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!