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| A little chocolatey. |
I have been leaving the trout alone, but I made a couple attempts to bass fish this month. The first was last Sunday after some thunderstorms in Philly. The rain was not too bad near me, but I thought it was maybe enough to keep the swimmers, both human and canine, at bay for the early evening bite. I was mistaken on so many fronts. First of all, the rain was far more significant just 15 minutes from my house, so there were branches down during the drive and the crick was very dirty and nearly too high even to attempt to fish. Sadly, the storms did not stop the swimmers either. They were out there swallowing gas and oil runoff and probably dog and human waste too. When I see news stories about kids drowning while swimming in creeks in the summer, I think of these parents letting little kids swim in storm runoff, current certainly swift enough to carry a kid away and pin them against a tree or boulder. I know Philly struggles to staff the public pools each summer, but a lot of these folks are from Jersey. I was cutting my lawn this month, and some grown-ass man and his wife or GF stopped me to ask where the rope swing they heard about on social media was located. Jersey plates. Not only did the Sunday storms not send folks packing for home, but they also did not cool things off even a degree or two! I made some casts in the riffles with a black bugger that pushed some water hoping to blind-squirrel a smallmouth or two, but it was not happening. It ended up being a humid walk in the woods with way too many people and pets out there. Ah, summers on the Wissy. Sometimes I forget how "loved" it is post lockdown days....
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| Small fish on topwater. Not even fallfish fry could get them unspooked in low water. |
I tried to mix it up for this weekend and do a bit more work to catch a better class of smalljaw. I had been in touch with Josh out in Mifflin County about meeting up to do the Juniata or a smaller trib of the river(s). He has been off this summer, rightfully enjoying his first summer following a career change and his first year of teaching high school English. In the spring he mentioned he might work this summer, and I was like, Yeah right. You are going to fish your ass off. Sadly, this has been a terrible weather year for trout, but it does appear that Josh has shirked that work thing as I expected. I would have done the same. Anyway, it seems like that makes the weekends tougher to negotiate with his significant other. He had to cancel out on the weekend, but I decided to take a long ride anyway. I did not go all the way to Mifflin, but I did get out to Perry County to explore a creek that I have not fished since I was a kid. My dad had an archery buddy with a hunting cabin in Perry, so I have fond memories of fishing the Juniata, the lake at Little Buffalo State Park, and so on.
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| Exceedingly low water, but some habitat and small fish found. |
Cricks is real low, yo, but I figured I might get a chance to assess habitat better this way—sort of like scouting a new beach at low tide. This creek has a reputation for bass and trout, but both are mostly seasonal interlopers. The bass use the creek to spawn, and they do move through the lower section for a while before seeking better temps in the Susquehanna. The trouts here do the opposite. They spend some time eating good in the creek until it warms up and they have to retreat to several cold tributaries. Timing this year is likely off, so both had already left the building, perhaps even a couple weeks ago. It did not help that flows were darn close to drought conditions. Like I noted above, it made finding good habitat for future visits a breeze and kept expectations low. I did find some action at my first stop. In retrospect, I should have stayed in this deep, shaded hole for much longer, but I wanted to check out as many potential spots as possible. I had action on small bass, sunfish, rock bass, and fallfish, all on topwater from 5:30 to 7:30 AM. Had I stuck a good bass or two, I may have stayed longer, but I decided to scout out two other spots instead.
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| Some exploration in pretty country. |
The second spot I explored was by far the sexiest water, with bluffs and granite fingers creating riffles and pockets that would be great trout and bass water in normal flows. Crayfish scattered in the grasses as I waded through, and fry of all kinds were active in the shallows. I even found a few fallfish mounds as evidence of successful spawing. I tossed crayfish buggers, of course, and seeing those fallfish and their mounds, I also fished a small, flashy game changer on a loop knot. I saw exactly two bass, both around 12 inches, from high on a bluff, but even the sunfish were spooky as the morning got late and the sun high. I decided to drive down closer to the confluence with the river for my final stop. Flows were so low down there that I swear the creek was flowing backwards. I did not rig up, nor did I hike to the scenic overlook, but I did take a mile walk (okay, a half-mile in one direction and back) in the shade to check out more of the lower stretches of the creek.
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| All the way to the confluence. |
By noon, I was done with my adventure. I considered tossing my 7-weight in the main
river for a while, but my day had started at 2:40 AM and I had a two hour drive
home in the heat. If I were going to
wade the mighty Susquehanna alone, even with the current low flows, I should
have flipped the order of things. I
took a lot of crick pics and found several legal access points, so let’s call
this one homework? I am heading up to
the PAFF warmwater jamboree in early August, so I will be picking some brains of
the locals and connecting with Josh again very soon. I may have even invited myself on a float
with a Centre County dude I connected with at last summer’s jam. The rain and cool temperatures this week have
me thinking about this upcoming weekend already. I am certainly due for a good day, or at
least a good morning, of fishing.
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