I had fun in the pocket water, but I knew I was missing more fish than I normally would.  I was with it enough to make some good adjustments, like adding more weight to the anchor to get the bugs deeper in that high sun and the aforementioned switch to something a bit more BWO when I saw evidence of them, but I certainly missed a handful of short sharp takes.  Even with those misses, I landed over a dozen trout on a bluebird day during a leaf hatch, and two of them were solid fish, so I could not complain.  This creek rarely lets me down, and it was a beautiful day to be out—even the drive was uneventful following a big Thursday night of sports viewing that must have kept the traffic low.  Everyone else in the region who had taken a lovely October Friday off had done so to sleep off a hangover not to tangle with some wild trout, it seems.  After a stop for more water and caffeine to make the ride home less onerous, I made tracks back to SEPA.  As beneficial mentally as physically, this was a good PTO day to burn.  Rain Saturday, so I hope I have the ability to do something equally good with Sunday this weekend.

Even a few on a bugger.  A couple crick pics.  The first fish of the morning.