Swattie87
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
- Messages
- 5,590
Preface: The fish in this thread were caught on spinners with barbless trebles. I debated for about 24 hours whether to even make this post, and risk the criticism, but in the end I had a nice time fishing with another PAFF member and we saw some great scenery and caught some beautiful fish. I think most folks will probably just take it at that and enjoy the read and the pictures. If you don’t that’s cool too, I just ask that if you want to debate whether spinner fishing for trout is ethical, please start a new thread and do it there. Mods, since this isn’t FFing, if you feel the OT forum is more appropriate, I won’t be offended if you move the post. There currently isn’t a quality, active PA spin fishing community however, and I suspect many guys on PAFF still probably do spin fish on occasion.
I generally am in the camp that thinks that fishing with spinners and barbless trebles does carry a higher likelihood of injuring a fish. The vast majority of my fishing at this point is with the long rod, but there is one set of circumstances where I do think that fishing with spinners is markedly more effective than fly fishing…higher water conditions for Brown Trout. In most circumstances I think a fly rod is more versatile and allows you to cover more bases, but the normally spooky and shy Browns just seem to go stupid for rotating shiny objects in high water. Sure, you can catch them on Buggers too, and even in higher water I often do prefer to fish for them that way, but I still think in those circumstances, spinners will outfish streamers. With all that out of the way…on to the post…
After what has probably been a couple of years of trying to get our schedules to sync up, bjb27_99 and I finally got on the same page and met up to fish. We actually chose this Brown Trout stream in the Poconos and set a date a few weeks ago. At the time, I’m sure my plan was to fly fish it, but we got very lucky on Tuesday with the area seeing some nice rain, and the stream was charged up and flowing nicely as we arrived Wednesday morning. Based on the conditions, and the Brown Trout, we thought it could really be one of those great Brown Trout days on the short rod. So that’s the plan we went with. After a mile plus hike in we found the stream was flowing full of that tannic, but not muddy water that is common on Poconos streams. Water temps were low 40’s (which I can unfortunately attest to, more later) and air temps started in the mid 30’s and rose to the mid 40’s in the afternoon. Skies were mostly sunny. We started off well with bjb picking up a nice 13” range fish and me hooking into a nice 15”er in the first hundred yards we fished. From there on, the action was a little hit and miss for the next half mile or so, but then we settled into a nice groove of pool hopping and bringing one (or more) to hand, or getting a good chase and strike in most pools. Just as we were really hitting our stride, I brought things to a splashing halt. If you’ve fished tannic streams, you’ll know what I mean…you can’t really see the bottom, even in shallow water sometimes, so you have to feel your way around with your feet looking for boulders or other obstacles under the water. Well I didn’t do that this time and stepped off of a large midstream boulder into the current channel only to have my right foot land on the downslope of a submerged smaller boulder. It wasn’t a nasty or violent, hurt yourself fall, but one of those controlled ones where you know you’re going down, but you’re just trying to minimize the damage. Ended up soaking my left side pretty good, and had a good bit of water in my left wader leg. This happened right at about the midpoint in terms of the hike from my car at the bottom end, up to bjb’s at the top end. I thought I could stay warmer by hiking upstream (the benefit of a high gradient stream!) and keeping the blood moving, so that’s what we did. I was cold for the rest of the day, but not dangerously cold. By the final hike up and out of the stream I was actually sweating, and looking forward to getting a layer off. In the end we probably fished the second half of the day a little faster than originally planned because of my fall, but still had a really nice day. It wasn’t a ridiculous day numbers wise, but between the two of us we probably caught in the neighborhood of 40 wild Browns. Most were your typical 7-9” wild Browns, but a few went larger, and all were beautifully colored and fat bellied…I suspect despite the recent cooler temps the majority of the fish were still prespawn. Toward the upstream end of the section we fished we came across one pair in the tailout of a pool, but they were the only ones we saw that might have been actively spawning.
Once again, the best thing about PAFF is meeting new friends to fish with. Had a great time with bjb, and yesterday was an excellent example about why it’s smart to fish wild, remote, high gradient streams with a partner. This stream was the roughest terrain I’ve ever fished, and probably about as rough as it gets for PA, and I coulda been in real trouble if I hit my head or got my torso wet yesterday. If I was by myself I would have had to turn back immediately.
A fellow board member shared some information on this stream with me, and out of respect for that, I’d ask that if you know the stream from the pictures, please do not post the name in the thread. Thanks gang. A few pics:
(8) – bjb’s first Brown of the day.
(9) – Boulder Pools
(10) – Waterfalls
(14) – Glide Pool
(15) – One my more colorful ones. Love the olive tones in the parr marks.
I generally am in the camp that thinks that fishing with spinners and barbless trebles does carry a higher likelihood of injuring a fish. The vast majority of my fishing at this point is with the long rod, but there is one set of circumstances where I do think that fishing with spinners is markedly more effective than fly fishing…higher water conditions for Brown Trout. In most circumstances I think a fly rod is more versatile and allows you to cover more bases, but the normally spooky and shy Browns just seem to go stupid for rotating shiny objects in high water. Sure, you can catch them on Buggers too, and even in higher water I often do prefer to fish for them that way, but I still think in those circumstances, spinners will outfish streamers. With all that out of the way…on to the post…
After what has probably been a couple of years of trying to get our schedules to sync up, bjb27_99 and I finally got on the same page and met up to fish. We actually chose this Brown Trout stream in the Poconos and set a date a few weeks ago. At the time, I’m sure my plan was to fly fish it, but we got very lucky on Tuesday with the area seeing some nice rain, and the stream was charged up and flowing nicely as we arrived Wednesday morning. Based on the conditions, and the Brown Trout, we thought it could really be one of those great Brown Trout days on the short rod. So that’s the plan we went with. After a mile plus hike in we found the stream was flowing full of that tannic, but not muddy water that is common on Poconos streams. Water temps were low 40’s (which I can unfortunately attest to, more later) and air temps started in the mid 30’s and rose to the mid 40’s in the afternoon. Skies were mostly sunny. We started off well with bjb picking up a nice 13” range fish and me hooking into a nice 15”er in the first hundred yards we fished. From there on, the action was a little hit and miss for the next half mile or so, but then we settled into a nice groove of pool hopping and bringing one (or more) to hand, or getting a good chase and strike in most pools. Just as we were really hitting our stride, I brought things to a splashing halt. If you’ve fished tannic streams, you’ll know what I mean…you can’t really see the bottom, even in shallow water sometimes, so you have to feel your way around with your feet looking for boulders or other obstacles under the water. Well I didn’t do that this time and stepped off of a large midstream boulder into the current channel only to have my right foot land on the downslope of a submerged smaller boulder. It wasn’t a nasty or violent, hurt yourself fall, but one of those controlled ones where you know you’re going down, but you’re just trying to minimize the damage. Ended up soaking my left side pretty good, and had a good bit of water in my left wader leg. This happened right at about the midpoint in terms of the hike from my car at the bottom end, up to bjb’s at the top end. I thought I could stay warmer by hiking upstream (the benefit of a high gradient stream!) and keeping the blood moving, so that’s what we did. I was cold for the rest of the day, but not dangerously cold. By the final hike up and out of the stream I was actually sweating, and looking forward to getting a layer off. In the end we probably fished the second half of the day a little faster than originally planned because of my fall, but still had a really nice day. It wasn’t a ridiculous day numbers wise, but between the two of us we probably caught in the neighborhood of 40 wild Browns. Most were your typical 7-9” wild Browns, but a few went larger, and all were beautifully colored and fat bellied…I suspect despite the recent cooler temps the majority of the fish were still prespawn. Toward the upstream end of the section we fished we came across one pair in the tailout of a pool, but they were the only ones we saw that might have been actively spawning.
Once again, the best thing about PAFF is meeting new friends to fish with. Had a great time with bjb, and yesterday was an excellent example about why it’s smart to fish wild, remote, high gradient streams with a partner. This stream was the roughest terrain I’ve ever fished, and probably about as rough as it gets for PA, and I coulda been in real trouble if I hit my head or got my torso wet yesterday. If I was by myself I would have had to turn back immediately.
A fellow board member shared some information on this stream with me, and out of respect for that, I’d ask that if you know the stream from the pictures, please do not post the name in the thread. Thanks gang. A few pics:
(8) – bjb’s first Brown of the day.
(9) – Boulder Pools
(10) – Waterfalls
(14) – Glide Pool
(15) – One my more colorful ones. Love the olive tones in the parr marks.
