salmonoid
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2007
- Messages
- 2,711
For the past ten years or so, I've been making a fishing pilgrimage to North Central Pennsylvania. I've been making the trip there for over twenty years, with the first half of that time primarily being weekend backpacking trips, until one fine winter day when I was sitting streamside eating some lunch. The snow squall that had been blowing broke, the sun came out, and I looked down on at least a dozen brookies sunning themselves in the pale winter sunlight. My wife wasn't so impressed, as it was cold, and why was I interested in fish in the middle of winter (and in the middle of nowhere)? Nevertheless, I vowed to come back the next year, in pursuit of Salvelinusfontanalis and thus began the yearly pilgrimage north in pursuit of brook trout. I don't have written record of numbers of fish caught in those first years, but I don't recall catching many (or any?) browns, and can recall one extended July 4th weekend that yielded over 130 fish!
This year, the streak of going looked like it might be broken, as the trip seemed in jeopardy. First, the individual I usually travel with just wrapped up his first year of residency, meaning he gets the short end of the stick when it comes to picking vacation dates. Summer dates are not in the near future for him. My backup individual also fell through. Personnel changes at work made getting away for even a few days difficult. When a window of two days emerged, the home front was viewing the lack of a companion as a sign that I shouldn't go. Nevertheless, that position was eventually abandoned, perhaps because my wife knew I would find a way anyway. And so it was that I found myself headed north last Wednesday.
Traffic was surprisingly light and I found myself making the trip in just a little over four hours. I debated whether to use the remaining two hours of daylight to get an early start upstream and find a camping spot, or to walk downstream and try a section I've never fished. I decided on the latter course and walked down the road to the bridge. It wasn't long before I hooked into a nice fish; alas, he gave me the long release. But as I worked my way upstream, I picked up a handful of fish. It was clear that some stockers were making their way into the cooler water of the stream. It was also clear that some of the stockers were holdovers from previous years, as I suspect this guy was.
I wanted so badly for that fish to be a wild fish, as it was pushing twelve inches, but the right pelvic fin was all but gone. Nonetheless, I picked up about ten fish, fairly evenly split between wild, stocked, and holdover. It was moving towards dusk, the time of day when you realize its not quite as dark as it seems, if you take off your tinted glasses, so thats what I did. I was getting close to the truck and came up on a promising looking pool. One smallish fish followed on my first cast. On about the third cast, something much larger moseyed on out to take a look, followed for a bit, and then turned around and swam back in under the root bank. I couldn't budge another sniff from the fish but decided that this would be a spot to return to. Walking upstream, it dawned on me that I had not set my out-of-office voicemail message, and feeling that not doing so was slightly irresponsible, I opted to drive further north until I found cell signal. 25 miles later, I finally was back into range of a cell tower, changed the voicemail message, got some fuel, and an ice cream cone and headed south. Night had clearly set in; the windshield was bombarded with what sounded like rain, but which was all bugs coming off the larger creek in the area. As I pulled back into the parking lot, I thought about my plan of attack.
Probably ten years ago, I took a six-week fly-tying course with the late Ed Kraft. One of the flies I tied was a deer hair mouse. I believe I only fished it one time, during a night-fishing attempt on Mountain Creek, but never caught anything on it. It was that same fishing attempt that I saw a rat or vole or large mouse swimming upstream; I would have loved to seen a brown just crush the live mammal, but nothing did. Anyway, the prey:
And the quarry - a confirmed sighting of a slightly larger Salmo Trutta..
Previously, for night fishing, I had been using, of all things, a hopper. I caught my biggest wild brown on a fly rod using that setup, and scored a smaller brown last year with a hopper/Zonker dropper (although that fish took the dropper fly). My rig got all tangled up last year, so I decided to opt for a single fly this time. Because of the possibility of getting into larger fish on this stream, I backpack with a 3wt (for the brookies) and an 8wt rod (for the one or two brookies on steroids that I've seen here, and the night-time browns). Naturally, I opted for the 8wt, and went with 3x tippet, as that was the largest I had. The last thing I want to do while night fishing is lose a big fish because I'm trying to finesse the darn things, protecting a light tippet, and there's simply no need to go any finer than 3x. And I went with the deer hair mouse. I put on the headlamp and began the 100-yard walk downstream from the truck to the hole. I tried one promising hole before I reached the quarry's home, but that yielded no hits. Before the quarry's hole, I climbed out of water and up onto the bank and began to slowly make my way through the tall weeds. As my eyes acclimated to the dark, the night was lit up with thousands of fireflies. And the stars overhead were burning bright. It was as if I had entered some surreal fantasy world, with tiny points of light firing all around me. My head was telling me to alternately be on the listen for bears and rattlesnakes; walking through tall grass in bear and rattlesnake country in daylight can be nerve-wracking but in the dark, that ratchets up to a whole new level. But I made it to the hole unscathed. There was just enough starlight and firefly light to see the interface between land and water.
I positioned myself just downstream from the submerged log and began to cast. The mouse made a satisfying "THWAP!" each time it hit the water, which I was certain would draw out a big brownie. From time to time, I'd hear a soft gurgle, as if something was surfacing, but I'd set the hook and nothing was there. I cursed the one branch that was lying in the water, when I hooked that the one time, although I'd soon discover the source of that. I don't know if it was the 20th cast or the 40th cast or the 100th cast; probably 45 minutes has gone by since I had returned from cell phone coverage, parked, and lined up. But it happened.. That feeling of solid resistance when you set the hook in response to a splash. That feeling that its NOT a tree limb you're snagged on, because whatever your hook is set in is MOVING rapidly around the pool. That visual confirmation when I flipped on the headlamp and saw a nice size brown on the end of the line. Naturally, he had other ideas about where he wanted to go, which was upstream into the root ball at the opposite bank. But after a short battle, he was landed. I had carried my net with me for that express purpose of helping to land a big fish but in the excitement, never thought to use it.
I snapped a few pictures, exulted in the victory, and returned the prize to the water. He taped out at 15 inches, which is clearly not a trophy by some standards, but for this stream, he was a fine, FAT fish. And he had the tell-tale red adipose fine of a wild fish, or at least one that had seen a few winters in the stream.
And as I was inspecting the hole after the catch, I saw a dark shape moving through the water, making the small splashes I had heard earlier. It was a beaver! Now THAT would have been a heck of a fight - I don't know if I could have landed him on 3x...
My only complaint about my smartphone is it takes lousy low-light condition photos and for a fish and situation like this, I rued the fact that I wasn't carrying my digital camera.
However, the mouse had earned its keep; last year, I carried it with me on the trip to this stream, but forgot to use it. But little did I know, the mouse would pay more dividends on Day Two as well.
And so it was that around midnight, I returned to the truck, tired, hot, but quite satisfied. There's something quite rewarding about catching a fish on a fly you tied. I washed the evening's success down with a Victory Imperial Stout, and fell asleep in the truck seat, feeling entirely too lazy to setup a tent.
In the morning, I headed back downstream to snap a few pictures of the hole. The first is the hole from a distance; the second is the hole itself. You can see the log that crosses the stream, and the beaver branch sticking out below that. The bank on the far side of the stream is deeply undercut. This is, IMHO, an ideal big brownie hole, and I'm not 100% convinced that the fish I caught was even the fish that followed me during daylight hours. I was standing downstream of the log, about ten feet, casting in a radius upstream towards the log, and downstream towards the small tree growing by the water. I believe the fish took the fly just slightly upstream from straight across from me, although I'll be darned if I can EVER tell for sure which part of the stream a fish takes a fly from when I night-fish.
This year, the streak of going looked like it might be broken, as the trip seemed in jeopardy. First, the individual I usually travel with just wrapped up his first year of residency, meaning he gets the short end of the stick when it comes to picking vacation dates. Summer dates are not in the near future for him. My backup individual also fell through. Personnel changes at work made getting away for even a few days difficult. When a window of two days emerged, the home front was viewing the lack of a companion as a sign that I shouldn't go. Nevertheless, that position was eventually abandoned, perhaps because my wife knew I would find a way anyway. And so it was that I found myself headed north last Wednesday.
Traffic was surprisingly light and I found myself making the trip in just a little over four hours. I debated whether to use the remaining two hours of daylight to get an early start upstream and find a camping spot, or to walk downstream and try a section I've never fished. I decided on the latter course and walked down the road to the bridge. It wasn't long before I hooked into a nice fish; alas, he gave me the long release. But as I worked my way upstream, I picked up a handful of fish. It was clear that some stockers were making their way into the cooler water of the stream. It was also clear that some of the stockers were holdovers from previous years, as I suspect this guy was.
I wanted so badly for that fish to be a wild fish, as it was pushing twelve inches, but the right pelvic fin was all but gone. Nonetheless, I picked up about ten fish, fairly evenly split between wild, stocked, and holdover. It was moving towards dusk, the time of day when you realize its not quite as dark as it seems, if you take off your tinted glasses, so thats what I did. I was getting close to the truck and came up on a promising looking pool. One smallish fish followed on my first cast. On about the third cast, something much larger moseyed on out to take a look, followed for a bit, and then turned around and swam back in under the root bank. I couldn't budge another sniff from the fish but decided that this would be a spot to return to. Walking upstream, it dawned on me that I had not set my out-of-office voicemail message, and feeling that not doing so was slightly irresponsible, I opted to drive further north until I found cell signal. 25 miles later, I finally was back into range of a cell tower, changed the voicemail message, got some fuel, and an ice cream cone and headed south. Night had clearly set in; the windshield was bombarded with what sounded like rain, but which was all bugs coming off the larger creek in the area. As I pulled back into the parking lot, I thought about my plan of attack.
Probably ten years ago, I took a six-week fly-tying course with the late Ed Kraft. One of the flies I tied was a deer hair mouse. I believe I only fished it one time, during a night-fishing attempt on Mountain Creek, but never caught anything on it. It was that same fishing attempt that I saw a rat or vole or large mouse swimming upstream; I would have loved to seen a brown just crush the live mammal, but nothing did. Anyway, the prey:
And the quarry - a confirmed sighting of a slightly larger Salmo Trutta..
Previously, for night fishing, I had been using, of all things, a hopper. I caught my biggest wild brown on a fly rod using that setup, and scored a smaller brown last year with a hopper/Zonker dropper (although that fish took the dropper fly). My rig got all tangled up last year, so I decided to opt for a single fly this time. Because of the possibility of getting into larger fish on this stream, I backpack with a 3wt (for the brookies) and an 8wt rod (for the one or two brookies on steroids that I've seen here, and the night-time browns). Naturally, I opted for the 8wt, and went with 3x tippet, as that was the largest I had. The last thing I want to do while night fishing is lose a big fish because I'm trying to finesse the darn things, protecting a light tippet, and there's simply no need to go any finer than 3x. And I went with the deer hair mouse. I put on the headlamp and began the 100-yard walk downstream from the truck to the hole. I tried one promising hole before I reached the quarry's home, but that yielded no hits. Before the quarry's hole, I climbed out of water and up onto the bank and began to slowly make my way through the tall weeds. As my eyes acclimated to the dark, the night was lit up with thousands of fireflies. And the stars overhead were burning bright. It was as if I had entered some surreal fantasy world, with tiny points of light firing all around me. My head was telling me to alternately be on the listen for bears and rattlesnakes; walking through tall grass in bear and rattlesnake country in daylight can be nerve-wracking but in the dark, that ratchets up to a whole new level. But I made it to the hole unscathed. There was just enough starlight and firefly light to see the interface between land and water.
I positioned myself just downstream from the submerged log and began to cast. The mouse made a satisfying "THWAP!" each time it hit the water, which I was certain would draw out a big brownie. From time to time, I'd hear a soft gurgle, as if something was surfacing, but I'd set the hook and nothing was there. I cursed the one branch that was lying in the water, when I hooked that the one time, although I'd soon discover the source of that. I don't know if it was the 20th cast or the 40th cast or the 100th cast; probably 45 minutes has gone by since I had returned from cell phone coverage, parked, and lined up. But it happened.. That feeling of solid resistance when you set the hook in response to a splash. That feeling that its NOT a tree limb you're snagged on, because whatever your hook is set in is MOVING rapidly around the pool. That visual confirmation when I flipped on the headlamp and saw a nice size brown on the end of the line. Naturally, he had other ideas about where he wanted to go, which was upstream into the root ball at the opposite bank. But after a short battle, he was landed. I had carried my net with me for that express purpose of helping to land a big fish but in the excitement, never thought to use it.
I snapped a few pictures, exulted in the victory, and returned the prize to the water. He taped out at 15 inches, which is clearly not a trophy by some standards, but for this stream, he was a fine, FAT fish. And he had the tell-tale red adipose fine of a wild fish, or at least one that had seen a few winters in the stream.
And as I was inspecting the hole after the catch, I saw a dark shape moving through the water, making the small splashes I had heard earlier. It was a beaver! Now THAT would have been a heck of a fight - I don't know if I could have landed him on 3x...
My only complaint about my smartphone is it takes lousy low-light condition photos and for a fish and situation like this, I rued the fact that I wasn't carrying my digital camera.
However, the mouse had earned its keep; last year, I carried it with me on the trip to this stream, but forgot to use it. But little did I know, the mouse would pay more dividends on Day Two as well.
And so it was that around midnight, I returned to the truck, tired, hot, but quite satisfied. There's something quite rewarding about catching a fish on a fly you tied. I washed the evening's success down with a Victory Imperial Stout, and fell asleep in the truck seat, feeling entirely too lazy to setup a tent.
In the morning, I headed back downstream to snap a few pictures of the hole. The first is the hole from a distance; the second is the hole itself. You can see the log that crosses the stream, and the beaver branch sticking out below that. The bank on the far side of the stream is deeply undercut. This is, IMHO, an ideal big brownie hole, and I'm not 100% convinced that the fish I caught was even the fish that followed me during daylight hours. I was standing downstream of the log, about ten feet, casting in a radius upstream towards the log, and downstream towards the small tree growing by the water. I believe the fish took the fly just slightly upstream from straight across from me, although I'll be darned if I can EVER tell for sure which part of the stream a fish takes a fly from when I night-fish.
I have caught stocked fish at least three miles from the mouth, although the percentage of stocked to wild is definitely heavily weighted towards wild. Other than the first mile of the stream, I don't think there are more than a few percent of stocked fish in the rest of the drainage.
