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| First self-fish of 2026 |
I am pretty sure this is my first really big trout of 2026. Sure, I have caught some good fish this year, but this is the first one where I leaned the camera up on a rock and yelled, “Shoot!” My first self-fish of the year. I did not dig out the tape measure, but my hands from pinky to thumb are eight inches fully extended, which has been my go-to for many years. It’s close enough for me and preferable to measuring on my rod or my net handle. I can usually get an estimate in the wet net and not have to handle a big fish too long with my method. I have also caught enough big trout to call it like I see it, even if Brian (and others) would say my estimates are conservative! There are a lot of 17s being held up on social media that are called 20s. I really don’t care about tracking PBs and such. It was a big fish. She was in the twenties, maybe 23 inches, a female version of a stud, a bombshell, a cougar. I honestly came to this section of this creek for some redemption, so it could not have worked out much better. I fished this creek a couple times last year, once solo and once with Tigereye Joe, and both times I tangled with huge trout that got off. I never saw either fish, so I didn’t know if I was looking for a bombshell or a stud or even a pig holdover rainbow—although I was pretty sure from the way the fish(es) fought that it was a brown. Consider me redeemed as of this morning.
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| A big, mature female specimen! |
I wasn’t even sure of my stream selection when I arrived. Had I made the right call? I was disappointed that the bump from the rain had not lasted longer, but I was suited up and stepping into the creek at my first hole by 6:45 AM, so I had the low light on my side for a couple hours, maybe more with the trees. I thought about moving to a bigger creek or even the Lehigh River, but I stayed when I quickly caught a decent wild brown up shallow in some pocket water. If all the fish were moving into summer patterns and shallow when actively feeding, then I had a potential pattern and a potential shot at finding one of those big fish. After hooking a mid-teens rainbow that jumped 5 times and finally got off, it was nothing but dinks for an hour straight. It felt like déjà vu from Friday, right down to fly the little fish were enthusiastically eating, a little CDC tag fly on the dropper. I had to fish the honey hole though, so I worked my way upstream, picking up a dink here and there along the way. I could nearly see to the bottom of the waist-deep hole as I got close to the spot, so I slowed down, stayed stealthy, and minded my mud.
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| Crick pics. Low. But nature did some tree work since last June. |
At least the fallen tree that had plagued Joe and I last year had died and broken down enough to allow passage to the head of the pool. It was still in the way of effectively fishing some of the best water, but I made do with the improvements to access. I also kept my assumption that any fish that wanted to eat were shallow and nymphing. In the absence of any signs of mayfly hatches, I had switched out my anchor fly a couple times, finally landing on a small perdigon that would be stealthier and closer to the small caddis and midges present. Nothing had eaten the anchor fly all morning, anyway, so it was more of a delivery system for the dropper, but it was a good choice. I worked the bouncy water all the way to the head without so much as a bump before I switched to the stealthier point fly, which would still get the dropper down but in a quieter manner as it landed. I gave the creek a wide berth and fished the same pocket water a second time, and this time my drift stopped in a little depression. I set the hook and fought this trout to the net without truly appreciating her size until we were well into the battle.
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| Some other fish pics. That size 16 blowtorch is still doing work this month. |
In the broken water and sun glare, I did not get a full look at her until we were in that final standoff where she was just dogging and I was holding her tight to keep her from taking a run downstream. That was how she or her cousin got off last year—just darted at some point for the sanctuary of the deep hole and all its sticks and boulders. Not today. I got a photo in the net in case she didn’t cooperate, but it had finally registered how long she really was, so I took the time for a hand-with-fish shot AND the selfish before placing her in a clean, shallow spot to recover. I needed more time than her, as she shot back into the riffle within 20 seconds of me placing her back in the creek. I fished for another hour, even found another potential honey hole I had not fished before, but I only found more dinkers for the rest of the morning. It was getting too hot and sunny for my liking, anyway, so I was on the road home by 11:30 AM, happy and redeemed. I may be back here if it rains again, however😉
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| Bonus shot. |
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