I met up with DJBerg in yesterday morning form some small stream exploration. As I rolled into the parking lot to meet him, I drove over a beer bottle crushing it. We checked my tire and it looked OK, but who knew if it was going to hold up. Not a great way to start a trip.
From there it was off to find the access point. We geared up and hiked in. We headed down a steep slope where we found a tributary to the run we intended to fish. We made a half-hearted attempt to fish this trib as we moved downstream to find the main stem. DJ had moved one fish on the trib. This was an encouraging sign that bolstered our expectations for the main stem. We decided it to hike down to the main stem and fish up the trib on the way out. When we got down to main stem, the water looked really fishy. It was about twice the size of the trib we had come down, excellent pools, lots of deep spots near logjams or under root balls. There were nice casting lanes (for a brookie stream). The main stem looked very promising. We fished up a ways; neither of us got a fish to rise. We were a bit disappointed, but pressed on with hopes for better fishing upstream. Shortly after we decided to keep moving up the main stem, a bunch of local kids came through on quads. A few minutes after we saw the quads, the water turned to mochachino. We guessed the kids took those quads across the stream. That was the sign to move on. We decided to head back and fish up the trib since we knew it held fish.
The fishing quickly improved, DJ got on the board first with a little guy. I had one on and off, and missed another. Both seemed very small three inches or smaller. At least there were fish and they were rising to our flies. We leapfrogged up the stream and both of caught several brookies. DJ caught a nice one, roughly an eight incher. He must have lost a real trophy fish based on all the expletives I heard him yell! I caught three that were between six and eight inches and a bunch of little guys in the three to four inch range.
DJ had some commitments in the afternoon so we headed back to the car. When we parted ways, I drove to another brookie stream. It started to downpour as I drove. OK, at least I was in the car for the rain, right? I geared up as the rain was tapering off, but still coming down in a steady drizzle. I quickly caught a couple of fish, and in what seemed like an instant change, the stream went from crystal clear to muddy brown. I continued to fish up a bit, but it was futile. The flow had increased to a raging torrent for this little stream, the water had risen almost a foot and was out of the banks. I decided to head to another stream where I would be able to access at the headwaters in hopes that it would be clearer.
When I got to the next stream, I was running short on time. I had about a half hour to fish and didn’t catch anything. I took off at about 7:00pm for the three hour ride home.
It was a great day in the National Forest and it was good to meet another PAflyfish guy.
And hope we didn't get you in too much trouble with the Mrs. by taking you away from a needed repair.
