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?