October 21, 2023 – Not the Flows I Was Expecting but My Expectations Were Pretty Low Anyway – Berks County

A few adults, one maybe a holdover.

The forecast was for two blustery days this weekend, with Sunday being the sunnier of the two, so I decided to fish Saturday morning.  I have not been to this small creek in many months, and there is no gauge to judge flows, so I was hoping that a little rain would spike it a bit.  No doing.  It was windy enough to bring a lot of colorful leaves down, but the flow was low and clear.  I drove through some drizzle in the predawn hours, and roads were wet, but the rain made no noticeable impact.  One good thing is that I did beat the onset of the low moving off and the high moving in, so the winds stayed relatively calm for a couple hours, at least.  I can toss heavier bugs like a jigged bugger in the wind and not feel the effects too much, but a little more flow and fewer leaves makes that work around more manageable.  Instead, I used light tippet and small bugs and just timed my casts around gusts.  A light mono rig does help limit how much havoc the wind can do with a traditional fly line, but fishing was still challenging and with few rewards.  There was a good spawn last winter because YOY were all over the small bugs.  Besides one or two fish that came off—more on that below—I don’t think I landed a net-worthy fish until after 10 AM, and even those fish were 9-10-inchers not counting the fallfish king.

Leaf peeping and small stream sneaking.

I mostly had the place to myself and only turned back when I ran into a dude in waders, his kid, and their dog towards the end of my usual beat here. Honestly, I was still hoping this stretch they were in was going to turn it all around for me, but I used their presence to turn back and fish a couple holes that were unproductive early and explore a couple new spots.  I did catch one decent wild brown at one of those places I revisited.  Fish were hitting very light in the high pressure, and probably spooked a bit by the weather commotion, so before that I had only lost one decent fish, landed another, and landed a massive fallfish.  I almost thought holdover rainbow when I first turned this fish and then thought smallmouth until I saw all the silver of his wide body.  A big old native!  That was fun after a morning of many dinks, including several species of minnow in the 3-to-5-inch range.  The presence of all the chubs speaks to the marginal nature of this creek, and yet I did catch what might have been a longtime holdover brown, not to mention two very recent year classes of small wild browns, and representation from others, so there are cool stretches where fish can ride out the summer, as well as some deeper holes to ride out the winter.

Chad?  Kevin?

After a break at my car, with the wind steadier, I decided to try a stretch a short drive downstream where I might toss a dry dropper.  I did catch a few YOY and minnows on the dry, and the pretty but likely holdover brown on the dropper.  I guess I was having so much fun punching casts through the wind with my 7’ 5 weight combo that I worked a lot of water for a few chubs and YOY.   I did find a new hole or two—places that would be holes with more flow to be more precise—but they might get warm too because I even landed a couple sunfish to add to the variety of fishes I caught today.  My expectations were low, and this was in part an exploration trip to see how an old favorite did this summer, but a couple more adult fish would have been nice.  The creek is okay, just a little sandy in spots.  That was probably not helped by some makeshift dams that were constructed by overzealous youth or, go forbid, the township trying to create more holding water and bank fishing opportunities for the spring stockies.  I am talking here about hours of placing stones across twelve feet of creek, so they were committed at least.  The new holes did remove a few prior hot spots, so I considered breeching the dams.  I could not be certain about what this would do to the creek, so I just left them alone (for now).

I hope the birds did better.  Some bonus shots.