June 15, 2025 – Weeding Through the Holdovers for Some Wild Browns, Including a Small Stream Piggy in the Eleventh Hour – NEPA

Worth all the bowflex-ing.

Bonus Father’s Day session?  My college-bound son had to work all day today, so I got the go ahead to have at the trouts on a solo mission.  I left early this morning intent on fishing the Brodhead, but I knew the section I really wanted to fish was pretty damn high, plus I don’t like to beat a dead horse when it comes to creeks and, especially, certain beats of creeks.  The water I could have fished on the Brodhead gave up good wild trout the last time I visited, so it goes against my nature to hit repeat.  The gameday weather helped me make my decision.  I experienced heavy rain showers twice on the drive before sunrise (I fished through a few other downpours throughout the morning) so I decided to take a chance on another smaller creek that might actually benefit from some additional water at this time of year.  Most fly fishermen are mitches, so I knew I would not encounter any crowds on a cool, rainy day.  It took a prolonged break in the rain after lunch for me to see another angler.  I had the first beat of this baby Brodhead all to myself, but no one else would have fought me for it.  It was a dinkfest of small wild browns on small bugs, and then a couple of stockers on a jigged streamer, including a chunky stocked brook trout, when I tried to change it up to change my mediocre fortunes.

Spot one was mostly wild browns, at least, albeit smalls.

I drove further upstream twice hoping that some factor—rain coloring the creek, bugs hatching, warmer temperatures—might spark something.  It was more of the same. I didn’t even take my camera out for a fish pic at my second stop.  Same fish, different stretch of water.  Despite all the rainy conditions, the previous week had been dry and hot, so the creek was low and rather clear.  Without the low light, it may have been even more challenging.  In fact, even the bows started acting tentatively during a late morning lull, like the low pressure had them feeling off their games.  The locals are even more in tune with the conditions, so the browns were especially pecky late morning after a good start—many little guys were one-and-done short hits or came off after a single leap.  I stuck one good fish that I turned with a hookset, and it looked like a brown, so that kept hope alive, I guess, as I moved one last time around 11 AM.  Even though it was cool, I was swampy as hell in raingear and waders all morning.  During this next drive, it did not rain at all, so I decided I was going in shirt sleeves regardless of what happened after this lull.  It was a good call.  I was at my most comfortable and most effective at this third stop.  That is, if I don’t dwell upon my slide down a steep, muddy embankment where I lost my sunglasses.  I actually had to sit for a minute and assess whether or not I had hurt myself or damaged my gear.  Thankfully, I am no worse for the wear on Monday evening as I write this.  Just the typical 56-year-old body aches after 10 hours of fishing and landing 725 rainbows with insufficient hydration.  Those Suncloud amber lenses either landed in the creek or got buried in leaf litter, in the low light lost forever.  Cheaper than a broken rib copay?

Spot two as the rain continued.  Insert fish from above minus the brookie.

As I drove past the spot where I was going to park in order to loop around, I swore I saw two dudes dressed for fishing and walking towards the same access.  When I arrived and started my own walk, they were nowhere in sight, so I thought maybe I had imagined it.  Nope.  After a ridiculous rainbow session—like 7 fish in 7 casts—I saw a fly guy up on the bank.  We chatted a bit, and I was not seeing things: his son was fishing somewhere upstream.  He said he was going back upstream to find his son, so I said I would put some space between us and take a long walk downstream.  Besides the aforementioned fall, on land not in the water, I might gratefully add, it was the right call for me.  I found more bows than I care to mention, although a few of them have me wondering if some natural reproduction is taking place here.  I have thought this a few times over the years, but I always convince myself that they are from a Trout in the Classroom project (which my tertiary research has failed to confirm).  They are not only really pretty, some of them, but also shaped right with all their fins, even full dorsal fins.  That would explain a lot.  I know the high water this year and cooler temperatures are good for the stockies and kept the truck chasers away.  Maybe in years when conditions are too advantageous, a few of them spawn in the fall.  I have caught large males in this watershed too.  Who knows?  There are so many sources of stocking these days, illegal and legal and in the gray.  Is there "gray" stocking over wild trout?

More pristine bows.  Finally some browns to be proud of and a hole that finally paid dividends.

Some of these bows, yo.

All that speculation aside, there is still no doubt when a wild brown eats the fly.  I managed a few small wild fish at this third stop as I waded through a dozen more rainbows, but I finally hooked an unmistakable pig about an hour into fishing.  I assumed from the moment I found it some time ago that this hole held a big brown.  I caught a stud male rainbow here a few years ago that had me fooled and excited for a minute before I saw silver.  But until today, my hunch about a stud wild brown remained a hunch.  At this final stop, I had started throwing a big pheasant tail jig, like a size 10.  There were some small caddis active, so I had a size 16 blowtorch on the dropper tag just in case, but most of the fish were eating this big bug.  It can act as a stonefly in a freestoner like this, and it can even double as a big isonychia, so I put it on for a reason.  The rainbows loved it, of course, but at the sweet spot—the spot within the spot—this beauty brown ate it too.  I knew from the first head shakes that it was good fish, when it refused to move and dug for bottom and the undercut across the creek, that it was a good brown.  I was not wrong.  I had to slow down and let him fight.  Only once or twice did I have to chance of losing him by changing the angle of my pressure to coax him away from places where he might get free.  Otherwise, I was set on landing this fish and not making any funny moves that might blow it.  He did not cooperate with me fully, so I did have to make some risky moves to avoid him taking control of the situation.  It all ended well with a net shot and a couple wet-hand-with-fish shots.  That was easier said than done with the girth of this fish.  Finding a place for a selfish in all the knotweed would probably have been tougher.  I should have quit after the release, but I fished another 45 minutes for more rainbows and a few more wild browns (maybe a wild rainbow or two).  A long, swampy, but ultimately successful day.  Not the most fatherly of Father’s Days, but it was my day spent the way I wanted, so not the worst father’s day either.  Sort of like sending mom to the spa on Mother’s Day, yeah?

Bonus shot.  I think I needed a bigger hand.

June 8, 2025 – Where I Get a Tour of a New Piece of Water in Coal Country and Get to Serve as Brian’s Personal Photographer – NEPA

Brian out there killing it today.

It’s not like Brian didn’t give me a shot at a few good fish today, it’s just that I dropped two of them that I should have landed without issue very early into our tour.  Maybe my hooks needed a filing.  I was tossing an Eric-tied bugger that I have thrown numerous times late last winter and into this spring.  It had literally gotten no love, like not even a hit, despite looking really sexy.  It was black and olive, and black is not always money unless the water is dirty.  I actually have more success with olive in clear and just-barely-stained water. This particular creek is mine-damaged orange on a good day, so it seemed like a very good choice, especially in higher-than-normal flows. Despite never being in a fish’s mouth, I neglected to think about how many times it may have been snagged and freed, snagged and freed.  When I lost the first wild brown, I said to Brian, I should probably sharpen this hook because there was no reason for that one to come off.  But then I gave it a half-assed test, and it felt alright.  It wasn’t going to pass the fingernail test or anything, but it should hold a fish, I thought.  And then I lost another good fish!  That cursed jigged bugger now lives in this creek, under a rock, or stuck in a log, perhaps.  The acidic water should make short work of it.  Maybe it’s for the best.  Don’t get me wrong, I caught a lot of fish today, as many as Brian caught, but he landed some real beauties, including a fat 16- or 17-inch wild brown and a brookie we taped at 10 inches.  At least I was sharp with the camera work to document it all.

A consolation prize on the black sculpin.  I guess Brian was my photographer too!

I eventually stuck another fish maybe 12 inches with a back-up black sculpin, and I landed another decent one on the same streamer at our last stop of the afternoon.  Between those, I was the king of average wild browns.  I forgot there were brook trout in this watershed, until Brian noted that I made a quick release of a decent brook trout, likely thinking it was another silvery dinker brown!  Not long after, Brian hooked a really solid native fish and then a very good wild brown from the same hole.  I will killing it with the dinks in the next hole down, but I was having fun catching a mess of fish and getting to see the type of wild and native trout present here.  I was close enough to run up and get good pics of both fish for Brian.  It’s not like he wasn’t giving me my chances.  In fact, he gave me first shot a couple prime spots today, so I can’t ask for more in a fishing partner.  With Brian’s reminder, I even took a photo of my next brookie instead of tossing it back like a small brownie!  We hopscotched or he offered me first shot at times since he wanted to see me make up for the two early in the day.  I stepped back and let him at a few good spots too, and he landed another good brown later in the morning while I was retying or adding weight.  I got some good photos of that one too.  Photography was my purpose today, it seems.  It made sense since I really was the tourist just taking it all in and learning about a new stretch of crick.  Brian was a good guide despite what the pics say 😉

High teens wild brown, 10-inch brook trout.  Not a bad showing!

We did a lot of walking, but we really only moved our vehicles once if I recall.  There is a lot of creek that we didn’t cover, but we covered plenty in five hours of good fishing.  There is plenty more to see, too, and I Iook forward to exploring more of this region and this creek.  I have fished in the county several times, but none of these spots, so in some ways it is an untapped region that is pretty convenient to home.  It’s all relative, of course.  One of the reasons Brian and I get along is that we both have to travel a minimum of an hour to find quality wild and native fish.  I am outside Philly, and he is in the Amish farm-ravaged Lancaster watershed.  So, 90 minutes is a pretty short drive for both of us, where 9 minutes is too far for some like Josh who are blessed with water water everywhere.  This particular creek was high, which is no surprise this spring, so I would love to fish some of these spots in more normal flows where I can see the cover and not have to trust what my guide was telling me.  That said, Brian did paint a good enough picture for me to have success on new water.  The dull hook or wimpy hooksets were on me, the cursed bugger on Eric.  

I remembered that there were decent brookies present.  Pretty spot despite AMD.

Brian and I both planned to fish until about noon today, but fishing was good later in the morning as the flows continued to drop, so we extended our time about an hour.  We also started seeing black caddis, which was exciting since bug life is not a huge feature of creeks like this one recovering from AMD.  Recovering is the key word, however.  Midges are plentiful, and I saw a cranefly or two—Brian saw a yellow sally and we both saw a couple larger tan caddis.  But these small black caddis were out in pretty good numbers, which was a first in Brian’s experience.  They may have been active before we even noticed them too.  My hot fly downstream of this buggy spot was a red tagged blowtorch up high on a dropper tag.  This set up does a good job of imitating an emerging black caddis.  Granted, my fish were all 8-10 inchers and a couple small brook trout, but it was helping to piece together what was happening.

He wasn't done yet.  I demonstrated "hand with fish" on his second beauty of the day.

We hoofed it up to one more spot before quitting.  It was this hole where in the past Brian caught his PB for this creek, perhaps his PB period.  We caught a few more average fish, and then I stuck one on the bugger that would not come up.  I didn’t think I had a 22-inch fish, but I thought I had something much better than what I’d been catching since my early morning drops.  It was just an ornery 11 or 12 incher, but it was a good fish to end on since it provided a little excitement.  It took a black jigged bugger and stayed on, go figure.  Brian and I each made a few more casts and landed a couple more average fish, so this was a good stop even if we didn’t end on a redemption piggy.  It was a solid trip with both of us hitting double digits.  Brian’s were just a lot bigger—at least the ones that he landed!  I am sure I will get another chance at these fish, so I was content to see the quality of the fishery and fish with Brian again.

A good note to end on but far from redemption!

June 2, 2025 – School’s Out for Josh, and I Happened to Have Off on a Monday – A Central PA Tour

Beauty.

I guess four creeks in a day counts as a tour, right?  I hit three of them with Josh and one on my own waiting for Harrisburg traffic to disperse before beginning the drive home.  I used three different rods for three different types of creeks too.  It was a solid 16-hour day, with at least 10 hours of them fishing or traveling in between fishing destinations, so let’s stop debating whether it was a tour or not.  As the title states, Josh’s final day of teaching was last Friday, so today was the start of his 2.5 months of fishing his butt off.  I almost forgot that when I took off Friday for my bass trip with The Boy I also put in a PTO day for today.  When we flipped the calendar in the kitchen to June, I saw my genius forethought.  What’s a guy to do?  I texted Josh and asked if he was fishing on Monday, and he said of course.  Then he started formulating a plan to show me some creeks or sections of creeks that he and I had not fished together.  I did not have to leave my house at 3 AM, but I did meet a mitch at 8 AM to start a long day of pretty productive fishing.  The piggy that opens this post was at our third creek of the day, a rather large and, on this day, still rain-swollen limestoner.  Before that, we hit two small creeks whose flows were perfect, and I closed out the afternoon at a favorite medium-sized limestoner that was stained and pushing some H2O, but after the big crick, it was like fishing a lazy river, a cool down from an aerobic afternoon.

The new signature hat?

We packed all my stuff into Josh’s minivan.  A guy (barely) under 40 without kids of his own driving a minivan?  If you saw the thing, it would make sense, and you wouldn’t make assumptions about his possible ill intentions or bad life choices 😉 It actually works quite well as a fishing vehicle.  In fact, when he did not arrive in the van for our camping trip with Brian in May, I was a little sad.  It has like 250 miles on the odometer, so it wisely does not move far from base camp.  Fortunately, Josh’s home base is rife with spring creeks and cold freestoners, many off the radar.  Our first stop was one such little-known gem, and it fished well.  Fish were small on average, but so was the creek.  It was like brookie fishing for browns.  We both appreciate wild brown trout creeks, however, because there is a chance to scare up an outsized fish once in a while.  The best fish today on this creek was my wide, mature 11-inch jigged bugger eater, but we both saw a massive fish roll on a falling bugger in one particular pocket.  Josh was like, What was that?  And I was like, Did you see what I think I saw?  It was so big I swore it was an errant rainbow, but with the high water, some of the browns today, including the big one I landed in the afternoon, had very pale bellies not buttery yellow ones.  Josh has tangled with fish to 18 inches in this creek, so he was less surprised than me, I bet.  Anyway, we caught a good number of beautiful little fish here before we ran out of unposted land and needed to make a move. 

Creek #1 fish.  Brookie fishing for browns.

Josh’s next choice was to show me his favorite creek, the one he hits for a few hours when he needs to get out, his home waters.  It is a really gorgeous creek with chalky limestone water and pretty trout.  I knew that before we arrived because he’d taken me here before and forgotten….  He gave me the option to fish another open section of the same crick, but I liked what I saw the first time I fished this place, so we saw this beat again for the first time.  Josh landed one nicer small stream wild brown, and we both landed a couple smalls, but we also had to contend with eager stocked rainbows here.  With midday upon us, the bite had changed too, with fish only tentatively taking the bugger or chasing it down and not eating.  Josh and I each made a couple fly changes after seeing what adult bugs were flying around—not a lot but enough to make an informed choice—but when nothing really developed, we abandoned this beat and decided that a bigger creek would be fishable.  

A nicer fish from creek 2# we fished again for the first time.

Creek number 3 was fishable, but it was also pretty damn high.  We’ve fished a different stretch of this creek together once when it was 100 CFS higher, so it was not a stupid choice by any means, especially with a guy who knows the crick like the back of his hand.  When I fish it alone, I like it at 250 CFS or under!  When it was 500 CFS, I struggled while Josh did well, due in no small part to that knowledge of the creek and what’s underneath.  On that morning last year, I had no clue what I was looking at most of the time.  Today, it was far easier to figure out the bite.  The challenge was really just wading into position to hit the likely high-water holding spots.  It was just a more physically demanding choice, basically.  But it was well worth the stop.  I mean, look at the piggy that opens this post.  This fish, and several seam buddies, took the dropper tag of my two-nymph rig right where you’d expect them to eat in high water.  They ate a size 16 nymph, an olive one even in this stained water, so I bet they had over 2 feet of visibility despite the sun lighting up all the particulates in the high water.  Besides the one big fish, we caught a lot of small wild boys and way too many hungry rainbows.  Some of them were healthy, full-finned 14 inch bows, so they were fun until they weren’t.  When you start out with a high teens wild brown, you are hoping for more or at least some mid-teen relatives or offspring.  

Bonus shot of the good one.

It was approaching late afternoon, and Josh was done, so he made a heroic crossing with rubber soles and no wading staff nearly parallel to our parked vehicles.  I picked a stout stick and tried to follow, but I am 56 and my day started at 3 AM, so I wisely turned back when I sensed that my studded boots were not going to hold when I got into the full waist deep current.  I took my time and back tracked to one of my original crossing points, and I think Josh thought he’d lost me.  He was packed up and ready to head home by the time I strolled back to the lot—dry and not physically taxed.  In fact, after we said our goodbyes, I decided to take a rest at a local park in the shade, eat a little something, drink my iced coffee, and fish one more creek before making the long drive home.  I did not choose another stretch of this big creek, nor did I choose another tiny one, but like Goldilocks, I suppose, I settled on one that was just right.  I have had some great days on this one, a medium limestoner.  It was still pushing a lot of water and stained, but wading was a pleasure compared to where I’d just parted ways with Josh.  

Solo tour on creek #4.

Fish were cooperative too.  No real bugs were present like I had hoped, not even as evening approached, but a soft hackle caddis on the dropper tag was the bug they wanted, so caddis have been around.  Bows get around, and so I caught a few rainbows here, unfortunately, but I also landed at least half a dozen more average wild browns in a short session.  I was hopeful that one of the 12 to 14 inchers I know from experience are in this particular stretch of creek would show himself, but I had to be content with 8-10 inch fish.  In pocket water with my 3 weight, I was still having a lot of fun late into my long day.  There was no use driving through rush hour in the Commonwealth’s capital city, so this fourth stop gave me a leisurely capstone to a productive day of fishing.  It was a perfect evening, too, with low humidity, dappled sunlight, and a little breeze.  I was home before 9:30 PM and in bed by 10:30 PM, dreading the 6:15 AM alarm clock but content from a nice, long, fishy weekend.

Parting shot.  June flows ought to remain awesome!

May 30, 2015 – Senior Cut Day for Some Smalljaws – Susquehanna River

Father/son senior cut day.

The Boy is just about finished high school.  I think he has two finals next week for classes that really don’t matter all that much to him nor in the grand scheme of things, as he’s done the hard part and gotten into a great college for the fall.  We booked this trip with Glenn early last winter, hoping the post-spawn, good flows, and the school schedule lined up.  It did, and we had a great trip.  We arrived to heavy fog resting about 50 feet over the river at 6 AM, and Glenn already had the boat in the water to beat its steady sink to the surface.  We grabbed the lunches and took a short ride to the first of many honey holes on Glenn’s itinerary, and in beating the fog probably beat a handful of other boats out there this morning.  I likened the trip lines on his electronics to the fluke drifts I have seen on the many inshore trips I have made over the years:  The lines don’t lie—all those trips over the same stretches of water are there for a reason, and Glenn knows every inch of those pathways.  

The boy pulled his weight.

He regularly called out the spot within the spot, and thankfully I have not lost my accuracy with a spinning rod, even when visibility was bad and I had to trust Glenn’s memory of what lie beneath the dirty water.  My son inherited most of my patience, and when he’s focused, he’s hard to beat with finesse baits like a ned rig or, like today, a slowly worked swim bait.  We both landed some really nice bass, but he got on the board early (as evidenced by the fog still present in photos) with two 19-inch bass and a handful of other good ones.  The best bait was a modified swim bait with a custom blade attached to the weighted hooks.  My guess is that a couple pops and falls with those blades flashing like wounded prey is hard to resist.  We tried to get a spinnerbait bite going to no avail, but a heavy chatterbait falling off a drop off or a crankbait worked in the flats below islands also notched some bass, including a couple goods ones.

A good start to a great day.  The numbers.  The modification that works magic.

Before the fog burned off, a short rainbow led us to the first of a few multiple fish stops—my kind of pot of gold!  Not every spot was magic, and even though the water was falling, few fish moved up tight to cover like they will very shortly.  Instead of targeting targets and those tight pockets, we had the most success targeting the seams below targets, so it took some patience and persistence to figure out how they wanted it—not unlike when Kenny and I were out with Chris earlier this month.  Glenn worked well with the boy again—he’s a dad of a teen and really patient.  I had the front of the boat all day, but the back was often the advantage spot with the fish sitting back from the cover, and the boy took advantage of that spot a lot.  He did really well.  We landed 88 bass according to the pitch counter, and he pulled his weight for sure!  We only caught one true dink, too.  I think we managed to hit all the mid- to high- teens multiple times.  If we landed all the fish we dropped, we may have gotten to 100 fish in the 7 hour trip.  We debated quitting at 6 hours during a lull, and Glenn gave us the choice of doing 6 or 8. We compromised at one more hour when hour 6 arrived, and we were glad we powered through the midday lull.  A couple of our best bass, bass that matched the early ones for length and weight, came in that last hour.

Some pigs.  Fog to sun.  Son and sunrise

I got up at 3 AM and drove there (and back) so I was getting tired, and the boy was up late, so he was starting to crash.  It’s funny how the average fish start feeling like pigs around hour 6 of a long day.  There was no need to push it to the full 8-hour trip, even though it was sunny and breezy out there, just a perfect spring day after a dreary start.  We had talked about heading to his college, less than 40 minutes away, when we were more chipper at 6 AM.  By 2 PM, we just wanted some Gator-aid and a Sheetz chicken sammich on our way back to Philly.  He slept half the way home, the mitch!  I am just glad that I can still do these long trips and feel good.  In fact, I may make a trip west on Sunday or Monday to catch some trouts, since it’s clear that I can’t stay away from them for too long.  Smallmouth are still number 2 (or 3 behind fall stripers) but I look forward to these trips with my son and catching up with Glenn or Chris, who really work to get him on fish.  If the stars align, we may take a twilight cruise with Glenn like we did last summer.  The schedule is tight with my son graduating and going off the college this fall, so if it does not happen, I am grateful that this father/son trip turned out so great.

A couple late day piggies and the many more along the way.

May 26, 2025 – Quite an Auspicious Start to an Awesome Overall Outing on a Couple of Fast Flowing Freestoners – NEPA

A third cast stud.

My first fish of the morning, on what was possibly my third drift, still standing but a foot off the bank in order to work the softer water closer to me before stepping in and spooking some early morning eaters, was a true day-maker.  I was in full shade at 7 AM-ish behind a bluff, and visibility was not great, so I was in disbelief for a moment at just how strong this heretofore unseen fish actually was.  I had no idea how big.  I knew he was solid, but I was on autopilot just trying to land a good fish of 15 or 16 inches, I guess.  Then he passed by me on a run and disbelief turned to excitement.  He was 20, maybe 20+.  No anxiety, at least.  I got a solid hookset, my knots were tied with love, and I was using 4X tippet on a stretch of water I knew well, so barring any newly deposited wood since I was here in March, I was confident that this would end well.  Okay, when he jumped twice on a short line, I got a little anxious.  I got the pictures but decided to forego the hero shot/selfish when he behaved nicely for an experiment with the patented hand with fish shot.  He went back with plenty of energy and his well-deserved dignity intact.  What did he eat?  The sulfur nymph I had used on the Lehigh River when last I held my 10’6” 4 weight in my hand.  Only half an hour later would I see the yellow sally stoneflies choppering about.  I’d rather be lucky than good some days.

The old stud slowly ceding his dominance to the next generation?

I was again in disbelief when my line stopped a few minutes later.  The drift just stopped, as it sometimes does when a good fish eats in current and has no desire to move unless provoked to do so.  This long, skinny-ass old man was certainly not going to waste much energy.  The fight was not half the battle of the first young stud, but I am not complaining about landing another large fish in the first half hour of my morning.  He got a net shot in case he found his grit right before a photo, but he too cooperated for a hand photo and went back into the cold water.  The fish gods were not done, however, not by a long shot.  Eventually, I put on an indicator to fish a deep glide at the back of this hole, and before an hour of my morning had passed, a third beauty buried the bobber.  This was a sparsely spotted, thick bodied stud in training—high teens, also male I guess by the anal fin, although with a cuter, more youthful face?  I was thinking, Where do I go from here?  Should I just go home?  Go get a fancy coffee and just enjoy the beautiful day?  Nah, I had at least 4 hours of fishing left in me, so I just kept going and tried to crack the code again.

Some net pics, a crick pic, and # 3, the pretty boy.

It did go downhill from there, at least at this creek.  I caught a couple rainbows, one an Eric-tied streamer eater, which was fun, but nothing like my first hour on the water.  Knowing it was a holiday with a forecast in the 70s, I expected to encounter other fishermen if I covered too much water.  Instead, around 10 AM I decided to get a drink and a snack back at the ‘Ru, and it was here that I saw all the “front-platers” had paid the bridge tolls this morning.  No offense, of course.  I married a Jersey girl, but I don’t fish with her, either.  With too much New York and New Jersey around, although no lift kits or stocker lockers to trigger me, I committed to exploring a Class A creek that has been on my list.  I fished it a few times in the past, but last time I was in this area, I did some scouting of a stretch that looked unposted and also held the potential for some deeper water and bigger fish habitat.  As I noted above, the fish gods were not done rewarding me today for some unknown or unremembered tribute to them.  Creek two was loaded up with solid wild brown fish, some angry holdover bows that come from who knows where (the fish gods know, of course) and I even broke off another stud on a leap I unwisely did not bow to, and I lost a second unseen stud that won the game of Run Down the Riffle As Fast As You Can (by Milton Bradley?  Parker Brothers?).  Some nice small stream wild fish were landed and photographed, so don’t feel too bad for me.  This was just a bonus round on a brand new-to-me stretch of crick, anyway.

My second stop of the morning was loaded with willing fish.

Near the access point, this creek has a significant elevation change, so serious flow, but it was wide and therefore relatively shallow. This is what I had experienced further upstream, so I was already thinking about smaller bugs and lighter tippet.  But I was encouraged by a couple of solid bumps in pocket water.  They did not commit in high sun, but I landed a fish on the shady side a bit farther upstream.  Mission accomplished.  This fish was shaped like a stocker, however.  He had the eye spot and good fins and no fused Minecraft-looking patterns, but my gut said holdover.  Unwisely it seems (see comment above about breaking off a stud when he jumped on a tight line) I retooled to 6X tippet and a single, small walts worm, just a confidence fly for me, like the perdigon or caddis larva, but one that might stay in the feeding zone in shallower water without hanging up.  It’s also not a bad searching pattern because it imitates so much and nothing at all—larva, scuds, shrimps, etc.  I connected with some fish that were unmistakably wild brown trouts, along with some strong bows that were right in the current or under it.  I concentrated on the quieter pockets and seams both near and across the way, and that was when more browns came, including the stud that broke my 6X tippet on a jump.  I was aware that fish were digging for cover and scraping line on the rocky bottom, but I had been maintaining and monitoring the tippet too.  After that minor disaster, I changed back to 5X and a single perdigon that I could bounce through that heavy water they seemed to be hanging near and within.

After learning the hard way, twice, a nice wild fish from a tricky spot.

That level-up did not help with a second stud who used the old trick of getting below me and then really below me.  As big fish often do when actively feeding, he had gotten himself up into the only soft spot in a roaring plunge.  Sam always says, The big ones are near the bouncy stuff, and his gravelly Delco voice plays in my head when approaching water like this because I know from experience that he is not wrong.  I gave chase to this fish, losing the battle to keep him in front of me, and eventually lost him altogether when I could not keep up, but I learned my lesson.  He was not alone in that little spot, and I kept the rod low on two more solid wild browns and coaxed them across the creek under the whitewater.  There was a little dance of fish and man in the narrow soft seam, the confined space on my side of the crick, but I netted both of these fish.  One female was in the 14-inch range, so a great small stream fish.  Not the two that got away, but no slouch.  More bows in there too, so a productive stretch of water.  Above it was a long shallow riffle that would have to wait for another day.  It was getting past noon, so I did not push forward after this magical and challenging spot.  I did fish a few pockets on the way back, however, and I even caught another fat fish over 10 inches on that walk.  Besides a leaking wader leg, and one lost stud (or two) that could have been the day-ender to my early day-maker, it was a perfect May outing, yo.

One last nice one before hitting the road.  Quite the day, this one.

May 25, 2025 – A Couple Stolen Hours and a Couple Surprises – SEPA

A nice surprise or two.

I have written about this place a few times over the years.  I rarely visit in prime time, like May, but I typically do catch fish—sometimes fish, singular—even when I visit on a winter afternoon.  It is a unicorn for where it’s located, and I am always amazed that natural reproduction continues through warm, dry summers and flooding rains and polluted run-off and so much dog waste and wet dog-destroyed riparian buffer.  I know a couple others who fish it, but they too tend to treat it like the fragile little gift it is.  I had a couple hours this evening, and I would rather catch one wild trout here than 30 at Valley, so I made the rare spring visit to see what was up.  I caught 7 trout, including a few nicer fish, a couple YOY, and a couple that are probably two years old.  All good signs.  All it takes is one fertile pair of adults and no more real estate development to keep this thing going.  It may never become a fishery, per se, but this is good enough for a Sunday evening or Tuesday afternoon in early March.

A really pretty trout from the old reliable hole.

It took a little bushwhacking through knotweed, vines, and deadfall to get to a deeper run that usually produces a fish for me.  I headed there first in case this was going to be a one fish night.  I was hoping for higher flows, but I did see a lot of midges and even a handful of caddis, both tan and dark brown.  Sure enough, the honey hole held a fish, and it was a fat, small stream fish that was all colored up and par marked.  I would have been happy to quit then, but I had just gotten here, so I pushed on.  After nymphing a couple pockets that I knew had to hold a fish and coming up empty, I remembered the caddis, however sparsely present, and let the single nymph swing the next couple of presentations.  I got a YOY to eat, and then a toddler, so we had three fish for the effort.  Water was low and clear, so I covered marginal holding water quickly, aiming to reach a few deeper holes before I ran out of daylight.

Some crick pics, bonus shots, and the future.

I left a couple primes holes to another time, probably another time not in prime time if my history with this crick continues, but I had a blast at my last stops of the evening.  I got clobbered on the first cast, and then I dropped two decent fish who took the single caddis larva on the fall.  One may have been a creek chub, but I had evidence that this bug would do the trick and these fish were hungry.  I stealthily crossed the creek below the tailout of this hole, so I did not create any further disturbance.  In this better position, I landed a nice 11–12 inch wild brown and a couple 8-inchers that I did not photograph.  They were feisty too!  I was so determined to get a picture of this leaping 12-incher that I almost rushed the fish to the net.  He was not having it!  With water temperatures around 60 degrees, they are in prime condition, so I just let things play out the way they needed to play out.  Despite the low light, I think I got a good shot of the better fish.  I tried one other deep hole and spooked a similar sized fish before I decided that I had a longer walk back to the ‘Run than anticipated.  I was texting Josh and Brian to see if either was fishing on Monday and shared some pics.  I think it was Brian who replied that he would be happy to catch fish that size all day.  Indeed.  It was well worth getting my butt off the couch after a day of lawn work for this one.  The alarm is set for 4 AM tomorrow in anticipation of a full day adventure.

A better shot.  Peep the two eye spots.  Pretty rare markings

May 12, 2025 – First Bass Trip of the Year with Young Kenny – Central PA

A couple of post-spawn piggies.

All at once, the rains have come.  I am not complaining about that.  We need it badly.  However, Kenny and I were concerned that our trip today with our boy Chris Gorsuch of Reel River Adventures might be cancelled.  The mighty Susquehanna was blown out, but after texting back and forth with Kenny, Chris assured us he could put us on fish if we snuck into the Juniata, which was falling quickly.  We launched around 7:15 AM, and we had our doubts.  We had a few hits, one dropped fish, and one landed by the captain himself, who was trying to figure out the bite, in the first 90 minutes of fishing.  The water temperature was about 60 degrees, but it was dirty and up.  At one point we had a belly laugh when Kenny told Chris, “This is fun, but we should get a guide next time.”  I don’t recommend using this line unless you know the guy you’re paying very well!  Chris has a sense of humor and eventually delivered.  Visibility improved slowly but steadily, and so did the fishing once we dialed them in.  They were being dicks, but crankbaits fished slowly with many stops and pauses and swings in the current eventually fooled close to 50 between us—5 more if you count the fish Chris landed while experimenting with size and color of cranks (I don’t 😉).  They were not anywhere near the banks, either.  Just out there using whatever little current breaks and seams they could find to put the post-spawn weight back on.  Soft plastics caught a lot of wood.

A true mitch.  You missed his western shirt from the Levi's Highwaymen Collection.

This was Kenny’s first fishing trip period for 2025.  I may have shared that he has ongoing health issues, so these days together are not undervalued on my part.  We usually have our share of laughs, of course, and falsetto singing as Chris DJs hits of the 70s, but we also have some good talks on the long rides.  This time, he slept all the way back home.  Even though his body might still look sexy AF, this takes a lot out of him.  Dude can still fish, and even when he says he’s done, he can’t help picking up the rod again if he sees nice fish coming at a steady pace.  I get it.  Fishing is life and a motivator to keep on keeping on.  He got into a few good bass, and Chris measured two of mine that were a hair shy of 20 inches.  We stayed out about 6 hours, and the last 4 were solid hours of fishing.  It was the oddest crankbait bite I can remember from my (too) many years of bass fishing.  We had three dudes trying it all.  Soft plastics, chatterbaits, different sizes, light colors, dark colors, and so on.  It was the slow but erratic retrieve that got them to stop following and eat.  Kenny and I both woke up the next day thinking, “Jerkbaits, you jamokes!”  Hindsight is 20/20, yo.

The best day of the week, and a Kenny piggy.

I have another trip, this time with Glenn and the Boy, on May 30^th.  I hope we are on the big river and the conditions are good.  I am pulling my high school senior out of school for this one.  He committed to Bucknell University for the fall, so I hope he doesn’t mind me sleeping on his couch 😊.  I no doubt will become more intimate with Penns Creek, for example, but I would also like to figure out the WB of the Susky, not to mention the region that I fished last week with Brian and Josh!  Kidding.  I will give him his space, but we do have friends in the Lewisburg area with land and even an Airbnb, so the Boy’s not totally rid of me yet.  Both Glenn and Chris have always encouraged me to bust out the fly rod, and I might this second May trip depending on conditions.  I do like the break from the buggy whip from time to time, but smalljaw on the fly is a blast.  Most if not all of the fish are done spawning and should be very hungry, maybe even for topwater in a couple weeks.  We can't wait.

Some more good fishes.  Check that milk chocolate water!