October 5, 2025 – Shook the Cobwebs Off the Nymphing Gear – Lehigh River

One good fish.

I have been watching the gages on the river for a couple of weeks now.  The water temperature coming out of the reservoir has actually been hurting the cause, even though there appeared to be some fishing releases in September.  Cool nights and cool tributaries are likely to cool things down after the dam, but the Lehigh is a lot of effort just to take a stream temperature at a couple of my spots.  Flows were the best in the region due to the releases, however, so it was torturing me with its 250-300 CFS when the other NEPA cricks are historically low.  When I saw that water temps were finally and consistently below 66 every day for a few days, and hovering around 250 CFS at White Haven, I sucked it up and did the scouting mission.  There are worse places to be than on the river in October even if fishing ended up being meh.  I arrived late for me, like 10 minutes after sunrise, and was surprised to see two obvious fishing vehicles.  At least the decals and stocker lockers take the guess work out.  It would be worse to see an SUV or pickup truck and wonder, right?  I decided to take a longer walk, knowing I could run into someone in one of my go-to spots when water is wadable.   Sure enough, there was a dude down there, and one in between too.  Instead of turning back, I decided to try and get access to another riffle I have always wanted to fish.  I found a few places to make a cast or two while standing on the bank and attempting to avoid the overhanging trees, but my hopes of locating a crossing point were thwarted.

There are worse places to be on an October morning.

I had a couple snags and zero hits, so I bushwhacked out of there, hoping dude upstream of me had experienced a slow morning himself and had given up the spot.  Luckily, he was gone, and I finally found a couple wild browns tight to pockets in whitewater.  The sun was up by this time, so I was not hopeful that fish were still out in the open eating, but I did fool one rainbow out on the flat.  The rest of the fish, all wild browns, ate heavy but small bugs (added some tungsten beads in some cases to get down to them) on the edges of heavier water.  Caddis were around, so a green larva on the dropper tag was the fly all five fish wanted.  You can probably see from the pic of the 12-incher below just how close to the whitewater they were sitting.   

Close to the O2 but actively eating, at least.

That is a sign that water temperatures are still keeping them close to oxygen-rich water when active, but also a sign they are feeding, not just hunkered in the deep holes riding out this summer that won’t quit.  Speaking of quitting and summer, I quit before noon because the heat came back quickly.  It was 45 F to start, but it had risen 30 degrees by late morning.  With the nice weather, the lot was also full of hikers and bikers.  It was good to get the kinks out, but the fall fishing is barely kicking into gear in NEPA.  I guess the Commish stocked last week too, but maybe not with the low water.  If we just get a little rain, there might be some more options later this month!

Bonus shot of the one good fish.