September 29, 2024 – A Coyote Sighting Portends a Solid Dinkfest? – NEPA

Pretty early.

The rain has done nothing of note.  It’s been three or four days (and counting) of mist for all of a quarter of an inch of precipitation.  Still, the clouds offered the potential for some decent fishing and probably contributed to a coyote feeling safe enough to venture down for a drink well after sunrise.  Different Native American tribes ascribe different meanings to coyote sightings, and I choose not to google what tribes frequented Monroe County and how they felt about coyotes.  For me, it meant a strong showing of small to average wild browns and nary a rainbow.  It’s been a tough summer with heat and low water, so I was not all that surprised to find the better browns absent—they typically know where to go to ride out the tough months.  No surprise the less experienced rainbows have probably gone belly up.  Fallguys and bass could be seen everywhere in the low water as well.  In other words, it was a bit early for a potential fall bonanza to begin.  But in looking over the blog for the last several years, I see I am always drawn back to the mighty Brodhead—mighty or not—each September.  It did not disappoint this morning, really.  I packed up to fish a small creek last night, hopeful for some actual rain, and then retooled in the morning since the bigger creeks seemed like the only viable options.  Making this early morning change of plans, I probably caught over a dozen wild browns, half a dozen fallfish, and dropped a couple fish later in the morning when they were spookier and hitting faintly. And I had my first daytime coyote sighting.  He came down to the edge of the water not 20 yards away, took a drink, saw me, and hightailed it out of the gorge with barely a sniff of the air.  He vocalized high up on the ridge 10-15 minutes later, likely in response to some hikers or mountain bikers with a dog across the way.

A lot of fish but nothing too large.

I had a decent fish on the second cast of the morning, and about 8 fish followed in short succession.  Flows were around 100 CFS in a stretch of the river where that is really, really low, but I still needed a size 12 perdigon with a 4 mm tungsten bead to get a size 16 CDC soft hackle in the strike zone.  I would say that before 10 AM, 99% of the fish took the dropper tag riding a good 24 inches above the point fly.  Later, as the drizzle ended and it brightened, I had a few take the perdigon as well as a small jigged bugger.  I lost the trout half of a double on the jigged bugger not long after my coyote sighting.  I thought I finally had a decent fish on the line, especially since I was near the sometimes-home of a couple pig wild browns, including one pushing 24 inches, but it was a skinny 13 incher who swam one way with my bugger while a 12-inch fallguy swam the other with my soft hackle.  I landed the fallfish, of course.  Getting away from the deep riffles and bouncy water meant fish spookings and fallfish, so I worked through the same riffle twice and landed fish both times before taking a longer walk to a similar stretch upstream.  I did not venture further into the gorge, seeing little evidence in the fish behavior or conditions to indicate that today was worth the effort.  Save it for later in October, I thought to myself as I refueled at the ‘Ru and walked to the next spot.

Low water and in the low 60s.  Need rain and cooler temps.

After the first hour, all the fish were a bit pecky.  Sometimes low pressure does that to fish in my experience.  If the water is up and stained, that oft-times trumps any of the effects, but if it’s just foggy and calm and thick, the fish do act a bit like wet sponges.  I lost a couple on the bobber that just barely took the bugs suspended underneath.  I lost two back-to-back in the second deep run before catching a couple and then blowing up the hole with all the activity.  Since this hole is probably six feet deep (and crystal clear today), I even tried to balance a leech over their heads for a while.  Not a touch.  I should have led with that approach if I had wanted to give it a fair shot for success.  It was cool and not that drizzly around midday, so I overstayed my welcome, knowing full well that the bite was probably over an hour earlier.  It is nice to get a full six hours on the water, however.  That is not something that can be done during the summer grind.  With the heat last Sunday, I drove two hours to fish four hours, to drive two more hours.  Not great math, unless I tangle with a couple of pigs like last week.  Today I drove 90 minutes to fish 6 hours: far better math even if I caught most of the 15 fish before 11 AM and spent the rest of the time hoping for an eleventh hour, coyote sighting induced miracle.

At least there were a lot of them.

September 22, 2024 - Low Water but Cool Water Temps Make the First Day of Fall a Success – NEPA

An elder stateman.

I tangled with two pigs this morning and landed one of them, so I can still make the playoffs, I gather.  The water was low, but this creek was doing better than most, so I made the drive and had the right level of expectations.  I just wanted to trout fish and possibly move a fish or two fattening up for the spawn.  When I hooked a fish as big or bigger than the one pictured above at the first hole, expectations were exceeded.  The first pig took a jigged bugger on the drop—I just saw the flash of head when he took it.  I had a sense I was going to lose this one all along because the hookset was not my best with some slack in the line to allow the streamer to fall to the bottom.  It was a decent hookset, however.  I fought him for a good while, but I think I pussyfooted around more than normal with the sneaking suspicion that this could end at any time.  Self-fulfilling prophecy because the streamer did eventually pull free on one of his/her longer runs.  It was still before sunrise, and this fish never jumped, but it was big.  Every time it lunged or ran, I could feel the power.  And those tell-tale head shakes.  I was throwing the 10’6” 4 weight and 3X to start my morning, so I definitely had the balls to take it took him/her, but I got cautious or just really wanted some content to share with you all.  That would come later, and I did not lose the mental game even though I lost this first battle.

Another early fish.

I will get to the fishing, but I guess I brought up a moment of growth as a fisherman just now.  I know guys who would be destroyed by losing a big fish—I have even written about throwing up after losing a big brown.  In my defense, that fish was 25 inches in a small creek and was nearly in my net when he popped off!  Anyway, this morning I just allowed the adrenaline dry heaves to pass, took some deep breaths, gave myself some positive affirmations, and moved onto the next hole.  This one was done for now with the mess the unknown pig and I had created.  I caught a dink or two at the next hole and then a nice fish over 15 inches, all the while still confident that another pig would show.  It did not hurt that this 15-incher first revealed himself trying to take a YOY off my hands for me.  I knew he was in there and hungry.  I also saw the pig I did land show himself while getting interested in my ability to catch dinkers on the nymphs.  This is not an uncommon occurrence for me in this creek, which is not always that fertile.  The YOY themselves are sometimes the hatch. 

Pretty low but just enough to make it worthwhile.  Fall has arrived.

That said, I did see a small smarm of olives and a few adult caddis as the day warmed up, so I abandoned the bugger pretty early.   Water was low, not unfishable and low, but just on the cusp of leaving it alone.   I hit the holes early when I could, but the rest of the morning was concentrated on the shallow riffles and small bugs.  Once I changed bugs enough to see that a single size 18 walts was the one they wanted, I had a blast in the skinny whitecaps.  Before my break at the ‘Ru at 10 AM to refuel and pick up the 3 weight to nymph in this manner, I did have success in those deep holes.  The pig I landed was an old fish, all head and skinny body.  He needed a rest after a reasonably short battle, so I hope he’ll be around to share his genes this fall.  I stuck with him for a good 5 minutes while I harassed Eric with some texts, and when I went to retrieve my rod from the bank eventually, he took off with good speed.  I caught a couple more trouts before and after this fish, but he was the highlight of round one.

More piggy shots.  And the one he went after to give away his position ;)

After losing some clothes, getting a snack, a cold drink, and picking up the other rod, I worked through some riffles and pocket water for round two.  Water was low despite good water temperatures.  All the channels around the islands, for example, were nearly bone dry or frog water.  I just couldn't justify spending more time in the car than on the stream today, even if I had made my day in just three hours of fishing.  I expected dinks in very shallow water for round two, but I should have been ready for more, of course.  I turned a very decent fish on a size 20 baetis nymph in the first deep depression in the riffles that I targeted.  The little hook did not hold, and so began several bug changes and weight changes to get it right.  Once I settled on an 18 walts on the point and a 16 soft hackle on the dropper tag, I had a nice run of fish.  Nothing like the first one I turned, but I did catch what the Silver Fox likes to call real-sized fish—10 to 13 inchers, many of them acrobatic.  These fish were quick hitters in tiny little spots in the riffles, which is a type of fishing I love and excel at—and probably love because I excel at it!  It was getting warm, and I knew I would be quitting at noon today, but these 6 or 8 bonus round fish further made my day.

Some round 2 fish from the skinny stuff.

Even minus an extra layer of clothes, I was starting to swamp my waders around 11:30 AM.  It was approaching borderline wet wading weather.  The sun was so high that shaded banks were at a premium by noon, and that had also become a pattern for the last 30 minutes or so.  In other words, I knew the clock was ticking on this particular outing.  Honestly, I was just thankful for not one but two rounds of very good fishing, especially since the flows were low and the water crystal clear.  It is good to fish a crick in as many seasons and conditions as possible.  I don’t make many fall trips to this one, and I probably won’t make a habit of it either.  I like to rotate them, especially when they are good to me.  I don’t know if that is responsible or superstitious or just my need for variety.  I like to say this creek never disappoints, and I have had to amend that to rarely disappoints this year, but this morning surely helped tip the scales back towards never.  Imagine if I had landed the first pig!  Nope, can’t think about that….

One of the better ones from the second round.

September 15, 2024 – Some More Smallmouths Until We Get More Rain and Consistently Cooler Temperatures – Delaware River

Some early evidence the leech might just work.

I know there are a lot of species out there to chase, but I guess I am mostly a wild trout guy at heart these days.  After the good outing last weekend, I was really wanting to chase some trout this weekend, but I just could not see the point when better days are surely ahead.  I do have two other favorite fish, of course, and you may have even seen them featured here on this blog.  One is definitely the striped bass in the surf, but I have also had a long love affair with the smallmouth bass.  Since I’ve been a kid, I have enjoyed chasing the smalljaw, especially in rivers.  I have fond memories of floating the Delaware with my old man in a Grumman squareback canoe.  I don’t remember the bass back then being as porky as they are now, so some things do change for the better over time, even if it’s just my skills.  That said, I have even seen evidence that a couple other local rivers that were once in decline have bounced back.  There are a lot more striped bass in the river too, but that is another story for another time.  Putting the trout on hold for now, I rigged up the 7-weight last night and decided to head upriver.

Deer didn't make it; some bonus fish pics.

Today, I decided to continue my “research” project with the bobber and the balanced leech.  One evening when I was on the Juniata this summer for the Josh Jamboree, I had a great evening drifting the level-sinking leech over the tops of weedbeds.  I was wondering if I could make this same system work in more rocky environments with more gradient.  I have a favorite little stretch of the Delaware that would be treacherous to wade fish in anything but late summer low flows.  The boy and I fished it this summer with spinning gear, with limited success, but we caught a few, and I actually saw many more spooky bass than we caught.  Today, I got out there early and was assisted by a fog that persisted into the 9 AM hour.  I tried an olive leech, but once I switched to a purple/blurple one, which probably does a good job of imitating a dobsonfly nymph/hellgrammite, it was game on.  I caught three nice bass, a few average ones, and even a couple fallfish before I decided to call it good.

Another nicer fish on the leech

The sun was hot and right in my face once the haze burned off, and the walk down into this spot is pretty aerobic, so I was happy to end things and hike back around 10:30 AM to avoid the 80-degree heat that was coming.  I was wet wading, and the morning was pretty darn comfortable, with low humidity and a slight breeze once the sun got up, but it was actually cooler at home because of the East wind and the clouds those conditons typically bring to Philly and the nearer suburbs.  Had it stayed that cool and cloudy in Northampton County, I may have stretched the proceedings another hour.  I was content with the leech experiment and very pleased with the size of a couple of these bass, so four hours was enough this morning.  

Some early river pics.

I partially have Lars to thank for me heading to the river this morning.  Not that I fished one of his spots or anything, but he shared a positive report from a couple days ago.  He had fish on topwater and the murdich minnow, but I resisted the urge once I caught a good bass using my chosen method today.  Sometimes you want to catch them the way you want to catch them?  Of course, if I was handed a goose egg early, I may have thrown everything in the box at them.  Thankfully, I did not have to.  The leech thing would be great from a drift boat, maybe even better with some long-ass drifts, and it definitely excelled in the Juniata, especially in the uniform grassy flats.  The Delaware took more adjustments for depth and variable and competing currents (a lot of mending) but it works, yo, so call it another tool when conditions are right.  I am praying that the forecasted rain for midweek actually amounts to something.  I miss those brown trouts, who will be feeding up before the spawn pretty soon, but there are far worse ways to spend a morning than how I spent this one.

Another chunker.

September 8, 2024 – Not Too Bad for a Late Summer (Tr)Outing – SEPA Blueline

The mitch could fish.

A true mitch, excited about the cool temperatures and the potential for rain, found some time to fish this weekend.  It had been quite a while since my sometimes-primary fishing partner, young Eric, has wet a line.  He has young kids and a busy work life in the summer months, plus he has to save days for his other obsession, bow hunting each fall.  I think we have our wives to thank, at least in part, for this outing.  My wife and son were out in the neighborhood and ran into Eric’s family, and I think my wife planted the seeds, like “You need to get my husband out fishing.”  He needed it more than me, with me being close to 50 trips already for the year, but it definitely worked on Eric’s wife.  When I saw the forecast and the diminished rain predictions, I thought to myself, “Where else can we go?” knowing full well that he would want to fish our little spot in SEPA.  But despite the less than favorable flows, I also concluded, “Where else can we go?”  The crick did not disappoint, even if most holes were one and done and fish were smaller on average.  For a cold front morning in low, clear water, we were quite pleased with the morning’s results.  We had to cut it short before noon due to a family emergency, but we still had 4 hours of solid nymphing before I had to rush to the local emergency room to relieve my mom and the boy, who had already had a stressful enough morning.

An early start.  The toddlers promise a bright future, I hope.

This is a healthy little crick.  When we last fished it in the spring, we caught a mess of very nice small stream fish—the average was close to 12 inches with some 14-inchers in the mix.  We have caught the odd large trout too, but they move freely throughout the watershed, I believe, more seasonal, pre- and post-spawning interlopers than residents in these skinnier reaches.  I did not broadcast this to Eric in the spring, but I pessimistically feared that so many bigger fish from about the same year class gave me reason to be a little worried about the classes from the immediately following years.  No worries, as you will notice from the number of dinks we caught today—we even caught a couple YOY.  In the conditions—low and clear—we worked hard to catch a couple better trout, but I think they too move throughout the watershed, which may get marginal at times.  Perhaps evidence of that was the sheer number of chubs we landed.  In my first 6 casts of the morning, I landed four of them, and the other two, you might wonder? Smallmouth bass.  Those first two were dinks, but Eric landed a 12-incher less than an hour later.  In that same hole, I spotted a significantly larger bass pass through a spotlight of early morning sun.  When he hooked up, I thought for sure he’d hooked this bigger bass.  Still the one that he landed was a very solid small stream fish, and I landed two more close to 8 inches later in the morning way upstream from this one.

Seven or more of these brown invasives ;)  Eric hooked up to something fat.

Whatever the presence of these other coolwater/warmwater fish means—we have not caught a bass in here in all the previous trips—we also saw evidence of good reproduction, bugs like tricos aloft, even some olives, and still caddis and midge larva under the rocks.  In the spring, it has really been caddis and craneflies to date.  The mayflies weren’t heavy and weren’t widely distributed, but they were present.  The dry summer followed by storms had brought down some trees, but the course of the creek remained pretty true and mostly devoid of excessive sediment—except in places where it has been an issue since we started visiting here.  Some stretches are wider and shallow, but that can be said of many of the streams in the region following years of outsized and too-regular highwater events.  We have access to a good parcel of posted land, and two legal parking spots, and we even spoke with one of landowners out for a stroll in the cool morning breeze, insuring we have access to one of these stretches for future trips.  Eric grew up here, so he drizzled local spots and family names throughout his small talk to show his street cred—or is it considered field cred out here?

More pretty small stream wild fish.

We caught fish steadily, even if many were dinks and/or rough fishes—including suckers, dace, and other minnow species along with the creek chubs.  There was at least one trout in each hole that would cooperate.  They were hungry and feeling good in 58 degree water temps.  I was tossing a small, size 10 bugger, and most of the trout I caught met the bug on the fall.  We even had some splashy misses that connected on the very next cast, although some spotted us as they pursued the bugs and never came back if they caught a glimpse of us.  Eric tossed the old green weenie and drowned ant combo with slightly less success than the meat offering.  I had an ant on the dropper the entire morning and only caught two fish on it.  One was the best fish of the morning, part of a double, in fact, so I never took it off in case lightning was going to strike twice, I guess?  I had a small brown pounce on the bugger the second it hit the water, and then the bigger fish took the ant off the surface a half a second later.  Even in riffles, I saw the whole thing happen in real time, which was fun to witness.  I managed to net them both for some photographic content.

First double (I landed, at least) this year.

Eric missed it go down because he’d snuck back down to big bass hole after we’d given it time to clear from our previous intrusion.  He was hoping for a trout this time since we’ve landed some above average browns in this spot nearly every trip.  He got another bass instead, which helped bring our total to 7 for the morning, I believe.  I caught two more to end the trip at the upper end of one of our favorite beats.  We did not get to go much further because I had to take a call from the boy telling me my wife had disturbed a hornets’ nest while gardening.  We knew she was slightly allergic, but apparently more than we thought, and she now will have an EpiPen handy!  She got chased and stung so many times that they had to take her to the emergency room.  Good times.  I was an hour away from home, so the boy really stepped up and showed his new maturity.  He even knew to call my mom.  Eric was with me, and my other close neighbor buddy was out of town, so it was police and ambulance and all the drama.  All is well, but that was some trip-ending drama and the makings of a long afternoon (and a hefty bill, I assume).

A couple of the better ones today.  None of those 14 inchers from the spring.

Despite the dramatic ending, Eric and I had a blast out there while it lasted.  The woods were shady and cool with a slight breeze rustling through the dry leaves.  Deer were plentiful, as if they knew it was pre-season AND a Sunday.  Our last stop of the morning, where we ran into one of the landowners, has always been “my hole” in the rotation.  Or at least I always get first crack—Eric has his holes too, of course.  Well, we have always believed that this one has some springs nearby because it is almost always loaded.  Based on the hot summer, we should not have been surprised that it was even more loaded today.  When I tossed a bugger and saw a dozen fish of all varieties give chase, I got that fish in a barrel vibe.  The best trout I could see, a 12+ incher, was grabbing the bugger just as a smaller trout grabbed the ant, so I did almost have two doubles today.  I missed the good one and landed the dink this time.  The next two casts had fish swirling like feeding time at the aquarium!  It was nuts, but I only landed two more average trouts and then the two smalljaws before the fish all retreated under cover of a big ledge and undercut.  Had we had the time to rest them and try again, it may have been more of the same, but like I mentioned above it felt dirty.  We never got a chance to be unsportsmanlike because I had to rush home to take care of the aforementioned family health situation.  She is fine now, and the boy seems to have handled the stress the way I typically do (and my mom, as well, just chill and do what needs to be done).  Fishing helps ;)

Just a really pretty one.