From Gloom to Bloom

First Brown over 20" for the year

I met up with the Ross's for a couple of days on the water and we took advantage of the not so nice weather to throw some bugs at some weary brown trout. We got up at the usual 4 am and started the long journey to brown trout heaven. The trip there actually didn't seem too long, as we talked about what spots we were going to start out at and some new streams we were looking to explore. We got to the parking area a little late after missing a few turns and getting slightly lost on the way.  You would think it was late May with the amount of cars there. We grumbled under our breath about it and threw on the 50 lbs of gear we seem to wear these days. The temperature was around 28 degrees, but it felt a lot colder after the previous day being in the 70s. We started our walk to the spot we usually start out at on this stream, hoping with every step that one of the 50 guys on the water wasn't standing in "our run". We beat our way through the woods and could finally see the stream, we lucked out, no one seemed to have walked that far up stream yet. The usually difficult to wade stream was running fairly low this time of the year, so we crossed it with ease. Ross settled down into a favorite chute of his and I crossed over into a favorite side channel of mine. With great excitement I started working over the usually productive spot. I threw my flies through every little piece of water I know holds fish and it didn't even result in a snag. My indicator hadn't made the slightest movement in the half an hour or so it took to work over the stretch. Feeling that I hadn't "Blown up" the spot too bad I looped back around to the bottom and started over again with some different flies and techniques. I threw flawless drift after drift and came through the section with one 12" brown to show for my efforts. I walked back over to where Ross was and let out a yell to see how he was doing, he had similar results as me, as he signaled that he had only picked up one fish also.

I started working up stream at a fast pace throwing tuck cast after tuck cast into water that I know holds fish. I rifled through my fly box throwing on every nymph and pupa I thought should work in March. As I worked up around the bend, I couldn't help but to notice how beautiful the landscape was along the stream and up into the mountainside that it runs along. The trees along the mountainside made it look like a painting, it had an eye appealing reddish to purple tint. I took me a minute to realize the trees had started to bud and it caused to cool looking affect. It was in this section the fishing started to pick up. I started plucking fish out of pockets here and there on a favorite Stonefly pattern when my drifts were good. I ran back into Ross and he said he got into a bunch of fish up above me. He pumped a few of their stomachs and found that each one had a plethora of different bugs in their bellies, one fish would be full of Caddis, the next BWO nymphs, another Stoneflies. It just goes to show how much bug life there really is living in some of these streams. So I switched over to some generic suggestive patterns and continued to pick up fish, however at a slow pace. Below me, I could see Ross picking up some fish as well. We met up at a small island chain and decided we would check out some new water. On the way back to the vehicle, we couldn't resist getting a few casts in at a nice run just above the parking spot. I took a deep hole that eventually drops off and pushes the current under an overhanging branch, Ross worked down stream to a nice looking hole. I noticed this section of stream looked different than the rest. There were some yellow flowers blooming along the stream and the overhanging tree already had some leaves on it's branches. It was here where my day quickly turned around. I had a few bumps on the pattern that Ross was doing well on. I saw a sucker fish swimming around, so I decided to drop a cream sucker spawn below and things lit on fire. I quickly put fish in the net as if it were Spring during a hatch, not Winter like the rest of the stream fished. Nine fish later (One being a solid 18" fish) I walked back to the car with a big grin on my face. As I sat in the car and ate my lunch, I thought a lot about how the river fished. I've spent enough time in the wild the last few years to know there are many parallels in nature, whether it mirrors itself or just gives us signs for our own lives. The trout stream is no different. Just as the one hillside was dull and wintry, the next showed signs that the Pennsylvania wilderness was coming to life after a long winter, and another was in near full bloom, the fishing was exactly the same. Sections of it fished as if it were spring and in full bloom, others fish as if it were the dull grey mountainside, and some sections showed signs of coming to life for the Spring.

Signs of Spring

We ended the day on a new stretch of water to do a little exploring. It was a promising looking gorge and we each worked some different sections of it over. We met up towards the end of the day and talked about our success. Ross ended up having a great day with around 20 or so and I worked hard to put 16 fish in the net, still a solid day. We decided it was time to go, but not before we worked our way back to the car throwing some streamers in the deep boulder strewn section. Ross quickly turned two big fish. One being in the rare two foot range, he was sick as he laid on the boulder thinking of what could have been. We hit one last hole below the car and I got a huge bend in my rod followed by a miss. It was starting to get dark so we packed it in for the day.

Gorgeous Wild Brown

  

 

 

Ross couldn't make it out for the second outing, but I met up with the other Ross and we set out to see what we could do on a terrible rainy windy day. For once we got to the stream before daylight. We got all decked out in our waterproof gear and started the long trip down to the run we decided to fish. The weather was warm, in the 60s, however when the wind would blow it brought a feel of Winter back with it. After talking for a little, we decided with conditions, we'd start out throwing streamers. We got to our spot just in time for first light. I let Ross take the deeper, more structural side and I worked over the side opposite, this side had a few sneaky drop offs mixed in with some more shallow runs. Ross yelled over "Big fish just chased my streamer in", good sign I thought. I'm not the best streamer fisherman, I probably fish Nymphs 99% of the time, so I was really just playing around with some different retrieves and mostly using it as a learning experience. I was working down stream pounding the banks, as I fell in a deep hole that I forgot was there, my wading jacket saved me yet again. I remembered seeing a big mouth rising here last summer, so I took a step back to get a better angle. The hole lies under a big overhang, so I put to use the cast that GD taught me for such situations during our session a few weeks back. It was right on target and two big strips resulted in a crush that I hadn't felt in quite some awhile. Unlike usual I was ready this time and stripped the streamer hard into the fishes jaw. It was in an instant that I knew It was an above average fish as he took off running. Also, unlike usual, I calmly let him take drag and do his run, although I quickly realized that I was in a bad situation. Since I was lazy and it already had a streamer leader, I had an old reel on my streamer rod and the drag was messing up (goes to show why it's important to take the extra time to have the proper set up).  As I hand fed line out, I carefully followed after him through the difficult to wade drop offs. As I closed in, I caught a glimpse of him when he rolled and tail slapped the surface, Yes!! It was a nice brown. Somehow being so focused I didn't even realize that Ross came running over and was prepared to help me net him. He made a fast dart towards us and I steered him right into Ross's Brodin, a beautiful brown trout that I could instantly tell went over the big 2-0. We let out a cheer and I took a second to pop the hook out of his mouth, we let him revive for a minute in the net and I lifted him for a few quick pictures before being released back into his reclusive den.

That was all it took for me, my day was made. I worked over a few more productive spots and picked off a few more fish using nymphs. Mostly just testing out the Syndicate. Shorty after I caught the nice brown the weather turned for the worst and plummeted in temperature. Neither of us had much more luck. We worked one last section and I took a wrong step and caught a sliding board of a rock that jetted me out into a deep hole. I had to swim back to shore and I figured this was a good stopping point for the awesome, yet unproductive day. We made the trip back to the parking lot and chatted for awhile about how much fun we had. It isn't always about how many fish you catch, even remove the big fish we got that day and it still was an excellent morning on the water with a great friend. Hopefully, by the next time I can make it out the fishing, weather, and landscape are in a more predictable state.

Smile for the camera buddy

"If we had no Winter, the Spring would not be so pleasant, if we did not sometimes taste adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."  -Anne Bradstreet.

Foul Weather Fisherman

With the weather forecast at home on Sunday supposed to be sunny and beautiful, there was only one thing I could think of to do. Wake up at 5 am after losing an hour of sleep to the time change and drive for hours into a forecast of 100% rain. Anymore, I really enjoy fishing on days where fair weather fisherman would rather stay home, when else could you have a Class A wild trout stream all to yourself? After talking with a good friend for a few months about fishing, we finally found some time on the water together. We pulled into the parking lot and surprisingly the weather was decent. It was overcast and the water looked excellent despite lower flows than I'd normally like to fish. We got out of the car to gear up and it started dumping rain on us. Perfect weather to chase brown trout right? That's why they make wading jackets. We started out at one of my favorite holes, Ross hooked a nice fish right away and lost it at the net. A good sign, so I thought. After cycling through every nymph I thought should work, not even a take. I left the normally productive hole and worked up through a small channel that's usually good for a fish or two. I heard something over the loud current and looked down stream to see Ross holding up a nice fish.

I ran down to snap a picture for him, not a bad catch for one of his first few wild browns. I asked what pattern he took and when he told me, I couldn't believe I didn't try it with the conditions we had. Good thinking Ross! Things started to look up from there. 

We flipped some rocks in the shallow fast water on the way up stream to check out some of the bug life. We found an abundance of small BWO nymphs and tiny green Caddis. We worked up through another productive section of water and caught a few nice fish on Ross's pattern at a pretty decent rate. 

After not having much luck in the pocket water, I saw some little black stones coming off, so I switched over to a suggestive pattern that I thought would work. I was right. I picked up a few fish while picking apart the tiny seams and eddies. Seems like the fish in this type of water have been into the small stuff lately. 

Despite wearing wading jackets, we were fairly soaked by this point. It probably rained about a half of an inch on our heads as we worked up through the first section. We worked up to a section that I've yet to fish due to it usually being a little too deep at higher flows, today it was perfect. We switched back over to a bigger pattern and Ross landed a nice fish right away. A few cast later using a new deep nymphing technique I've been having luck with,  I hooked into something heavy in 10-12 ft of water. As usual, I got overly excited and horsed him off of the bottom, causing him to freak out and shred my 5x off of a boulder. Ross got a good look at him and said he was in the 18-19" range. My heart sunk when I realized how good of a fish it was. We moved on and up towards the head of the hole. I picked up a few fish deep again and lost my rig to a boulder. As I was tying on, I heard Ross say "Fish On". I looked down and knew instantly he had something better than average on so I went down to assist. Unlike me moments before, he calmly fought him in on his 11' 3wt (I really need to invest in one of those, I was impressed with how it performed). After tangling with him for a minute or so he dropped into my net a very pretty above average sized fish for this creek.

After talking about what a great experience it was for a few moments, we moved up to fish one last little run. I picked up four fish quickly on some small stuff before the rain picked up really heavy.

We started the long hike back to the car and felt pretty good about how the day went. Even though conditions weren't ideal and we were soaked, we put up nice numbers. It could have been worse, we could have stayed home and enjoyed the nice weather doing something silly like golfing. I'm really starting to enjoy getting out on the water when conditions and flows are bad. I'm really beginning to enjoy being one of the few foul weather fisherman.

Rock Bottom

 

The routine was the same as it was every other week, day dream while at work about fishing and put those day dreams into reality over the weekend. The temperature finally decided to break towards the end of the week and I hoped this would cause the fishing to heat up. I was wrong again, but it did get some of the bigger fish on the feed if you were willing to work for them. I met up with Ross early Saturday morning as usual to and we headed to one of our favorite boulder strewn, mossy bottom, ankle breaking creeks. This creek could eat up the best of waders and Saturday didn't disappoint. I spent most of the morning doing the Stonefly shuffle on the slippery bottom (And likely earning myself and early hip and knee replacement) , falling in seemingly every other step, and often rolling down stream (The Simms wading jacket played hero again).  Despite fishing a usually productive section of pocket water, it only yielded two fish. A strip of water that put around a dozen fish in my net the last trip. This just goes to show the difference a week can make in trout waters. At least they were gorgeous examples of God's fish.

 

They don't get much prettier than him

Another pretty little pocket water fish

We quickly cut our losses and switched to a plan B that we talked about on the way down. We went to explore a section of creek where we thought some bigger fish may hold. Well, it didn't disappoint. Although numbers weren't as high, we picked up some solid fish for this watershed.

This feisty little guy came out of a root system to crush my nymphs
 

Awesome looking fish that Ross nymphed out of a big chute 

Hard fighting fish that made me run down stream after him.

After quickly picking up a few nicer fish, we started working up into a harder to access part of the creek. It was a beautiful section of holding water and I picked off occasional fish working upstream on a size 22 midge (still amazes me these fish will eat such a small bug in pocket water). Ross did equally as well on a Euro style nymph he ties . Despite being a slower day it was rewarding as we started to pick off some better fish for this little gem. It's only a matter of time before we hit our goal of a 18"+ inch fish out of this fishery and this is likely the stretch that it will come out of. Until then, these pretty little guys will do.

 

 

Thanks for reading! Tight Lines!