April 26, 2024 – So Glad I Did not Amend My Plans – Lackawanna County

NEPA stud with SEPA former stud?

I left my house at 5:30 AM this chilly morning, hoping that by the time I reached my destination a couple hours later that the air would warm up.  Maybe you heard about the truck fire that closed the Northeast Extension for nearly two hours?  A state trooper and a third car were also involved in the accident.  Well, the accident happened between Quakertown and the Lehigh Vally exits, and guess who had just passed Q-town with no chance of exiting?  Yep, I sat from 6 AM to 7:30 AM with hundreds of other motorists.  Good times.  It was so long that I had to open both passenger-side doors so I could piss, and I turned the engine off at the 45-minute mark despite chilly temps when I saw a chopper arrive and realized I should stream the local news since KYW had nothing to report besides the obvious, having no traffic cams nearby.  Fire crews on the scene…  When I finally did start moving, it was really hard not to get off at the LV exit and fish a limestoner, equally tempting not to head to the Brodhead or Lehigh River, something a bit closer.  But I had taken a day off today to do something a little more special, and in sticking with the original plan despite the unexpected, it actually did end up being just that.

You better work!  More from the photoshoot.

I have already shared three or four photos of the bonus fish that turned a good day into a great day, so great I actually quit and left them biting at 3 PM, my cup runneth-ing over by that point anyway.  Things were slow even with my arrival after 9 AM not 7:30 AM as originally planned, and the bluebird skies and normal-to-seasonally-low flows made fishing the holes a challenge at that hour of the morning.  My gut said, yes, it is still April, but I think these fish are already tucked into the riffles and pocket water trying to feel safer while they gorge on tan caddis nymphs and emergers.  So I fished like it was June not April, and I started putting together quite the morning.  Nothing huge to start, but not the small fish that make up the late spring and early summer pocket water fishing I tend to have here (often with a bonus larger fish or five in the mix too).  As the remaining photos probably show, there were a handful of additional fish between 14 and 15 inches, maybe one spotted up 16 or at least 15+, and a lot in that 12–13-inch range too.  And I was catching them in 12 to 18 inches of water, so they could only go up in the air or run all over the place trying to get loose.

A bunch of mid-teens in shallow pockets and riffles.

It was not bonkers like it can get in June with smaller fish harassing nearly every other cast, but the fish that did eat ate with purpose and fought with plenty of piss and vinegar.  Honestly, minus the weight and fear of breaking such a fat fish off on 5X, especially 5X on a triple-surgeon knotted dropper tag (!), a couple of those 15 inchers fought way harder with leaps and runs, and even a couple downstream runs needed by this guy in order to get a net under them.  Flows were higher than June flows, so I still needed a heavier perdigon with a 4mm bead to get a smaller bug into the strike zone, and a couple of the average fish ate the perdigon too, so it was more effective than simply drop-shotting to get a size 18 bug down in swiftly flowing water.  It got warm, and this kind of fishing can be aerobic, so I did take a 15-minute break at lunchtime to lose a layer, eat some leftover pizza slices, and refill my water supply.

Top left was the first fish of the day, the only dinker!

I caught the biggest fish and at least half a dozen other very decent fish between 12 and 2:30 PM, but by that time, I had to make a choice to keep pushing upstream or call it good.  I would say I had already landed close to 20 fish, and I was confident that I was not likely to top or duplicate the stud I had tangled with this afternoon.  I decided to head back to the ‘Ru and drink an iced coffee I had packed, eat another slice, and make a decision after a sit in the shade.  The leaves are not really popping yet in NEPA, so the shade was at a premium.  In the end, after my morning traffic nightmare, I thought it wise to make my way through the thriving metropolis of Scranton and get on the turnpike before the early Friday commuters hit the road for home or happy hour.  Had I not caught a pig, I may have still been hunting for one until dark, but I had the luxury of quitting early today.  A long day, made longer by things out of my control, but one I will not forget for years to come, I am sure.  This fish was not even a personal best for this creek, but it was in its own category where girth not length was the true measure of piggy-dom.

Awesome fish and awesome day.