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| Some color after 3 days of rain. |
Though not steady, we got rain for three days this Memorial
Day weekend. Nothing new. I remember when Ward and I had a shore house
for the summer and huddled under awnings drinking our beers every year at this
time. The unofficial start of summer and
rain go hand in hand. This is a good
thing if you want to fish for trouts, however.
I had plans on Saturday, but I regret not making time to fish on Sunday
afternoon! Creeks spiked in places, but
many small streams stayed very fishable. Eric and I had Monday bright and early
on the calendar, so that helped me stay patient. I did have a little FOMO since Josh and
Clayton fished both days out in Central PA, and Josh even fished Monday. Today was worth the wait. We may have only notched 15 fish between us,
but we managed to land some really good fish.
The best fish we have caught on this small creek was about 19 inches,
but it was post spawn in the winter, so skinny and long. Today, Eric landed a fat 17-18 incher! Not 15 minutes later, I landed one slightly
shorter but just as fat and mature. Both of those piggies ate Eric’s jigged streamer formula, which accounted for a good handful of fish
today, so he was doubly psyched.
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| A big fish (two of them) in a small crick. |
We probably started fishing about 6:45 AM. We were in the area much earlier, but Eric
wanted to stop at his parents’ house to “sit down.” In theory, the pit stop would be quick since his
parents were away for the weekend. I joked that he was going stink up the locked
house and probably stripe the bowl.
Little did I know (and Eric was none the wiser) that his dad in typical
DIY handyman fashion had turned off the water.
Did I mention Eric had Mexican for dinner? Anyway, we did start fishing early by most
standards and in the rain even after that interesting detour. This creek is in the farmland where Eric grew
up, so his family homestead is within biking distance of the creek. It was raining as we suited up, and it
continued until about 9 AM before it tapered off to nothing. It was swampy, so once the rain stopped, I
had to stop back at the parking spot and lose the raincoat. Eric caught a nice mid-teens fish on the
bugger during this first rainy round, and I landed a couple fish from 10 to 12
inches on caddis nymphs, so not a bad start.
Once I could wear my amber lenses and not sweat it out in the rain
jacket, I was feeling more ready for business.
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| Early success in the rain after an interesting pit stop. |
We had a slow pick of fish up to the magic spots. One memorable fish was a second solid
streamer eater for Eric. This fish was
in a blowdown that has to shelter some pigs at times, but it is hard to fish
and snaggy. It’s the kind of place where
you have to have a game plan in mind BEFORE you hook one in there. Eric fought another nice 14-inch class fish
and kept him from seeking shelter deep in the roots. I had a similar fight for my last fish of the
day. It is a blast when they bulldog and
you have to rope them into the net. He
was fishing 4X, but I was fishing 5X all day, so touch and go at least
mentally—like, Are my knots good? Did
that last snag damage my leader or hook?
Low level anxiety is good sometimes.
Neither one of use made many mistakes or squandered opportunities. When Eric dropped his heavy bugger into one
of our honey holes, and I saw him set the hook, we both stayed quiet. Earlier in the morning, when I thought he was fighting his first good
fish like a mitch, I was offering backseat advice. Not the case this time. We both knew it was a big fish, and I just
let him do his thing. He was patient and
brought the aforementioned pig to the net.
We have no pics besides the fight because the fish was still too green
for the photoshoot, I guess. I am glad
Eric let the fish drop into the water instead of wrestling with it to insure we
had a hero shot. I saw it, he saw it, we
both saw my fish that followed and agreed his was bigger.
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| More fishes. A good one from the log jam, but the real prize avoided the photoshoot. |
I had been nymphing, as a good compliment to Eric chunking
a big bugger, but my fish size by comparison suffered as a result. I was not messing around (arguably, since I
did tie a bugger with a 5 mm tungsten bead on my 5x leader!) when we got to the
next honey hole. With the bugger now tied on, my first cast was met at the back of the pool by a soft grab. I should have known, but at the time and in
the stained water, I was like, No, I don’t want a small fish to blow up the
hole, I want big papa! I set the hook
hard anyway, and it became clear that I was not hooked into a little guy. This was another stud fish. If you want to imagine Eric’s fish, add an
inch to the one I am holding earlier in this post! For
real. We were in disbelief that two fish
of this caliber came in two consecutive holes, barely 10 minutes apart. I think a mitch hugged me he was so excited
that his bugger had fooled 2 pigs like this and that our crick had been so gracious
to us this morning. This one got the full photoshoot and then hung out under my legs for 30 seconds before darting back into
the muddy depths.
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| Nature b roll and some other nice fish came out to play. |
We ended with a few more good fish over 12 inches, but we
were not going to top the earlier pigs, so we quit and turned back around 11:30
AM. We did not catch fish on the return,
as we sometimes do, but we did see the nature show. We nearly stepped on a new fawn. She only moved when I pointed my camera 4
feet from her face. I felt like I was
taking B-roll for my non-existenct YouTube channel, shooting a frog, a collection
of snails climbing a reed, a sulfur, even a shot of the bugger that had done all the damage
today. Some days this creek gives up
numbers, but I will take the size of these fish over numbers any day. We did catch some variety of year classes,
but it would be nice to see a dinkfest one day this summer, provided a mitch
can get out again before winter. It would be nice to know that the future year classes are as strong. I have
off this Friday, so a fishy May continues, I hope.
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| Some thick fish, eating good. |
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