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.