June 30, 2024 – Mason Improves his Batting Average at Tigereye Joe’s “Secret” Spot – Lehigh River

Mason earned a couple today.

When Mason asked if I wanted to fish again this week, I was thinking that he’d chosen a heck of a spring to pick up fly fishing.  I typically love June fishing because the crowds die down, the water is usually still cold, and bigger creeks and rivers are far more wadable.  I like to get into spots on the Brodhead, for example, that are not fishable in the early spring—or fishable only with big bugs and a bobber.  It is also rare that I visit the Lehigh River before June 1 most years for the same reasons: less onerous access to good water often off limits until flows come down, cold water, delayed hatches.  Sadly, even the Lehigh River is close to done already.  I sent the Silver Fox to the Po this week, but it is not my favorite piece of water in NEPA, far from it.  Cold, yes, a trout stream, meh. Dry fly fishing the clear, uniform waters would have been even more of challenge for a new fly fisher like Mason, and bassing requires a different set of skills and perhaps gear he does not yet have.  Lehigh River again, Mason.  The river was a bit warm below White Haven, but thanks to Tigereye Joe’s generosity last weekend, I had one spot in mind besides the Po that might produce for Mason.  One last hurrah until late September if we were lucky.  I also knew from the gages going up and Joe and Dave’s report from Thursday evening this week that the game had changed.  Fish had gotten a bit more dickish in the higher release flows, and that certainly continued this morning.  Still, I knew a truckload of stockies were in there, so we had a chance.

Water still cold enough but flows up until this afternoon.

Flows were over 450 CFS this morning, so twice what they were when I joined Joe and Dave last week, but it was still very wadable and good nymphing conditions.  I thought about waiting until this evening, and sure enough the Corp dropped the flows, but I knew I had a busy and long Monday at work, so I did not want to leave NEPA after 9 PM this evening.  Mason had a 7 PM call tonight too, I recall.  We fished the early morning, and we had a slow start.  We met right around 5:30 AM and took the ride to the river.  I spent the first hour just trying to figure out the situation.  I fished this stretch in the past a few times, but I bet it’s been 9-10 years, so I had no honey holes for Mason (besides Joe’s of course, which did not really produce today).  I fished a jigged bugger, had Mason swing a bugger, fished big bugs, small bugs, big bugs with small bugs on the dropper, big bugs with a soft hackle—that last one was not a bad idea, nor was the big stonefly.  Mason got two fish on a black stonefly in pocket water.  I ended up getting probably 8-10 trouts, and half of them took a hot spot french pheasant tail on the dropper and on the swing.  Sulfurs on the menu this week?  Joe mentioned yellow sallies too.  Whatever the case a bright hot spot on a buggy bug finally became a pattern of sorts.  I even got creek chubs and a couple small smalljaws to take the swinging pt anchored by an olive perdigon.

The stockie trifecta.

Mason’s first fish was a great looking stocked brookie, and he got a second fish not long after that.  I picked away once I found something the picky fish would eat, and I had a blast in the last half hour wading out a bit to swing some bugs across a glide near the other side of the river.  The bows over there did not take the rod out of my hand the way they can when they are really fired up to take an emerger, but it was still fun.  Were there more wild fish in this stretch, they may have been in this pocket water and riffles too, but the stockers were not tucked right up in the white stuff.  I tried, hoping for a bonus wild brown sucking up the O2 in the white stuff, but if the stocked trout were being difficult, then any wild fish were probably even more stubborn today.  Still, it was great to see Mason have some success.  If his buying spree of felt-soled wading boots and back-up rods and reels are any indications, he is enjoying the sport.  Much like our first outing, I would not have fished had I not some other purpose today, but I enjoyed the morning catching some trout.  Joe gets the assist, and I even sent him a pic of Mason and his nice brook trout.  Each trout trip this month has seemed like the last until the fall, and unless things change, that might actually be true this time.   Yeah, right, you might say, but I think I mean it this time?

June 22, 2024 – Tigereye Joe Puts Us on a Great Evening of Rising Fish – Lehigh River

Joe out there on a hazy Saturday showing us how it's done.

I think I do this long last waltz every year, claiming each trip in July (or June this year) is my last one until the fall.  It’s sort of like a band like LCD Soundsystem selling out a few farewell nights at the Garden and then coming back the next year with an album.  Sorry.  I just have a rolodex of possibilities, and a growing network of dudes who know a lot more than I do about their home waters.  Case in point, I met up with Joe and David from the PAFF forum this evening at one of the only games in NEPA at the moment.  Even with a dam release for whitewater enthusiasts today and tomorrow, Joe knew the timing of a nice window of dry fly fishing on a beautiful night.  Not only did he guide us to the spot, me following behind on the unimproved roads Deliverance style, but he nearly dialed in what the majority of fish were taking on the surface.  We never totally figured it out.  We still had some refusals from these picky sippers, but enough of them ate his gray caddis, which he shared with all, to put together a solid evening of dry fly fishing.  As you know, that is something I have not done a lot of in the last several years as I have worked to “perfect” my euro-nymphing game, but I may have shared a couple times that I am coming out the end of that journey and hoping to do more traditional fly fishing again.  An afternoon and early evening of mostly cooperative stockers in a beautiful setting with a pair of good guys is a good first step in that direction. 

Hot in SEPA, less so in NEPA.  Nymphed a few.  Deliverance?

I can cast accurately still and present a drag-free fly, but I don’t have enough patience or knowledge to sit there and figure out picky fish.  That is a skill and also an experience thing.  We saw midges, some sulfurs, a random iso- or two, but the fish wanted a caddis we could barely see—or those midges: I was close to putting on a Griffiths gnat, Joe a bivisible, just to test the hypothesis. A sparse size 18 gray caddis that became increasingly harder to see in broken water as the sun set was close enough, and I like catching more than figuring stuff out, so I just went with catching one out of every five that took a look.  Before committing to the dry fly, I did catch three fish nymphing pocket water, but I am not stupid.  When Joe began catching fish pretty consistently after several fly changes to break the code, I went back to the ‘Ru for my dry fly rod.  I caught a couple on a bigger tan caddis, got refusals on a sulfur, before taking Joe up on his offer to fish with one of his bugs.  Dave also had a couple fish on the bigger dries, but he too had more success going with Joe’s bug.  Joe put on show on his home waters, of course, but I know I had over half a dozen on the gray caddis after I committed to this path, so not a bad night.  There may have been one small wild fish in the mix, but most were small to average stockers.  We landed the trifecta of bow, brown, and brookie.  I think my first nymph fish was a stocked brook trout, and my best bow took a nymph, too.

Got a few to take bigger bugs, but Joe's 18 gray caddis performed best on picky sippers.

A couple bigger, splashier risers were across the river, but that was a lot of work for a refusal.  I tried a couple times and had splashy misses.  That prompted me to put on a bigger dry, even a dry dropper for a brief time, but I just kept coming back to the small caddis, especially while watching Joe consistently land one every few minutes.  It was a relaxing evening, and I was reminded of the pleasures of the slower pace of dry fly fishing.  I am usually “go go go cover water.”  Tonight, we fished the same pool for a few hours and picked away at fish the entire time without breaking a sweat, and we got to talk and laugh a bit too.  The thermometer in the car said it was 100 on the way north, but it was 82 F streamside when we first arrived.  Besides sitting in a pool, wet wading a tailwater was a cool way to spend an evening. Joe has offered his former hunting cabin (RIP) in the past, and we have stayed in touch for some time.  I often get his intel on his home river, as he lives three or four miles from the gorge.  I knew he was a good guy, and it was nice to meet Dave too.  He is a California based angler that put some vacation roots down in NEPA because he loves the terrain and the different types of fishing.  I totally get that.  I personally love NEPA and PA fishing in general.  I have spent a life here in PA and have yet to exhaust the possibilities.  Joe is retired for good now, so we will make this happen again, and I am looking forward to it.  Water temps were 61 to 62, so if we get a reprieve from the heat, at least at night, I may not be done after all.

Joe and Dave out there making things happen.

June 19, 2024 – What May Have Been My Last Tango with the Trout until the Fall? Perhaps Mason was “Taking the Waters”? – Lehigh River

A good last trout day trout?

Mason had his Lehigh River baptism today, quite literally.  He did catch a brown trout before that, however, so there were a few firsts and many ups and downs this morning.  We connected when I responded to his post on PAFF about vacationing in the Poconos this week and, being a brand-new fly fisher, him wanting to get out with someone willing to share some knowledge and spots.  Normally, this time in June would be great conditions to target places like the Brodhead and the Lehigh River, but this has not been a normal June.  Even coming out of the dam, the water in White Haven was getting over 66 F this week.  The Brodhead is really low and hot, so that is probably done until the fall.  I did not want to disappoint Mason, but all week I was low-key preparing him for a bass fishing trip on the Delaware if not an all-out cancellation from me.  I had the day off for the holiday, so I did not want to sit home in the A/C either.  Conditions were still ethically sound this morning, and he was willing and able to meet me in the Lehigh Gorge at 5:30 AM, so in the end we had a short, very productive window.  Sadly, aside from the water temperatures getting close to done, the bugs are on their own timelines.  And the wild fish that depend on these delayed June tailwater hatches, are still getting while the getting’s good.  This might have been it in NEPA for me for a while, so I was pleased that the last trip of the spring and my first to the river this year was a good one.

An early start with a couple cooperative stockers and bath time.

So the ups or the downs first?  Let’s start with the ups.  Mason and I did fish, he was there right on time if not early, he was a good guy and very appreciative of my time, and I think he learned at least one helpful new skill since he had never nymphed with an indicator before—which is fly fishing 101 (or maybe 102 if we start you with a dry fly) in my class.  In the absence of risers, indicator nymphing the big river is almost a necessity sometimes—more on that later, as I did not have that luxury myself today.  Mason has had very limited experience, including a guided trip with my boy John at the TCO shop on the much tamer Tully, and a casting lesson at Orvis, but he caught a trout on the very challenging Lehigh River.  Don’t know if this counts as an up or down, but he did see me catch probably half of my fish with a handful of good ones in the mix.  At least he saw the caliber of fish possible in the river on a good day?  I did spend a lot of time with him, but the fish were chewing, so I had to catch a few!  In my defense, I had his blessing each time I picked up the rod once again.

Some pretty trout in a pretty place.  Bonus shot of best wild fish.

So on to the downs?  Mason broke the rod tip on his barely used Clearwater before we even left the parking lot.  I think it was broken when he took it out of the bag to assemble this morning.  I was carrying an extra rod, as I almost always do, but it was a 10’ 5 weight, so a lot more rod than he had been learning on.  I also had no appropriately sized indicators with me, and Mason left his at home.  I was wet wading, and I store most (or apparently all) of the indicator sizes I typically use in a pocket in my waders.  I dug around and confirmed I had a backup thermometer—which is another item I keep close at hand in my waders—but I had no bobbers big enough to float bigger bugs in bouncy water.  I found an old foam Fish Pimp that could almost to the job for Mason and eventually added a Palsa pinch on or two for extra buoyancy….  Last but not least, Mason did take a double dip. I was upstream of him and heard the splash, even over the sound of the water, so it must have been a good one.  Further evidence is that he lost his hat, which he impressively recovered on the second dip.  Arguably the best catch of the day!  With his permission, I captured the moment after he had mostly recovered and was ready to climb out.  A few more steps and a bit more flow, and I may have had to meet him down in Jim Thorpe or Weissport with a long stick to fish him out.  At least it was hot out, even at 7 AM, and the water was not 50 degrees.  His wading staff came out after that.  One often has to learn to respect the Lehigh the hard way, and I have fallen here myself, usually in much cooler conditions.

Another wild girl.  Squint and you can see I did let him fish ahead of me too!

A bit about the actual fishing?  I had a hit on my first cast in a riffle seam and caught a fish on the second cast.  I guess I avoided the first cast curse on a technicality because they kept eating most of the morning or at least whenever I picked up the rod to fish.  There were caddis, so a soft hackle on the dropper tag accounted for half of my fish and Mason’s one fish.  There were also some big adult stoneflies, an isonychia or two, some BWOs, midges, what appeared to be tricos, the works.  We only saw three of four risers on the walk to our second spot, and they looked to be smaller bank eaters, nearly impossible to target, and probably not worth the scramble down the gorge.  Having no indicators myself, I made the mono rig on my 10’6” 4 weight do some work.  I did catch a couple reaching over riffles in narrower spots to target the opposite bank, but I mostly fished the seams close to me and in front of and behind any mid-stream boulders.  I caught a few trout, all browns, over 14 inches and one thick fish edging 17 inches.  I would say most were wild or too “experienced” to tell apart. 

Days last wild fish and some net shots.

A couple fish were just plain gorgeous, like the last wild fish of the day.  I caught this fish trying a hail mary to get Mason on one more fish before quitting time.  The scramble down to this hole below a cold tributary was a bit more challenging than it was this time last year, so I think I used up what was left of Mason’s battery life.  He was in waders and needed to cool off, so he found a nice spot to submerge himself (on purpose this time) and chill out while I made a few final casts.  I got a small wild fish to eat a perdigon, and then not long after I hooked what I thought was a tank.  One came off eventually, thankfully the smaller one on the dropper tag, but I had myself a double for a few tense moments.  I would have preferred a tank, of course, but the fish that did remained buttoned to the perdigon point fly was no slouch.  Shade was nearly gone, sun was in my face, Mason was done, and so was I by this point.  Had things gone differently, he may have had a better fishing day, what with his own rod and a bobber and all, but I hope he enjoyed the experience.  He lives in SEPA not far from me, so I promised I would get him some reps on stockies this fall to build his confidence.  The Lehigh or the Pohopoco, which comes with its own set of challenges, were the only NEPA games in town today, so at least we got out and got him on a trout on a far better day for bass (or fluke) fishing.  I hope this was not my last spring trout trip?  Looking rough ahead....

Some B reel and bonus shots.

June 16, 2024 – Some Small Smallmouths with My Son on Father’s Day – The Delaware River

A good day for wet wading.

The boy humored me this morning, as he has for probably 14 of his 16 years, and joined me on a mediocre fishing trip.  It was a lovely morning, and the Delaware was low and clear, so easy wading—easier for me in my wading boots and neoprene socks than the boy in old sneakers, of course.  I let him sleep a bit, but we left at 7 and were fishing by 8:15 AM.  God knows how late he was up now that school is out, but he was a trooper until all the scrambling on riprap in old running sneaks eventually wore him out.  I had a couple spots in mind this morning, so we stopped at one a bit down river first and took a peek.  It was low, and besides the bar at the mouth of a tributary, any possibly productive spots were going to be a bit of a hike or wade.  We decided to press on to spot two.  I just grabbed a few spinning rods rigged up with soft plastics and Rapalas, plus a big, skirted jig that did account for 2 fish.  Once we got away from the access point, we started seeing fish, but we were out there in full sun with Jersey to the east of us.  I got one to take a Rapala on a stop and go retrieve near the easy access point, but it was clear that we would have to cover some rocky ground.

A lot of bucks met their post-spawning run demise.  Vultures are well-fed.

It’s been a while since I fished the river this close to post-spawn, but trout season is heading towards a quick end this year with little rain for the last two weeks and little in the future forecast.  The hot days mid-week aren’t going to help, which sucks because I am off on Wednesday.  I had forgotten that many dead shad would still be in the water in June, too.  With low water, many were technically rotting out of the water, so it smelled awesome at times.  The scavengers were happy, at least.  We also watched an osprey hunting as well as 20 mergansers crossing the river.  I have seen them scoot on the top of the water on smaller creeks and rivers, but it was cool to see them avoid the main river current drag by basically walking (on water) their way over to our bank.  If the bass had been more cooperative, it would have been an even nicer morning out there with my son.  We made the most of it and caught some small bass in the 10-to-11-inch, maybe an encounter with one in the 13-inch range.  One better fish popped a topwater and amazingly did not get hooked.  Otherwise, I had to resort to soft plastics deep to catch a couple more dinks.

Dinks for Dads.

By 11 AM, it was getting warm out there in full sun, so the boy was sitting under a lone tree on a flat rock just taking in the day.  I figured there was no need to push on, as we had already hobbled down a half-mile stretch of river to a couple honey holes that did produce but not the way I had hoped.  I used to work really hard and work him hard when fish weren’t cooperating, but I have learned over time that the point is just to get outside with my son.  I have also learned to pay a captain to put us on some fish once in a while, and we are doing a couple trips this summer, at least 😊  A promised lunch was his motivation to scramble back, and I put him in charge of finding an easier way out, which he did.  By the time we got to the canal path again, we were pretty dry, dry enough to sit at a table in a restaurant and have some tacos like a couple of civilized men.  They were pretty decent tacos too!  We were home by 1 PM and both able to take naps, so that is a decadent-enough Father’s Day for me!

Mighty (fish-eating) ducks walking on water.

June 9, 2024 – A Visit with a Dear Old Friend for a Few Hours – Northampton County

A couple of each of this size.

I was reminded this morning about why I stopped fishing this creek as often as I once did AND why it was once one of my favorite creeks.  Of the Lehigh Valley limestoners within about an hour of home, it is by far the most challenging and rewarding in equal measure, and that played out today too, even after a long hiatus.  I married one, so no offense, but there has just been mad Jersey up in this piece.  I recall visiting on a winter Wednesday and running into a guide with three septuagenarian sports out for a trip, all with thick New York accents (and none were even Tom C who gets a pass 😉since he has PA street cred too).  That morning, and several others with similar experiences, have kept me away.  I do like to fish cricks until I figure them out or crack the code, and then I often move on to the next one.  I definitely cracked the code on this one, notching some big wild trouts in the process.  I even landed a white whale or two that had owed me on previous encounters, so I guess I had accomplished what I had set out to do here and did not miss it all that much—or so I thought.  If I am being totally honest, once in a while, I do think to myself, “I wonder how this one is fishing these days? Do they miss me?"

Some really pretty bows too

John at TCO guides this creek an hour and change from the shop (another more recent and compounding issue, as he is not alone in this practice) so I spoke to him about the creek a month ago or more.  His take was that crowds had died down again because a lot of guys find this creek difficult, even with a guide.  I trust his honest assessment of most things, so I put this crick back on my list this year and made good on a visit this morning.  Low and clear water, so not the best day back, but a cool, cloudy morning helped out the cause.  Not only did I catch some pretty holdover rainbows and an equal number of wild browns, but I even had an encounter with a good 17- or 18-inch wild fish.  It did not end with a hero shot, as you may have noticed.  I got owned in slow motion by this one.  By this point of the morning, maybe 8:30 AM after two hours of pretty decent fishing, I was tossing a single 16 frenchie in riffles and pocket water on 6X.  After a subtle take of the small bug in 12 inches of water, I gave this fish the respect he deserved on 6X, and he gave me the finger by snaking under a sunken limb that was pinned by the current in front of a big mid-riffle rock.  I watched him swim upstream with purpose but not necessarily panic and duck right under this limb like he knew it was there or something…  Go figure.

Pretty.  Low.  Nature show.  Is a domestic mallard in the wild a holdover, I wonder?

I kept the rod low, hoping I could coax him back downstream and back under, but he did not come back on a straight line and instead wrapped himself.  I tried to get a net under him while he was stuck, but I ended up with both bugs back and no fish.  So, there was one reminder why I used to love this creek: big wild trout surprises with a degree of regularity.  But I also ran into two friendly enough Jersey Boyz chunking spinners in low clear water.  On my approach to a favorite hole, one of those big fish holes, I started noticing that the water was looking dirty.  Hmm… odd, I thought.  A pop-up shower upstream?  Nope, a couple of dudes wading downstream and stirring up the creek.  They were nice guys and were not even aware that the creek held a Class A wild trout population, which gave me a chance to low-key educate them on the importance of handling any of the brown ones with the utmost care.  They were receptive and gave me my space, but it was a reminder that some things about this place had not changed, after all.  I did catch a pair of otherwise pretty rainbows with jaw damage from barbed trebles, but a few of them were pristine, and at least a couple of the browns were pushing into adulthood too, including one likely over 13 inches.

Small trouts can be parr (see what I did there?) for the course in June.

The nature show was in full effect with only me and the boys out fishing the early shift.  I jumped a fawn (my second in the last few days, as I nearly stepped on one while fishing with Tom on Thursday), a beaver swam by (that’s a pretty new one here) and there were many braces of waterfowl of several ilk.  I cracked myself up greeting each of a half-dozen gosling by name, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, and so on.  Justin beaver too.  I guess losing the good fish was more of a good sign, a mood booster even under challenging low water conditions, than a point of frustration.  I was content to end my morning at 10 AM after another pair of wild browns in the 10 and 12 inch range and some more rainbows.  Besides the small bugs, I did get bows to eat a size 10 micro-jigged streamer.  I just showed them something different in a hole where I caught the first time through.  I was hoping to entice another big brown in a particularly deep back eddy with this heavier bug, but I had had my chance, I suppose.  It was good to be back, and I won’t be back again like it’s my job, but John did not lie if I was able to have a successful Sunday morning with very little company.

Bonus shot.

June 6 and 7, 2024 – The Silver Fox Gives Me a Reason (Sort of) to Take off on a Thursday; the Boy a Reason on a Friday – Lackawanna County and Central PA

Tom and I gave it a shot on an odd weather day for early June.

Tom had vacation time planned for this week, and we have not fished together in a while.  I forget why I could not join him the last time he went on a successful brookie hunt, but I knew we needed to get out this week, so I cashed in some PTO.  I gave myself a nice long weekend by booking a college visit with the boy out in Union County for Friday.  The weather has been terrible for trout fishing, of course, and even the river bass were squirrely during the brief visit my son and I made to the WB of the Susquehanna after lunch that afternoon.  We had hot weather and over a week without significant rain—or possibly any rain depending on the region of the state.  I was hopeful that we were going to get some promised storms on Wednesday and Wednesday evening that might help the cause, but in the region Tom and I fished on Thursday, it only gave a slight stain and zero bump to the normal to low flows.  I also think the fish had lockjaw based on the impending thunderstorms, a South wind, and low pressure because even the mostly small trout we did catch barely ate with few exceptions.  It felt mushy and swampy, even wet wading.  The water temps were fine, and we quit shortly after lunchtime, but nothing really ever materialized.  It felt less humid for a brief moment on Friday morning before the same pattern returned, so I hope some relief is coming this weekend.

An early, swampy start.

Tom has seen pictures of me holding up multiple fish in the twenties from this creek, and I have even written about how it has yet to disappoint me over the years I have been learning it.  That ended today, of course, on a day where I was hoping to put the Silver Fox on some quality fish.  I expect small trout to dominate catches this time of year, and that was one reason I suggested this creek.  I assumed based on previous June experiences that we would tangle with many fish and have action all morning, even if the average size was 8-10 inches not 14 to 16 inches like I’ve experienced several times in early spring and late fall.  We may have landed 15 trout today, maybe.  I caught one that was 10-11 inches and one that was 12-13 inches.   The rest, and all of Tom’s unfortunately, were 5 to 8 inches!  Technically, this was not even a dinkfest since even they had lockjaw and required perfect casts to elicit half-assed swipes at the bugs and fast reaction times to hook them.  One and done too, which is often a sign they are feeling off.  My experiences here, including slow starts that ended up turning hot and heavy by late morning, kept me confident and kept us moving and covering different types of water.  I worked Tom out a bit, so when he took a little refreshing plunge around noon, he had an excuse.  I took my own dip at like 6:30 AM, so my only excuse at that time was clumsiness!  Tom drove, so I could not even blame the long drive this time.  It was so warm and humid our clothes are probably still wet.

The kind of day that makes a 12-incher a star.

We made good time and were fishing slightly after 6 AM.  I showed Tom some honey holes that produced nothing, but I remained positive that something was going to materialize at some point in the morning.  I stopped at a shallow riffle in between holes, just to prospect since my plan was to target eager fish in riffles as the main event.  We got the skunk off us with a couple dinks before once again finding no willing eaters one favorite hole after another.  After taking a break at the parking spot, we retooled for what I had imagined would be the main event and fished a stretch of pocket water I was confident would make our morning, as it has done many times in the past.  As recently as April of this year, I not only landed a 21–22-inch pig in this stretch but also put together a catch of likely 20 fish between 12 and 16 inches.  Not today.  Tom got a few little fish in prime spots, and mine were not much better.  Imagine getting excited and snapping photos of a 12 incher and a 10 incher!  That’s how small the average fish had been before I landed two decent fish at the end of this stretch.  

And 10-incher a co-star.

We backtracked and got a couple more willing dinks to eat before finding a spot to hop out so we could take a ride to one last stretch, a last-ditch effort before noon to catch a few more fish.   I turned one decent fish with a hookset in this stretch and Tom got 1.5 small fish in the net and had his swim during this walk, so it was hardly the day-maker I was hoping it might be.  This particular stretch produced 25+ small fish and an 18-incher for me one June not that long ago, but this was an odd June day, an August day in June or something.  The stream has been getting warm each afternoon, it seems.  Add to that the low pressure today, and any fish worth a damn was hunkered down awaiting better days.  Disappointing, but it was good to get out with Tom and show him this creek that he has only vicariously seen through my visits.  Were he not off today, I may not have fished, and were he not with me today, I would have ground out an even more long and difficult day.  It was good to have a second voice of reason along to confirm my suspicions that this day felt done within an hour of our arrival.

Clouds building once again over the Susquehanna Valley.

Friday weather was more of the same after a promising cool and less humid start.  Clouds, humidity, and a convection wind built as we toured a fancy college campus in Lewisburg.  The boy and I had a great lunch downriver in Selinsgrove and found an awesome thrift store to shop before making a very brief visit to a park along the West Branch of the Susquehanna.  I threw a couple spinning rods in the back of the ‘Ru in the morning just in case we found good access to the river or even lower Penns Creek.  He had plans at 6 PM at home, so we could not really do more that 30-60 minutes of prospecting.  Instead, we ended up having a 15-minute speed round—first or most fish in 15 minutes wins cash or at least a free thrift store hall.  We saw a channel cat and no other life.  Still, it was a good day with my son who will be leaving me next year for one of these fancy colleges, places this first-gen mitch would have never considered.  I am pulling for these rural places near awesome fishing, of course.  He’ll probably end up at NYU or something!

June 1, 2024 – All the Rain this Spring Spread Those Stockers Far and Wide – Brodhead Creek

Not a bad start before 6 AM.

Man, I committed to fishing the gorge section of the Brodhead today, which is a lot of work, even more so at 750 CFS on the Minisink Hills gage, and I caught a ton of rainbows, even stocked browns.  The banks are steep, having once been railways and/or elevated roads cut into laurel-choked hillsides on both sides.  So, scrambling down to a honey hole, only to find you can’t wade it can be demoralizing if you let it.  I just committed to the exercise today in hopes of finding at least one really nice fish, but the stockers, most of them small survivors, were more challenging at times than the scrambling and climbing.  Oh, I caught some wild browns, including a few solid ones, but I really had to work for them.  I caught at least seven other wild fish, too, these of the fallfish variety.  I am not sure if I found a honey hole, or if they were staging to spawn.  Because of the higher water and a stain, I could not see the spawning mounds if that was the case.  A few of those fallfish were big too.  I was hoping for a smallmouth a couple times, but the fallfish fight starts out strong and ends really quickly sometimes.  I have heard people say they fight better than trout, to which I say: you play with yourself😉

The Fallguys: now a major motion picture...

After five fallguys in a row, I took a water temperature reading, and it was still 64 degrees, so fine.  I put in a good 8 hours of fishing and hiking today, so this was at 1 PM.  With caddis going nuts, I ended up fishing until 3 PM, getting trout on the swing even on my second shift after a short break, so conditions were very good for trouts today.  The last few days of cool mornings and some rain stand out from a couple heatwaves, however, so the river may be getting rather warm some late afternoons.  For the last three or four days, the gage was showing under 65 for a high temp each afternoon, which was a major reason why I gave it a shot, perhaps before it was too late this spring.  A sure sign of consistently warm water in some of these spots is the presence of feeding smalljaws.  None tangled with today.  The gage up in Analomink was under 200 CFS, but that drains a different ridge and does not have a larger secondary and a tertiary tributary draining into it, either.  

An early start in good flows and good water temps.

I landed a really nice brown on maybe my second cast, and a great holdover rainbow not long after that.  As the pics probably show, I was fishing before 6 AM as the sun was rounding the valley, smoke remained on the water, and a couple of juvenile eagles were on the hunt.  Flows were just iffy enough when I made my first crossing at a tailout I know like the back of my hand that I was cautious about wading into a favorite spot that actually produced for me later in the day, as flows continued to drop and the water cleared a bit more.  Before that, I tried two different ways to approach this spot and abandoned both.  Bushwhacking through knotweed on a 40% incline was option three, which I did not attempt.  Probably for the best since that growth hides a couple encampments for the unhoused.  A friendly enough dude wished me luck in the afternoon after I had made a successful approach to this spot.  He was making runs up and down the knotweeded slope filling his water bottle with Stroudsburg Water Authority punch, which I hope he boiled two or three times.

A lot of small browns and rainbows as the payoff for a lot of hiking and climbing.

In the gorge, I made a few waist-deep wades in order to get into position in a couple of places where I have tangled with or landed big wild trout in the recent and ancient past, but in a few spots in further, I had to be content to perch on a boulder and sling a bobber into the current seams.  All the fallfish and most of the afternoon rainbows came on a big old pheasant tail or stonefly imitation under the bobber.  Caddis were hard to ignore, so after a pleasant enough hike back in the shady but buggy woods, I decided not to quit.  I had a snack at the ‘Ru, drank an iced coffee, changed into my sexy Shelta boonie hat for the extra sun coverage, and vowed to wade into the honey hole where I twice failed this morning.  Either the water had dropped another 25 CFS or more, or I was being a punk this morning because the wade up AND back were not all that bad.  Some of the rolled cobble migrates here each year, and I have not fished this section since the fall, so maybe I was just being appropriately prudent.

Arguably the beauty of the place alone is the payoff, but nice wild fish help.

This wade was worth the extra time, as I had a blast catching fish actively eating those caddis emergers.  A pink tagged CDC soft hackle on the dropper got pounced on several times on the swing, so it became the pattern for a while until the action petered out.  Mostly bows again, but a couple gorgeous wild browns were in the mix this time.  Again, I was wondering if I had been too cautious with the wading, especially when I found the exit wade upstream pretty simple, but the gage still shows a steady descent today.  I had been fishing for 6 hours, so the flows probably did drop at least 25 CFS while I was there—that’s a summertime Valley Creek subtracted from the flows, so not insignificant. 

Some bonus shots from a long day of fishing.

I did not wade further down to the next couple of holes that often produce good fish, hopeful that another week of normal temperatures and maybe even some rain will give me another shot in the next week or two.  I have plans to fish somewhere with the Silver Fox on Thursday, and I am heading towards the West Branch of the Susquehanna with the boy next Friday, so maybe some more trouts and even a few of those smallmouth bass that the fallfish briefly fooled me about.  One thing not up for debate: those river bass certainly put the fallfish AND the trout fighting abilities to shame.

Not the prizefighters some claim....