And There Goes the Rest of February – No Sunny, Mohs Problems – SEPA

A pretty afternoon for a skunking.

I did get out on Sunday February 18 for a good three-hour skunking, but I have pretty much been indoors since then.  I do recall that the day was especially challenging due to high winds, high pressure, bright sun, and likely snow melt knocking down water temperatures all day—the latter can really be the killer in winter.  I think I was 0 for 1 on a soft hit on a jigged bugger, and I did not even spook any other fish on my wade in or out of this creek, which I had chosen because it is a stocked creek with some wild reproduction and would be closed on February 19 due to stocking regulations.  It’s been in decline for the last few years, and the habitat looks pretty bad in large stretches of creek, but there were still some holes that should have held a wild trout or two, or at least a chub.  It ended up just being a walk in the somewhat-snowy woods with a fly rod, which was okay.  I had the place to myself on a weekend afternoon at least and witnessed snow geese by the hundreds.

Welcome to Mohs!

The rest of this month I have been recovering from the dermo knife, as I may have mentioned in earlier posts.  I had Mohs procedure on my neck in May of 2022, but this time it was on my upper lip, so the repair work was basically plastic surgery!  I share the grotesque photos as a reminder to the young bulls to wear sunscreen and cover up.  How Mohs works is that they basically cut a hole out of your skin to see if they can get all the cancerous cells in one cut, but then they have to make a slide and get a pathologist to confirm they got it all before sewing you back up.  More often than not, you have to sit in the waiting room bandaged up waiting for the real(slow)-time results only to have to sit again that same day for more cutting and testing to confirm they got it all.  Only then can they start the repair work, which involves finding skin in the area to create a flap with which to cover the hole.  This last one on my face, which is more complicated and more sensitive, was roughly a six-hour day in the dermatologist’s office!  I am not rocking the hoodie for the chicks these days, and I may have to break out the ridiculous wide-brimmed hat that I have teased Young Kenny about for years a bit more often.  The procedure was a week ago, and the stitches came out today, Leap Day, but I have to limit sun exposure on the scars for another week before I can start putting on sunscreen and other possible irritants.  That does not mean I won’t be in a hoodie, buff, and bandage this upcoming Sunday (and Monday morning), mind you!  A nice soaking rain or two and warm weather to begin March is hard to sit out, even looking like the elephant mitch.

February 11, 2024 – A (Flooded) Field Trip with the Silver Fox – SEPA Blueline

Someone's been hard at work.

Knowing another winter storm was coming, it did cross my mind to attempt to fish today.  I wanted to sleep in a bit, so I considered an afternoon trip to another approved trout stream with wild reproduction that would soon be off limits.  And then I got a text from Tom asking if I wanted to poke around a little trickle we have fished a few times with mixed results.  The fishing has declined since his first visits there, and I personally may have only caught two trout there ever, but where it is in SEPA makes it a bit of a unicorn and worth keeping tabs on.  We did not catch a trout today, but we spooked two who are hanging on despite rapidly changing habitat.  I landed a chub or two on a dry dropper, but mark this trip down as things you don’t see at home on the couch.  There was now another reason the landscape was changing.

No trout, not even in that bend pool, more rodent handiwork.

As we made our way to a hole known to hold fish, we started to notice that the creek was deep and slow.  A gander downstream, and we started to see the work of a beaver or two.  I would say close to 25 trees and many smaller saplings had been chewed down and dragged away.  As we continued to walk, it did not take long to find the lodge and then the dam.  Even with a rain free week or more, we were traipsing through marsh where there had once been brush and smaller trees.  No sign of the animals themselves, but they were probably resting after quite a busy fall and early winter.  We were running around taking pictures like little kids exploring the woods, but we did resist banging on the lodge to flush them out, so we did not act 12, at least.

Ambitious.  We did not knock at the lodge today.

We eventually tried to catch a trout again, and in the process saw a bit of good remaining habitat for them.  We spooked two wild browns among the chub life.  It is February, and fish are often inactive and deep in cover, so that means there are likely more fish in this one stretch.  We ran into more flooding and big changes upstream, so much so that we would not attempt a wade through a culvert that we had waded through in higher water in the recent past.  The water under the bridge was likely waist deep or more and mucky.  Still, it would provide a place for the smart fish to ride out the changes to the creek downstream.  The only problem is that if the survivors have moved upstream, they are moving into clearly posted land off limits to these two old men out acting like kids on a Sunday afternoon.  A unicorn with a broken horn, but technically still a unicorn that we will have to visit a few more times before counting it out for good.

One more bonus shot.

February 10, 2024 – Fish Being Difficult? A Bit of Exploration Instead – Northampton County

An unweighted pt after feeling stonflies on my neck...

I must have had a feeling that my plans to take a longer ride and fish bigger water today would be waylaid.  I ended up having to drive my son somewhere in the morning, and I did not sleep all that well either, so tackling the Brodhead seemed unwise.  I have had that cough that feels like it lasts for three weeks.  It is fine during the day, just annoying, but a jag or two has woken me up at least once a night for longer than I would like.  I still fished, and for a solid 6 hours on a mild winter day, but I lowered the difficulty factor by about twenty-five percent and hit a baby Brodhead that is on the way there.  I have been learning parts of this creek that are away from the popular spots, or are only seasonally popular due to stocking, and have had some success and failures.  February is not a representative month to get a good read on a new stretch, but the fishing is often slow enough this month that walking and exploring seems a better use of time than grinding it out with the nymphs on the bottom.  I used to blueline, wisely or not, in these transitional times, knowing full well that May would be a much fuller picture, but in May I want to be catching not prospecting.  Based on a couple holes I found and my last 2.25 fish of the day, I would call my February prospecting today successful despite fish being undoubtedly dickish all day long.

Skinny pocket water and picky little trout to start the day.

After a walk down to a honey hole of mine, I did catch a small wild fish on one of my first casts of the morning.  Surprisingly, I could find no other cooperative fish in this section, even when I returned much later after the day had warmed up.  The water flow was not excessively low, nothing I had not fished here before with success, but it has been many days since our last precipitation.  The water temperatures were still a bit cold for them to be hanging in the current using the broken water for cover, so my guess is that they were tucked under rocks, ledges, roots, and undercuts today.  I began to catch fish on the soft seams near riffles, but fish were not out in the open even in very deep holes.  A very few black stoneflies were around (landing on my neck, of course) around midday, but not enough to get the fish to leave shelter.  I bet I had only 6 fish, all small fish, before I turned back towards my parking spot to figure out a new plan.

Time for a walk to find new spots

A train track parallels this creek for much if not all of its length, and I have walked these rails before, but today I decided to go even further downstream and see what I could find.  Previous walks here revealed disappointing habitat as a result of flooding conditions sending the stream out in shallow tendrils through a large floodplain.  As the photos may show, there are some swampy lands and acres of dead wood and knotweed in places.  I pressed on today until the branches started coming together again, and I found a few new holes worth fishing and a few log jams that were better suited for a spinning rod.  I worked the first deep hole I found for a good while before I finally got a half-hearted hit.  Before that, I was thinking, Damn, this is a big fish hole!  There has to be something in here.  Still no bugs of note, so I put on the jigged bugger to dredge the bottom up under the faster deep water, and finally stuck a heavy fish.  It jumped twice, and the second time it was clear it was a fat holdover rainbow.

Spreading out and swamping before coming back together for a few nicer holes.

Not what I was looking for, but she was by far the biggest fish of the day and a fierce fighter even in this cold water.  After about June each year, I rarely find holdovers in this section of the creek, but this one had made a home.  I still believe that some larger wild fish must live in this hole too.  It is not posted but it is up against backyards with dogs and chickens, probably a goat or two.  I will check it out early in the morning this spring to see if I am correct about that.  I decided to stick with the bugger because I could see what appeared to be some deeper plunges and bends upstream.  Some intimidating log jams too, but you have to be prepared to lose flies if you want to catch fish on a tough day.

A survivor or just living off stored fats?

In the next plunge that went under a root ball, I found the best wild brown of the day, a really beautiful fish.  The fish was not in or under the current in that root ball, nor were any of her friends, although I hope she is in there with friends in a couple months.  Instead, she was in eight inches of soft water, a bit of an eddy close to my side of the creek.  In creeks that support wild fish, I always cast to those close seams and soft water on my side of the creek first.  They can be anywhere at times, so even if the soft water on the other side looks more promising, it is worth fishing close first.  Add stoneflies to the mix, and they may be looking to eat close to both banks—if I had only been so lucky with bugs today!  The fact that I caught a nicer fish here under the current conditions, at this time of the year, probably means that this is another spot to try again in a few weeks.  Two new spots = a win.

A pretty adult fish.

I had one more encounter before climbing out of the creek to avoid trudging through the swampy floodplain.  This time the only approach was from above, swinging and jigging the bugger under a big logjam.  I thought I was snagged on a limb once and gave a too-gentle tug to free the bugger, only to say, Wait, that was a fish, you mitch!  The next cast, I had a decent fish break the surface to pursue the bug on the swing.  It never came back after that.  Again, that could not have been the only fish under there, but it was the only player on a tough day.  I miffed it with the tough presentation and, honestly, no end game had I actually hooked a fish bigger than twelve inches under there, but I had found a third spot to try this spring.  As I may have mentioned earlier, on the walk upstream again I fished a honey hole of mine a second time with nary a hit.  I decided that I would end my trip on the high note of some encounters in new water instead of more of the same.  Landing 9 or 10 fish in 6 hours, it was not worth wearing myself out for a couple more dinkers!

February 8, 2024 – A Walk in the Park with a Fly Rod on a Lovely Day for Humans not Necessarily Trouts – Valley Creek

I found out I didn’t have Friday morning to fish this week, and I needed to get outside for a while, so I let it warm up a bit and then took a drive and a walk.  I had a full work afternoon, so this would be a 90-minute excursion in high sun at 10 AM, and my expectations were  appropriately low.  I was secretly wishing that midges or early olives would be active, but I kept that mostly to myself—especially the olives thing!  There were midges, but I saw no steady risers, counting only two dimples in likely spots in the time I was there.  It was lovely out, so dudes were already there or assembling as I left, but I did get some elbow room.  I was actually able to fish two or three holes I really wanted to check out without anyone in sight, but that is not to say I was the first one to visit today based on the boot prints.  I caught 2.5 fish on a jigged bugger in a couple deep runs near cover.  It was really just an excuse to get outside in the short window my day/week afforded, so the pretty little fishes were a bonus.  No rain, so I will be “stones” deep in a bigger creek this weekend if all goes to plan.   Ankle deep at least if plans change ;)

February 2, 2024 – A Bonus Afternoon of Fishing with a Small Stream PB – Berks County

A beauty buck

While technically my second fish of the afternoon—I did stick the requisite creek chub first—my first trout today was a beauty.  I had a sick day today to take care of some (more) dermatology issues, but when I arrived at the office, the doctor suggested that we postpone the slated excision for a more efficient Mohs procedure, my second in as many years.  I had to shave my upper lip for the first time in over a decade!  I wimped out of seeing my entire face, so I am currently rocking an Amish look.  I think getting a better view of the area they had biopsied convinced him to go a less hit-or-miss route than cutting, stitching, sending it out, and then running the risk of having to cut again.  Fun times.  I only share this because it is related to a fishing life—not to mention landscaping and laboring my way through at least two college degrees.  Dudes on PAFF unable to or afraid to fish in the winter (I think many of them don’t fish period!) were dissing dudes in buffs and hoodies as hipster Gen Z flat-brimmers—the requisite hat of the Howler Bros set—but I had to remind them that those who fish a lot, especially those who fish bodies of water larger than brook trout bluelines with canopies so heavy one needs at least amber lenses to see your dry fly, get a lot of sun by the time they are my age.  I am 75% Irish and 25% Polish too, so melanin is in short supply.  I have been rocking a hood when I am in the open for a couple years now and, granted, I look cool enough to steal Amidea Daniel from her younger and much more successful husband, but I am not wearing it to look cool.  Same with the buff: my first Mohs procedure was on my (red)neck.  I remember the dermatologist calling over his assistant to show her the effects of sun damage, so there’s that bit of notoriety too.

Not a bad follow up to fish # 1.  That free GD jigged bugger.

Since the procedure was postponed, and I already had the day off from work, I had the afternoon to fish.  There was some rain in the night, and with the saturated ground, a bit of a spike in flows even from a light rain.  It was cloudy and stayed cloudy or variable all day, as the creek collage probably shows, so a good streamer day on a small creek.  That was confirmed when I arrived at this stocked freestoner with wild reproduction.  The flows and visibility were not only good; they were optimal.  I had an olive George Daniel bugger on from my last Valley trips, and I did not feel like black was needed today.  I never took it off except to retie once after rescuing it from a submerged limb.  The bugger culled out most of the chubs, and most of the little trouts fell off before I even had to wet my hand, so the 10 to 12 browns I did land in the ensuing 3 hours were all rather decent small stream fish.  As the pictures show, I had two other fish over 12 inches, fish for which I still may have taken the gloves off.  If you know this creek, you know that’s a pretty darn good showing even without the little piggie that started my day on the water.

Another above average hen for good measure.

I started fishing about 12:45 and ended around 4:30 PM, and I found fish early in my walk, so I did not cover the entire productive stretch of this creek.  That is a good thing, as it leaves a new starting point if I return before “the third Monday of February.”  You see, this is a stocked crick and since the pandemic and the sunsetting of the two opening days model, the last day to fish approved trout waters has moved from February 28 (or 29 like this leap year!) to the 18^th of the month.  That does not sound like much, but the end of this month can be magic time with early black stoneflies and even olives starting to pop.  The irony is that many of these creeks will not see fresh stockies until the end of March and sometimes early April, but rolling access dates would be like herding cats, I am sure.  All the rain has made the bigger creeks in NEPA that I have been wanting to fish still right on the cusp of fishable.  I am rolling the dice that late next week I should be able to give one a shot.  Until then, I am grateful for the good flows in the trickles like this and may hit a small to medium creek on Sunday. 

Some crick pics, some averages, and my garden agrees with Phil.

Besides one cold stretch, this has been yet another mild winter, and the groundhog says an early spring.  I have not seen robins yet, but there are crocuses pushing up in my beds, so old Phil may be right this year.  As a result of the mild, I have not found fish acting like it’s winter, bunched up in holes.  The better fishes today were near holes, but they were up and active on the current breaks and drop-offs of riffles.  Maybe sitting a bit closer to the softer edges of current, but not shying away from it, either.  The best fish of the day and the one close to 14 inches I caught 15 minutes later fought like crazy to get back into undercuts and into trouble.  I definitely underestimated both of them, perhaps accustomed to how fish fight in water temps likely 5 degrees or more colder than they were today.  The best fish was over 16 for sure.  When I tortured the Silver Fox with a photo, he asked if it was 18, and my gut said less.  Let’s say 16+, then, and my first good fish of 2024, especially from a creek this size.

Full sized bonus shot of big papa.